In Case You Missed It – October 21, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. 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 of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

2024 Candidate pledge from the Indiana Coalition for Public Education website.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"[Candidate for Indiana Governor, Jennifer McCormick]...wants to place limits on the state’s private school voucher initiative: The program grew to encompass more than 70,000 children in 2023-24, a 31% increase from the year before. The state allocated $439 million in tuition grants to private parochial or non-religious schools last year — up from nearly $312 million the year before.

McCormick said the program, which might have been intended for lower-income children, is often utilized by white suburban families and is too expensive." -- Quoted in Diane Ravitch's blog, Indiana: Vote for Jennifer McCormick for Governor

ELECT PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION CANDIDATES

Vic’s Statehouse Notes #389 – Candidate Pledge

Ask your local candidates to sign the Public Education Pledge from the Indiana Coaltion for Public Education.

From Vic Smith, Indiana Coalition for Public Education

This election could determine the survival of public education in Indiana. The plan to give ESAs to all parents in a “universal voucher” system has already been presented by Senator Mishler. The disastrous consequences of universal ESAs were detailed in the previous Statehouse Notes #388.

To survive, public education must have strong support from more legislators. This fact is the focus of a recent opinion piece written by ICPE board member, Dr. Tony Lux.

A “Candidate Pledge” to support public education is found on the website of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education.

JENNIFER MCCORMICK FOR GOVERNOR

Indiana: Vote for Jennifer McCormick for Governor

Jennifer McCormick wants to protect Indiana's public schools.

From Diane Ravitch

Jennifer McCormick was the last elected state superintendent of schools. She switched parties because of the Republicans’ hostility to public schools.

She is running for Governor of Indiana against Senator Mike Braun, who is a far-right Republican. Braun and his running mate, an evangelical extremist, want to get rid of public schools.

The 74 reports:

U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, a conservative Republican, is still ahead in the state’s gubernatorial race but his lead among Indiana voters over Democrat Jennifer McCormick has shrunk in recent weeks.

Polling released this week by the Democratic Governors Association shows Braun just three points in front of McCormick, 44% to 41%. That’s a dropoff from the Sept. 17 results of an Emerson College Polling/The Hill voter survey that had Braun with roughly 45% of the vote and McCormick with 34. Libertarian candidate Donald Rainwater also picked up more support but less dramatically so, going from 5.8% to 8%.

Indiana has not elected a Democratic governor since 2000 and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a comfortable 14 percentage point lead, 57% to 43%, over Democrat Kamala Harris, according to an ActiVote poll released Tuesday.

PUBLIC DOLLARS GOING TO RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS

Only One True God: How Religious Schools Use Taxpayer Dollars to Promote Their Extremist Ideology

How our tax dollars are used...

From Thom Hartmann in Milwaukee Independent

Five Republican-controlled states are in the process of letting vouchers ghettoize their entire public-school systems. As The Washington Post noted:

“Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.”

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, flies an “Appeal to Heaven” flag outside his official congressional office that, since 2013, has been the semi-official logo of a militant arm of charismatic Christianity involved with January 6th. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito flew a similar flag outside his summer home.

Another man flying that flag is outspoken Catholic evangelist Leonard Leo, who now controls over a billion dollars and helped run the process that selected Trump’s picks for the Supreme Court as well as hundreds of federal bench nominees. As ProPublica pointed out in a story about the man that remade the American judicial system:

“Leo is a major supporter of the [Catholic Information Center], and its unabashed projection of political power aligns with the central role of religion in Leo’s political project.”

LOCAL NEWS

Fort Wayne Community Schools seeks buyer for vacant southwest parcel

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools is seeking potential buyers for land it has owned for more than 20 years on the city’s southwest side.

The board agreed Monday to sell the vacant property at the northwest corner of Sandpoint Road and Ardmore Avenue to the person with the highest and best qualified offer.

The district doesn’t anticipate any future need for the site, which is smaller than an acre and requires ongoing maintenance, officials said.

Online property records indicate the district bought the land for $85,000 in March 2003. At that time, the tract was immediately north of Elmhurst High School, which closed at the end of the 2009-10 academic year. FWCS sold that site for $600,000 seven years ago to Hanson Aggregates Midwest, which operates nearby Ardmore Quarry.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library coming to Allen County; ACPL fundraising goal met

From WANE.com

After just a few months, a campaign to bring Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to local kids has brought in enough funds to move forward with the reading program.

The Allen County Public Library announced Monday it has met its $100,000 fundraising goal for the campaign, which was launched in June. That means the Imagination Library could be implemented in the coming months.

