In Case You Missed It – Apr 29, 2019

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention in NEIFPE's social media. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

A TEACHER ASKS THE PUBLIC FOR HELP

Public's help is vital in ending teachers' plight

Parents and public school advocates need to help teachers in their work. Supporting your local schools is more than bake sales and PTA fund-raisers. It's also contacting legislators and policy makers at the local, state and federal level.

From Letters to the Editor in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Most legislators in my area have voted against public education by restricting our funding, limiting our ability to protect classroom conditions and funding private schools through vouchers. They aren't listening to teachers, administrators and superintendents anymore.

We need you to help support teachers. If you believe we are doing what we need to do to get your child ready for life after graduation, help us.

Vote for legislators who defend public education. Contact your legislators and ask them to support public education. Wear red on Wednesdays and announce on social media why. Encourage people to get involved. That is all we ask for.

PARENTS LOBBY FOR THEIR CHILDREN

Parents' priority: Standing up for public schools when lawmakers won't

A number of Indiana legislators believe that anything the government does is bad. It doesn't matter that the Indiana Constitution requires the support of a system of public schools. Privatization is the goal.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

A budget reflects your priorities. When they can find increases for vouchers and charter schools, schools that don't have to accept and educate all children, but they can't find a meager increase of 3% annually to add to the budget of true public schools, clearly state legislators do not prioritize public education, our kids or our teachers. When they would rather pay for firearms training than pay for social workers, nurses and enough teachers to keep class sizes down, we know it's not a priority.

Washington Township Teachers Push For More Funding, No Guns In Schools

Legislators don't listen to teachers. They don't listen to parents. Who do they listen to?

From WFYI Indianapolis

Teachers at Westlane Middle School in Washington Township rallied this morning in a last minute push to convince lawmakers to raise teacher salaries.

DAMAGE DONE BY VOUCHERS

Matt Barnum: New Research Shows Vouchers Do Lasting Damage to Student Achievement in Math

First they said that vouchers were to help poor children of color "escape" "failing" public schools. Once they learned that vouchers wouldn't solve the deeper societal problems of poverty they changed the purpose of vouchers to "choice." Now, Indiana's voucher system is a private school entitlement for white middle class families.

Schools that accept vouchers are no better than public schools and they drain tax dollars from the public treasury for the support of religious organizations.

From Diane Ravitch

New research on a closely watched school voucher program finds that it hurts students’ math test scores — and that those scores don’t bounce back, even years later.

That’s the grim conclusion of the latest study, released Tuesday, looking at Louisiana students who used a voucher to attend a private school. It echoes research out of Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. showing that vouchers reduce students’ math test scores and keep them down for two years or more.

Together, they rebut some initial research suggesting that the declines in test scores would be short-lived, diminishing a common talking point for voucher proponents.

THE CONTINUED DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN INDIANAPOLIS

IPS hoped lawmakers would help them sell Broad Ripple. The final bill has a catch.

Money and politics win again. Who loses? Indianapolis kids and neighborhoods. Looks like a deal has been successfully manipulated to both make money and to give the unneeded second Purdue Polytechnic a home. Must be great to have legislators in your pocket.

From Chalkbeat

The bill could pave the way for charter network Purdue Polytechnic, which has the backing of former Governor Mitch Daniels, to locate its second campus at the site. Since the charter school has opened a temporary location about a quarter mile from Broad Ripple, it would fall within the area governed by the provision allowing a nearby charter to pay half the market rate for facilities in the building if sold on the private market.

After years of rapid growth, only one new innovation school will open in Indianapolis next year

This article about IPS innovation schools would be great to use to teach students how to read between the lines.

From Chalkbeat

A nationally watched and controversial strategy that has transformed Indianapolis Public Schools appears to be slowing down.

The state’s largest district has added an average of five schools each year since 2015 to its network of independent innovation schools. But next fall, just one new school will join the innovation network.

This doesn’t necessarily mean innovation schools, which are managed by outside organizations such as charters schools, have fallen out of favor among district leaders. But some observers question whether Indianapolis Public Schools’ current state of uncertainty may explain why it is being less aggressive.

Indianapolis: The Purpose of School Choice is to Destroy Communities, Which Endangers Us All

From Diane Ravitch

My point is that charter and innovation schools help destroy community, which according to sociological research can lead to increased violence.

TEACHER SHORTAGE

Here are Indiana’s subject areas with the greatest teacher shortages

In a market economy the cost for scarce resources -- in this case, public school teachers -- increases. The Indiana General Assembly has chosen to artificially deflate the cost of those resources, to continue to underpay teachers.

The poor pay, along with decades of disrespect and disinterest, is the reason we have a teacher shortage. The legislative goal is the destruction of public education and the destruction of public sector unions.

From Chalkbeat

Indiana is experiencing teacher shortages across 14 subjects, including in key focus areas such as science, math, and career and technical education, according to information released by the state education department.

Teacher shortage hits many areas: Several subjects lack educators

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

“This also highlights the greater issue that Indiana's educators deserve better pay and more practitioner-inclusive legislation in order to attract and retain them,” McCormick said.

Last week, McCormick told a Fort Wayne audience that 35% of teachers leave the profession within five years. Pay and working conditions are the top reasons, she said.

A 'WIN' FOR PRIVATIZATION

Budget called 'a win' for schools

Note that in Republican legislators' minds "a win for schools" means private and privately run schools...not public schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

House Democratic Leader Phil GiaQuinta said “all that we just heard from Gov. Holcomb and Speaker (Brian) Bosma is that teachers will not be getting a pay raise this session. ... Despite Republican leadership claiming this is a historic increase in K-12 funding, it's clear that our traditional public schools will not receive the resources they need.”

