The Battle for Indiana Public Education

Indiana Groups that Want to Privatize Your School

2012-02-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

A center out of Columbia University is tracking the lobbying and funding actions of so-called education reform groups that--whether they say this publicly or not--support turning public education over to for-profit companies. Here's the Indiana list that I'm sure could be expanded. Comments?
National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE): Check it out.

Who supports privatization of education?

A descriptive analysis of NCSPE's links to national and state-specific organizations that tend to support or oppose privatization of education

INDIANA LIST:
Greater Educational Opportunities (GEO) Foundation Indiana
“GEO Foundation, as featured in Forbes Magazine, has been making access to quality schools a reality for children since 1998. GEO incubates quality charter schools and then supports their growth. All four GEO-sponsored public charter schools are high academic growth schools and feature a unique K-14 model--full day kindergarten all the way through two years of college. GEO seeks to provide greater access to quality education for all kids. The foundation currently operates four charter schools.” (website quote)

Indiana School Scholarship Tax Credit
“The Indiana School Scholarship Tax Credit is designed to provide scholarship support for thousands of low and middle income families to enroll their children into the private or public school of their choice. Funding for these scholarships will come from private, charitable donations to qualified scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). Donors (individuals or corporations) would be eligible to take advantage of a 50% credit against their state tax liability for contributions made to an SGO. The program is entirely privately-funded, with an incentive to charitable giving from the tax credit.” (website quote)

Indiana Virtual Families
“Indiana Virtual School Families (IVSF) is a grassroots coalition that was formed four years ago, before grassroots coalitions became popular! The Indiana Virtual School Families board consists of a group of passionate parent volunteers that have united in an effort to educate and inform the public and policymakers at all levels of the potential benefits virtual learning opportunities can bring to Indiana. A coalition supporting virtual schools in Indiana” (website quote)

School Choice Indiana
“School Choice Indiana, Inc. is a non-partisan, statewide organization dedicated to the principle that providing parents with real choices in the education of their children will improve educational outcomes and improve the quality of education, both in private and public schools.” (website quote)

Who supports privatization of education?

In 2000, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE) began to collect and classify website links to organizations involved in advocacy or research related to privatization of education. We created three general classifications: (1) organizations that: "tend to support privatization of education," (2) "present both supporting and opposing perspectives," and (3) "tend to oppose privatization of education." Within the general classifications we subcategorized organizations as: "advocacy," "research and policy" "nonprofit and for-profit and education management organizations," "news," and "research journals." In addition, in 2009, since much of the debate and activity related to privatization of education occurs at the state level, we began to add and classify links to state-specific organizations that "tend to support" or "tend to oppose" privatization of education.

Because of the enormous expansion of activity and interest in educational privatization, we recently concluded a robust search of the internet in order to update our links. The purpose of this announcement is to share with you the results of that search.

First, some descriptive data about our links:
In 2005 we had 49 links to organizations that "Tend to Support Privatization in Education;" we now have 85 such links.

In 2005 we had 23 links to organizations that "Present Both Supporting and Opposing Perspectives;" we did not find any new links to add to this category

In 2005 we had 22 links to organizations that "Tend to Oppose Privatization in Education;" we found only one new link to add to this category

In 2009 we had 19 links to state-specific organizations that "Tend to Support Privatization in Education;" we now have 164 such links

In 2009 we had 7 links to state-specific organizations that "Tend to Oppose Privatization in Education;" we now have 247 such links

In addition to serving as a valuable resource for students of school choice and privatization, the links provide a unique window into the evolution of support for school choice and privatization at the state and national levels. The following observations are based on our review of the changes in the distribution of website links within and between the state and national levels.

Continued Ideological Polarization in the National Dialogue on Privatization of Education

Even though a plethora of new reforms, such as online learning, are now part of the national education reform debate, school choice remains a highly divisive political issue. There are a total of 71 advocacy organizations but only 17 research and policy organizations among the support and oppose categories. In fact, if we counted the Education Management Organizations (EMOs) on our list as advocacy organizations, then essentially all of the growth in our list of national-level organizations since 2005 has come from the addition of advocacy organizations. Furthermore, we could not find neutral organizations at the state-level so we left that category out entirely for the states.

Growth in Organizations that Tend to Support Privatization at the State-level

At the national level, there are significantly more organizations that tend to support privatization (85 that support vs. 22 that oppose), while the opposite is true across the states (164 support vs. 245 oppose). This is largely because every state has at least one well-established teachers' organization (usually more than one) clearly opposed to privatization. However, a diverse coalition of state-level organizations that support school choice has emerged to mobilize parents and counter the power of teachers' organizations. These organizations include religious groups (especially religiously-motivated homeschoolers), free market policy organizations, parent advocacy organizations (e.g. Stand for Children), private school networks, and state-specific education management organizations. Most of these organizations, however, are more recently established and not as well connected or entrenched as those that oppose privatization. This trend suggests that we may see some significant legislative conflicts on school choice issues at the state-level in the not-too-distant future.
About the NCSPE
The Center provides independent, non-partisan information on and analysis of privatization in education. The Center's program includes research, evaluation, conferences, publications, and dissemination on a full range of issues regarding privatization of education from pre-school to higher education, both national and international.

Opting Out in Indiana

2012-01-19T18:32:00.000-08:00

A great story here on WFYI on how some parents are choosing to Opt-Out of the standardized testing in Indiana. Interestingly, the Indiana DOE didn't respond to some of these folks for three months but sent an email the day this story came out. Shows what it takes these days sadly. The conversation is building steam and getting interesting.

Why Some Indiana Parents Won’t Let Their Kids Take State Tests This Spring

They’ve tried organizing. They’ve tried criticizing. They’ve tried testifying.

But despite efforts to get their message out, some parents still feel shut out of the discussion about changes in education policy across Indiana and the nation.

So now, a handful of them is trying a new way to make their point — resisting.

Having long criticized laws like the federal No Child Left Behind act and Indiana’s Public Law 221 for relying too heavily on test scores, small groups of parents are planning to have their students “Opt Out” of statewide testing this spring. On test day, their kids simply won’t show up to school.

‘This Page Intentionally Left Blank’: Opt Out In IndianaEvery Indiana third grader will take a new reading exam in March to determine whether he or she can move on to the fourth grade. As Kyle Stokes reports, that’s one more reason some parents who worry about the increasingly-high stakes of state testing don’t want their children taking the exams this spring.Download

‘WE DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH TESTING PER SE’

Though state officials doubt the legality of such a move, organizers say Opt Out is a vehicle parents can use to vent their frustration with education policies. National opponents of high-stakes standardized testing say if as few as five or six percent of students were to skip statewide exams, state officials could no longer consider the rest of the test results valid.

Good Points on the MindTrust Plan

2012-01-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

Dan Carpenter does a nice job here of pointing to some of the logical problems with this plan. It is fundamentally anti-democratic, notably saying to the parents and communities of IPS that they're not capable of electing a school board. Don't get this wrong however; there's a lot to be desired in the IPS school board and its superintendent and changes are needed. But Carpenter is right that this plan is part of a corporate strategy to make money off of so-called reform.

IPS as a civics lesson

Should a mayor who won re-election with 16 percent of the potential vote be given control of schools because of low turnout in school board elections?
Is the answer to too little democracy, in other words, less democracy?

The "entrepreneurial" approach to education reform, as espoused by The Mind Trust and its corporate and political partners, would give us this logic. Indeed, saith The Mind Trust's David Harris, "We do think the board needs to be moved out of the way."
Who's the board? It's the people chosen, for better or worse, without suburban supervision, by residents of the Indianapolis Public Schools territory to educate more than 30,000 children.
A better question: Who is "We," and who elected "Us"?
It wasn't We the People, but We the People get most of the bill. The $700,000 study that produced an IPS overhaul plan enjoyed a $500,000 grant from Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, a champion of non-public education and the state's co-leader with Gov. Mitch Daniels in channeling public money into privatization.
The wholly unsurprising makeover/takeover plan, with its emphases on charter schools, the gelding of the IPS central office and the disempowering of central city voters as well as the teachers union, fits the pattern of the prevailing "reform" movement but hardly strikes this writer as a blueprint for better times in and of itself.
Site-based decision-making was tried in IPS, and collapsed in the face of relentless pupil mobility. Mayorally appointed school boards have been tried in other cities, without notable success. Charter schools, for-profit and nonprofit, have not outperformed traditional public schools.
Yet these are the power relationships that eclipse pedagogy in the made-up minds of business-model reformers. Get the administration, the board, the union, the messy local politics "moved out of the way," and impose a simplified education market in which families' choices will be limited to consumer choices. And first, by all means, declare the system broken.
If the system is not broken, but merely running unsatisfactorily (like many of its neighbor systems), then reformers have a problem. They must find ways to help, not merely people and structures to discard. They must acknowledge strengths (of which IPS has many). They must address the low profile given school board races in the election process. They must answer for their own funding cuts, to education directly and to the demands of the monster at its doorstep called poverty.
If, on the other hand, class size and hunger and crime and families fighting to survive can be portrayed as excuses on the part of complacent incompetents who stand in the way of efficiency, the stage is set for a handover of control.
This is a national, even international, phenomenon. Check the rightwing American Legislative Exchange Council. Check the Milton Friedman brigade out of the University of Chicago and the Indianapolis-based Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Your Republican lawmakers, and some key Democrats as well, are listening to them. Are the people who own the public schools too few, and too small, to be heard?
Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172 or at dan.carpenter@indystar.com.

Innovate Indy on Education Reform: Join us Jan. 5th!

2012-01-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

DO NOT LEAVE EDUCATION REFORM IN THE HANDS OF “EXPERTS”
IN BUSINESS, FINANCE, AND LAW!

On December 3rd a conversation began about education reform in Indianapolis. That conversation continues next on: Thursday January 5th at 7:00pm at Big Car Service Center, 3919 N. Lafayette Road.

We will talk about authentic measures for learning and stopping the abuse of children by testing them.

Phil and Joan Harris from Bloomington, two of the three coauthors of:
The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don't Tell You What You Think They Do
will join us to share their knowledge and we will discuss further activities to educate a wider community.

Matthew Brooks, coordinator for Opt- out Indiana will also join the discussion of how to protect our kids and our communities.

Adults please bring students to share their insights and add their voices to this vital discussion.

A tremendous concentration of wealth and political power has been focused in Indianapolis to drive an agenda of change in education. We find that agenda dangerously misinformed. We intend to inform and redirect that agenda toward the betterment of our neighborhoods, our schools and our children. We need the participation of parents, students, teachers and all concerned members of the community in order to accomplish this goal. Please join our conversation.

The Mind Trust and a Local Control Ruse

2012-01-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

This post from School Matters nicely gives some counter voice to the local gushing over the Mind Trust's plan to gut Indianapolis Public Schools. It is important to note how much taxpayer money is already going to these folks and how much this "gift" as the Indy Star puts it positions them to receive in the future. We're not going to say that some of these ideas aren't good but this is shady politics and it's time that the public pay much more attention to the money trail. Finally, the idea that mayoral control is more democratic is preposterous (just ask community folks in DC, New York, New Orleans, or Chicago).

The Mind Trust’s plan to redesign IPS

Posted on December 20, 2011 by stevehinnefeld

The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that promotes education reform, released an ambitious proposal Sunday for remaking Indianapolis Public Schools. It certainly has people talking.

Here are some initial thoughts:

– A key feature of the plan involves killing off the IPS school board and turning control of the district over to the Indianapolis mayor and city-county council. Whether this is a good or bad idea, it’s certainly undemocratic. As Heather Gillers points out in theIndianapolis Star, it means “telling voters who live in IPS that they are the only ones in the state who will not be allowed to elect their school board.”

More significantly, the city of Indianapolis and IPS cover very different geographical areas –- the mayor of Indy isn’t the mayor of IPS. The mayor and city-county council are elected by voters from throughout Marion County, but IPS is only one of 11 school districts in the county. About three-fourths of public-school students in Marion County attend non-IPS schools.

The argument for mayoral control is that the mayor will be “politically accountable” for the schools. But even if the mayor screws up, IPS residents may not have the votes to punish him at the polls.

– More than 80 percent of IPS students qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. No other public school district in Indiana comes close to that level of poverty, except for some districts in Lake County (Gary, East Chicago). The Mind Trust plan barely mentions this fact, or the challenges it presents for any scheme to dramatically improve performance in IPS schools.

Sure, poverty can’t be an excuse for failing to do everything possible to improve schools. But as Helene F. Ladd and Edward B. Fiske wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed, pretending poverty doesn’t matter only gets in the way of serious attempts at reform.

– The Mind Trust plan envisions converting all IPS schools to what it calls “opportunity schools,” with the freedom and flexibility that are usually associated with charter schools. All would be “schools of choice”: parents could send their kids to any school in the district, subject to the IPS somehow playing traffic cop.

It’s the standard market-based ideology of education reform: “Great schools” will thrive because parents send their children there; “failing schools” will close for lack of enrollment. The models for this approach are New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The Mind Trust claims it will be possible to reallocate 80 percent of IPS administrative costs to the schools, leaving the district’s central office to be a low-level provider of services. This seems like a stretch. But even if it isn’t, a whole lot more responsibilities also would flow to the schools. Principals would apparently be responsible for hiring and firing teachers, establishing curriculum, selecting textbooks, arranging for school meals, lining up transportation, securing special-education services, handling the paperwork for federal Title I funds, etc., etc.

Oh, and also finding time to be great instructional leaders.

– According to the Star, the Mind Trust paid $700,000 to have its plan produced by Public Impact, a North Carolina consulting firm. That seems like a hefty price for a product that appears to involve no original research, and with its executive summary packed with reformist jargon about bold visions, reinventing education, empowering parents, great leaders, great teachers, ad nauseum.

Some $500,000 came from the Indiana Department of Education, the Star reports – a lot of public money to spend at a time when state government is cutting services.

– For those of us who don’t live in Indianapolis, it’s probably hard to comprehend the hunger that many civic-minded people must feel for something, anything, that will turn IPS into a great school system. It’s common to hear that “IPS is broken and can’t be fixed,” or words to that effect. Superintendents have raised hopes but produced disappointing results, at least when it comes to test scores. So it’s not surprising that the Mind Trust plan has won praise from folks on the left, right and center.

But as education historian Diane Ravitch often warns, there are no “silver bullets” in education. There are no miracle cures for poverty. Making a difference in the lives of children is hard work that takes time, resources, dedication and sustained focus.

The Political Backers of Stand for Children

2011-12-29T07:53:00.000-08:00

This article proved to be prescient in Illinois politics and education reform. Check out this video with a co-founder of Stand for Children and their plan to take down the teacher union there [LINK]. They're in Indiana now and also very vague about what their agenda is although they make an adamant case that they are grassroots, a coalition of community folks working to improve education. When I see this type of savvy political manuevering behind the scenes, I can't help but think that good folks in Indiana are being co-opted.

ILLINOIS Who’s behind Stand for Children?

BY RICH MILLER Illinois Times October 21,2010

It’s not every day that a group almost nobody has ever heard of gives $175,000 to a single state legislative candidate. But that’s just what happened on Oct. 7 when Stand for Children Illinois PAC handed over that gigantic check to Republican Ryan Higgins, who is vying to replace retiring state Rep. Paul Froehlich (D-Schaumburg).

In fact, Stand for Children’s $175,000 check represents the largest single contribution to a legislative candidate – other than from a caucus leader, party organization or candidate loans to themselves – since contribution records were put online 16 years ago. It’s probably a good bet that the group’s contribution to Higgins is the single largest “outside” legislative campaign check in modern Illinois history.

Yet Stand for Children has received almost zero press coverage. Fox Chicago followed up on a story I wrote earlier this month, but that’s it, even though the group has contributed $650,000 to rank and file legislative candidates since Oct. 4.

Republicans had hoped to receive nearly all of the group’s prodigious contributions this fall, but the majority of its money went to six Democrats. Rep. Jehan Gordon (D-Peoria) received a $100,000 check. State Reps. Bob Flider, Mark Walker and Keith Farnham and Sen. Toi Hutchinson have all received $50,000 contributions, as well as House Democratic candidate Daniel Biss. Three Republicans received money from the group.

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan met with the group after hearing what it was up to, said his spokesman. Madigan can be a very persuasive man. Huge contributions have been the norm in Illinois for decades. Usually, though, when we see big checks run through the system we have a general idea what the group wants. So far, though, Stand for Children has not established any sort of public presence here. There have been no editorial board visits or public relations blitzes. Their campaign finance filings show that their money is coming from their parent organization, which doesn’t have to list its contributors. So we really don’t know who is actually bankrolling this group.

After several tries, the organization did send me a flier about how it intends to “Improve Illinois Public Schools.” “Our vision is to dramatically increase improvement for all Illinois children by building a powerful, independent, statewide voice asking that we make what’s best for public school children the center of all education policy,” the flier states.

Um, OK, but what do they want? They say they want to “redefine” teacher tenure so that it is a “benefit that is earned and kept based on high expectations and student achievement.” Their website indicates that the group strongly backs testing to gauge achievement. And they appear to want to apply those test results to teachers. They also want to make sure that administrators and teachers have “exhausted every possible avenue during contract negotiations before resorting to a strike.” Details about how they would do that were not available.

“Certainly, any time you see a new group not from Illinois dropping significant dollar amounts into legislative races, it does raise some red flags,” said a spokesperson for the Illinois Federation of Teachers. “Where is their money coming from, who is funding them, what are their objectives? We’re certainly curious to see what their agenda is.”

While they don’t seem to be explicitly saying so, it looks like the group is taking advantage of a peculiar situation in Illinois politics. The two teachers unions are furious at legislators for voting for a major pension reform bill, so many of those incumbents are not receiving the unions’ endorsements. Plus, the unions’ contributions, along with everybody else’s, will be capped at a much lower level starting Jan. 1, and that could hinder their influence.

The thinking is that Stand for Children is now filling a unique void created by the relative lack of teacher contributions. But that theory doesn’t totally hold up. For instance, Rep. Farnham and Sen. Hutchinson were both endorsed by the IEA. And Rep. Flider has sponsored three bills making it easier for teachers to receive tenure more quickly.