The country music icon’s program provides free books to children up to age 5, encouraging literacy starting at a young age. Kids around the globe who are registered in the program get books in the mail each month.

There are already over 1,500 children on the waiting list for Allen County’s program. Families can join the list on the Imagination Library website.

Indiana marching bands are heading to the 2024 BOA Super Regional. Find out who'll compete

From IndyStar

THE LATEST: See who made finals at the Indianapolis Super Regional here.

For the next few weeks, it's marching band season at Lucas Oil Stadium (except when it's Taylor Swift season, that is).

Marching bands in Indiana competed last week for a spot in the ISSMA Semi-State competition, which takes place Oct. 26. This week, there's a two-day Bands of America Super Regional bringing high school performers from around the region (and a few from beyond) to the stadium.

More than 110 bands also will come to downtown Indy in mid-November for the 2024 Bands of America Grand National Championships.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – June 24, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. 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 of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"...we already have school choice and always have. We have a requirement in most states that each child must get some sort of education, but how the child gets that education is a parent's choice. Public, private, parochial, religious, home-- you can choose the school you want. But that's not what modern choicers mean by school choice.

Instead, they use the term "school choice" as a blanket term to cover a whole bunch of ideas that are not actually school choice.

Instead, "school choice" refers to a constellation of policies aimed at directing taxpayer dollars into the pockets of private operators." -- Peter Greene at Curmudgucation in Stop Calling It School Choice

THIS WEEK IN ATTACKS ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

Moms on a Mission

How the Right Exploits ‘Moms’ to Privatize Education

From The Progressive

Moms are allegedly at the center of a rightwing campaign attacking public schools and advocating for school vouchers. The latest entry in the “moms space” is called Moms on a Mission, which the organization’s website reveals is an offshoot of the Betsy DeVos-controlled American Federation for Children (AFC).

Moms on a Mission joins the better-known Moms for Liberty (M4L), which the Southern Poverty Law Center designated as an extremist group. Yet while M4L and similar groups have tried to depict themselves as a grassroots movement, Moms on a Mission doesn’t hide the fact it is a masquerade for billionaire privatization schemes and Republican politics.

Betsy DeVos has long been affiliated with rightwing Christian campaigns to decimate public schools and redirect funds to voucher programs, charter schools, or religious schools. She was former President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education, but at M4L’s 2022 national summit, she called for the abolition of that very department.

The debut of Moms on a Mission was announced in an email from AFC’s National Director of Communications Strategy, Elizabeth BeShears. BeShears previously worked at Americans for Prosperity, Charles Koch’s dark money nonprofit. Koch and DeVos are political allies on education.

In 2018, Koch announced a move into K-12 politics, with a billionaire compatriot describing it as the “lowest hanging fruit.” Nicole Neily, another Koch operative, runs M4L’s close ally Parents Defending Education, which supports book bans and opposes the factual teaching of racism and school policies to ensure all students feel welcome.

DeVos’s influence entirely depends on her wealth...

Taxpayers funding private schools

Christian Nationalists Are Opening Private Schools. Taxpayers Are Funding Them.

From Mother Jones

...In addition to its thrumming weekly worship sessions and its blockbuster events, the church has another project: Dream City Christian Academy. The K-12 private school, which serves nearly 800 students, is part of Turning Point USA’s Turning Point Academy program, a network of 41 schools that describes itself as “an educational movement that exists to glorify God and preserve the founding principles of the United States through influencing and inspiring the formation of the next generation.” Dream City Christian Academy promises to “Protect our campus from the infiltration of unethical agendas by rejecting all ‘woke’ and untruthful ideologies being pushed on students.”

This politically charged approach to education likely isn’t for everyone—and because it’s a private school, it doesn’t have to be. Except for one thing: Dream City Christian Academy is one of a growing number of religious schools that are supported by public funds.

In 2022, Arizona became the first state in which all students are allowed to use state vouchers to cover a portion of tuition at any private school, secular or religious. Through Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, each participating family receives about 90 percent of the money the state would have spent on the child’s public school education—around $7,000 per student per year—for private school tuition. For the 2024-2025 school year, the Dream City Christian Academy annual tuition ranges from $10,450 in elementary school to $13,999 in high school—so families of the school’s nearly 800 students can use state funds to pay for between half and two-thirds of their tuition bill. Dream City Christian Academy received almost $1 million in tuition voucher money last year, the Arizona Republic recently reported.