Democrats note that traditional public schools – excluding charters – are getting only a 2% increase while charters are going up 10% the first year and vouchers 9%.

$34.6 billion 2-year budget OK'd: 2.5% increase for traditional public schools

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

...Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, said a $2 billion surplus is not necessary and pointed out many smaller programs that were nonchalantly dismissed.

“This budget is too meager, too tight-fisted,” she said.

Tallian noted the budget spends $2.5 million on a new swine barn but cut more than $600,000 for immunizations. And there are millions to subsidize direct flights while refusing to spend $800,000 to stabilize the Lake Michigan shore line.

The Senate approved House Bill 1001 by a vote of 41-8 and the House followed with 67-31.

Republicans focused on historic new dollars for education.

DEVOS AND PRIVATIZERS -- HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Kentucky: Heroes of Public Education, the Student Journalists from the PLD Lamplighter

From Diane Ravitch

Betsy DeVos held a “roundtable” with Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin at a public community college in Lexington, Kentucky.

When student journalists at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School heard that they were meeting, they went to the event, presented their press credentials, and were barred from covering it.

The only student invited to speak at the roundtable attends a religious school. The other participants represented Kentucky organizations that support privatization of public funds. That is, supporters of Betsy DeVos’s anti-public school agenda.

DEVOS SENDS YOUR TAX MONEY TO UNACCOUNTABLE CORPORATE "SCHOOLS"

DeVos Funnels $116 Million to Open 20 Charter Schools in El Paso, Which Will Devastate Public Schools

From Diane Ravitch

Should Amy O’Rourke, Beto’s wife, send a thank-you note to Betsy DeVos?

Betsy DeVos has awarded a huge grant of $116,755,848 to the IDEA charter chain to open 20 new schools in El Paso. IDEA opened its first El Paso charter last fall.

In 2017, DeVos gave $67 million to IDEA.

IDEA has received a grand total of $225 million from the federal Charter Schools Program.

The size of this grant is unprecedented...

Betsy DeVos Gives Multi-Millions to KIPP and IDEA Corporate Charter Chains

From Diane Ravitch

In the latest round of awards from the federal slush fund for charter schools, Betsy DeVos handed out plums to the corporate chains KIPP and IDEA.

DOUBLESPEAK: "PARENTS" ARE BILLIONAIRE PRIVATIZERS

Waltons Fund “National Parents Union” to Advocate for Privatization

The goal is to starve public education and extend privatization.

From Diane Ravitch

Maurice Cunningham, a dogged investigator of Dark Money, has discovered a shell operation funded by the multibillionaire Walton family.

It is called the “National Parents Union,” and its goal is to defund public schools and transfer public money to private hands.

HIGH INCOME YIELDS HIGH ACHIEVEMENT

Steve Nelson: Excellent Communities Produce “Excellent” Schools

From Diane Ravitch

“It is, to be sure, a subtle point, but in my book I refer to my own public high school. It was “rated” among America’s best. Graduates went to college at high rates and won prizes of all kinds. The orchestra was considered among the 2 or 3 best in the country. But the teachers and classes were dull and uninspired. The orchestra was good because the kids were privileged and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The parents were either affluent or in higher education or medicine or both.

“The community did not have excellent schools. The schools had an excellent community.

MCCORMICK -- A REPUBLICAN WHO SUPPORTS PUBLIC EDUCATION

Schools chief sounds alarm on public's loss of control

Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick, supports public education despite the thousands of dollars privatizers sank into her 2016 campaign. Proof that Republicans, too, can support public schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

The state's last elected superintendent of public instruction is not leaving office quietly. With just more than 20 months left in her four-year term, Jennifer McCormick is on a mission to warn Indiana voters of the immense power over education legislators just handed off to the governor's office.

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In Case You Missed It – Apr 22, 2019

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention in NEIFPE's social media. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

INDIANA'S NEW STANDARDIZED TEST

New ILEARN standardized test set to launch

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

As early as Monday, elementary and middle school students statewide will face Indiana's standardized test – but it won't be ISTEP+.

They will instead demonstrate their smarts through ILEARN, the new online assessment that should, state education officials say, adapt to students' knowledge and produce results quicker.

“It is actually pretty exciting with a lot of new changes to it,” said Adam Baker, Indiana Department of Education spokesman.

ILEARN stands for Indiana's Learning Evaluation Readiness Network.

DOE: New assessment is ‘not ISTEP 2.0’

From School Matters

State officials also tout the fact that ILEARN was developed with help from Indiana educators, including classroom teachers. Committees that included about 500 educators have been involved, Flores said. Another improvement, ILEARN will take less time than ISTEP; up to two hours less at each grade level.

SUPERINTENDENT MCCORMICK VISITS FORT WAYNE

In city stop, schools chief urges public to be a voice

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

McCormick spoke for about an hour, sharing information about student demographics and why 35% of teachers leave the profession within five years.

“They're leaving it because of pay and working conditions,” McCormick said. “For us to act like the pay doesn't matter ... pay has a lot to do with this.”

She wasn't optimistic about the current legislative session.

“I think our vouchers are going to be big winners this session, and I think our charters are going to be decent winners this session,” McCormick said. “Our public schools, I'm still very, very concerned about.”

NEIFPE recording of Superintendent McCormick's presentation.

Indiana State Superintendent talks education legislation at Ivy Tech visit, From WANE. com

[McCormick] said the decisions regarding school safety should be left to the local level, but does not support arming teachers.

"I'm not in favor of the let's arm every teacher and hope for the best. I think that's very irresponsible. That's not the way Indiana should go," said McCormick.