However, if Speaker Madigan retains the majority and the group continues to, um, “stand” with his candidates and the unions refuse to step up, it’s possible that we could see a significant education reform push next year. Stay tuned.
Rich Miller publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com.

Rethinking Schools on "Stand for Children"

2011-12-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

A chapter has started in Indianapolis with the support of the Mind Trust, the Mayor's Office, and the State Superintendent. The story below, worth reading at length, tells the tale of a grassroots organization that has lost its way (or is co-opted a better word?). Questions abound when original members and leadership quit and corporate interests take over the Board. It seems important that Indiana Citizens knows the background of these powerful forces and what may indeed be its real agenda.

For or Against Children? The problematic history of stand for children

Fall 2011, By Ken Libby and Adam Sanchez

Last October, a friend called with a question: “What do you know about Stand for Children?” The advocacy organization, based in our hometown of Portland, Ore., was expanding into his state of Illinois, and he hoped to glean some insight into the kinds of reforms the group would support. Just two months later, Stand’s Illinois branch had amassed more than $3 million in a political action committee and unveiled an aggressive teacher evaluation bill. “Have they always been like this?” he asked. The short answer: no.

Stand for Children was founded in the late 1990s as a way to advocate for the welfare of children. It grew out of a 1996 march by more than 250,000 people in Washington, D.C. The aim of the march was to highlight child poverty at a time when Congress and the Clinton administration were preparing to “end welfare as we know it.” Jonah Edelman, son of children’s and civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman, co-founded the group and continues to serve as CEO. Stand’s first chapter was in Oregon, but the group now operates in eight additional states: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.

According to Susan Barrett, a parent volunteer who recently left Portland’s Stand chapter, Stand started with a genuine focus on improving the lives of poor children:

[Stand] worked on smaller issues with positive impact, such as after-school program funding and emergency dental care for uninsured kids. Many parents like me who joined Stand a while back still remember how it was an organization fighting for the Portland Children’s Levy, which provided funds for early childhood education, foster care, child abuse prevention programs, and a variety of other programs centered on children.1

Here is a snapshot of Stand’s agenda during that period:
•Health coverage for uninsured children
•Monitoring the impact of welfare reform
•More money for affordable, high-quality child care
•Safe and productive after-school activities
•Schools that have small classes, well-trained teachers, high standards, and involved parents. 2

Fifteen years later, Stand seems to have morphed into something quite different. For Oregonians, the first public indications that Stand had made a striking 180-degree turn in its politics was its support for Race to the Top legislation and its active promotion of the antiunion, anti-public school film Waiting for “Superman.” Stand led a well-financed, intensive campaign for the film, organizing special invitation-only showings for various constituencies.

According to Barrett: This past year, Oregon Stand staff wanted us to press our legislators to pass a “bipartisan education package,” which basically tied the release of much-needed school funding to the expansion of charter schools, online learning, and other so-called “reforms.” Stand also pushed to lower the capital gains tax.

For Tom Olson, another former Portland Stand member, the final straw was the appointment of a new executive director for the Oregon chapter:

We were appalled that [Sue Levin] had virtually no experience leading grassroots organizations. Instead, we were told that she had a truly impressive background as an “entrepreneur” (a phrase we began to hear [CEO Edelman] use quite frequently during [his] transformation during 2009–10). Levin had been the founder and CEO of a women’s apparel company, Lucy Inc. Prior to that, she had been a women’s sports apparel VP at Nike Inc. Grassroots leadership experience? Absolutely none. Connections with millionaires? A whole bunch. 3

For Stand’s Portland chapter, where the organization is headquartered and one of the few places where it has a significant history of grassroots activism, the changes in Stand’s role have clearly been traumatic for parents and community members who had a very different image of the organization. This is clearly not a local phenomenon. As Stand has expanded, it has followed a similar pattern: In state after state, Stand has made the corporate-driven agenda of expanding charter schools and tying teacher pay and evaluations to student test scores their top priority.

To be sure, Stand has maintained some vestiges of its original focus on children. Stand recently supported bills in Colorado and Oregon that would allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at state colleges; in both states, conservative activists expressed hostility to these measures. The Colorado chapter opposed a proposition and two statewide amendments that would have gutted education funding. The Arizona chapter supported a temporary 1 percent tax increase that avoided significant cuts to public schools. The Tennessee chapter fought an English-only amendment that would have negatively affected schools and families, supported changes to suspension policies that hurt children, and pushed for more pre-K funds.

But, unfortunately, the dominant impact of Stand, everywhere it has a presence, is much more pro-business than pro-children. This was certainly the case in Illinois, where Stand for Children played a part in crafting what they are touting as their biggest victory yet: Senate Bill 7.

Standing Against Illinois Teachers

SB 7, which passed the Illinois Senate in a unanimous vote and the General Assembly with a single dissenter, undermines seniority as the basis of teacher job security and specifically singles out the Chicago Teachers Union by severely restricting its right to strike.

Chicago has become a testing ground for corporate education policy. Recent CEOs of Chicago Public Schools have included Paul Vallas (1995–2001), who later became the architect behind the union-busting and charterization plan in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; and Arne Duncan (2001–08), who privatized Chicago public schools at a rate of about 10 per year before becoming Barack Obama’s education secretary. The policies pushed by these corporate reformers have been touted as “miraculous” by business leaders, but have created a horrendous environment for Chicago teachers.

Intensive and strategic organizing in the face of layoffs, increasing attacks on teachers, and school closings led to last year’s victory for the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), which swept the 2010 Chicago Teachers Union elections, winning every single seat. But CORE came to power in the context of an economic crisis in which workers are being forced to bear the brunt of economic sacrifice. The city’s elite became even more determined to break the teachers’ union.

Bruce Rainer, a Republican venture capitalist, recruited Edelman to come to Illinois and help with this task. Thanks to a speech caught on video and posted on YouTube, we now know the intimate details of how Stand for Children helped shape Illinois’ latest anti-teacher legislation. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, billionaire James Crown and Jonah Edelman caused an uproar with their comments about SB 7.

Their panel discussion, titled “If It Can Happen There, It Can Happen Anywhere: Transformational Education Legislation in Illinois,” began with Crown painting a picture of an all-powerful teachers’ union that consistently blocks education reform and has a stranglehold on Illinois politics. Crown was particularly angry that teachers in Illinois had maintained their right to strike. “In 45 of the 50 states, there is no right to strike by teachers,” he protested. “So this was an incredibly strike-permissive environment with these other efforts by the unions, and so forth, that created an unsustainable structure in our school system.”

Following Crown, Edelman gave a step-by-step account of how Stand for Children worked to undermine teachers’ union rights in Illinois. After explaining how Stand essentially bought a handful of Illinois legislators with campaign contributions—most crucially, Democratic Assembly Speaker Michael Madigan—Edelman explained Stand’s strategy:

After the election, Advance Illinois and Stand had drafted a very bold proposal we called Performance Counts. It tied tenure and layoffs to performance. It let principals hire who they choose. It streamlined dismissal of ineffective tenured teachers substantially—from two-plus years and $200,000 in legal fees, on average, to three to four months, with very little likelihood of legal recourse.

And, most importantly, we called for the reform of collective bargaining throughout the state—essentially, proposing that school boards would be able to decide any disputed issue at impasse. So a very, very bold proposal for Illinois, and one that six months earlier would have been unthinkable, undiscussable. . . .

We hired 11 lobbyists, including the four best insiders and seven of the best minority lobbyists, preventing the unions from hiring them. We enlisted a statewide public affairs firm. . . . We raised $3 million for our political action committee between the election and the end of the year. That’s more money than either of the unions have in their political action committees.

And so essentially, what we did in a very short period of time was shift the balance of power. I can tell you there was a palpable sense of concern, if not shock, on the part of the teachers’ unions in Illinois that Speaker Madigan had changed allegiance, and that we had clear political capability to potentially jam this proposal down their throats, the same way the pension reform had been jammed down their throats six months earlier.

Edelman’s comments produced outrage among union and education activists. He issued an apology, saying he regretted that he “left children mostly out of the equation,” and that the speech “could cause viewers to wrongly conclude that I’m against unions.” For their part, the leaders of Illinois’ three main education unions blasted Edelman in a joint statement:

"We heard a lot from Jonah Edelman about power in politics, power over unions, and management power over teachers. Sadly, we didn’t hear anything in that hour-long session about improving education. . . . What’s worse is that these false claims clearly show an organizational agenda that has nothing to do with helping kids learn."

It’s clear from Edelman’s remarks that Stand’s effectiveness is reliant on a public perception that it represents the interests of parents. But in fact, Stand’s agenda is now closely aligned with those who call for privatization, charters, vouchers, and an end to teachers’ unions.

This is true throughout the country. For example, Stand’s most significant work in Colorado was their support of Senate Bill 191, a landmark piece of legislation that bases 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation on student achievement data. As Dana Goldstein explained in a recent American Prospect article, this may lead the state to test every student, in every grade, in every subject—including art, music, and PE. The poisonous debate around the bill vilified those in opposition and demoralized teachers across the state. One teacher, recalling the negotiations over the bill, told Goldstein, “I’ve chosen a profession that, in the public eyes, is worse than prostitution.”

Stand’s Colorado operations are funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation and the Daniels Fund, two right-wing philanthropies that have pushed for vouchers and charter schools.

Stand entered Texas in early 2011 as the state wrestled with a budget shortfall that could be as high as $27 billion. The dramatic cuts to schools in the Lone Star state will undoubtedly harm children, yet Stand put their might behind a campaign to evaluate teachers. Texas Senate Bill 4 and the companion bill in the House call for basing from 30 to 50 percent of teacher evaluations on test score growth. In addition, Stand supported legislation that would aid Texas charter schools.

To further this agenda, Stand hired nine lobbyists with ties to the Republican Party, including three lobbyists from Delisi Communications. The firm’s president, Ted Delisi, purchased Karl Rove’s consulting and direct mail company when Rove joined the Bush presidential campaign in 1999, and ran the Bush/Cheney fundraising and mailer campaign the following year.

Stand set up shop in Indiana in early 2011 and began advocating for changes to teacher evaluations as Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Republican-controlled legislature passed the most expansive state voucher program in U.S. history, expanded charter schools, restricted collective bargaining, and made serious changes to teacher evaluations. Stand’s advocacy for test-based teacher evaluations included statements that were blatantly false, including: “Studies show that a teacher’s influence on student achievement is 20 times greater than any other variable, including class size or poverty.”

How Did This Happen?

What happened? How did Stand morph from an organization with a focus on children’s health issues, nonschool factors, and research-based school improvements to an organization that pushes core elements of the corporate destruction of public education? Stand has seen an enormous influx of corporate cash. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began by offering a relatively modest two-year grant of $80,000 in 2005. In 2007, Stand for Children received a $682,565 grant. In 2009, the point at which Stand’s drastically different political agenda became obvious, Gates awarded a $971,280 grant to support “common policy priorities” and in 2010, a $3,476,300 grant.

Though the Gates Foundation remains the biggest donor to Stand for Children, other players in the world of corporate education reform have also begun to see Stand as an effective vehicle to push their agenda.

New Profit Inc. has funded Stand since 2008—to the tune of $1,458,500. According to its website, New Profit is a “national venture philanthropy fund that seeks to harness America’s spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to help solve the country’s biggest social problems.”

The Walton Family Foundation made a 2010 grant of $1,378,527. Several other major funders are tied to Bain Capital, a private equity and venture capital firm founded by Mitt Romney.

In a similar time frame, Stand’s National Board of Directors has seen dramatic changes. Lauene Powell Jobs joined the board of Stand for Children in 2006. She also serves on the board of Teach for America. Both Powell Jobs and Julie Mikuta, who joined the Stand board in 2007, are integrally involved with the NewSchools Venture Fund. NewSchools is a venture philanthropy firm, started by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and financed by many of the same donors who give to Stand for Children—Bill Gates, the Walton Family—as well as Eli Broad and Gap founder Donald Fisher. NewSchools Venture Fund pours money into charter schools and “human capital” projects with the aim of using market models and corporate management to drastically reshape the education system.

In 2010, Emma Bloomberg, daughter of billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, became the newest member of Stand’s national board. Emma Bloomberg is a program officer at the Robin Hood Foundation, another venture philanthropy organization, whose board of directors is dominated by corporate titans like General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt and JP Morgan CEO Jes Staley.

Marian Wright Edelman is no longer a board member. In fact, 11 of the 14 board members of Stand for Children and the Stand for Children Leadership Center have joined the organization since 2006.

The education policy environment has changed significantly during the past 10 years. Particularly since the onset of the economic crisis, teachers have increasingly been blamed for “failing public schools.” Major foundations have spent millions in efforts to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, make it easier to hire and fire teachers, and restrict teachers’ rights to due process and to strike. Co-opting organizations like Stand for Children Reshapes the public face of corporate education reform and helps make anti-union and privatization schemes more palatable to liberals and progressives. It’s clear that conservative foundations and corporate-backed operatives recognize that organizing parents is a promising way to further their agendas (see David Bacon’s “Trigger Laws: Does Signing a Petition Give Parents a Voice?” ).

Conclusion

There is a legitimate concern for teacher quality, how layoffs are handled, and the need for greater parent and community involvement in teacher contract negotiations. These are serious issues for low-income families and other marginalized communities, but Stand’s approach fails to bring parents, teachers, and communities together, and instead embraces policies favored by historic opponents of public schools and teachers’ unions.

As Susan Barrett explains: "My fear is that unwitting parents and community members will join Stand because they want to rectify the problems they see every day in their children’s public schools, such as underfunding, lack of arts programs, large class sizes and cuts to the school year, only to find that they get roped into very different goals. . . I worry we will lose a truly democratic discussion and action on education weighted in favor of corporate reforms."

We agree. There is a need for a parent- and community-driven organization that is not directly tied to teachers unions. An organization that pushes for quality early childhood education, adequate funding for the public education system, and attention to childhood health issues would certainly represent a kid-first agenda. It is even possible to critique teacher training, hiring, and firing in such a broad agenda. But putting kids first is no longer the focus of Stand for Children.
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Support Brandon Cosby in IPS

2011-11-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

The Battle for Indiana Public Education stands in support of these students that are fighting to bring their principal back to Shortridge High School. Brandon Cosby is a powerful educator trying to do something in a beleagured district and he's inspired his students to the degree that they've sent this email looking for support from the broader community.

Subject: Shortridge Needs Your Help!

The students at Shortridge need your help! We know you can help us with this. We also know you have alot of influence among community leaders and we need as many supporters as possible!

Our Principal Mr. Brandon Cosby was suspended pending an investigation regarding allegations of "insubordinance". This insubordinance stems from Mr. Cosby's desire to prove that Shortridge students are much more than a test score. Amidst much negative media concerning the failings of IPS as a whole, Mr. Cosby fought continually to make Shortridge a safe and inspiring learning environment, to foster connections with families, students, and the community. He is responsible for transforming Shortridge into what it is today. In order for Shortridge to continue to be set apart from other IPS schools, we need Mr. Cosby as our leader. Please let your support for our wonderful principal be known.

*These are the most important numbers to call. The point of this is to flood the phone lines with inquiries about what is going on. Please be respectful and ask questions such as “Why is Mr. Cosby suspended?” “When will he be returning to work?” rather than being accusatory or defensive. Keep asking questions and don’t accept quick answers. Call as many of these numbers as possible, as many times as you can, on Monday and Tuesday.

Phone numbers to call Monday, November 7, 2011

Shortridge Main Line: 226-2810

*Lori Elliott (vice principal) 226-2816

*Jim Larkin (vice principal) 226-2818

Department of Secondary Education:

Nicole Haywood (secretary to Jackie Greenwood) 226-3875

*Jackie Greenwood (direct supervisor of Mr. Cosby) 226-4541

*Willie Giles (Deputy Superintendant) 226-4545

*Li-Yen Johnson (Associate Superintendant) 226-3128

*Dr. White (Superintendant’s Office; Sandra Ginder secretary) 226-4411

*Administrative Assistant to the School Board 226-4418

IPS switchboard 226-4000

IPS Human Resources 226-4150

We need as many people as possible to call in tomorrow, because we know that there is strength in numbers. So if you could foreword this to people who will support us.

You can also show your support of Mr. Cosby by "liking" our Facebook Page Dedicated to our support to reinstate Mr. Cosby:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-our-Principal-NO-Cosby-NO-Shortridge/289399771090579

Thanks in advance for your support of our efforts.

Opt-Out of Testing!

2011-10-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

A powerful new movement is gaining momentum as parents start to question the dominance of high-stakes testing in US education. I'm not sure if folks in Indiana are getting involved but we'd be interested to hear about it. Check out the national website: United Opt-Out ....More to come I'm sure.

Standardized tests: Time for a national opt-out

Parents have the power to break the stranglehold of standardized testing

August 25, 2011|By Shaun Johnson

Here's an update to a clichéd philosophical question: If a test is scheduled and no one is around to take it, will this test matter? The new school year for many public school teachers begins weeks before students arrive. Educators attend hours of workshops to discover that the newest acronym is simply a substitute for an older one. More importantly, piles of test data are pored over to both assess the previous year and to fully appreciate what is to come with a new crop of students.

With every new testing mandate, combined with recent scandals chipping away at the once impossibly smooth veneer of test-based education reforms, many teachers, parents and administrators are getting frustrated. Where have market-driven and data-obsessed policies taken us over the last 10 years? Are public schools necessarily better off than they were when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was initially greeted with bipartisan support?
Another important question: What of education have we lost as a result of strict adherence to standardized tests? Many are answering, "Too much — and enough is enough." The result is that more and more parents and educators are mulling what was once unthinkable: opting children out of state standardized tests.

For example, Tim Slekar, a professor of education in Pennsylvania, opted his son Luke out of his state's tests last school year to "make my community aware and to try and enlighten them of the real issues." This parent and professor's plea is simple and forceful: "Stop treating my child as data! He's a great kid who loves to learn. He is not a politician's pawn in a chess game designed to prove the inadequacy of his teachers and school."

