We began this debate between Superintendent of Public Instruction Levi Bachmeier and his opponent Tracy Foss by asking about the teacher bonuses initiative — the Support Teachers and Youth Succeed or "STAYS" legislation — Bachmeier recently announced alongside Rep. Mike Nathe and others.

"When I talk to high school kids all across our state and ask them what would it take for you to consider going into a great occupation like education, pay has been the first thing out of their mouth 100% of the time," Bachmeier said.

"People who are working in education are making 20% less than those who hold a bachelor's degree in North Dakota," he added. "So I think we have an obligation to do something."

But Foss said that the bonuses, while nice, don't solve the challenges teachers are facing. "I agree that money is one of the reasons why teachers are leaving, but it's not the only reason," she said. "$3,400 at the moment is a nice bonus, but it's not going to get them financially stable.

"Our average is 60,000," she continued, referring to teacher salaries. "The minimum of living wage is 65, and our starting salary is 45. So that isn't even close to a living wage."

This debate was the second in a series of six Plain Talk debates between candidates for the U.S. House, Superintendent, Agriculture Commissioner, Public Service Commissioner, as well as proponents/opponents of Measures 1 and 2. All of the debates will be available as they release on WDAY Xtra, the Plain Talk YouTube channel, as well as all of the podcast platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The candidates agreed that North Dakota is falling behind in terms of funding K-12 education. "I know what not fully funded looks like," Foss, a classroom teacher taking a year off to campaign, told us. "It looks like not enough paras in the classroom. It looks like me spending $1,000 on supplies a year. It means that we don't have enough bus drivers."

"The percentage of the state's budget going directly into our school districts has been going down over the last several years and that's disappointing," Bachmeier said.

The candidates also agreed that a push to get cell phones out of schools by Gov. Kelly Armstrong has paid dividends in classrooms, but both said there needs to be more scrutiny on other technology in schools, including school-issued computers.

"If technology is not having kids think harder, if it's not having them engaged in being active, and if they're just sitting back and passively consuming, that's a problem," Bachmeier said.

The candidates did find some disagreement over standardized testing. Foss supports regular benchmark testing, but says statewide tests promoting teaching to a score. "My issue is with that final test that we have to take for the state, we don't really use that data for anything in the school," she said. "A test given to a student can only tell you how well that student did on that test that day."

"When we hyperfocus on that, it does change how education is done," she continued. "We tend to want to make sure that we're doing well on this test, so we go back to somewhat teaching towards this test."

But Bachmeier pushed back, arguing that parents and policymakers need data to evaluate school performance. He says schools can aim to both do well on the statewide tests while also addressing important intangibles. "We can block and tackle with foundational literacy and math skills and we can also do so many other important things that we can't assess really well right now like collaboration, like critical thinking," he said. "All these skills that are going to be AI-proof in the future."

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