ASKING FOR TROUBLE

Guns Headed For The Classroom

Our Hoosier legislature demonstrated today that they do NOT care about your children. Look up who voted to invite violence into our schools today and remember to vote them out next election.

From Curmudgucation

Of all the bad ideas.

I know there are folks who believe in their heart of hearts that arming teachers will make schools safer, or that putting armed police in the building will be helpful. But there are so many bad signs.

I want to believe that school resource officers can be helpful. Earlier this month, a school shooting was likely averted just up the road because students at the school felt comfortable enough with the SRO to turn in the students who were planning the attack.

But when I see stories like the one of the Chicago cops dragging a sixteen year old student down a flight of stairs, or see the video of a Florida cop body slamming an eleven-year-old, I have to conclude that sooner or later, some child is going to be killed in school.

FUNDING PROBLEMS

Less funds available for budget

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Lawmakers will have to adjust their budget priorities by about $100 million following an updated revenue forecast Wednesday.

The analysis shows tax collections growing but at slower rates than initially forecast in December – a drop of about $30 million in revenue.

On top of that, an updated Medicaid forecast shows increased net expenses of about $65 million.

That equals about $100 million in changes to a $34.6 billion budget expected to be approved next week.

INDIANA DUMPED FROM PRE-K RANKINGS

National report downgrades Indiana for excluding some families from pre-K vouchers

One more way that our Hoosier legislators have let down the children of this state. When will we stop them?

From Chalkbeat

An annual national report on preschool dumped Indiana from this year’s rankings, excluding the state’s fledging On My Way Pre-K program because of a controversial requirement that bars some families in need from signing up.

In order to qualify for Indiana’s prekindergarten vouchers, income-eligible parents must also be working, attending school, or seeking a job. Local early education advocates often tout the workforce benefits of Indiana’s pre-K program, which they say helps many parents maintain or seek jobs while their children are in school.

But that means “the primary purpose is not education,” said Steve Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research. Instead, the organization deems On My Way Pre-K to be a child care program.

WHY TEACHERS QUIT

Why this South Carolina teacher quit mid-year: 'The unrealistic demands and all-consuming nature of the profession are not sustainable’

From the Answer Sheet

“I always joked that teaching was two full-time jobs. One was actually teaching, and the more time-consuming one was all the extra that comes with it.”

DEVOS STILL HATES PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Betsy DeVos and Payday for the Charter Industry!

From Diane Ravitch

Eva got $9.8 million from her friend Betsy.

KIPP will secure a total of $86 million over five years for its San Francisco operations.

IDEA in Texas scores $116 million over five years!

Despite the report from the Network for Public Education showing that 1/3 of the grants by the federal Charter Schools Program are awarded to schools that never open or that close soon after opening, the money keeps flowing.

WHEN WILL CANDIDATES REVEAL PLANS FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION?

Bernie: Still Clueless About Charters

From Diane Ravitch

...this is point one:

We must make sure that charter schools are truly serving the needs of disadvantaged children.

This ignores the fact that charter schools are not public schools. They are privately managed. They are free to choose their students and free to expel those they don’t want.

This ignores the fact that the NAACP called for a charter moratorium. The ACLU of Southern California criticized charters for discriminating against and excluding students with disabilities and ELLS. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit against charters in Mississippi for seeking to divert public funds from public schools, contrary to the state constitution.

INDIANA ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

Armed teacher bill OK'd

“There should never be a gun in a classroom, never,” said Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis. “This is a bad bill. We are going to be on the wrong side of history.”

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

All teachers authorized to carry guns in school would be forced to first undergo a personality screening and take firearms training under a bill that passed the Senate 32-14 on Tuesday.

School districts already can allow teachers to carry under state law. But House Bill 1253 goes another step and requires 38 hours of specialized weapons training to do so, as well as recurring training each year.

The personality inventory is meant to weed out teachers or staffers who might not have the right temperament to carry a firearm in school.

TEACHERS, WE GET WHAT WE VOTE FOR

Indiana education advocates demand boost to school funding, teacher pay at Statehouse rally

“You get what you vote for,” she said. “You need to elect people and hold us accountable.” -- Supt. McCormick

From Chalkbeat

For many teachers, low pay means either working two jobs or leaving the profession altogether, said Teresa Meredith, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association.

Either way, she said lower pay correlates to higher teacher turnover and “at the end of the day, our kids suffer,” she said.

The rally also touched on controversial discussions taking place in the Statehouse that have drawn backlash from many teachers, such as whether projectiles should be allowed during active shooter drills and whether to prevent schools from being “gun-free zones.”

GATES DOESN'T GET IT

Melinda Gates Achieves Peak Epic Cluelessness

This rich lady wants to experiment on your children. Are you ok with that? Do riches automatically instill educational experience and knowledge??

From Curmudgucation

Melinda Gates seems like a nice lady who means well, but her recent interview at the New York Times Magazine is a master class in how living in a very wealthy bubble can leave you out of touch with the rest of the world and an understanding of your place in it.

It starts in the very first paragraph.

“There are absolutely different points of view about philanthropy,” says Melinda Gates, who, along with her husband Bill, heads the charitable foundation that bears their name, aimed at increasing global health and reducing poverty. Its endowment, at $50.7 billion, is the largest in the world. “But we’re lucky to live in a democracy, where we can all envision what we want things to look like.”

Well, we can all envision what we want things to look like, and then become in a political process to support and elect leaders who then work within a democratic-ish government to pursue that vision. Only a few of us can use our vast wealth to completely circumvent the entire democratic process to impose our vision on the rest of the world.