In July, a large group of public school advocates organized the Save Our Schools March in Washington, D.C. to protest the continued, and in some cases stronger, embrace of standardized testing. Even amid budget shortfalls, millions of taxpayer dollars are spent on things like researching newer exams, test security, investigating lapses in that security, and manufacturing data collection systems. Meanwhile, schools must contend with smaller staffs and larger class sizes.
Educators are frustrated by the exclusion of teachers from the larger debate on education reform and policy in the United States. Individual classroom teachers and researchers have been highlighting for years the deleterious effects of focusing solely on success or failure with regard to standardized tests. And even now, with the revelation that high-stakes environments are perfect breeding grounds for desperation and resulting dishonesty, the dispiriting march through another year of test preparation must continue.

In a political and cultural environment that at best feigns listening to educators and at worst demonizes them, the most active public school advocates — like Mr. Slekar — are beginning to feel that opting their children out of completing the state tests is the only message that will get through. Those who began their research into the issue are finding it remarkably easy to do, despite the dissembling of school officials when asked for information. Parents considering opting their children out of state testing are aware of the implications — that a diminished level of participation will affect the school's ability to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). But the threat of no AYP does not appear as ominous as it once did. What is more, the Department of Education's hemming and hawing over the reauthorization of NCLB, plus this whole business of granting waivers that states don't even want, could mean that the punitive era of education reform is slowly coming to an end.

Growing groups of parents and public school advocates have decided to hit the contemporary reform movement where it counts by taking away the privilege of collecting coveted data. They realize that their children are more than just test scores. They now understand that a laser-like focus on testing and test preparation comes at the expense of numerous other facets of an engaging and well-rounded education. Most of all, these same folks are slowly but surely grasping the power that eluded them during the height of the NCLB era. Despite being largely locked out of the conversation on public education, parents, teachers, and parents who are teachers know they don't have to give up the data any longer.

Opting-out groups are turning to social media to organize. A Florida-based Facebook group, "Testing is Not Teaching," boasts more than 12,000 supporters. A similar, fledgling group called "United Opt Out" claimed 600 national members after just a few days of existence online. Local numbers for Maryland are elusive, and it's too early to tell whether pressing the "Like" button will translate into actual opting out of test taking.

So, to come full circle: If tests were scheduled and no one took them, would it matter? It would probably be the exact opposite of the proverbial tree falling with no one around. Fewer students filling in fewer bubbles would sound an alarm akin to 1,000 trees falling in the forest. This time, one could not ignore hearing it. And the sincere grievances public school advocates have about the dominance of testing might finally receive an attentive audience.
Shaun Johnson is an assistant professor of elementary education in the College of Education at Towson University. His email is spjohnson@towson.edu.

Corporate Shock Doctrine in Indiana

2011-09-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

Check out this article from Salon.com and think about all the shady connections emerging from Tony Bennett and the Mitch Daniels Machine. What's amazing about this is how even though standardized test scores are good enough to fire teachers and, as in Indianapolis, turn schools over to for-profit charter corporations, they're not good enough to determine if the multi-million dollar contracts for corporations peddling easy solutions and fairy dust. A previous post shared some the new information on corporate campaign donations to Dr. Bennett--we're sure its only the beginning. Didn't we learn to follow the money? This was found at the Newteacher blog.

"Let's hope the fiscal crisis doesn't get better too soon. It'll slow down reform." -- Tom Watkins, a consultant, summarizes the corporate education reform movement's current strategy to the Sunday New York Times. Watkins' outburst of candor, buried in this front-page New York Times article yesterday, is so important: It shows that the recession and its corresponding shock to school budgets is being used by corporations to maximize revenues, all under the gauzy banner of "reform."

The "Shock Doctrine" comes to your neighborhood classroom: Corporate reformers use the fiscal crisis and campaign contributions to hype an unproven school agenda

Follow the Money--Bennett and Campaign Money

2011-08-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

Murdoch’s Wireless Gen. and EdisonLearning Donated Money to Tony Bennett
By: Doug Martin Monday August 29, 2011 11:58 am

As the Indiana State Board of Education decides to hand over Indiana’s so-called “failing” schools to EdisonLearning, Charter Schools USA, and Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation today, it is important to note that both Edison and Wireless Generation have donated to Education ReformIdol Indiana supt. of public instruction Tony Bennett’s campaign chest. In fact, Wireless Gen. even lavished money on Mitch Daniels and Indiana Republicans, the month before Murdoch acquired the company.

Freshly clabbered by public school advocates like Leonie Haimson, Diane Ravitch, and others in New York City, and thus losing out on a $27 million contract with the schools, Wireless Gen. will now “partner” with the New Teacher Project (whose CEO is Ariela Rozman, who also sits on the board of Indy’s corporate reform group, the Mind Trust) to run Washington Community High School in Indianapolis. EdisonLearning is taking over a school in Gary.

For 2009-2010, Bennett’s donors are both local and national corporate school reform players, and many of them also funded him in 2008:

EdisonLearning: $2,000

Wireless Generation: $1,000

James Bopp, Jr.: $250 (corporate lawyer of Citizens United; used his Terre Haute law firm’s mailbox to funnel millions of Amway-Besty DeVos’ American Federation for Children money to “school reformers” in Indiana and throughout the country)

Bopp Coleson, and Bostrom: $2,500 (law firm of James Bopp, Jr.)

Therese Rooney: $10,000 (daughter of J. Patrick Rooney, the man who started the Educational CHOICE Charitable Trust and was a national leader in the voucher movement)

Patrick Byrne: $5,000 (Overstock.com)

Luke Messer: $175 (School Choice Indiana)

Heather Neal: $150 (works at IDOE)

David Shane: $150, (member of Indiana Board of Ed. Wife Anne, now a trustee at Ivy Tech, worked for the Mind Trust)

Connections Academy: $2,000 (online school)

Education Networks of America: $2,000 (Tennessee network which connections Indiana public school corporations. Operates in several states)

Hoosiers for Economic Growth: $5,000 (front group behind Indiana school “reform”)

McGraw-Hill: $3,000 (mega-book and testing company which oversees ISTEP+ testing in Indiana)

Apangea Learning: $1,000 (online tutoring company which has a contract with IDOE)

Education Services of America: $1,000 (has a contract with East Allen County Schools to use their Ombudsman Educational Services for at-risk students)

Robert Enlow: $500 (runs Milton Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice)

Rollin Dick: $150 (consultant with MH Equity Investors, a private equity investing group, formerly of Conseco, works for charter operator, the GEO Foundation)

Thanks to Jane Ruppel Nicholls for pointing me to this new Follow the Money list. This piece is cross-posted at B-Town Errant. Please check it out!http://my.firedoglake.com/dougmartin/2011/08/29/murdochs-wireless-gen-and-edisonlearning-donated-money-to-tony-bennett/

Pix from Save Our Schools March, 2011

2011-08-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

Images from the Save Our Schools National Day of Action in Washington, DC:

Indiana was there!! Grass-roots Movement of Educators Gathers in DC

2011-08-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

It was blistering hot, traffic and parking were terrible, the media was preoccupied with the debt crisis and Congress's inability to compromise but....over 8000 educators and supporters of public education gathered to raise a collective voice. An exciting moment and Indiana educators were there--the next step is organizing state-level protests. Stay in touch and post a comment if you support the cause!!

The Save Our Schools March

By Valerie Strauss

“I don’t know where I would be today if my teachers’ job security was based on how I performed on some standardized test.”
That was actor Matt Damon talking to thousands of teachers, parents, principals, school board members and other education activists who stood today for hours in 90-plus-degree temperatures near the White House to protest the standardized testing mania that is at the heart of the Obama administration’s school reform policies. He was one of dozens of speakers — including education historian Diane Ravitch; prominent educators Linda Darling-Hammond, Jonathan Kozol, Deb Meier; Jon Stewart (on video); and Florida activist Rita Solnet— who protested the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind, and the current administration’s Race to the Top, which, to the disappointment of many Obama supporters, is as punitive and at least as test-centric as NCLB. If their message has been heard before, this part was new: It was the first time that teachers from across the country have raised their voices publicly in protest of education policies at a Washington rally.

I don’t know how members of the audience (the Park Service unofficially estimated as many as 8,000 attended, more than some had predicted and fewer than some had hoped) withstood the heat but they did, and then they marched to the White House, in hopes that someone would let President Obama know about their disappointment in his education policies.

[Note: Some have questioned whether I was an active participant in the Save Our Schools march. I was not. I was invited to be a speaker at a two-day conference that preceded the rally and I declined long ago. Readers of this blog know that I rather obviously have opinions about school reform but I don’t participate in advocacy events.]

While U.S. legislators on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue were embroiled in negotiations to try to stop the country from defaulting on its debts, the rally and march, planned for many months, went on, noting that the health of the public education system is just as key to the country’s future as anything else.

Critics of the march had claimed that it was union-inspired but, though some speakers were union members, this wasn’t a union-organized or inspired march but actually a grass-roots production organized by teachers, parents and others. (The 15-member executive committee was testament to that.) Critics also accused participants of supporting “the status quo,” which is a phrase commonly used by modern school reform leaders to disparagingly suggest that they would rather keep bad teachers in classrooms than fire them. It’s nonsense (the issue is how to give teachers due process). If any of these critics listened, they would have heard people literally desperate for some sense to be returned to education policy.

Ravitch, whose best-selling 2010 “The Life and Death of the Great American School System” helped galvanize teachers to publicly protesting their discontent with former president Bush’s No Child Left Behind, and the current administration’s Race to the Top, told the crowd that public schools are “not shoe stores” and shouldn’t be managed as businesses.

“We are here to stand up for basic American values,” she said. “The shame of our nation is that we lead the developed world in childhood poverty,” she said, then noting that our best schools, those with the fewest children who live in poverty, rank on international tests at least as high as any other nation.
Her celebrity with people in the crowd was such that when she was done, they began to chant, “Thank you.”

Speakers protested policies that evaluate teachers based on standardized tests, and that scapegoat teachers for things over which they have no control (such as whether a student comes to school hungry, tired, sick or entirely disinterested). Damon, who has spoken before publicly about testing mania, was there because his mother, Carlsson Paige, asked him to come. She is a childhood development expert and a professor at Lesley University in Cambridge and was involved with the march.

It is one of the unfortunate aspects of American culture that celebrities get listened to more than everybody else — even, and maybe especially, in Washington, D.C.
If Washington’s policymakers don’t want to listen to teachers — and so far, they haven’t — just maybe they will take a minute to read Damon’s speech. It was smart and powerful. (I will post it separately.)
They could learn from it.

Hear! Hear!

2011-06-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

School turnaround companies not a sure thing; let community try 1st

Dear Mr. Tully,

I agree with you and the state's superintendent of public instruction, Tony Bennett, on one thing: It's sad that we as a community have let Indianapolis Public Schools get to this point. Few could look at the performance of the seven district schools under threat of a state takeover and feel any other way.

Everyone wants to do something to turn things around. Continuing to do nothing is absolutely unacceptable. But doing something doesn't mean we should try anything. And, in my book, allowing the state to take over any of the schools and then turn them over to a management company definitely counts as "anything."

Who's to say a private and possibly out-of-state company would do any better than a locally run and elected school board?

After all, the research on the effectiveness of these turnaround companies is anything but conclusive. Even those who support them admit that. "There really isn't a big track record for many of these groups to stand on," said M. René Islas, an education consultant who has worked in Indianapolis and is the director of the Learning Forward Center for Results. "We're kind of in uncharted territory."

Kind of like California during the Gold Rush. Never before has there been $5 billion of federal funding available to turn around failing schools. Education Secretary Arne Duncan hopes to overhaul 5,000 of the nation's 100,000 public schools in the next few years.

A lot of those turnaround efforts, as is the case here, involve paying a private, for-profit company to overhaul schools. Yet nationwide, oversight of these companies hasn't been the best. Many of them are new, formed in response to a burgeoning market for fixing schools, and they have yet to establish proven records of success.

And the privatization of government services doesn't always work. The botched attempt to modernize Indiana's welfare system comes to mind. Gov. Mitch Daniels pulled the plug on the $1.3 billion contract with IBM less than three years into the supposed 10-year implementation.

Do we really want to take that chance with our schools? With our children? What happens if the state hires a turnaround company, and then a year from now or two years from now, test scores at a school don't go up? Will Bennett fire that company and hire a new one? Will that new company once again fire half the staff and oust the principal?

These are things we need to think about long before we consider crossing the bridge into state takeover land.
Why? Because, above all else, students need stability and consistency.

This came through loud and clear at both of last week's meetings to gather public feedback on the possible state takeover. At Arlington Community High School, teachers and parents complained about the inconsistent meting out of discipline and the rotating cast of principals and teachers over the past four years.

At Broad Ripple, IPS Superintendent Eugene White pointed out that the school is only in its second year of being a full magnet high school for the arts. My point is, there hasn't been enough consistency or stability at either of these schools for the students or teachers to develop any kind of traction for success."The research tells us that the full turnaround of any organization takes three to five years," Islas said.Ripping everything up again at these schools likely would do more harm than good.

What do we do instead? Let the community take up this fight first.

One result of Bennett saying the state should intervene has been that parents and community groups appear to be serious about improving education. The Indianapolis Urban League has vowed to work with the NAACP and the National Council on Educating Black Children to help implement improvement plans at all the schools.

This should have happened years ago when students' grades first started to slide, but that's a gripe for another day. The success of students depends as much on what goes on in the classroom as at home. Without support from parents and the community, kids, especially kids in poor urban districts, have a much harder time making the grade. Their involvement could make all the difference.

Let the community and parents try again. Don't take these schools out of their hands just yet.
That's a "something" I can get behind.

Call Star columnist Erika D. Smith at erika.smith@indystar.com, or reach on Twitter @indystar_erika.

Are You Serious???

2011-06-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

Ballard seeks control of 7 failing IPS schools

Mayor Greg Ballard has asked to take charge of efforts to turn around up to seven Indianapolis Public Schools that are facing state takeover.

In a speech to the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee this morning, Ballard cited state law that allows mayors to petition the state board to take control of schools that have been on probation for low test scores for six consecutive years. Ballard said the schools would be added to a portfolio of charter schools his office oversees and that he would apply "charter like" solutions to them. He pitched his plan as a middle road between mayoral takeover of the entire school district, which has been pushed by some community and business leaders, and state control of local schools.

"I believe our immediate focus should be on the successful turnaround of the schools being taken over by the state," he said. "Once we successfully turn around these schools, then we can tackle the larger issue of IPS as a whole."

State board members and Superintendent for Public Instruction Tony Bennett are holding meetings this month to gather public input at each of the seven Indianapolis schools -- six high schools and a middle school -- that could reach their sixth year of probation when state test scores are released later this summer.

Daniels Supports Diploma Mill for Teachers

2011-06-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

Mitch Daniels continues his efforts to privatize education--first Western Governor's, now this. How can the governor justify bringing in shady programs that compete with his own state university system? Shameless!

6th Largest Graduate School of Education Relocating from Illinois to Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS (June 7, 2011) - American College of Education (ACE), an academic institution that provides online graduate degrees for working educators seeking advanced degrees, announced today that it will move its main campus from Chicago to Indianapolis, creating up to 40 new jobs by 2014.

Founded by a national team of education researchers and practitioners to address the advanced degree needs of in-service educators around the world, the organization will invest $1.2 million to establish its new headquarters in 12,000 square feet of space at 161 W. Ohio St. in downtown Indianapolis. American College of Education has already begun transitioning to Indiana and expects to be operational in the Hoosier State in August.

"The stable, affordable and pro-growth economic environment found in Indianapolis versus other cities plays a significant role in our ability to attract new companies. ACE is another example of a company that has recognized all Indianapolis has to offer and made the choice to relocate here. We look forward to welcoming them to our city," said Mayor Greg Ballard.

American College of Education was established in 2005, but its roots go back to 1858 through its predecessor, DePaul University. The organization offers master's degree programs in educational leadership, curriculum and instruction, educational technology, ESL, bilingual education, reading, math and science. In addition the College delivers professional development courses designed to address specific state and district needs.

"We believe that the state leadership and strategic vision of the state make it one of the nation's leaders in education reform. We are committed to partnering with the school districts and the state to help them achieve their learning goals for all the school children of Indiana," said Sandra J. Doran, president of ACE. "We believe that ACE can play a major collaborative role in supporting the professional educators of the state. Our vision is to continue to build the country's most comprehensive, affordable, high quality online educational environment where working teachers and school administrators can grow intellectually and enhance their classroom effectiveness and district leadership skills."

In addition to relocating many of their current staff, American College of Education will begin hiring for the 40 additional academic, administrative, support and professor positions once its move is complete in August.

"Though not the first company to choose Indiana's low-tax, business friendly environment over Illinois and other states, American College of Education's cross-border move is a significant indicator that our state has a climate welcoming to new jobs and investment," said Governor Mitch Daniels.

About American College of Education

American College of Education is solely dedicated to providing in-service educators the most affordable, accessible, high-quality online master's degree programs in education. The College's vision is to dramatically improve student performance by enhancing the instructional effectiveness of teachers through transformative technology and innovative online learning. American College of Education is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association (NCA) serving online students nationally and internationally. For more information about American College of Education, visit www.ace.edu.

Those who can....Teach!

2011-05-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

My Man Mitch

2011-05-11T15:25:00.000-07:00

Much has happened here in Indiana as part of the so-called "education reform" movement. Governor Daniels, not yet announced Presidential candidate, is clearly going to tought these efforts as part of his domestic agenda. Nevermind that he's cut the budgets for public schools every year he's been in office (recession or not). Now, tax money is diverted to private schools (recession or not), teachers are easier to fire, and the floodgates are open for charters. Remember too that "my man mitch" is on record as saying, "if I could privatize education tomorrow, I'd do it." He would sell off our schools, our kids, and our future.

Educational Reform: Who Wins? Who Loses?

2011-05-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

As part of the First Wednesdays Discussion Series (see below), a discussion of
“Educational Reform: Who Wins? Who Loses?” will take place, 12-12:50 pm, at WFYI Studios Community Room, 1630 N. Meridian, with panelists Teresa Meredith, VP, ISTA; Eugene White, Superintendent, IPS; Bill Chu, Deputy Superintendent, ISDE; and David Harris, CEO, The Mind Trust; moderated by Matt Tully, Indianapolis Star, sponsored by ACLU of Indiana. For more info, phone ACLU at 635-4059. See more info below

What is First Wednesdays?
The First Wednesday Series serves as a forum for discussion of contemporary issues in our society and features panelists who have subject matter expertise in the chosen topic. We are fortunate to have volunteers and sponsors from local organizations, public and private, who support this event so that we can bring this program to you. Our 2011 community sponsors are WFYI Studios, NUVO Newsweekly and Fraizer Designs. The public is welcome to attend.