It's not a choice

Stop Calling It School Choice

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

When framing a debate, it helps to pick just the right names. Just ask the folks who decided to call their respective sides "pro-life" and "pro-choice."

One of earliest victories for education privatizers was to coin the name "school choice." I don't know if somebody cleverly designed and tested it, or they just sort of stumbled over it, but it's a handy piece of coinage.

The Google Ngram for American English shows barely in use up through the mid-1980s, when it suddenly rocketed up the charts (aka immediately after the release of A Nation at Risk, A Nation at Risk, the Reagan era hit job on public education). That peak comes at 2001, then a steady drop since that year.

I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of those instances are actually a misuse of the term. Because the privatization and reformster movements have got us using "school choice" to mean what it does not mean.

Crossing the line

Louisiana Requires “10 Commandments” in Every Public School Classroom

From Diane Ravitch

Louisiana became the first state to enact a law requiring that the “Ten Commandments” be displayed in every public school classroom. Others have proposed such laws, but they didn’t pass. Governor Jeff Landry, who is Catholic, signed the law in a Catholic school, which is somewhat strange since the law applies only to public schools.

The New York Times reports that the bill is part of a larger agenda to turn the U.S. into an explicitly Christian nation. Despite the fact that the Founders wrote extensively against religion controlling the state and said in the Constitution that there could be no religious test for office-holders, the religious right continues to shove their religion—and only their religion—on everyone else

LOCAL AND INDIANA NEWS

NACS proposes 9th elementary school, natatorium, and more in 10-year plan

From WANE.com

On Thursday, Northwest Allen County Schools (NACS) met to discuss their strategic ten-year plan.

The NACS Senior Leadership Team presented the plan to the NACS Board of School Trustees, highlighting various projects to address the district’s growing population.

A new elementary school was suggested during the meeting. This would be the ninth elementary school in NACS.

“Right now, we’re at 86.1% capacity at all of our elementary schools,” NACS Superintendent Wayne Barker said. “The optimum operating capacity we’ve been told for a long time by demographers and those that work in schools is you really only want to be around 85% capacity. Because once that happens the demands on people and challenges for student learning become much more complicated.”

SACS Board of Trustees officially approves district’s superintendent pick

From WANE.com

Southwest Allen County Schools (SACS) will officially have its new superintendent at the helm starting July 1.

The SACS Board of Trustees unanimously approved Kent DeKoninck as SACS’ new superintendent during the district’s school board meeting Tuesday evening.

Tuesday night, WANE 15 spoke with DeKoninck after the meeting, about how he is committed to the district and the district’s needs...

Democrat Jennifer McCormick taps former Indiana Rep. Terry Goodin for lieutenant governor

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

...“I’ve traveled to many parts of the state in the last two years, and I was troubled by what I saw. In county after county, small towns and small cities seem to be going out of business,” Goodin said. “Unfortunately, the current leadership in our state seems to be okay with this as they have implemented no real policies that will rebuild our small communities, our rural communities … We can do better than that in Indiana, folks.”

He said change starts with education reforms, creating more union jobs and ensuring Hoosiers get “equal pay for equal work.”

“This race we’re getting ready to undertake is between those who have a vision for a great future for our state, or those who simply want to be stuck in the past,” he said.

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – June 17, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. 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 of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The expansion in voucher programs is part of a broader move in some states toward more government-sponsored religion inside public schools. New laws allow schools to hire chaplains for counseling…. In West Virginia, a new law allows teachers to discuss alternative theories to evolution. Seven states have passed measures mandating elective courses focused on the Bible… In Oklahoma, the state Supreme Court in April considered what would be an unprecedented step toward the mingling of church and state in education, weighing whether the state could directly fund what would be the nation’s first religious charter school." -- Washington Post writers, Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein quoted in Erasing the Line that Separates Church and State in Education

SEPARATING CHURCH AND STATE IN EDUCATION

Erasing the Line that Separates Church and State in Education

The Indiana voucher plan is essentially a money laundering scheme for religious schools. The state supreme court claimed that since the tax money used for vouchers really belongs to the parents of children, there is no conflict between church and state. However, the parents don't see the money from the voucher. The so-called "money from the parent" goes directly from the state treasury to the private school.

From Jan Resseger

It has become acceptable for states to award tax funded tuition vouchers to private schools that teach religious doctrine. In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has ignored the First Amendment Establishment Clause and declared that if states permit private schools in general to accept state funded tuition vouchers, the state’s exclusion of religious private schools would violate the free exercise of religion.