TIME TO DEFUND CHARTERS

Congress Should Defund the Charter Schools Program and Invest the Money in Title I and IDEA

From Jan Resseger

The Network for Public Education published its scathing report on the federal Charter Schools Program three weeks ago, but as time passes, I continue to reflect on its conclusions. The report, Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride, is packed with details about failed or closed or never-opened charter schools. The Network for Public Education depicts a program driven by neoliberal politicians hoping to spark innovation in a marketplace of unregulated startups underwritten by the federal government. The record of this 25 year federal program is dismal.

DUNCAN STILL CLUELESS

Arne Duncan Makes Me Want To Punch Myself In The Brain

All was not well in the pre-Betsy era, and all is not well in our state legislature either.

From Curmudgucation

For my money, while Betsy DeVos is a truly awful and unqualified Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan inflicted far more actual damage on the US public education system. Duncan owes the students, teachers, and parents of the US a huge apology. But we're never going to get it; he'll just keep saying things that we used to say to him in an attempt to get him to realize the wrongness of his policies, only he's never going to connect the dots. He'll just smile that derpy grin, head off to his next cushy edu-guru gig, cash some more checks, and never actually see all the destruction he caused. All that and periodically raising my blood pressure.

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In Case You Missed It – Apr 15, 2019

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention in NEIFPE's social media. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

A RICH CELEBRITY WHO SUPPORTS PUBLIC EDUCATION

Ohio: LeBron James’ School Demonstrates that Money and Kindness Matter

From Diane Ravitch

LeBron James is proving that money makes a difference, when it is used wisely, for example, on small class size.

He has created an innovative model within the public system. His school is not a charter. It is a public school. It purposely chooses the kids least likely to succeed.

Ohio presently spends $1 billion on charters, two-thirds of which are rated D or F by the state. Over the years, the state has wasted at least $10 billion on privatization.

Is Ohio capable of learning?

EXPERIENCED TEACHERS KNOW HOW THE PROFESSION HAS CHANGED

Bob Shepherd: Life As a Teacher in the Age of the Deformers

From Diane Ravitch

Basically, in the job as it exists today, I spent so much time doing administrative crap that I had very little time left over for doing my job. I literally spend all day, every Saturday and Sunday, simply completing paperwork. And somewhere in all this I was supposed to do grading. I taught 7 classes, with an average of about 28 students in each. If I assigned a single five-paragraph them, I would have 980 paragraphs to read and comment on—roughly two large novels’ worth of material.

So how did we get to this place? Well, I suppose that over the years, every time some person at the district or state office got a bright idea for improving teaching, it was implemented, and the requirements kept being piled on until they became literally insane. Hey, you know, we’ve got this state program that provides teachers with $70 a year for buying supplies, but we’re not doing a very good job of tracking that, so let’s create a weekly “Whiteboard Marker Usage and Accountability Report (WMUAR). It will only take a few minutes for a teacher to prepare. Great idea! You know how these teachers are. They will just run through markers like crazy unless you monitor this.

JEB BUSH'S LEGACY

Florida: The Graveyard of American Public Education

From Diane Ravitch

Jeb Bush started the descent into the swamp of ignorance. Now the torch is carried by Ron DeSantis, who wants to arm teachers, expand the state’s voucher programs to include middle-class families with income up to $100,000 a year, reduce the power of local school boards so they can’t block new charter schools, and undercut public schools in every way their little minds can imagine.

POLITICS 2020: SANDERS' STAFF TALKS TO RAVITCH

Bernie Sanders’ Staff Called Me to Talk About Education Policy

From Diane Ravitch

Let’s draw a line in the sand. We will not support any candidate for the Democratic nomination unless he or she comes out with strong policy proposals that strengthen public schools, protect the civil rights of all students, curb federal overreach into curriculum and assessment and teacher evaluation, and oppose DeVos-style privatization (vouchers, charters, cybercharters, for-profit charters, home schooling, for-profit higher education).

Silence is not a policy.

INDIANA: MORE CUTS

Indiana schools get a funding boost under Senate budget plan after debate over cuts to poverty aid

Read beyond the headlines. The Indiana Senate is offering to boost the plan offered by the Indiana House...still a cut from previous years.

From Chalkbeat

The proposed cuts would be the latest in a series of reductions that have already lowered poverty aid by 30 percent since 2015. In the past, Indiana relied on whether students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch to measure need. But in 2015, state lawmakers decided to shift to using the number of students who receive food stamps, welfare, or are in foster care. The new measure of need includes a narrower — and poorer — group of students.

VIRTUAL SCHOOLS LOSE MILLIONS OF TAX DOLLARS

Indiana paid for thousands of students who never earned credits at virtual charter schools

“The cost of school choice”

From Chalkbeat

Last year nearly 2,000 students never earned a single credit across Indiana’s six virtual charter schools, according to new data — even though most of them were enrolled nearly all year and the schools received funding to educate them.

That works out to almost $10 million in state funding paid to the online schools for students who didn’t complete any work or got failing grades in their classes.

The majority of those students attended Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, two schools at risk of losing their charters amid allegations raised in February by their authorizer that they enrolled thousands of students who did not complete or sign up for courses, among other issues with test administration and serving students with disabilities.

This bill was meant to check virtual schools. Now, lawmakers are watering it down again

There really is something quite wrong with our Hoosier legislature.

From Chalkbeat

Just weeks before the end of the legislative session, some of the stricter regulations on virtual charter schools were removed from a bill that lawmakers promised would rein in the controversial schools.

House education committee members voted 9-0 Monday to amend a Senate bill, further watering it down while folding in measures from a similar bill that would give the schools more power to choose their students.

INDIANA GENERAL ASSEMBLY: NO IDEA IS TOO STUPID

IN: Go Ahead And Shoot Teachers

“No idea too stupid,” seems to be our legislators’ motto.