Why you should call your legislator about the Indiana Voucher Bill

2011-04-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

It will shatter the barrier between church and state in K-12 schools observed since the 1851 Constitution.

It will divert $58.5 million during the next two years from public schools to private schools based on 7500 vouchers in the first year and 15,000 vouchers in the second year. As schools begin laying off teachers due to budget problems, this is a bad time to undermine public school funding in this way.

It adds an income deduction for home school parent expenses and private school parent expenses costing the taxpayers $3.7 million per year. This would be the first state benefit for home schools in Indiana history, giving new money to home schools while public school budgets are struggling.

It would end the 160 year practice of giving state funding only to public schools to educate young citizens about our democracy in a non-partisan, non-sectarian forum. Public schools have been the bedrock of our democracy and the centers of our communities, but vouchers could fragment this system.

Cherry-Picking Evidence on Vouchers

2011-04-19T04:53:00.000-07:00

As the Indiana spin machine continues, be very skeptical about claims that vouchers will help public schools. The standard M-O here is that groups supporting particular issues release "research reports" that support those issues and then the policy people cite those reports as evidence. Ingenious, insidious.....unethical.

New Win-Win Report on School Vouchers Still Not a Winner

BOULDER, CO (April 19, 2011) – In 2009, the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released a report titled A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on How Vouchers Affect Public Schools. The report was reviewed for the Think Twice project by University of Illinois professor Chris Lubienski, who concluded that the 2009 report purports to gather all available empirical evidence on the question of the competitive effects of vouchers, finding a strong consensus that vouchers help public schools. But the report, based on a review of 17 studies, selectively interprets the evidence to support the Foundation’s own conclusions.

The Friedman Foundation has now released an updated version of the report, combining the older discussion of the effects of school competition with a new discussion of various outcomes for voucher participants. The new report, however, is equally flawed. The earlier Friedman report asserts that “contrary to the widespread claim that vouchers hurt public schools, the empirical evidence consistently supports the conclusion that vouchers improve public schools. No empirical study has ever found that vouchers had a negative impact on public schools” (executive summary).

Lubienski’s review explains that the 2009 report cherry-picks evidence and that the majority of studies cited “were produced by a very small group of people largely associated with school choice advocacy organizations” (p. 6).

Lubienski’s review of the original report explains that the cited “studies include some rigorous work by respected researchers. But issues of methodology, interpretation, and generalizability emerge when the research is marshaled simply to support a narrow agenda, as with the Friedman Foundation’s. Then, the temptation for selectively summarizing research can distort the actual findings” (p. 5).

For instance, Lubienski points to the report’s misuse of Carnoy and his colleagues’ (2007) research. The new report continues to inappropriately use the Carnoy work, as well as others, in order to contend that vouchers have a positive “competition” effect on public school systems. In fact, as Lubienski states, the actual study that Carnoy and colleagues conducted to test the competition effects of voucher systems “found no competition effect” in their results (p. 5).

Lubienski also criticized the earlier Friedman report for championing the expansion of school voucher programs without acknowledging that previous expansions did not increase any positive effects that could be attributed to competition. The new report again sidesteps an explanation for this lack of success, except to present it as evidence of the need to expand the programs more dramatically.

What the new report does add is a discussion of research concerning the effects of voucher programs on the students receiving the vouchers. The report cites eight studies, most of them conducted by avowed voucher advocates.

It is remarkable how unrestrained the report is in pursuing the conclusion of “positive effects” when a fair reading of these studies would conclude there is minimal to no effect. Most disconcerting is the over-reach and distortion employed in the report’s attempt to dismiss the prominent and peer-reviewed study by Princeton’s Alan Krueger and Pei Zhu, which found no effects of a voucher program in New York City.

While the new Win-Win report does improve upon the original report’s arguments in some areas, the overall logic and corresponding evidence still falls short of making the case. The report is not a useful review of the effects of school competition.

Links to Reports/Review:

The original 2009 Win-Win report, produced by The Friedman Foundation, can be found at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/44of9vr

The NEPC Think Twice Review of the 2009 Win-Win report, done by Chris Lubienski, can be found at the following link: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-win-win-solution

The new Win-Win report, released in March 2011 by The Friedman Foundation, can be found at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/3hm9jby

The Think Twice think tank review project (http://thinktankreview.org), a project of the National Education Policy Center, provides the public, policy makers, and the press with timely, academically sound, reviews of selected think tank publications. The project is made possible in part by the generous support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Students Protest SB590

2011-03-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

These students, some documented-some not, have done everything US society has asked of them and more. Attending were college students, secondary school students, legislators, business leaders, and other activist groups who see the need for united action against the Indiana legislative agenda.

Rally Against SB590- Arizona Style Immigration Bill

Rally at the Statehouse

2011-03-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

Despite very cold wind and rain, lots of folks came out to speak against the radical agenda of Daniels and Bennett. Strong speakers and an excited crowd was encouraging to see. By the way, not once did I hear anyone about "more money" as Daniels always suggests is the only point of unions. Instead, they talked about student achievement, the role of public education in a democracy, the arts; social studies; other important things schools do that aren't on ISTEP, professional development, hiring qualified teachers.

Save Indiana's Schools Rally

2011-03-03T06:53:00.000-08:00

Saturday, March 5
2:30 p.m. Indianapolis Time
Indiana Statehouse - West Side Steps
Indianapolis

The General Assembly continues to debate pending education legislation that, if passed, will have devastating consequences for public school students and teachers. All Hoosiers need to continue to let our legislators know the consequences of their actions. As part of ISTA's continuing efforts to organize against the negative legislation being proposed, they are hosting a second statewide rally in Indianapolis on Saturday, March 5 at 2:30 p.m.

NEA Secretary-Treasurer Becky Pringle will be joining Hoosier educators at this important event.

This is another important opportunity to show lawmakers and all of the citizens of our state that PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS CONTINUE TO STAND TOGETHER AND FIGHT FOR INDIANA'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Plan now to gather your family and friends to attend the Rally for Public Education in Indianapolis on Saturday, March 5 at 2:30 p.m. Indianapolis time. Bring handmade signs and banners! Because we will be outside, there are no restrictions on signs. There is a hope that that all signs and banners be positive not derogatory.

WEAR RED!

Note: Indiana Citizens is not a member of or affiliated with ISTA or any union but supports this public show of support for Indiana teachers and true public education in the state.

From the Statehouse

2011-02-25T23:32:00.000-08:00

Vic’s Statehouse Notes #67 February 25, 2011

Dear Friends,
Yesterday’s Indianapolis Star (Feb. 24th) listed eleven bills that House Democrats “have concerns about.” I have tracked four of these eleven bills on their journey through the House Education Committee: HB 1002, HB 1003, HB 1479, and HB 1584. Here are some details about these four bills that seem to be involved in the standoff:

House Bill 1002 – Charter School Expansion

In “Vic’s Notes #51-Jan. 21, 2011”, I detailed the testimony of 24 speakers in a five hour hearing, with 12 speaking for it and 12 speaking against it. It subsequently cleared the committee on a party line vote and was approved on third reading in the House, 59-37. Rep. Sullivan, a long time advocate for charter schools, coauthored the bill and was the only Democrat to vote for it. One Republican, Rep. Neese, voted against it. Dr. Bennett issued a press release announcing that the charter bill passed with bipartisan support. He might also have reported that it had bipartisan opposition.

The objection to the charter bill registered by the Indiana Coalition for Public Education was that it allowed private colleges and universities to be authorizers of charter schools. I and others in the ICPE believe that decisions committing public dollars to public charter schools must always be made by publicly elected or appointed entities, not by private college trustees who are not accountable to the public. It is bad public policy to let private entities determine the distribution of public money. Keep in mind, the authorizer gets to keep 3% of the public charter school tuition money for their trouble, so there is a financial incentive to push enrollment. Joel Hand, executive director of ICPE, gave strong testimony against allowing private colleges to be authorizers. In my own testimony, I argued the same point, saying that surely a new state charter board and many more mayors would expand charter schools enormously without the need to involve private colleges.

In a television interview, Kevin Brinegar, President of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, said that only private colleges that had a School of Education would be allowed to authorize charter schools, but he was incorrect. The only restriction on private colleges is that they must be non-proprietary colleges, that is, not-for-profit colleges.

Interestingly in the long debate over second reading amendments, coauthor Rep. Sullivan sponsored the amendment to delete private colleges as authorizers. One might think that her months of faithful work with Speaker Bosma as a coauthor might give her enough respect to gain bipartisan support in ending this one highly divisive provision. It didn’t work. Her amendment attracted the support of only two Republicans, and it was soundly defeated. As HB 1002 now stands, any not-for-profit private college or university approved by the state board can authorize any number of charter schools.

House Bill 1003 – School Vouchers

Whether to privatize public education is the question of our generation. I absolutely oppose giving public tax dollars for private school tuition. House Bill 1003 is the tip of the spear for privatization, providing both private school vouchers and expanded private school tax credits. It would push privatization further than any other state has ever done, making Indiana “Exhibit #1” for undermining public education with privatization measures. It deserves to be on anybody’s list of bills to fight with fervor.

Faithful readers of “Vic’s Statehouse Notes” already know the irreparable harm that HB 1003 would do to public school students. Notes #52, #60, #62, #63, #64, #65 and #66 have focused on details of this bill. No more needs to be added here, except to say the latest talking points document against HB 1003 is attached for your use with legislators and colleagues.

House Bill 1479 – Turnaround Academies

In a normal legislative session – and this is clearly not a normal session – House Bill 1479 would be a centerpiece of debate and controversy. As the session has unfolded, it has received almost no attention. It would be the first legislative revision of Public Law 221, Indiana’s accountability system. PL221 was passed as a collaborative bipartisan measure in 1999. This revision is clearly not bipartisan.

Here are its major provisions:

1) Consequences including state take-over for schools in the lowest (F) category of PL221 would now apply to schools that have been in the lowest two categories (D or F). This change would immediately jump the number of schools eligible for state take-over from about 20 to about 220. There would no longer be any real difference between D schools and F schools. Both categories would get the same consequences. This bill would have the practical effect of reducing the number of PL 221 categories for school ratings from five to four: A,B,C and F.

2) The state could turn schools in these lowest categories over to Turnaround School Operators (TSO’s) under a contract for 5 years. The contract could also be renewed for 5 years.

3) Nothing in the bill prohibits Turnaround School Operators from being for-profit management companies. Joel Hand, executive director of ICPE, testified against allowing for-profit managers under this bill. Chairman Behning, in response, expressed support for for-profit companies in this arena.

It seems clear to me that with for-profit companies, the public never knows whether students are getting the funding they should get or whether the company is shorting the students to maximize profits for owners and shareholders. It is a fundamental, unsolvable problem with for-profit school management companies working with public school students and public school dollars: Isn’t any level of profit going to take money away that could be funding student programs? Private companies do not want all financial matters to be transparent to let the public know about their profit margin.

This is the point from the bill that the House Democrats seem to be focused on.

4) After the turnaround school is successfully released from the contract, HB 1479 would make it an independent school not linked to its original school district. This is a new concept, and it is hard to know what it would mean. The language on the General Assembly website still says it would be an “independent school corporation,” but an amendment from Chairman Behning last Monday (Feb. 21st) when the bill passed committee took out the concept of “corporation.” The committee approved the bill 8-3 on a party line vote.

Any bill that could create over 200 independent schools, a new concept, certainly deserves a high level of attention for a complete statewide discussion and debate.

House Bill 1584 – Deregulation

HB 1584 was a vehicle bill and has had a strange history under the radar. To this moment, if you go to HB 1584 on the General Assembly website and click on “latest printing”, it will simply tell you it is a vehicle bill, which means it has been filed as a blank shell for possible later use to insert new language. The language inserted originally allowed the state board of education to grant a waiver to any school for any statute except for a short list of protected statutes, all in the name of deregulation. Discussions were held about the vast scope of these waivers at a meeting few attended. The low attendance had to do with the fact that the meeting was announced at the end of a late Monday night floor session to be held the next morning. No vote was taken at that meeting.

Then by Monday morning (Feb. 21), Chairman Behning amended the bill to call for a study of deregulation to be completed by Nov. 1, 2011. To see the final version of the bill that the House Education Committee approved 9-2 on Feb. 21st, click on “Committee Report” on the General Assembly website information under HB 1584.

In this form, the bill certainly does not carry the incredible consequences that the other three bills carry.

I hope these notes will give you the information you need to discuss these matters with legislators and others in the Third House sessions this weekend and throughout the coming week. Keep up the good work of communicating with legislators during this crucial time!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith vic790@aol.com
INDIANA COALITION FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

Questions for so-called education reformers

2011-02-15T06:42:00.000-08:00

Dr. Ed Eiler, Superintendent for the Lafayette School Corporation, recently paid for a full page ad in the

Lafayette Journal and Courier in support of public education and the issues we are dealing with right now
in the current State legislative session [worth qouting at length].

Privatization, vouchers, choice, and charter schools.

I am concerned about flight from the urban schools in Indiana that will result in an increase in the density and concentration of students living in poverty in our older cities. Any public policy that has that effect is unsound and will result in defacto segregation. Of equal concern is the possibility that students from rural schools will migrate to suburban schools. The reality is most school districts have a limited capacity to accept additional students. This will require school districts to implement selection criteria regarding who they will allow to enroll. While it would be possible to develop a limited number of neutral criteria such as allowing children of employees or students living within a specific geographic boundary, the potential for discriminatory policies is quite real if not on paper, then in implementation. In essence the state is enabling school districts to choose students. The parents who elect and are allowed to exercise the choice will be parents with the money to do so. If choice is to be a public policy, there could not be a worse form of choice. A far more defensible choice option would be to give students living in poverty (which should be defined as the threshold for free and reduced lunch, not the $101,982 for a family of four set forth in the Indiana School Scholarship Tax Program) who fail ISTEP the choice of where they go to school and require schools to provide transportation. This would have the effect of distributing poverty.

Present law holds the portent of substantial swings in enrollment. When combined with the volatility of sales tax revenue these circumstances will make it extremely difficult to plan, budget, and meet the needs of students.

There is also the question whether some schools will apply their cash transfer policies in a non-discriminatory fashion. It would be easy to deny some subsets of students. For example, this could hold true when a district has a reputation of providing excellent special education services. It would be very attractive for parents in neighboring districts to pay cash transfer to attend school in the district providing the better services. This raises the specter of overtaxing the resources of the district by being confronted with providing programs which are not adequately funded or merely not accepting the special education student as a cash transfer student. Of course there is the issue of athletics.

As in medicine the first litmus test for any public policy should be “do no harm”. A second test should be that the public policy should not generate greater problems than the problems the policy is designed to solve. In this case problems associated with urban districts with high poverty populations will make the problems of parents not being able to select the “best’ school pale by comparison. In part we are focusing on the wrong issue. The issue is how do we deliver quality education to all students? The bottom line is at present no proposal exists that creates an environment of fair competition.

There are a multitude of people in America with agendas. Not the least of which is greed and self-interest. There are people who believe they can make money in education through skimming the cream of the crop of students and those who will become richer by not having to support a public educational system. In America money buys influence and power. These motives should not drive educational decisions.

Currently a series of “documentary” style movies funded by voucher advocates including Waiting for Superman have painted a picture of a failing public school system in which no public educator is shown in anything but an unfavorable light, if at all, and charter schools are presented as the solution. (For a more complete analysis see Diane Ravitch’s, The Myth of Charter Schools, in the New York Times Review of Books.

Charter schools are not the panacea they are painted to be. Virtually every example of charters with substantial achievement results incorporates the ability of the charter to select students. Any school which is allowed to select students should be expected to outperform schools who are not allowed to select their students.

The foregoing notwithstanding, I believe there is a narrow niche charter schools could fill. They could serve as a safety net to ensure there is an educational alternative available for children who otherwise would not be receiving an education. That is in fact the reason the Lafayette School Corporation agreed to sponsor the one charter school it has sponsored.

There is a greater issue posed by privatization, vouchers, choice, and charter schools. The issue is much larger than the impact these policies may have on an individual school in a local community. The issue is one that will define who we are as a nation. Do we choose to be united or divided?

Vouchers cost taxpayers money because with vouchers the state has created two school systems, one private the other public. A study by Columbia University Professor Henry Levin concluded a national voucher plan would cost taxpayers nearly $33 billion additional dollars just to pay the tuition for students already in private schools. The Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau concluded that in Milwaukee where vouchers were offered, property taxes were higher than they would have been without a school choice program. Private school tuition does not cover the actual cost to educate students. While subsidies from other sources can be used to educate a select few children, such a model cannot be used for all students. Indiana’s solution is to fund vouchers and charter schools by taking money from existing public schools.

A United States Government Accounting Office study “found little or no difference in voucher and public school student’s performance.” In the vast majority of cases across the country voucher schools are not required to reveal student test results or give students the same tests required of public schools. The reality is private voucher schools are allowed to play by an entirely different set of rules than those imposed on public schools. They do not have to accept any child who wants to attend. What is the poverty at-risk student count, the number of students receiving free or reduced lunches, the number of limited English language, minority students, or special education students in the schools that want to tout their schools performance as better than public schools? True competition requires everyone to operate under the same set of rules. If that fails to occur, the idea that vouchers somehow introduce competition is intellectually dishonest. The current programs being discussed by policy makers and the public are not voucher plans. They are targeted assistance plans. Genuine choice requires every child be given the resources to make a free choice of where they attend school. This would require a huge investment of resources. Even if a portion of that money were directed towards our current public school system a vast majority of our children would benefit greatly.

Proponents of vouchers and privatization need to answer the following questions:

1. How will a system of private or charter schools do a better job of ensuring all children will have equal access to educational opportunity than the current system of public education?

2. What methods and techniques of instruction are used in private or charter schools that are better than those used in public schools? If there are some, for the good of the country don’t you think these should be shared with everyone?

3. What laws, rules, and regulations are private or charter schools exempted from that permit them to be more effective or efficient? If there are some and the nation is at risk, don’t you think all schools should be exempted from them?