From Peter Greene in Curmudgucation

When the story first broke that teachers at Meadowlawn Elementary School in Monticello, Indiana had been shot with pellets--execution style--as part of an active shooter drill, I decided not to get in to it here. The sheriff's department had agreed to knock it the hell off, the legislature had already moved to ban the practice, and the whole business was so clearly over the line, so obviously unnecessarily abusive of teachers, so clearly just a stupid thing to do-- well, I figured we'd heard the last of it.

I should have known better.

WILL TENNESSEE FOLLOW INDIANA DOWN THE VOUCHER PIT?

Tennessee: Showdown Over Vouchers

From Diane Ravitch

Governor Bill Lee has proposed a voucher program. Teachers and parents are outraged. —but not enough of them.

When the bill moved from the House to the Senate, the number of vouchers were doubled to 30,000.

The money for vouchers will be subtracted from public schools, which educate 90% of the children of Tennessee. Expect more segregation, more bigotry, more children taught by uncertified teachers, more state-sponsored ignorance of science and history. Expect budget cuts in public schools, larger classes, no money for higher salaries, layoffs for teachers, school nurses, librarians, counselors, the arts.

AN INDIANA HISTORY LESSON

Indiana: Still hating public education after all these years

Read a short, sordid history of Indiana's assaults on Public education and our communities, by our Hoosier legislators and governors.

From Live Long and Prosper

There's an amendment to a bill (SB390) which will require that a maximum of three collective bargaining meetings between school boards and local teachers associations be private. All the rest of the meetings must be held publicly.

The only reason I can see for this amendment is to make things more difficult for the teachers union. There's no research to support the idea that schools with open negotiations meetings save more money than schools which negotiate in private. There's no research to support the idea that this will help teachers teach better, or improve student performance. There is no reason to do this other than to make things more difficult for teachers.

Where is the corresponding legislation to require the same public meeting policy for administrators' salaries? legislature staff salaries? state department of health workers salaries?

UPDATE April 11, 7 PM ET: This afternoon the Indiana House of Representatives passed this bill into law. My state representative voted for it.

TESTING, STILL OVERUSED AND MISUSED

Is Your School Year Over Already?

How much does all this testing rob from your child?

From Peter Greene in Forbes

High stakes tests have become the educational equivalent of the office where nobody can get their work done because they're constantly attending meetings to give progress reports on the work they're not getting done. High stakes testing have effectively, drastically, shortened the school year, not just by the week or two required to give the test, but by all the weeks used to get ready for it. Simply abolishing the test, or even removing all stakes from it, would instantly improve education in this country because it would instantly lengthen the school year by weeks.

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

Charter School Sector Swindles the Public, Burns Tax Dollars, and Cheats Children—Part 1

Charter School Sector Swindles the Public, Burns Tax Dollars, and Cheats Children—Part 2

From Jan Resseger

Many of us have been aware of problems with charter schools for a long, long time. For over two years now, the Network for Public Education has been logging reports in local newspapers when an entrepreneur is caught stealing tax dollars; or when a state, a school district or charter authorizer finally shuts down a charter school for academic malpractice; or when a charter school goes broke mid-school year leaving children without a school mid-semester.

But the past month has produced an uptick in reports of large scale charter school ripoffs and charter school failure.

Houston: Charter School Superintendent and IT Specialist Charged with Embezzlement

From Diane Ravitch

The superintendent of a Houston charter school and a school employee have been charged with embezzling more than $250,000 from the school’s bank account.

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY FROM US.ED.

Jeff Bryant: What is the U.S. Department of Education Hiding?

From Diane Ravitch

1. Can you provide a similar document describing how the grant review process is currently being conducted for the Charter Schools Program Grants to State Entities?

2. If not, can you briefly comment on how the grant review process used for the Charter Schools Program Grants to State Entities aligns with or varies from the Overview referenced above?

3. Regarding a “Dear Colleague” letter sent to State Education Agencies in 2015 emphasizing the importance of financial accountability for charter schools receiving federal dollars, was there any follow-up by the Charter School Program to ascertain how many SEAs complied with this request and what was the nature of the new systems and processes put into place by SEAs to provide for greater accountability?

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Vic’s Statehouse Notes #336 – April 12, 2019

Dear Friends,

Attention all who support public education!

You are invited to a rally in support of better funding for K-12 education. We need you!

When: Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 3:00 pm

Where: Indiana Statehouse South Atrium

Coordinated by the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

Event partners: AFT Indiana, Concerned Clergy, Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), Indiana Parent Teacher Association (PTA)

Everyone is encouraged to join us!

Stand up for public education! Let legislators know you care about K-12 funding in the two-year budget.

Raise the Priority in Support of K-12 Funding

We need your presence to put top priority on better funding for our K-12 students in the new budget.

Here’s the picture:

• In January, the Governor recommended K-12 increases of 2% in the first year ($143 million) and 2% in the second year ($146 million).

• In February, the House recommended K-12 increases of 2.1% in the first year ($154 million) and 2.2% in the second year ($160 million).

• Yesterday, April 12, the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Senator Mishler, recommended K-12 increases of 2.7% in the first year ($192 million) and 2.2% in the second year ($162 million).

• The Indiana Coalition for Public Education and other public education advocates have recommended K-12 increases of 3% in the first year ($210 million) and 3% in the second year ($230 million).

• Indiana K-12 students and teachers deserve more financial support to maintain strong student programs and to keep strong teachers from leaving the state or changing careers.

There is no guarantee that the final budget will include the better numbers from the Senate.

• The House and Senate now have to negotiate their differences in a conference committee.

• If they simply split the difference, our K-12 students could lose support.

• The Senate budget deleted the 70% voucher which cost $19 million, but the House will likely try to put it back in.

• The Senate budget deleted the $47 million expansion of charter school grants, but the House will likely want to revive it.

• The Senate expanded tax credits for private school scholarships by $3 million over 2 years, while the House expanded them by $5 million. We don’t need any expansion of tax credits for private schools! They are already funded at $14 million each year.

We need you on April 16th to help send a message: Our K-12 students and teachers need even more support than the Senate version!

The members of the General Assembly need to hear from you the parents, the taxpayers and the educators of Indiana about supporting better K-12 funding.

Will you join us? Will you bring friends and family? Will you wear red for public ed?

The rally will feature a welcome by Dr. Jennifer McCormick, our last elected State Superintendent of Public Education. Key speakers representing our partner groups will follow. The moderator will be Joel Hand, the Indiana Coalition for Public Education attorney and lobbyist.

Make plans now to join us next Tuesday April 16th to support our K-12 students.

A printable flyer for you to share with friends, family and colleagues is available at the ICPE website:

www.icpe2011.com

Please pass the word!

Thank you for actively supporting public education in Indiana!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith

“Vic’s Statehouse Notes” and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!

ICPE has worked since 2011 to promote public education in the Statehouse and oppose the privatization of schools. We need your membership to help support the ICPE lobbying efforts. As of July 1st, the start of our new membership year, it is time for all ICPE members to renew their membership.

Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well during the 2018 session. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word!

Go to www.icpe2011.com for membership and renewal information and for full information on ICPE efforts on behalf of public education. Thanks!

Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio:

I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998. In 2013 I was honored to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU School of Education, and in 2014 I was honored to be named to the Teacher Education Hall of Fame by the Association for Teacher Education – Indiana. In April, I was honored to receive the 2018 Friend of Education Award from the Indiana State Teachers Association.

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In Case You Missed It – Apr 8, 2019

Here are links to last week's articles receiving the most attention in NEIFPE's social media. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THINK ABOUT THIS

Have We Stolen A Generation's Independent Thought?

We're teaching students not to think...and standardized tests are part of the problem.

From Peter Greene in Forbes

"Kids these days," the complaint begins. "They cannot think for themselves." The complaint has come across my desk three times this week, voiced by someone in the higher education world complaining about the quality of student arriving in their ivy-covered halls.

It's worth noting that the observation itself has no particular objective, evidence-based support. There's no college student independent thought index we can consult to check for a dip. Just the subjective judgment of some people who work at the college level. So the whole business could simply be the time-honored dismay of an older generation contemplating the younger one.

ALEC STRIKES AGAIN

Bombshell Report About Copycat Legislation Written by ALEC but Adopted by Your State

From Diane Ravitch

ALEC and corporate America are churning out legislation that is introduced in your state under false pretenses as “reform.” Every one of these bills is meant to protect corporations and profiteers, whether in health care or any other industry.

You may have noticed a sudden mushrooming of voucher legislation in state after state. It was not written by your legislators. It was written by the rightwing corporate funded American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC.

Not only is ALEC funded by corporations, it is funded by the DeVos family and the Koch brothers.

Need to learn more about ALEC? 

Bill Moyers: The United States of ALEC

United States of ALEC September 28, 2012 Full Show from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

• ALEC Exposed

• ALEC & Education

INDIANA FOSTER CHILDREN

Indiana foster children are less likely to graduate, more likely to be suspended, a new report shows

It would be nice if on seeing a report like this if our Hoosier legislators would make it a mission to support public schools so that they’d have the resources to support these children. Instead, the General Assembly would rather give to charters and vouchers who don’t have to accept or keep children who need intense support.

From Chalkbeat

Indiana now has its first look at how well the state is educating the 9,000 school-age children in foster care, and the findings are discouraging. Foster children are more likely than their peers to attend underperforming schools, and only 64 percent graduate from high school.

INDIANA TEACHER LICENSING

Indiana could scrap test seen as a barrier to training more teachers of color

Of course we need more teachers of color in Indiana! And we also need a way to vet qualified candidates for teachers. This test just is not it.

From Chalkbeat

A panel of Indiana House lawmakers took steps to get rid of a teacher preparation test that some educators say keeps teachers of color out of the classroom.

The House Education Committee unanimously voted on Wednesday to remove the state requirement that students pass the basic reading, writing, and math skills test known as “CASA” as freshmen or sophomores before they enter college teacher preparation programs. The provision was added to a bill that would change some rules about alternative teacher licenses, which passed the committee unanimously as well.

INDIANA SCHOOL FUNDING FALLS SHORT

Ongoing neglect hits rural schools hardest

From Southwest Allen County Schools Superintendent, Phil Downs, in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

If Indiana is to pursue the noble goal of funding all its children's educations, it should do that. Since the voucher program began in 2011, no additional money has been added to the budget to fund the vouchers, and the program has created a de facto final step in the school funding process which is hurting most communities in Indiana.

Funding falls short on effort, fairness

From School Matters

Indiana’s highest-poverty school districts spend only 65 percent of what’s needed for their students to achieve modest academic success, according to a new education finance report from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education and the Albert Shanker Institute.

Is it because we can’t afford to do better? Not at all. Indiana is near the bottom of the states when it comes to funding “effort,” the percentage of gross state product spent on schools.

It’s more compelling evidence that state legislators should be thinking a lot bigger as they decide how much of the two-year state budget to spend on K-12 education.

State blamed as teacher pay stalls

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Most seem to agree that Indiana teachers don't get paid enough.

But the disconnect comes in where the blame lies. Is the legislature not providing enough money? Or are school districts spending too much on administration and too little on teacher salaries?