The biggest problem confronting our world in the 21st century is and will remain the increasing schism between the haves and the have nots. Public schools help close that schism, not widen it. Public schools serve all children. Public schools try to teach respect for others and tolerance for differences. Public schools do not allow students to ignore content standards. Public schools aren’t about training children for a specific job at the expense of the arts. Public schools do not exist to make money for a select few. Public schools are about believing in all children and inspiring them to hope and dream.

Creativity and fresh thinking are not the sole purview of those in private or charter schools. If there are ideas that would benefit children, they need to be shared with everyone so that all children benefit. Our children are far too important for us to do otherwise.

During the last legislative session the legislature passed the Indiana School Scholarship Tax Program. Examination of the laws in other states underscores the significance of what is not contained in the Indiana School Scholarship Tax Program. There is no prohibition about the contribution directly benefiting the dependent of a donor. There is no language limiting the tax credit to a single parent of a child whose parents are divorced or separated. There is no prohibition in using the scholarships to fund the costs of teaching religious tenets or doctrines of worship. The program goes beyond providing scholarships only to people who qualify for free or reduced lunch.

It is clear the law was enacted to begin the process of funding private education. The law diminishes tax revenue available to the state. The law has the effect of attempting to remove the argument concerning government support of parochial schools by removing the government one step from the distribution of money directly to parochial schools. Given the nature of the income restrictions the law will advantage families of means, children already attending private schools, and children attending parochial schools.

Arguments about tax credits will continue. Should the state forego money that could be used by the state for other purposes including public schools and allow that money to fund private and parochial schools? Who should benefit from such a program? If a tax credit program is going to exist, what form should it take? Should it encompass a credit for all parents for educational expenses regardless of where a child attends school? Should the program be expanded to include funding educational reform and improvement initiatives? As a minimum, efforts need to be taken to amend the law to correct the lack of clear definitions and lack of transparency.

Some of the today’s most controversial proposals may have some merit. Seniority, the structure of the tenure system, and the scope of collective bargaining are legitimate topics for public policy discussions.

There are many educational reform proposals being made by state and national legislators. If these measures are built upon objective data and are modified by reasoned discourse, they should be implemented. If the intent of any proposal, however well disguised, is to serve political agendas, personal self interest, or is built upon popular prejudices supported by false claims, that reform should be discarded.

Public education is one of the pillars of our nation. As Horace Mann put it, “The public school is the greatest discovery made by man.” He believed education is best provided in schools embracing children of all religious, social, and ethnic backgrounds.

Do changes need to be made to our current system? The answer is yes. However, at present the environment of the discussion can be described best by Herman Wouk’s introduction to Caine Mutiny, “When in danger or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout.”

There is a substantive difference between opinion that is informed by peer reviewed research and uninformed opinion. Unfortunately in today’s world of viral media, uninformed opinion is given as much, if not more weight, than informed opinion. Discussion of educational reform must be informed, reflective, and respectful. I am concerned about the repercussions of some of the ill conceived proposals being offered. I am afraid they will create an even greater sense of confusion, frustration, turmoil, and will result in unwise public policies.

Addressing the challenge of educational reform requires far more words than this superficial treatment of the topic. It requires knowledgeable professionals engaged in research, study, discussion, and practice.

The idea of improvement and accountability are good ideas, but not wrapped in a package designed to degrade public education and spur privatization. I believe there is no better calling than nurturing, inspiring, and empowering children to learn. The task of educating our children is of vital importance to our future. The overwhelming majority of teachers and administrators chose the education profession to make a difference in the lives of children. I can only hope that everyone engaged in addressing the topic of educational reform will “Put Children First” as much as the overwhelming number of public school teachers and administrators do.

Edward E. Eiler, Ed.D., Supt, Lafayette School Corporation

Indiana's Reform: Follow the Money

2011-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

Bennett's education ties

Tony BennettAs the GOP-controlled Indiana General Assembly continues its assault on public education, Hoosiers should consider who benefits from the legislation under consideration. They'll see that Tony Bennett, superintendent of public instruction, would clearly be a winner.

The first-term Republican is backing an ambitious legislative agenda that includes private-school vouchers, expansion of charter schools, privatization of struggling schools and relaxed teacher-licensing requirements. Bennett told The Journal Gazette editorial board last week that he didn't really have a priority list for the bills. He said he instead wanted to focus on "comprehensive education reform."
"We've tried to do one thing at a time too much," he said. "My priority is to get it all accomplished."

Indeed, with Republican majorities in both the Indiana House and Senate, the state superintendent doesn't need to name a priority: He's finding enthusiastic support from GOP lawmakers for measures that have been dead on arrival in previous sessions. Approval of the legislation will surely boost the political profile of an official who some observers believe is positioning himself for a run for governor.

But Bennett, an unabashed charter-school supporter, also stands to benefit directly if the education bills are approved. His wife, Tina Bennett, is school improvement/new schools development consultant for the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association. Her work would presumably increase with the opening of new Indiana charter schools.

Tina Bennett is also assistant director of the Teach for America program at Marian University in Indianapolis. Marian's president is Daniel J. Elsener, who also happens to serve on the Indiana State Board of Education.
The small Catholic university was awarded a $500,000 principal training grant from the Indiana Department of Education last year. A spokeswoman for Tony Bennett told the Indianapolis Star at the time that the superintendent's wife wasn't involved in the program, but the contract proposal cites Marian's partnership with Teach for America as an example of prior leadership in the area of school turnaround programs.

Some in the education community say that Marian University had no experience in training school principals, while Indiana University, one of the unsuccessful bidders, has a well-established program in educational leadership. Critics don't want to be quoted on the record – they fear retribution from a powerful administration with the authority to control budgets and regulatory oversight.

Tony Bennett listed both Marian University and the charter school organization as his wife's employers on his handwritten financial disclosure form for 2010. Indiana law requires only that state officials disclose the names of a spouse's employers and the nature of their business.

It's left to voters to decide whether the official's responsibilities pose a conflict with his or her spouse's work. But in weighing education bills that will clearly benefit the state's charter school community and its turnaround school programs, Indiana lawmakers should take a closer look at who benefits from their support.

Parent Power Meeting on IPS High School Takeover

2011-02-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends of IPS,

Many of you have found a great school in IPS, but five high school's are slated for state takeover this year (mine is next year) and our district leaders have done little to work with parents and students to solve school problems. It has never held a community meeting on the issue. In the fall, Parent Power asked the Board to hold a truly open community forum, but the President thought there was little reason to meet with her constituents.

In the year since takeover threat was announced, Dr. White has balanced the calendar, closed schools, announced a new HS for one constituency, and shifted administrators from one failing school to the next, and now he is holding two budget cut meetings--with little or no notice to parents.

I plan to join Parent Power at the first Budget meeting Wed., Feb 9, 6 pm at Arlington HS, 4825 N. Arlington Ave., to make this meeting a truly open forum. Please join us and ask the Board to address issues you care about. If you can, join Parent Power Wednesday morning at 10am for a strategy session, at Central Library third floor meeting room (ask for the Parent Power room).

Josefa

253-1347

Why School Vouchers are Bad for Indiana

2011-01-27T06:45:00.000-08:00

7 Reasons Why Public Dollars Should Stay with Public School Students

and Should NOT Be Diverted To Help Private Schools

#1 PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE OPEN TO ALL - Public schools proudly take every student who comes to enroll. Private schools can pick and choose among applicants and can reject any student without an explanation. The inclusiveness of public schools requires support and resources.

#2 PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE THE BEDROCK OF DEMOCRACY - Public schools have been the key institution responsible for teaching about and perpetuating our democracy. Public schools are required by law to provide good citizenship instruction (IC20-30-5-6), to display the flag, and to “provide a daily opportunity to for students of the school corporation to voluntarily recite the Pledge of Allegiance in each classroom”, while in private schools, these matters are optional and unregulated.

#3 PUBLIC SCHOOLS NEED FINANCIAL STABILITY - Public schools need stable support to maintain and improve programs. Any incentive created by the General Assembly to use public funds to attract students to private schools will mean less money for the public school since the money follows the child. This dollar drain undercuts the stability of public school programs.

#4 PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE CENTERS OF THE COMMUNITY - Public schools bring the entire community together. Shifting to a publicly funded set of small private schools will fragment the community along religious and philosophical lines.

#5 PUBLIC SCHOOLS SERVE ALL INCOME LEVELS - Claims that vouchers are being directed to low income families ring hollow; the private school tax credit enacted in 2009 provided scholarships to families earning up to $81,586 for a family of four. House Bill 1003 would raise that limit to $101,982 for a family of four. Few would consider this to be “low-income.”

#6 PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAVE STEADILY IMPROVED - Claims that Indiana’s public school performance is declining are simply untrue. Steady improvement over the past 20 years in Indiana’s public schools has been clearly documented. Currently, Indiana’s public schools stand at or near their highest marks in history on attendance rate, SAT math, ACT, National Assessment, ISTEP+, and percentage earning Academic Honors diplomas and Core 40 diplomas. Indiana outperforms Florida on 4^th & 8^th grade math, 8^th grade reading, and 4^th & 8^th grade science on the National Assessment. Of course, more improvement is needed to meet global economic competition, but outsourcing students to private schools will undercut support and hamper further improvement in public schools. Parents who press leaders to fund improvements for their public schools will simply be told to take their child to a private school if they don’t like their public school.

#7 PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE NOT SECTARIAN - Regarding school choice, of course many families would choose religious schools for their children for religious reasons. Taxpayers, however, should not be obligated to send students to parochial schools even if that is the choice of the parents. That is why the Indiana Constitution says: “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.” Our public policies must avoid financial entanglements with religious schools. School choice should be offered within the arena of public schools, through neighborhood schools, magnet schools, tuition transfer to nearby districts, virtual schools and the 62 charter schools now available.

...Let your voice be heard! Call or write your legislator.

Fighting Bad "Reform" in Indiana

2011-01-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

For those interested in public education, two new groups have formed: Indiana Coalition for Public Education (see message below) and Indiana Democrats for Education Reform (http://www.indfer.com/
contact: larrygrau@gmail.com)

____________________________________________
Dear Friends,

Will parents, educators and community members who are advocates for public education show up at the Statehouse to fight the biggest privatization of public schools ever proposed in Indiana?

We’re about to find out.

House Bill 1003 has been introduced, and it could shift as much as $110 million from public schools to private schools. It would make Indiana the Voucher Capital of the US. The Star called the proposal “the most expansive publicly funded school voucher program in the nation.”

It will be given a hearing one of these Wednesdays at the regular 8:30am meeting of the House Education, perhaps even this Wednesday, Jan. 26th. We don’t know yet. Are you ready to come to the Statehouse to testify and to talk with your legislators?

Here, in brief, are some of the major provisions:

• The current tax credit program for private school tuition (established in 2009)

• would get as much as $12.5 million per year in tax money, up from the current $2.5 million

• would gradually rise to an 80% tax credit for donors, up from the current 50%

• would be available to a family of four earning $101,982, up from the current $81,586

• would be available to students who had been in a public school the previous two semesters

• The new voucher program (using average amounts cited by LSA; actual voucher amounts vary by districts)

• would give a family of four making less than $40,793 a voucher of $4.964 for private school tuition.

• would give a family of four making less than $81,586 a voucher of $2,758 for private school tuition.

• would give a family of four making less than $101,982 a voucher of $1,379 for private school tuition.

• would include private schools that do not give ISTEP but give norm-referenced tests.

• would have no limits except the limits on seats available in private schools, estimated to be 20,000.

The fiscal note from the Legislative Services Agency estimates that the reduction in tuition support for public schools will be $5.5 million per year for every 1000 students who transfer from public to private. Multiply that figure by the 20,000 potential transfers based on seats available, and the total amount that could potentially transfer from public schools to private schools is $110 million.

Is there any righteous indignation left out there in the public school community?

Indiana has many religious families, and if the state will pay for a religious education for their child, of course they are going to take up the offer, even if they are currently happy with their public school. Paying for religious school tuition, however, is not what our Constitution envisioned.

Will you tell your legislators to oppose this bill?

Perhaps years of demeaning the public schools with the flawed AYP measures of No Child Left Behind have left the public confused about public schools. If this voucher plan doesn’t put public school folks into gear, nothing will. If you would want to come to the hearing, whenever it is, to testify against this bill, you might want to review the attached page entitled “7 Reasons Why Public Dollars Should Stay with Public School Students.” Testimony should be short and to the point. Bring your passion.

I hope to see you in the Statehouse whenever the House Education Committee holds a hearing on HB 1003.

Best wishes,

Vic Smith: vic790@aol.com
Indiana Coalition for Public Education

How the "Logic" of Reform Works in Indiana

2011-01-19T05:26:00.000-08:00

Good, thoughtful critique of Tony Bennett's mode of operation: misinformation, selective memory, and hyperbole in order to further an ideological agenda. She's right, we have to rebut these efforts of bad information and speak with our neighbors and colleagues; we have to continue to tell the other side of the story.

STEPHANIE SALTER: Another batch of my status-quo-defending misinformation on schools

The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — The day after state schools chief Tony Bennett responded to my three-column education series, a longtime friend and veteran teacher called.

“I just read the superintendent’s rebuttal in the Tribune-Star,” my friend said. “All I can conclude from it is that you are a dumbass. Welcome to the club. Anybody who doesn’t buy into his vision of education reform is considered a dumbass.”

The superintendent didn’t use such a coarse term in his opinion piece, but my friend is right. Ignorance (or worse) was implied throughout Bennett’s column. Among the charges: My series “completely misinterprets” the Indiana Department of Education’s “efforts to provide all Hoosier students with quality education opportunities.”

For those who missed it, I wrote what thousands of Indiana teachers know in their heart — that Bennett and his boss, Gov. Mitch Daniels, play fast and loose with statistics and anecdotal evidence in their committed campaign to paint Hoosier schools as “a mess” in need of radical reform. The last of the three columns consisted entirely of quotes from teachers, all over the state, who responded to the first two pieces.

Although Bennett accused me of repeatedly spreading “both inaccurate information and fear,” he provided not a single example of either. If the errors were in my Dec. 5 piece — a fact-filled attempt to counter a few of the gross misrepresentations offered by Bennett and Daniels — the superintendent didn’t say. If the alleged misinformation was in the fact-filled Dec. 5 sidebar by retired educator Vic Smith, none of that made Bennett’s essay, either.

In another omission, Bennett waxed poetic about a large, Dec. 9 gathering of educators at Deming Elementary in Terre Haute. He said he left with “an overwhelming feeling of optimism regarding IDOE’s efforts to provide all Hoosier students with an academically rigorous and globally competitive education.”

Sounds like a real join-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya scene, right? Typical of his (and Daniel’s) selective memory, Bennett left out the part about the thunderous ovation Vigo County schools superintendent Dan Tanoos received that night when he feistily challenged the state chief to “make us feel like you are advocating on our behalf instead of against us.”

Neither did Bennett mention West Vigo High School Principal Tom Balitiewicz’s refusal to wear the mantle of stumbling failure that Bennett and Daniels seem determined to hang around every school district’s neck.

Bennett also chose not to recount a stellar point made by Patty Curley, who has taught in Vigo public schools since 1984. Describing stints at two schools with very different socio-economic makeups, Curley said that if she had been judged as a teacher based on students’ test scores — as Bennett and Daniels advocate — she would have been deemed a bad one at the lower economic school and a “very highly effective teacher” at the wealthier school. Her teaching skills would not have changed, Curley said, only the situation in which she employed them.

Bennett did offer one curious example in his essay to indicate that I choose to short-change children so I can “defend the status quo.” Twenty of Indiana’s “consistently low-performing schools are at risk of facing state intervention at the end of the school year,” he wrote. Acknowledging that those 20 schools make up “only about 1 percent of all Indiana schools,” Bennett nonetheless scolded me and my ilk, saying, “we must not forget the thousands of real students held captive in those classrooms.” My series, he wrote, “ignores the plight of children in desperate need of better schooling.”

See the way the logic works?

I show in print how the governor and schools chief wrongly portray all of Indiana public education as an oil spill in need of a Herculean cleanup — the BP disaster metaphor is Bennett’s, not mine — and that makes me a compassion-challenged misinformation peddler who cares nothing for thousands of kids in a handful of schools that really are failing.

I show with numbers, studies and legitimate context that Indiana public education, overall, is pretty much in the middle of the nation’s pack — not ready for life support as Daniels and Bennett seem to imply every time they get near a PowerPoint — and I become another selfish, change-resistant defender of the status quo.

Another dumbass.

Like many elected and appointed leaders these days, Daniels and Bennett have an education agenda — and it looks like major restructuring better suited for a failing mega-business than for a public school system. The cruel irony is, some of the system’s thorniest problems are the result of often conflicting standards and benchmarks foisted upon educators by state and federal legislators who could not survive one day in a real classroom.

To sell such reform to taxpayers, bad news must be emphasized (or presented out of context), good news must be ignored, and people who question wholesale change for everyone must be vilified.

As I learned from scores of e-mails, letters and phone calls, many of Indiana’s most dedicated public school teachers and administrators feel beaten down by the Bennett-Daniels’ campaign to reform them. These teachers contend with social and economic problems that educators of my era could not have imagined in their worst nightmares. Whether it’s numerous students with severe learning disabilities or kids whose parents sell their teacher-donated clothes to buy methamphetamine, 21st century public schools demand that teachers use everything they’ve learned in college — and in life — every day.

A recent, telling statistic: In 2006, 36 percent of Hoosier students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, the litmus for what we now call economic hardship. This year, the percentage is more than 45 percent. Do you suppose that factor influences a kid’s ability to pass ISTEP?

Here’s a more encouraging statistic, regarding graduation rates, which frequently are cited as dismal by Daniels: Hoosier rates tumbled in 2006 to 76.4 percent from 89.5 percent, when the state recalibrated its method of graduation accounting. They have been rising ever since, recovering to 84.1 percent this year. The increase includes the Indianapolis Public School system, which still has an alarmingly low rate (58.3 percent), but has risen 10 percent in four years.

As a Fort Wayne Journal Gazette editorial put it: “The figures show steady and encouraging progress statewide — without the influence of vouchers, merit pay or teacher evaluations tied to test scores.”