CHARTER MIDDLE SCHOOLS NO HELP

Federal study finds charter middle schools didn’t help students earn college degrees

So why are we allowing our legislators to misuse our tax dollars to support charters?

From Chalkbeat

Attending a sought-after charter middle school didn’t increase a student’s chance of attending or graduating college, a new U.S. Department of Education study showed.

The report, released Monday, also found little connection between charter school quality, as measured by test scores, and college outcomes.

“The overall conclusion that there is little difference between charter schools and non-charter schools is not shocking to me,” said Sarah Cohodes, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. She pointed to prior research showing charters perform comparably to district schools nearby.

A VIRTUAL MESS -- PAID FOR WITH YOUR TAX DOLLARS

Indiana: Virtual School Scams Taxpayers and Students

From Diane Ravitch

In every state that has authorized virtual charter schools, these schools are marked by two characteristics:

1. They are very profitable.

2. The “education” they provide is abysmal.

Typically, they have high attrition, low graduation rates, and low scores on state tests. The state fails to monitor them for quality. Students and taxpayers are fleeced.

Some parents say getting help was like ‘pulling teeth’ as troubled Indiana virtual schools grew

From Chalkbeat

Morrice’s portrayal, which he documented in a complaint to the state education department two years ago, lines up with some accusations leveled against the 8-year-old online school and its sister school by its authorizer last month: that thousands of students for whom the schools received millions of dollars in state funding didn’t complete or sign up for classes. The schools say the allegations, which could lead to the revocation of their charters and eventually their closure, are false and based on incomplete information.

Some virtual school students and parents who spoke with Chalkbeat also echoed Morrice’s description of how the school often didn’t give students enough attention, including not returning phone calls and emails. The parents and students said they struggled to get teachers and school staff to communicate, transfer records, provide educational advice, or ensure credits were processed.

INDIANA VOTERS LOSE A VOICE

Hoosiers lose direct say over state school chief

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

House Bill 1005 was signed by the Indiana Senate president pro tem on April Fool's Day and quickly moved to Gov. Eric Holcomb's desk. With his signature Wednesday, the governor claimed appointment authority for the state superintendent of public instruction.

Holcomb scores a victory for his Next Level Agenda, which called for removing the post from statewide ballots. State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick cleared the way to move up the 2025 appointment date when she announced last October that she would not seek reelection. But she also suggested there were behind-the-scenes efforts to do so regardless of her plans.

Who pushed appointed-superintendent law?

From School Matters

McCormick, a Republican, was elected in 2016 after a campaign in which she received a lot of support from advocates for charter schools and vouchers, including the Chamber of Commerce and, especially, the advocacy group Hoosiers for Quality Education. But the former Yorktown, Indiana, school superintendent turned out to be a forceful and effective advocate for public schools.

You can imagine that some of her backers were disappointed and wanted her out, sooner rather than later.

DEVOS CONTINUES TO DO DAMAGE TO PUBLIC EDUCATION

The Special Olympics funding outcry is over, but it’s been crickets over some of DeVos’s other proposed education budget cuts. Think civics, history, arts...

From the Answer Sheet

The Trump administration has proposed eliminating a $4.8 million program to enhance American civics and history education. It has also called for making these cuts that would eliminate programs:

• $1.2 billion for programs that help boost student academic achievement before and after school and during the summer.

• $190 million to boost literacy instruction from birth to age 20...

• $27 million for arts education programs for children from low-income families and students with disabilities.

• $10 million to boost community schools...

• More than $207 billion over 10 years from student loan programs...

DeVos, Class Size, and the Reformistan Bubble

From Curmudgucation

...The shock and scandal and outrage is not that DeVos would offer up this class size bullshit on the Hill, but that she stands on top of a whole pile of educational amateurs who have been pushing this bullshit for at least a decade, despite the mountain of evidence and the actual teachers who speak against it.

Why I was Shaking My Head at Betsy DeVos

From Living in Dialogue

I can only shake my head in disbelief.

The problem for DeVos is that there is ample research that shows just the opposite – that class size matters very much. My friend Leonie Haimson has worked for years with a group called Class Size Matters, and they provide here a set of studies supporting this..

Another friend, Nancy Flanagan, attributes the source of the idea that larger classes are just fine to every billionaire’s favorite education researcher, Eric Hanushek. Way back in 1998, Hanushek suggested there was no real value in reducing class sizes– using test scores, of course. In 2011, Bill Gates urged policymakers to stop worrying about class size.

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Vic’s Statehouse Notes #335 – April 1, 2019

Dear Friends,

Make plans now to come to a Statehouse rally for better K-12 funding on Tuesday, April 16th at 3:00pm!

Mark your calendars!

Look for details and a printable flier about the rally on the Indiana Coalition for Public Education website: www.icpe2011.com.

_______________

As we await the Senate budget, the crucial question remains: Will the Senate provide additional K-12 funding?

Where Could the Senate Find $70 Million More Money for K-12 Funding?

The teacher pay crisis is a fight to retain our strong teachers. During this crisis, Indiana does not need to expand vouchers or privatization programs.

The House budget used $70 million over two years to expand three voucher and charter school programs.

Contact your Senators to tell them that this $70 million should all be transferred to the tuition support budget to focus on the General Assembly’s stated priority: funding better pay for all teachers.

The goal is to improve the House budget to put more money into K-12 tuition support, the budget line that funds teacher salaries and all general expenses. The House budget raised tuition support by 2.1% in the first year of the budget and by 2.2% in the second year. ICPE and other groups have called for at least a 3% increase each year.

Transferring this $70 million to tuition support would help reach that goal.

Let Senators know that these three programs can be abandoned in favor of helping teachers get more pay in Indiana:

Program 1: The new 70% voucher expansion costs an extra $19 million.

• The historic legislative fight in 2011 over the original voucher bill established a 90% voucher for families of four currently making $46,000 or less. This means that 90% of the per student support for a public school student goes to the parent to pay for private school tuition.

• A 50% voucher was established for families of four currently making $69,000.

• Now, for the first time in the eight year history of vouchers, the House wants to give $19 million more money for a new concept: a 70% voucher to families of four making between $46,000 and $57,500, while families between $57,500 and $69,000 would still receive a 50% voucher from Indiana taxpayers.

• This would probably not add many students to the voucher count but would give significantly more money to the parents making between $46,000 and $57,000 who already have students in the voucher program.

• The non-partisan Legislative Services Agency says the newly proposed 70% voucher would cost an extra $7.7 million in the first year of the budget.

• It would cost $11.3 million in the second year.

• Adding these two years together, this newly proposed 70% voucher would cost $19 million.

• The 70% voucher was not debated in any bill but just appeared in the budget. The secrecy of how this concept appeared is stunning. In eight years, it has never before been proposed.

• Giving more money to voucher parents is not the General Assembly’s stated priority. No case was made that this 70% voucher solves any problem. It received no debate or public review. It was a total surprise when it showed up in the budget. This program would undercut the priority on more money for teacher pay.

Program 2: The expansion of private school scholarships raised by Scholarship Granting Organizations costs an extra $4 million.

• In 2009, the General Assembly budgeted $2.5 million of taxpayer funds to pay 50% back to donors giving to private school scholarships through a tax credit. It was the first state money ever given to pay tuition to private K-12 schools.

• This year the House budget raises the tax credit funding by $1 million in the first year, from $14 million to $15 million.

• In the second year, the House budget raises funding to $16 million or by 120% of what the scholarship granting organizations (SGO’s) actually raise, whichever is more. Applying the 120% figure to $15 million means that in the second year of the budget, taxpayers could pay out $18 million for private school scholarships. $18 million would match what has been budgeted for summer school for all of Indiana for many years.

• This automatic escalator has been proposed twice before by the House and must be defeated.

• The school scholarship tax credit is the most generous tax credit to donors in Indiana. It gives 50% back to donors when they file their taxes with no individual limit. The 2013 voucher expansion law said that any student getting a tax credit scholarship one year could get a state voucher scholarship the next year (Choice Scholarship). This has been the mechanism for allowing students who have never been in public schools to get a voucher, a figure that has risen to 58% of all voucher students.

Program 3: The expansion of the Charter School Grants program costs $47 million.

• Again, the stated priority of the General Assembly is to provide funds to improve teacher pay, not to give more money to charter schools. Charter schools are funded by the tuition support line item that needs to get bigger for all schools.

• The non-partisan Legislative Services Agency says the expansion of charter school grants would cost an extra $21 million in the first year of the budget.

• It would cost an extra $26 million in the second year.

• Adding these two years together, the proposed expansion of charter school grants would cost $47 million.

Three non-crisis programs costing $70 million!

Senators need to hear from you on these three programs. They undermine the stated goal of funding better teacher salaries and benefits to keep talented teachers from going to other states or other careers for better pay.


The Senate School Funding Subcommittee Hearing

A long public hearing was held on Thursday, March 14 allowing citizens to speak about the K-12 budget. An impressive number of teachers from all over Indiana showed up to speak about the low funding they have seen in their school district and how that has impacted their teaching and how it has hurt colleagues who have had to leave the profession due to financial hardships. The totality of the hearing for the Senators who were listening was that the teacher shortage in Indiana will only get worse until significant dollars are invested in the K-12 tuition support formula.

A similar loud message was delivered on March 9th in an impressive Statehouse rally organized by the Indiana State Teachers Association. The call for better funding has been effectively delivered, but the response by the Senate is still unknown.

The tuition support funding issue has followed this sequence in the expectations dance:

• In November, Speaker Bosma predicted that a tight budget would mean at most a 0.7% funding increase for K-12.

• In January, Governor Holcomb recommended a 2.0% increase each year of the budget. In addition, he called for pension payments to be taken from the surplus to give school districts about $70 million each of the next two years to be available for teacher pay increases.

• In February, the House budget gave a 2.1% increase for the first year and a 2.2% increase in the second year, along with the pension money payments worth. they say now, $150 over two years.

• On March 9, an impressive teacher rally attracting about 2000 on a rainy day gave notice that the House budget was insufficient to correct the teacher pay problems.

• On March 14, the public hearing of the School Funding Subcommittee attracted not only public education organizations, such as the Indiana Coalition for Public Education (ICPE) asking for a 3.0% increase each year, but an impressive number of individual teachers and parents from Gibson County to Steuben County independently asking for better K-12 funding, a dimension that has not been seen in previous budget years.

I hope you will get involved in asking Senators for a 3% increase in K-12 funding.

Then later, members of the House need to get the same message to put a 3% increase in the budget for K-12 funding.

Good luck in your efforts! Thank you for your active support of public education in Indiana!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith

“Vic’s Statehouse Notes” and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma!

ICPE has worked since 2011 to promote public education in the Statehouse and oppose the privatization of schools. We need your membership to help support the ICPE lobbying efforts. As of July 1st, the start of our new membership year, it is time for all ICPE members to renew their membership.

Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well during the 2018 session. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word!

Go to www.icpe2011.com for membership and renewal information and for full information on ICPE efforts on behalf of public education. Thanks!

Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio:

I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998. In 2013 I was honored to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU School of Education, and in 2014 I was honored to be named to the Teacher Education Hall of Fame by the Association for Teacher Education – Indiana. In April, I was honored to receive the 2018 Friend of Education Award from the Indiana State Teachers Association.

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