After my series, message after message included a request to “keep telling our side of the story.” I understand the urgency, but even if I were not taking the next few months off, I couldn’t counter the misinformation about public education that flows from Indianapolis and Washington. Teachers, principals and district superintendents have to find a way to do that.

Teachers, let your unions bargain for your contracts, but hire or draft a team of knowledgeable spokespeople not connected to the unions who can rebut skewed sound bites and twisted statistics every time one is uttered. Speak up to your neighbors, your church members, your students’ parents and your local newspaper when you hear another politician accuse you of something you know isn’t true — like the governor’s repeated claim about how poorly Hoosier students perform on national reading and math tests.

The best defense is a good offense. Make certain all those incoming members of the Indiana General Assembly understand that if they rubber-stamp unproven, radical education reforms — instead of funding proven approaches such as full-day kindergarten — they will pay in the next election.

Parents and other taxpayers, at the very least, exercise some skepticism. A clear picture of education requires context. Examine statistics; find out whether an accuser is talking about 20 failing schools or an entire state system. Beware of open-and-shut vilification. Don’t accept a one-size-fits-all solution from either side of the issue. If you are confused or concerned about a politician-reformer’s charges, ask a teacher you trust to weigh in.

In the meantime, if someone implies you’re a dumbass because you think the majority of Indiana’s public educators are doing a good job and want to do even better — smile. You are in excellent and plentiful company. Welcome to the club.

LINK:

Vouchers in Indiana

2011-01-06T11:15:00.000-08:00

"In the cities, vouchers would quickly solidify a two-tiered educational system consisting of nonpublic schools and pauper schools. That development would impoverish us all, because it would represent an abandonment of efforts to improve education for disadvantaged youngsters, who are already a majority in most US cities."
-Mary Anne Raywid, Public Choice, yes; Vouchers, no! 1987

Mitch Daniels Voucher Plan
"The voucher proposal — backed by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett — is sure to be controversial but is expected to be well-received by a majority of Republicans in the Indiana House and Senate. Two years ago, Republicans won approval for a much more modest program that provides tax credits to individuals who contribute to private school scholarships."

Discuss:

Bennett silent on dramatic graduation gains

2010-12-29T09:02:00.000-08:00

A letter to the editor at the IndyStar points to the troubling evidence that more is going on with Supt. Bennett/Mitch Daniels and their education agenda. Certainly statistics can be manipulated (a critique offered in the comments) but NCLB has improved our ability to report on actual student achievement. The problem is that findings showing progress don't fit the party line of blaming teachers and claiming the system is irretreivably broken. We all need to be asking these hard questions as this agenda moves forward.
___________________________________
I'd like to congratulate the public school students and teachers in Marion County and across the state for the dramatic gain in the graduation rates. As a recently retired teacher who was involved in implementing the tougher state standards that are now in place, it is heartwarming to see students and schools meet the challenges and succeed.

There will always be those who say the rate is still too low. Fine. Of course we want all students to graduate, so we just keep working toward that goal.

What I find most disappointing is the lack of acknowledgement from state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett about this accomplishment. Bennett's silence, when taken in the context of the agenda he intends to put forward in the next legislative session, is further evidence that his unspoken intention is to dismantle the public school system in the state.

What other conclusion could be drawn? An acknowledgment of successful and improving public schools certainly doesn't support the need for more charter schools.

Jay Hill, Indianapolis

What does the future hold for Urban Education in Marion County?

2010-12-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Public, Private, or Charter Schools?

What does the future hold for Urban Education in Marion County?
__________________________________________________________________________
Monday, January 10, 2011, (6:00-8:00 p.m.)

Pike High School – (Pike Freshman Center)
5401 West 71st Street
Indianapolis, IN. 46268

Panelists (1st Session)
• Dr. Khaula Murtadha, Associate Vice Chancellor for Life Long Learning, IUPUI

• Dr. Eugene White, Superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools

• Nakia Douglas, Assistant Principal and Director of Special Education - Charles A. Tindley

• Pat Payne, IPS Director of Multicultural Education

• Clete Ladd- Director, Indianapolis Metropolitan High School

• Mariama Shaheed-Carson Principal, Snacks Crossing Elementary School

Panelists (2nd Session)
• Nate Jones, Superintendent of MSD of Pike Township Schools

• Marcus Robinson -Principal/CEO, Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School

• Carol Craig, Indianapolis NAACP Education Co-Chair andState Co-Chair

• Brandon Cosby -Principal, Shortridge Magnet High School for Law & Public Policy

• Dr. Diana Daniels President of National Council on Educating Black Children

• Sherlynn Pillow Principal, Holy Angels School

Note:

• This event is FREE and open to the public. Refreshments and reception: 5:30 p.m.

• All parents, students, educators, and community members are welcome to attend.

For more information:

• Dr. Cathi Cornelius - 317-955-6139 - ccr@marian.edu
• Leroy Robinson -317-502-0272 - educationdoesmatter@hotmail.com

Sponsored by:

• IndianapolisAlliance of Black School Educators (IABSE)

• The INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER NEWSPAPER

Making the grade for IU's School of Education

2010-12-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

Only above-average students make the grade for IU's
education school
a letter to the editor in response to the misinformation in a recent column by Andrea Neal....it is important to stay diligent and get the facts as we all work for better schools in Indiana--misrepresentation, political spin, and distortions get us nowhere. Ms. Neal should not only be embarrased but she should apologize.

I am writing in response to Andrea Neal's Nov. 24 column on raising teacher standards. I agree that the way to improve schools is to improve teachers. To do that, as Neal suggested, it is essential to recruit the best and brightest into teaching and prepare them well to be effective teachers. But spreading misinformation about schools of education dilutes that effort.

In her column, Neal mistakenly suggests that U.S. teachers come disproportionately from the bottom third of their high-school cohort groups. She adds that Indiana University accepts into its teacher education program students with cumulative GPAs as low as 2.5 on a 4-point scale. The implication is that IU education students are selected from the bottom third of high school graduates.

The fact is that before students are admitted to the IU School of Education they first must earn admission to IU. On the Bloomington campus, the average high school GPA of entering freshmen this fall was 3.69 on a 4-point scale and their average SAT score was 1199. This puts the majority of IU entering freshmen in the top 10 percent of high school graduates in Indiana.

Among these top-ranked students admitted to IU, those interested in education as a major must apply to the School of Education and meet additional admissions requirements. These requirements include at least a 2.5 average GPA in freshmen and sophomore arts and science college courses and no grade lower than "C" in pre-professional education courses. In addition, students must pass the math, reading and writing portions of the Praxis teacher license test of basic skills, and complete specific requirements in the content field they will teach.

The actual average college GPA of students admitted to the School of Education in Bloomington this fall was 3.39 on a 4-point scale. The requirement of at least 2.5 GPA in college courses before admission to the School of Education is higher than that of most other academic units on the Bloomington campus, which typically require a minimum 2.0 GPA.

To attract even more high-performing students, last year the School of Education in Bloomington instituted a new Direct Admits Scholars program that guarantees admission to entering IU freshmen who have distinguished themselves as outstanding students in high school. The average high school GPA of students admitted to the School of Education through this program is 3.82 on a 4-point scale.

But the real test of a high-quality teacher education program is the performance of graduates. This year eight of the 10 finalists for Indiana Teacher of the Year were alumni of the IU School of Education in Bloomington and Indianapolis. The Teacher of the Year and the runner--up are graduates of the Bloomington program. Two of the four Indiana finalists for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching announced a few weeks ago are IU School of Education alumni. That award is the highest recognition that a mathematics or science teacher may receive for outstanding teaching in the United States, an award won by an alumna two years ago.

We should indeed learn from international comparisons, find ways to increase starting pay for teachers, and continuously strive to improve the pipeline of professionals for the classroom. A productive discussion, however, has to be based on facts and a more thorough understanding of how successful American schools of education prepare teachers. It serves no purpose to spread misinformation about schools that are doing an excellent job preparing teachers. To do so only undermines the effort to recruit top students into teaching.

Gonzalez is dean of the Indiana University School of Education.

Grading Education Reform

2010-11-29T07:55:00.000-08:00

....an interesting presentation of some of the faulty logic in contemporary school reform. Something similar was suggested when the IDOE decided to get in the business of mandated the curriculum of Schools of Education--would it even be thinkable to imagine that the state would do this for the School of Medicine? Thoughts?

My View: Instead of slogans, try this to improve schools

Written by Steve Fox

For their efforts in school reform, I would like to award a grade of F to: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, all members of Congress who have voted for No Child Left Behind
legislation, all state governors and legislators who have supported standardized testing, accountability and choice as the answers to education problems, and all state superintendents of public instruction who have supported those simplistic answers.

That grade should result, at the minimum, in lowered pay for these policymakers, possibly reassignment to new jobs or, in some cases, dismissal. If any are already retired or have been fired by the voters, then we can require them to do public service, assisting teachers in their overcrowded, underfunded classrooms.

I apologize for any hurt feelings or damaged careers that result from my rigorous grading. However, we must put students at the center and not worry about the concerns of adults.

Now let's move on to some meaningful school reform.
Students are people, not widgets. We cannot evaluate student learning the way we might evaluate production on an assembly line. Try this interesting analogy. Give all the doctors in Indianapolis 180
patients each. These doctors have one year to work with these patients and improve their health. By the end of the year, we would ideally like to see 100 percent of those patients with passing scores on all
their medical tests. And we would like the doctors to spend at least 25 percent of their time with each patient doing repeated tests. Also, these doctors must follow medical and health procedures designed by policymakers who have no medical training. These doctors should not belong to the American Medical Association, because we all know the AMA is a selfish organization that cares only about defending bad doctors. Also, we are not interested in the patients' overall health, or any squishy talk about holistic medicine or mind-body connections or social conditions that affect health.

Just deliver the results, please.

Getting the Data Right--Progress in Indiana

2010-11-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

Here, Here! No one we know supports the status quo....but accurate reporting and resisting political spin has to insisted upon.

Data tell story of progress in our public schools

Written by John Ellis

Gov. Mitch Daniels, in his Nov. 7 opinion piece ("Student-centered learning should be our top focus") regarding education in Indiana, stated: "Only the most selfish special interests still insist on defending the status quo." No argument there. Our students deserve the best, and we know all schools are not as good as all of our students deserve.

I commend the governor for his support to require highly effective teachers for all of our children and improved accountability for all schools. Those are big issues and worthy of our time, debate and efforts to make significant improvements. However, we won't get there by ignoring Indiana's educational successes. The governor stated: "Indiana has led the nation in many areas lately . . . but we can make no such claim about K-12 education."

Indiana's public schools have improved in several important measures over the past two decades, according to data from the Indiana Department of Education, the College Board, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and ACT Inc. It is a risk, when speaking to facts, that one is likely to be labeled as a defender of the status quo. But facts are not controlled by opinion.

On the NAEP, the "national reading and math test," Indiana has consistently outperformed the nation on all 35 assessments since 1990. Indiana's composite score on the ACT rose to 22.2 in 2008-09, the highest mark in state history. Indiana ACT scores have exceeded national averages in all 20 years of the study.

Verbal SAT scores rose from 490 in 1988-89 to an historic high of 504 in 2004-05. Since then, a revised SAT shows reading and writing scores separately. Reading has fallen to 496 in 2008-09, down from 498 in 2005-06. Writing has fallen to 480 in 2008-09, down from 486 in 2005-06. These scores came while Indiana tested 63 percent of all graduates, 17 percent more than the nation as a whole, thus giving more marginal students a chance at college. SAT math scores on the old SAT went up from 487 in 1988-89 to 508 in 2004-05, another top performance in state history. In the four years of the revised SAT, Indiana scored 509, 507, 508 and 507 respectively, maintaining a high performance level on a more difficult test.

The dropout rate was 8.7 percent for the Class of 2009, improving from 10.3 percent, 11.9 percent and 11.2 percent in three previous years of the new system that tracks every student. Hoosier public schools have successfully raised daily attendance in 15 of the past 20 years to the highest level in our state history. In the four years of the revised SAT, Indiana scored 509, 507, 508 and 507 respectively, maintaining a high performance level on a more difficult test.

The dropout rate was 8.7 percent for the Class of 2009, improving from 10.3 percent, 11.9 percent and 11.2 percent in three previous years of the new system that tracks every student. Hoosier public schools have successfully raised daily attendance in 15 of the past 20 years to the highest level in our state's history, 96.1 percent. The percent of graduates aspiring to go to college went up 19 of the 20 years to reach 76.9 percent in 2008-09, the highest level in state history. The need for this improvement has had consistently strong support from the governor.

The data show improvement in Indiana's public schools. Let's build from there, knowing that continuous improvement is never concluded, but ongoing, and needs to be consistently and accurately measured and reported.

Ellis is executive director of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents.

Thoughful Moderator in Education Reform

2010-11-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

An editorial from the Indy Star unusually offers a bit of a voice of reason in the fervor to "reform" Indiana's schools. Good cautions here but if you've been following the Daniels/Bennett agenda, "a thoughtful moderator" doesn't seem likely.
Thoughts?

Strike balance in push to better educate children- Indy Star

Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Indiana General Assembly need to move quickly but also thoughtfully to overhaul Indiana's educational system. Last week's election results gave the governor and his Republican allies in the Statehouse a clear path to pursue reforms they've long desired, including merit pay for teachers, less rigidity in union work rules, and more freedom to open charter schools.

Much of Daniels' agenda makes sense, at least on paper. But the governor, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett and legislative leaders still need to show how ideas such as bonus pay for top-performing teachers will work in real-life schools.

And although the push to provide parents with additional options for educating their children is certainly welcome, the track record for charter schools is mixed. Some charters, like some traditional schools, are outstanding [19%, that's one in five people]. Others are mediocre at best. [and some are criminally negligent]

Teachers unions in Indiana have long brandished too much power in the General Assembly. Year after year, they've persuaded allies such as outgoing House Speaker Pat Bauer to kill good ideas and to promote measures that favor adults' interests over children's. Curtailing the unions' power is long overdue.

Yet, a balance must be struck. Veteran teachers need enough job security to ensure that they're not driven from classrooms because of the failure of others, including administrators and parents. Accountability is a vital concept, but it's critical that results are measured accurately and rewards and demerits are meted out fairly.

On Tuesday, the governor and the state superintendent were given a clear opportunity to move aggressively. They can't waste it. But every reform-minded leader needs someone who is able to moderate excesses and promote accountability.

With Democrats reduced to the point of irrelevancy in the Statehouse, and deservedly so because of their absolute refusal to confront Indiana's educational problems, others must emerge to vet ideas driven by Daniels and Bennett.

It wouldn't be disloyal but prudent for Republican leaders such as likely House Education Committee Chairman Robert Behning and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Luke Kenley to take the lead on ensuring that reform measures aren't rushed through the legislative process.

Educators in the state's public and private universities also can help evaluate the flood of new proposals, including one that would provide financial incentives for some students to skip their senior year of high school to start college early.

Is the status quo acceptable in Indiana's schools? Absolutely not. But not every reform idea has merit.

Daniels and Bennett clearly understand the task ahead of them. They will be aggressive agents of change on behalf of the state's children. The key job of thoughtful moderator, however, is for now vacant.

Dark Days in Indiana

2010-11-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Q: Who's the biggest loser in November's election?
A: Public Education (Ann Delany, Indiana Week in Review)

Nov. 2nd Vote on the end of Public Education

2010-10-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

A critical piece of commentary on the future of public education in Indiana. Read it, take some notes, and pass it too a friend--then, for God's sake, VOTE.___________________________
The House Republicans of the Indiana House of Representatives, in their election agenda issued in early September, have called for private school vouchers and expanded private school tax credits if they gain control of the House in the November 2nd elections.

I oppose private school vouchers and tax credits, which would divert public money to private schools and insure the slow death of public schools through the gradual loss of both funding and community support. Therefore I must oppose the efforts of House Republican to win a majority in the House with my vote and with my voice.

Specifically, House Republicans call for public dollars to fund “grants” to allow students in “failing schools” to attend private schools, ignoring numerous public and charter options already available. They also call for an expansion of the tax credit program passed in the 2009 budget which diverts $2.5 million in state tax money to fund private school scholarships for “low-income families”. “Low-income” as defined in the 2009 law includes those making up to $81,586 for a family of four. Is that really “low income”?

Control of the House has been determined by a razor thin margin for years. Currently, Democrats hold the advantage 52-48. In 2005, when Republicans last recaptured the Indiana House by a 52-48 margin, I witnessed an epic legislative battle for several months on a bill to establish both private school vouchers and tax credits. Finally on April 7th, an amendment to remove vouchers from the bill passed 57-41 vote, with 10 courageous Republicans bucking their caucus leaders to resist private school vouchers.

Now, after retirements and primary election defeats, only two of those ten are still in the legislature. More recently in the 2010 short session, an amendment to SB309 was offered to allow tax credits for contributions to private schools, and only two Republican representatives opposed it.

The picture is clear. If they are in control, the Republican leadership will not fail in their efforts to bring private school vouchers and expanded tax credits to Indiana. Therefore, the Nov. 2nd election is a referendum on the blockbuster issue of our generation: privatizing schools by supporting private schools with public funds.

This fundamental issue should not get lost in the din of campaign ads on other topics. With a legal mission to teach the Constitution and the attributes of good citizenship, public schools have been the key institution responsible for perpetuating our democracy. Giving public incentives to attend private and parochial schools will ultimately weaken public schools and destroy the community support that they must have to give all students who show up at the door a quality education. It will accelerate the fragmentation of our society along sectarian lines.

I believe that Indiana’s Constitution got it right in Article 1:”No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.” Our public policies must avoid financial entanglements with religious schools.

Advocates for public education who agree with me need to be aware that those supporting private school vouchers believe they are on the brink of success for a goal they have pursued for years. Whether public dollars stay with public schools or will be diverted to private schools will be determined in the all-important November 2nd election. Those who wish to protect public schools from these privatization strategies should actively participate in the election for members of the Indiana House of Representatives. On this crucial issue, the battle lines are clear.

LINK:

The ineffectiveness of Merit Pay

2010-09-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

Remember this as the Bennett DOE continues to follow the path of market-based reforms. Paying for performance sounds good and seems to make sense--except for the pesky little detail that it doesn't work.

Study: Teacher Bonuses Fail To Boost Test Scores

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

text size A A A

ATLANTA September 21, 2010, 04:33 pm ET

Offering big bonuses to teachers failed to raise students' test scores in a three-year study released Tuesday that calls into question the Obama administration's push for merit pay to improve education.

The study, conducted in the metropolitan Nashville school system by Vanderbilt University's National Center on Performance Incentives, was described by the researchers as the nation's first scientifically rigorous look at merit pay for teachers.

It found that students whose teachers were offered bonuses of up to $15,000 a year for improved test scores registered the same gains on standardized exams as those whose teachers were given no such incentives.

"I think most people agree today that the current way in which we compensate teachers is broken," said Matthew Springer, executive director of the Vanderbilt center and lead researcher on the study. "But we don't know what the better way is yet."

The study comes as the Obama administration encourages school systems to link teacher pay and tenure to how students perform on tests and other measures of achievement.

The researchers looked at fifth- through eighth-grade math teachers from 2007 to 2009. A group of about 300 teachers started out in the study; half were eligible for the bonuses, the other half were not.

The bonuses were given out based on improvements in scores on Tennessee's standardized exam, which is used by the state as part of the federal No Child Left Behind requirements.

Springer was quick to point out that his study looked only at individual bonuses, not extra pay doled out to teams of teachers or an entire school. He said more research is needed.

"Some people were initially disappointed when they saw the results, but quickly turned around and said, 'Well, at least we finally have an answer,'" he said. "It means pay can't do it alone."

The U.S. Education Department called the study too narrowly focused.

"It only looked at the narrow question of whether more pay motivates teachers to try harder," said spokeswoman Sandra Abrevaya. "What we are trying to do is change the culture of teaching by giving all educators the feedback they need to get better while rewarding and incentivizing the best to teach in high-need schools, hard-to-staff subjects."

The American Federation of Teachers praised the study and argued that teachers need other resources, including better training and more supportive administrators.

"Merit pay is not the panacea that some would like it to be. There are no quick fixes in education," said union president Randi Weingarten. "Providing individual bonuses for teachers standing alone does not work."

Teachers unions have historically opposed merit pay, arguing that test scores are not an accurate measure of student achievement, that financial rewards could pit teachers against each other, and that administrators could use bonuses to reward favorites and punish others.

Jennifer Conboy, a high school social studies teacher in Miami, called merit pay a "baseless fad."

"Merit pay is an excuse to resist the attempt of teachers to get fair pay in the first place," the 37-year-old Conboy said. "On a personal level, merit pay would do nothing to me. I took this job because I think education is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and if I cared about democracy — which I do — then I had a responsibility to do whatever I could to strengthen education."

Only a few schools and districts across the country have merit pay, and in some states the idea is effectively illegal. The Obama White House hoped to encourage more states to pass merit pay laws with its $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant competition.

Some states tried to enact merit bonuses for teachers, but most, like Georgia, were unable to get the necessary laws passed. Colorado passed a controversial law that ties teacher pay to student performance and allows the state to strip tenure from low-performing instructors, but the state did not win the Race to the Top grant money it was counting on to help carry out the law.

Only about half of the 300 teachers originally in the Nashville study were left at the end of the three years because some retired, moved to other schools or stopped teaching math. About 40 teachers got bonuses each year. Overall, the researchers said, test scores rose modestly for both groups of students during the three-year study, suggesting that the financial incentives made no difference.

"It's not enough to say, 'I'll pay you more if you do better.' You've got to help people know how to do better," said Amy Wilkins, vice president of the Education Trust, a Washington think tank. "Absolutely we should reward them once they do better, but to think merit pay alone will get them there is insane."

(This version CORRECTS amount of Race to the Top program.)

Corruption in Indiana Education "reform"

2010-08-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

Let's not even talk for now about the foolishness of sending money to Teach for America (see Newteacher for new research)....this is just plain ol' nepotism and political corruption. Here's to hoping the voters wake up.

Indiana's super connections

By Karen Francisco
The Journal Gazette

Plenty of education observers have pointed out State Superintendent Tony Bennett's enthusiastic and unquestioning support for charter schools and his wife's job as a school improvement consultant for the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association. Tina Bennett, a former school principal in Clark County, landed the job after her husband was elected to the state's top school post.

But there's now another interesting connection between the Indiana Department of Education and the superintendent's wife. Tina Bennett supervises the Teach for America program at Marian University, which just landed a $500,000 contract from the DOE to run a program to train principals for turnaround schools. A DOE spokeswoman told the Indianapolis Star that Tina Bennett had no involvement in developing the program at the university, which has an enrollment of about 1,800 full- and part-time students.

Last month, the DOE announced the award of $15.5 million in School Improvement Grants to four of the state's lowest-achieving schools. Two of the four were charter schools and members of the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association.

Indiana's lax conflict of interest laws require only that state officials declare the name (or names, in this case) of a spouse's employer, which Tony Bennett dutifully did on his 2009 financial disclosure statement. Voters, however, should note that -- within a three-week period -- the Department of Education has awarded $3.85 million in grants and contracts to entities with close ties to the superintendent's wife.

The Students End Up Losing

2010-08-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

The good people at NUVO usually do a better job than this in their reporting (note that they only talked to politicians and union folks--how about some outside perspectives?). Unfortunately, we need to clarify here: new standards mean new tests, which in this administration means outsourcing more public money out to private test companies. BTW, there's no research at all that this move will improve achievement so, really, this is more smoke and mirrors, wasted effort that doesn't really help kids and teachers. Another odd thing here is for Republicans to give up local control in education....hmm, it makes one wonder what's really going here in the Daniels strategy session.

Resetting the bar for state education

In the days preceding Indiana's adoption of new national education guidelines, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett's efforts at persuasion were met with what has come to typify teacher response to almost anything coming from the state: skepticism.

"It's very important to understand that this is a state-driven initiative," Bennett argued in an attempt to reassure a crowd assembled in Indianapolis earlier this month – part of the superintendent's recent statewide tour to meet with Indiana educators. "We have been on the ground floor in discussing these issues."

The new national guidelines, known as Common Core Standards, will eventually replace Indiana's current set of state mandates for gauging how and what students are taught. Earlier this month, Indiana became one of at least 33 states to have adopted the measure so far.

Bennett, like other local and federal officials, took pains to emphasize states' roles in crafting those standards at this month's meeting. But a cascade of guffaws and muffled laughs seemed to indicate not every teacher present was convinced the effort was locally-grown.

"That is the consensus from teachers around the state — that this was not really some local, home-grown decision," explained Teresa Meredith, vice president of the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), a teachers union, and a teacher in Shelbyville. "But, hopefully, by working between Dr. Bennett and the ISTA, we can change that."

That the state is moving forward on Common Core at all is a change of pace given recent impasses between state and union leaders.

In April, Indiana educators failed to put together a bid for millions in cash from the federal government's Race to the Top program, aimed at spreading $4.35 billion among states that best exemplify the kinds of reform the government is looking for. The Common Core Standards were meant to be a part of that drive, and Indiana stood to gain up to $250 million in federal education subsidies for a winning bid.

But territorial issues between the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) and ISTA proved contentious. Disputes between the two groups torpedoed the bid at a time when the state has cut $297 million from schools for the current two-year budget – cuts that could get deeper if the latest state revenue numbers are any indication.

Such disputes have some wondering if state officials and educators will ever learn to get along – and how many more opportunities will fall by the wayside in the meantime.

Julie Havill-Weems, training director for the Indiana Parent and Information Resource Center (PIRC), a parents advocacy group, said it was "frustrating," when students missed out because state and union officials couldn't agree. "When you aren't able to forge those strong partnerships that focus on student outcomes, with the loss of that prize, what we're really looking at is an example of the potential fallout that directly impacts our students," she said. "The students end up losing."

'A step in the right direction'

When President Barack Obama launched Race to the Top in 2009, his administration was careful distinguish it from the No Child Left Behind program put in place by his predecessor. Race to the Top, he explained, would focus instead on measuring growth and standardizing teaching, rather than on testing data. Indiana got in line with 47 other states, each of which had to outline a plan for revamping its education program. The "Standards and Assessment" portion of the application was a major component for putting together a winning bid. It influenced Indiana's initial plan to adopt Common Core Standards as part of a reform package the state calls its Fast Forward plan.

Common Core was intended to better align Indiana's standards of instruction with those of schools across the nation. "We want to ensure our students are held to the highest academic standard," IDOE said in a statement at the time. "And we believe that the Common Core State Standards will position Indiana children well — nationally and internationally."

Indiana submitted its bid for round one of the program, but the initiative didn't get far. On March 15th, Bennett announced that Indiana was not selected as one of the 15 finalists. IDOE soon began planning a second application, but announced April 22 that re-application would be virtually useless. Negotiations to curry support with the ISTA hadn't gained the necessary traction, and support from teacher unions was estimated at just 60 percent.

Today, although the state is no longer in the running for millions of federal dollars, Bennett says Common Core Standards are still worth implementing. He said federal money was never the primary draw: For example, that money could not have been used to fill the hole left by budget cuts, as some have suggested, only for costs associated with reform. It is unclear how those costs will be covered now.

"We think the reforms are essential and Indiana will be a national leader on implementing reforms without national money," Bennett said.

The new standards will stress depth-over-breadth-of-teaching more than the previous ones. It will also make teachers' specializations narrower, Meredith explained. Only time will tell if that's ultimately a good thing.

The standards and goals are spelled out very specifically. For example, an eighth grader would need to be able to "consult general and specialized reference materials, both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or to determine or clarify its precise meaning or part of speech." It's left to local administrators to determine how best to keep teachers and students in line with the standards.

"We don't really have any big concerns yet," Meredith said. "Probably more of a question than anything. There isn't any data yet that suggests that the Common Core Standards change learning in the classroom or are impacting students' lives outside. But with anything new, the data comes in a few years down the line."

State Rep. Gregory Porter, chairman of the House Education Committee, said the standards were "a step in the right direction," but said he had reservations. "Obviously since we've adopted this thing it's going to require some dollars behind it," he said.

As to changes in the quality of education, Porter said he was "eyeing it cautiously" for now. "My concern with this is when comparing all the students of different states, we're not all going to start at the same level."

Cautiously optimistic

Much of Indiana's failure to submit a viable bid for federal dollars can be attributed to tensions between IDOE and ISTA leadership, the latter of which withheld much of its support. Tennessee and Delaware – which, as Race to the Top winners received a combined $600 million for their education programs — had secured between 95-100 percent support from local teachers' unions.

The ISTA claims the only way to get its full support is to follow the lead of Tennessee and Delaware by better including unions in the process. "The big problem we had with [the proposal] was that we were never invited to be a part of the conversation unless we would blindly agree to Fast Forward," said Meredith. "It's hard to agree to something if you can't even see it."

Porter took similar issue with what he characterized as unilateral action on the part of the IDOE .

"The main thing I'm concerned about is that this whole movement did not really involve the legislature," porter said. "Not once, not twice, but on numerous occasions I reached out to the Department of Education. We never really got any pertinent information."

As different subjects currently utilize standards implemented during different years, adoption of the new standards will take place gradually through 2013, as old standards are phased out. Regarding the future, ISTA insists its attitude is cautiously optimistic. Meredith said she anticipated a difficult 2011-2012 school year.

"I think teachers are confused," she said. "And the next year is going to be a challenging year for having two sets of standards and figuring out what to teach."

The Battle for Public Higher Education

2010-08-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

Recent debate about how these dangerous education policies are at work in higher education as well....the battle has many fronts indeed. Note that the Goldwater Institute's main priority is the privatization of public services; care about public colleges and universities? Better start paying attention!

Cut public "subsidies" of higher education Indy Star:
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/
That is the recommendation of an Op-Ed piece in this morning's (8/14/2010) Indianapolis Star. Its author, Jay P. Greene of the University of Arkansas and a fellow of the Go ldwater Institute, bases this recommendation on his analysis of recent trends in higher education cost nationwide as well as in Indiana. Greene argues that
university in the past twenty years have shifted an increasing proportion of their funds away from paying salaries of instructors, researchers, and "service-providers" to pay for a growing number of
highly-paid administrators. The only solution to this "administrative bloat," according to Greene is to shift more of the bill for higher education onto students and their parents and away from public funds.
In his scenario, "cost-conscious" parents will then force the universities to trim their administrative expenses and shift more funds back to classroom education and research.

Greene might be correct about recent trends in the ways funds are spent
in our universities for administrative versus the more primary missions
of instruction and research. University faculty have witnessed teaching
"lines" disappear from academic departments and salaries being frozen
as the numbers of vice-chancellors, assistant deans, and their support
staffs have swelled in recent years. While the latter individuals do
perform invaluable functions in supporting the university's teaching
and research missions, perhaps the charge of "bloat" has an element of
merit that needs to be corrected. In a time of economic downturn, all
parts of the university should be prepare to retrench including the
administration.

Nevertheless, the solution that Greene proposes to reduce public subsidies to higher education is based upon an inaccurate analysis of the financing of Indiana's higher education system and its solution
seems more punitive than helpful towards faculty, researchers, students, and parents. The financial "subsidies" that Indiana taxpayers make of the state higher education system already have been in relative
decline in recent years and more of the cost of running the universities has been transferred to tuitions, private donations, and revenues from research. In fact state funding policies seem intended to
make all Indiana Universities and college "self-supporting" on their own revenue sources rather than public funds. Rather than acknowledging the benefit of "public education" for the Indiana public, state
mandates already have forced universities to raise tuitions to record levels. Expecting industries or philanthropic organizations to step in to help higher education at a time of serious economic recession is
unrealistic.

Following Professor Greene's recommendation of raising tuitions even higher would threaten to bar lower and even middle class students from enrolling. Higher tuitions are likely to drive away Indiana students from pursing college educations at a time when the state needs to increase its base of well-educated workers to compete in the intensely competitive world economy. Faith that the "market" of cost-conscious parents will reform problems in higher education spending is based on untested ideological assumptions that risk causing fatal damage to the state's public colleges and universities. There seems to be a major campaign in the works against public education at all levels and the future of our state is being placed in jeopardy.

Absolutely!

Indiana Education and the Democrats

2010-08-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

While it is true the Indiana Democrats need to get motivated on education policy--quite frankly, they're letting Daniels completely control the whole conversation--the leaps of logic here are stunning. There's not research that says that merit-pay works or that charter schools are the answer. In fact, with only 19% of charter schools outperforming traditional public schools the whole premise seems like a bad bet....or maybe it's about a bigger political ideology. Don't forget that Daniels has said that if he could privatize public education tomorrow, he'd do it. Democrats need to speak out, get a candidate to beat Bennett and stop this reckless dismantling of Indiana education.

oh, and.....we should be very worried if Daniels and Obama's education plans are simpatico.

Education stand could hurt Dems

Gov. Mitch Daniels isn't on the ballot this election year. But in many ways, his education agenda is.

In recent years, Daniels and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett have struggled to push education reforms through the legislature because of strident opposition from House Democratic leaders. It's been a disappointing and somewhat surprising obstacle at a time when other Democrats in the state and nationally are fighting for similar reforms.For instance, President Barack Obama's education agenda focuses on many of the same ideas Daniels and Bennett have talked about.

As he sat in his office last week, Daniels noted that he has been able to work with House Speaker Pat Bauer and other Democratic caucus leaders on a range of issues, from property taxes to telecom reform. But on education, he said, House Democrats "like it as it is" and prevent reform bills from getting "to first base."

A big part of the problem is that House Democrats are an arm of the powerful teachers union lobby. So when Daniels argues for changes in teacher seniority rules that sometimes protect bad teachers at the expense of good ones, he gets nowhere. When he talks about changing pay structures, he hits a roadblock.

"The best teachers -- meaning those whose kids learn the most -- should be paid more for that," Daniels said. "The teachers whose kids do not grow year after year after year should not have permanent job protection. That doesn't exist anywhere else."

Again, the Democratic president's administration has advocated for similar ideas. In the Indiana House, though, partisanship prevails.

Indiana's Resources and Questionable Programs

2010-07-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

We certainly do need good ideas and good people to work on Indiana schools but the question here is a good one. Why is IDOE partnering with private colleges (or now the Governor's outsourcing to Utah) when we have a fine higher education system to work with? Will this be another high-speed, low-experience program that puts people in systems they don't understand? Almost certainly, oh....and, Bennett's wife happens to have a new job at this particular private college. Just sayin'

Do we really need a new program?

Posted by Susan Blackwell

The Indiana Department of Education announced recently that a small, local university was awarded half a million dollars to develop a principal leadership academy focused on using data and research to improve school performance. There is no doubt that effective leadership is fundamental to a school change process. And, if I were to survey the leadership programs already in existence in Indiana, I would learn that they already address the "innovative " elements cited in the Indianapolis Star story. So, then, I have to wonder: Why is the IDOE is giving money to start one program when multiple programs with the same focus already exist in abundance?

Current programs already teach the elements of leadership. These include best practices in teaching and teacher evaluation, data decision-making, conflict resolution, change processes, and supervision of employees. These are the basics of accredited programs.

Given the additional cuts in funding to schools, it is unclear how the IDOE can justify the promotion of one program (with the funding that accompanies it) that duplicates efforts already in existence at universities across the state. It is also unclear how this program is anchored in the research on effective leadership preparation. Finally, while school districts are cutting faculty and closing schools, parents and others should be asking about the use of state resources at this critical time.

Focusing on Learning in School Reform

2010-07-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hey! How about some good news. Here's an effort to really to work on instruction that values the expertise of teachers and gives them the time to work together on strategies for learning. So much of reactionary, politicized efforts at school reform do the opposite: blame the teachers, pile on more paperwork, test & test again. What we know works is giving teachers the space and time to work as the professionals they are. The DOE could take a lesson.

June 29, 2010

Teacher-initiated reform

Posted by Susan Blackwell

This week more than 300 teachers and administrators from Indiana and beyond are participating in a project-based learning (PBL) workshop at Ben Davis High School. PBL reflects a reform effort coming from the efforts of educators, not politicians. Unfortunately, when politicians use the term "reform," they often mean increased competition and entrepreneurial schools. When educators use the term, they mean an increase in the quality of student learning.

IUPUI and CELL have taken a lead in providing the opportunities for educators to make meaningful changes in classrooms that address 21st century skills. PBL promotes rigorous projects that also engage community members in reviewing the work students create. My institution, University of Indianapolis, is focusing on PBL at the college level in teacher preparation, the medical professions, the arts, and the sciences. In particular, the UIndy Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship Program is preparing beginning teachers to teach with a project-based approach. Teachers at Tech High School, Decatur Central High School, and Ben Davis High School have made this commitment to more rigorous learning standards and are mentoring beginning teachers to do the same.

We educators understand that the quality of student work needs to become more rigorous. We know what needs to be done. It sometimes appears that educators are making little to no effort to reform schools. This initiative demonstrates that, despite the ongoing negative critique of teachers and schools, educators are looking at their methods so as to improve academic learning for all students.

Misunderstanding Advanced Placement

2010-07-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

In another ill-thought and under-researched move the IDOE is pushing for higher numbers in AP classes. A little history might be helpful here: AP classes were designed for the top 2 percent of students, those capable of taking a college-level class. With the push for more classes and higher enrollment, the state (and others as well) are pushing folks to water down the curriculum and its showing in passing rates (i.e. they're going down). All of these pushes for AP, early college, and dual credit actually have absymal performance rates and show the pathology of looking for easy fixes and cheap answers. Ultimately it hurts kids....what's wrong with a high school kid doing high school work??

AP quota spells trouble for ill-prepared students

Posted: July 1, 2010
I have read with interest opinions about Advanced Placement classes in Indiana high schools, . As an experienced AP teacher in Indianapolis Public Schools, I can offer insight into this discussion, which is based on Indiana Department of Education's assertion that one-quarter of all high school students should pass at least one AP exam. Unfortunately, that is forcing schools to water down the curriculums to accommodate the lowest functioning children, and the result is ever-lower passing rates on the national exams.

I had one student enrolled in my AP class who could barely read and write. When I told the principal that he needed to be removed, she dismissed my suggestion, claiming he was just being lazy. He failed the class, which doubled as his senior English class, postponing his graduation. Unfortunately, this young man was not the only one in that predicament. To appease their higher-ups, administrators and superintendents are pushing more and more unprepared students into these college-level courses and then are surprised when they fail the exam or even the course.

For students to be successful in AP courses, they must begin preparation in middle, or even elementary, school. That is where bright children should be encouraged to enroll in accelerated or honors classes. Sticking low-performing or unmotivated students into AP classes to fulfill someone's quota is a travesty.

An Indiana AP Teacher

A Teacher Speaks Back to Daniels & Bennett

2010-06-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

An Indiana AP teacher speaks back to the reckless spin of the Daniels/Bennett machine. And look! She actually brings data to a question about education! Daniels lack of understanding or even concern for public education never ceases to amaze (and how Bennett can sleep at night is beyond us). AP isn't the answer and it wasn't designed to be. Historically, AP classes where for those top 2% students that might be ready to take college level classes. For Daniels (and apparently Bennett) all education is for is a piece of paper that leads to a job--if that's true then rush these kids through, put them in classes that they're not ready for, and make it look good for the paper.

Cheers to this brave and thoughtful teacher! We need more to speak out!!

AP classes don't always equal upward mobility

Lynette Enz Liberge

Posted: June 13, 2010

In a recent ceremony honoring 12 Indiana high schools for having at least 25 percent of their students pass an Advanced Placement exam, Gov. Mitch Daniels praised the schools for "preserving the opportunity for upward mobility in our state and our society." That seems an odd choice of words, given the socioeconomic data of those schools.

According to the Indiana Youth Institute, the percentage of Hoosier students receiving free and reduced lunch was 42 percent in 2009. By contrast, the school corporations of the 12 high schools in question averaged only 16 percent. In fact, seven of the 12 schools are in districts with the six lowest percentages in the state.

Similarly, the website STATS Indiana reports that in 2000 only 19 percent of our state's adults had a bachelor's degree or higher. In the same year, 58 percent of adults in Carmel had four-year degrees, as did 60 percent of adults in Zionsville and Fishers and 70 percent in West Lafayette.

The fact that these 12 high schools have such a high percentage of advanced students is laudable. It is not, however, a sign of upward mobility. At best, it shows maintenance of the status quo. It might even be argued that Martinsville High School's 9 percent AP pass rate in a district with fewer than 12 percent of adults with four-year degrees actually shows more promise of upward mobility than does Carmel's 31 percent pass rate in its more highly educated township.

I do not mean to diminish the great things going on in those 12 schools. Daniels was right to praise the schools, teachers, principals and superintendents. However, his admonition for other educators to "take notice" is not only insulting, but may ultimately be detrimental to the very students he wishes to help.

The Indiana Department of Education has a goal of doubling the number of students passing AP exams in the next two years. It wants all schools to meet the 25 percent benchmark. This is unreasonable. The governor can't simply will a mediocre student to be prepared for an AP-level class from one year to the next. The skills, knowledge, work ethic and mind-set of an advanced student develop throughout the student's life, both at home and at school.

In many school districts, a majority of parents do not value education, rarely read to their children and never help them with their homework. Just as the high expectations displayed in Zionsville and West Lafayette are passed from generation to generation, these negative patterns are also entrenched in families and in certain areas. Short of some sudden and vast societal change, these districts will not have a 25 percent AP pass rate in 20 years, much less two.

In order to meet state expectations, school administrators and counselors are likely to push students to take classes for which they are not qualified. In order not to lose those students, the teacher will be forced to move at a slower pace or water down the course, hurting those students who were prepared for the class in the first place.

(If the quality of the curriculum falls low enough, the College Board could even pull the school's right to call it an AP course, thus depriving all students of the opportunity to take it.)

Through this unrealistic goal, the state is already cheapening Indiana's AP program in word; its implementation could cheapen the program in substance.

I only wish that educators had the power that Daniels and the DOE seem to believe we do: that with a little more work, a little more training, a little more researchinto the best methods and a little more accountability, teachers can turn things around for all students. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of many dedicated people throughout the state, the path to true upward mobility seems to be a little more difficult to find than that.

Indiana DOE Hostile to Teachers

2010-06-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

The word is out.... Tony Bennett hates teachers. Another embarrassment for Indiana and its reputation in education. "Hostile" is too nice a word for what has been a administration rife with thoughtless policy changes, aversion to research and data, and a tendency for shady processes. Bennett keeps trying to call himself a "reformer"....hopefully Hoosiers are smarter than to fall for that.

Teachers union chief chides state Education Department

One of the nation's most prominent teachers union officials has called out Indiana's Department of Education as one of three in the country most hostile to teachers.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten cited Indiana, Virginia and Minnesota as especially egregious in failing to include teachers in their applications for the federal Race to the Top competition for $4.4 billion in money for education reform. "State officials in Minnesota and Indiana failed to include teachers in the application process -- and then scapegoated teachers to deflect attention from the decision not to file applications," Weingarten said in a statement released nationally Tuesday.

"What is especially troubling about the states that failed to work with teachers unions is that, as teachers well know, the common denominator for all good schools is an environment where the adults work together on behalf of the students."

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett has tangled with the Indiana Federation of Teachers and the Indiana State Teachers Association, blasting them as being out to protect adults at the cost of educating children.

The federal grant process required dramatic changes, including a willingness to tie teacher job reviews to student performance. But Indiana pushed harder than many other states, and teachers unions were not allowed to see the proposals until after they were filed.

Indiana did not apply for a second round of funding, citing the teachers unions' lack of support. Bennett said the positions of the IFT leadership have been at odds with some of the positions of its own locals and with the public statements Weingarten has made at the national level. He said he was surprised at her comments Tuesday.

"That statement is unfounded on her part," he said. "It's obvious that the leadership of the state unions doesn't reflect Ms. Weingarten's openness to reform."

Challenging Bennett's Argument

2010-06-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Oh, my goodness--a letter to the editor at the IndyStar that points to the obvious scapegoating going on from Tony Bennett and Mitch Daniels. This blog is in no way meant to be an apologist for the unions (there are clearly problems there) but the union leadership has started to stand up to the mistruths and procedural wrangling of this administration. After all, if a union won't stand up for it's members, then what's if for? The other thing this points out of course is how through one side of the mouth folks will talk about the need for "data", they'll also, through the other side, advance policies that have no support in data or educational research. Once again, what's most exciting is that the people are waking up to the hypocrisy and speaking out.

June 3, 2010

What negative impact?

Posted by Duane S. Nickell

In his recent "My View" piece, Dr. Tony Bennett talks of "the negative impact teacher unions can have on classroom instruction . . ." Extending Dr. Bennett's logic, one would expect that a negative correlation should exist between teacher unionism and student academic achievement. In other words, a higher level of teacher unionism should result in lower academic achievement. But when one looks at the countries that perform well on international tests, some (Finland, for example) are highly unionized while others (some of the Asian countries) are not.

In the U.S., the region of the country that performs worst on achievement tests is the South, where teacher unions have historically been the weakest. Massachusetts, where teacher unions are strong, always ranks near the top academically. I challenge Dr. Bennett to cite any educational research that clearly demonstrates a negative correlation between teacher unions and student achievement.

Falling for the "Tough Love" Spin

2010-06-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

It's been noted here before that the Indy Star's Matthew Tully needs to be commended for bringing public education into the spotlight (although somewhat problematically) but here he shows some ignorance. Bennett clearly sees where his bread is buttered and he's laying it on thick for Tully. Some questions might be: what does one make of policies that "don't make sense"?; what do we make of cutting professional development support, time, and opportunities that make teachers better? how do you possibly defend education policy decisions with literally NO data behind them? how do you defend a process that cuts out public comment, parental views, and due process? how does responsible journalism allow politicians to spin failures as victories?

But perhaps most important, at what point is tough love not love anymore? Indiana Citizens likes what you do Tully but.... you're falling for it again.

Tony Bennett's tough love

I've heard many complaints about state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett during months of conversations with teachers and school administrators. In fact, the easiest way to guarantee an eye roll from a public school educator is to simply mention Bennett's name.

He hates teachers, some insist. He's arrogant and too blunt, others argue. He's the governor's puppet, many believe. Or, critics say, his reform plans just don't make sense.

As much as I like teachers as a group, and as much as I respect the difficult challenges they face, I could hardly disagree more.

Bennett's tenure hasn't always been pretty. But he's done exactly what Indiana needed him to do during his first 17 months in office: He has put the debate over improving public schools at center stage. He's stood up to the entrenched education establishment. And he's made clear that neither baby steps nor the status quo is acceptable.

Still, there is a valid concern that Bennett's increasingly bitter battles with teachers unions, as well as his criticism of bad teachers, has left many good teachers feeling like collateral damage.

"That's a very fair observation," Bennett said Thursday morning during a meeting with editors and reporters from The Indianapolis Star. "Frankly, at times good teachers get lumped in with bad teachers, and that is unfortunate. Do I regret the dynamic that has occurred? Yes. Do I wish we had done a better job of messaging the sincere appreciation we have for great teachers? Yes. And I take full responsibility for that."

That's a good thing to say. There aren't many people who deserve more appreciation than those who do a good job of teaching children.

Still, Bennett's best trait is his willingness -- eagerness, even -- to take the punches that come with fighting the education bosses throughout the state. It's a trait some of his supporters argue clouds his message. Although they might be right, there's much to be said in praise of an education leader who lives in constant frustration with the state's current education climate. "I will have no remorse for calling out the things that do not serve Indiana's children," he said.

As for his hard-charging early days, he's not apologizing, saying, "We had to drive home the fact that we were going to push for excellence." Union leaders have kicked back fiercely at Bennett. Those who apologize for the poor performance of districts such as Indianapolis Public Schools suggest that leaders who push for big changes cannot by definition be supporters of public education. The forces that attempt to protect the status quo in public schools are as powerful as anywhere else.

That's why I've appreciated Bennett's willingness to expose the harm caused by some union contract rules, and to say things state education superintendents before him refused to say.

Without question, he needs to reach out to rank-and-file teachers. But remember, his aggressive style has raised the profile of the education debate in Indiana, and led more people to take seriously talk that the state might finally force dramatic changes.

"If schools are not performing," Bennett said, "the state has a moral imperative to intervene. The state has to have the political courage to step in and help these kids."

I just spent nearly a year closely observing a public school, and I still find it hard to believe this country allows so many of its children to attend schools that do not offer an education even remotely comparable to better schools only miles away.

Bennett has occasionally stumbled. And, no doubt, he has angered many in the education business.

Good.

Let's hope he keeps it up.

No reform without trust...no trust without the truth

2010-04-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

the tricks and spin continue from Bennett.....this guy has no shame and has got to go. Luckily a few reporters like up in Fort Wayne and concerned citizens are starting to speak out.

No reform without trust

In Washington, public school teachers are reeling after the revelation that a multimillion-dollar deficit used to justify the layoffs of 266 educators last fall was actually a $34 million surplus.

Not unreasonably, the union questioned the credibility of the schools’ leader, placing on hold a contract agreement that would have changed the way they are paid and evaluated.

“We want to have a first-class school system,” Frazier O’Leary, a 40-year English literature teacher, told National Public Radio, “Reform is needed, but reform without trust doesn’t work.”

Sadly, that’s the same climate created in Indiana, where Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett has attacked the Indiana State Teachers Association and the Indiana Federation of Teachers for refusing to sign off on the state’s application for the second round of federal Race to the Top funds.

He issued an ultimatum this month:

“While the labor unions have bemoaned the difficult financial status of Indiana’s schools, it doesn’t appear they are willing to support any change that could bring an additional $250M to our state,” he stated in a news release. The superintendent goes on to invite leaders of ISTA and IFT to discuss “specific reform plan components.” Bennett has invited the media and states that he will post video of the meeting on the department’s website after the session.

It’s a well-staged publicity stunt, given that he’s set up conditions to ensure the unions won’t play along. Bennett wants the organizations to endorse legislation requiring teacher evaluations based on student test scores. Those evaluations would be the basis for decisions on hiring, salary, retention, transfers and layoffs.

Evaluating teachers based on student test scores is a complex issue. The task of developing sound evaluation procedures isn’t impossible, but teachers would be foolish to trust the process sight unseen to the Indiana Department of Education, which eliminated more than 100 positions last year and is struggling to handle its current responsibilities.

Union representatives met with Bennett and his staff in at least four two-hour meetings before the first-round application, but each side left with a different impression of what the teachers’ associations had agreed to support. ISTA President Nate Schnellenberger said the union believed it had “sort of an umbrella agreement.”

“Our intent was always to sit down and hammer out details,” he said Wednesday.

“He (Bennett) thinks there were some tenets we agreed to that we really didn’t. For example, in order for a (Race to the Top) proposal to be considered by the U.S. Department of Education, it would require 51 percent of evaluations to be based on test scores. That’s not even the case with the states that won.”

Schnellenberger said Bennett’s directive for him to attend without any ISTA staff suggested the state superintendent wasn’t serious about working out the details.

“I do not believe a single meeting in your office, with the media in attendance, can begin to produce the kind of work that needs to be accomplished to create a viable plan for funding in the program’s second round,” he wrote in a letter hand-delivered to the superintendent’s office.

In a letter to ISTA members, Schnellenberger explained that the state, in spite of repeated requests, never shared with ISTA or any other education organization the contents of Indiana’s plan to overhaul education.

“Yet now, when time is short and pressure is deep, Dr. Bennett expects me to give an unequivocal agreement on his (Race to the Top) demands,” Schnellenberger wrote. “In Delaware and Tennessee, the two states that received round-one funding, state education leaders solicited and included meaningful input from their teachers’ association leaders through collaborative meetings and work sessions at every step of the process. That type of collaboration did not occur in Indiana.”

Bennett made an end-run around the unions and sent an e-mail message to all Indiana teachers, criticizing the ISTA president and attacking union rules regarding reduction-in-force. If Bennett’s intent was to divide the teachers association from its membership, it’s not working.

A Fort Wayne teacher said his co-workers are “incensed” by Bennett’s remarks about teachers.

“When you treat teachers and their representatives badly, do you think we will trust you more?” wrote another teacher in response to Bennett’s request for feedback. “When you insult veteran teachers, do you think tens of thousands of private-sector people will quit and line up and replace us so they can receive that kind of abuse?”

Indiana’s poor showing on the first round of Race to the Top funding – 23rd out of 40 states – can’t be blamed entirely on the unions, as the scoring clearly demonstrates. Bennett is wrong to use the promise of federal money to force an agreement with teachers.

As the individuals in the classrooms and closest to students, they deserve a bigger role in developing key policy. Bennett needs to restore a broken trust before any reform can take place.

More on Race to the Top & Bennett's Failure

2010-04-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Tony Bennett has been alienating and berating folks in education since he got elected and the Feds have noticed. Indiana will never get the massive federal money if all the stakeholders aren't working together--given the reckless and misguided approach, it doesn't seem like this is even possible. As for the Union response, when the DOE misleads the public and uses the media to spin and distort the truth, speaking back to the abuse is the only recourse.

Bennett, teachers take fight outside

Public spat threatens 2nd chance at stimulus funds for state schools

Relations between the state Department of Education and the state's two teachers unions have never been cozy, but they have been cordial. These days, a better characterization would be outright war.

That war is taking place mostly in public: press releases with ultimatums, attacks in local newspapers and an exchange of e-mails landing in the inboxes of every teacher in the state.

And the potential loss could be very high: The state's second chance at a piece of $4.4 billion in "Race to the Top" stimulus funds might be in jeopardy.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said he is passionately making a case for reforms he considers crucial to improve the well-being of the state's children.

The presidents of the Indiana State Teachers Association and the Indiana Federation of Teachers say Bennett is trying to steamroll teachers in the process and is using unfair tactics. Both have increased their own rhetoric against and criticism of the state.

The debate has come to a head over whether the unions will sign on to the state's second attempt to win stimulus funds.

Bennett has advocated tying job reviews for teachers to their students' test scores, and he has advanced policiesthat would allow teachers to be paid or dismissed based on job performance rather than years of experience.

The unions find that onerous.

"We've never been invited to be full partners," IFT President Rick Muir said. "I hope he wakes up and changes his course of action, but I'm not holding my breath."