The shifting legal prioritization of the Free Exercise Clause over the Establishment Clause has not happened by accident. Activists have worked with far-right legal firms to bring a succession of legal challenges, with each lawsuit designed to shift the Supreme Court’s interpretation a little farther away from protecting the separation of religion and government. In an earlier report this spring, Meckler laid out some of this history: “In recent years, religious activists have succeeded in tearing down what had been a clear delineation between public funding and religious education. In three (of the most recent) significant rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court found that religious institutions may not be excluded from taxpayer-funded programs that were available to others. In a 2017 case, the high court ruled that a church-run preschool in Missouri was entitled to a state grant that funded playgrounds. In 2020, the court ruled that Montana… include religious schools in a program giving tax incentives for supporting private-school tuition scholarships. And last year, the court said that a Maine voucher program that sent rural students to private high schools had to be open to religious schools.”

Peter Greene: Putting Chaplains in Schools is a Very Bad Idea

The current majority on the Supreme Court seems to deny that the First Amendment contains an "Establishment Clause."

From Diane Ravitch

Peter Greene describes the new movement to place chaplains in schools to act as mental health counselors. The politicians behind this demand want Protestant evangelical chaplains, no doubt, but the schools will have requests for all sorts of religions. Not only from the myriad Protestant sects, but from Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Unitarians, Buddhists, Hindus, and many others. There would certainly be a need for three Jewish chaplains: Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. And every other religion will have divisions that must be addressed. Will there also be mental health counselors for kids who don’t want a chaplain?

CHARTER DISTRICT FAILS

All Charter District Opens Public School

Just because you went to school doesn't mean you know how to teach. Just because your community had a school doesn't mean that you know how to run a school. There is a reason that educators are trained in schools of education.

From Tom Ultican at Tultican

Desires of New Orleans residents were ignored. Neoliberal billionaires were in charge. In all the excitement, few noticed that these oligarchs had no understanding of how public education functions. They threw away 200 years of public school development and replaced it with an experiment. The mostly black residents in the city were stripped of their rights.

Thousands of experienced black educators were fired and replaced by mostly white Teach For America teachers with 5 weeks of training. Instead of stable public schools, people were forced into unstable charter schools. Instead of professional administration, market forces drove the bus!

Clearly, the all charter school system is a failure.

TAX MONEY, MY MONEY

Whose Money Follows The Child?

"...everyone in the country benefits from sharing space with educated co-workers, neighbors, and pretty much everyone else we have to deal with. Everyone shares the cost..." Everyone reaps the benefit.

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

The suggestion that vouchers are simply a means of giving parents back their own money to spend on education as they see fit--that's absurd. Our entire public education system is funded on the theory that everyone in the country benefits from sharing space with educated co-workers, neighbors, and pretty much everyone else we have to deal with. Everyone shares the cost.

It's odd that so much of the voucher crowd is also the "taxation is theft" crowd, because voucher funding requires the voucher holders to take tax dollars from their neighbors while stripping those neighbors of any say in the kind of education those dollars will be spent on. That includes spending my neighbor's tax dollars on a school that would forbit, bar, eject, and demonize those neighbors and their children.

Your money should follow my child.

"Just give us back our tax money, and I'll get my kids the education I want and everyone else can get the kind of education they want," is top-grade bullshit. The only people who it even sort of works for is the folks living in very expensive houses. For everyone else, the end result is some kind of lower tier cheap crappy school--or getting your neighbors to chip in.

Your money should follow my child.

Or maybe we could pool all our money and set up a system to take care of all the children.

LOCAL NEWS

Fort Wayne Community Schools board begins interviews to fill vacancy

Rohli Booker gave up her seat on the FWCS school board to claim a City Council seat. The FWCS board is interviewing for her replacement.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Fort Wayne Community Schools board Tuesday began interviews with four candidates seeking to serve the remainder of former member Rohli Booker’s term.

Antonette Payne was the only applicant for the open District 4 seat to be publicly interviewed Tuesday night...

SACS board responds to questions about proposed superintendent contract

From 21 Alive

Southwest Allen County Schools is one of the largest districts in our area and the SACS Superintendent is a high-profile job.

Tuesday night, leaders moved one step closer to filling that critical position.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – April 1, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. 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 of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

NOTE: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It will not be published next week. Our bloggers will be traveling to experience the total solar eclipse passing through the United States and Indiana on April 8.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Will professors of science be allowed to teach about climate change or evolution without giving equal time to “the other side?”

Will professors of American history be allowed to teach about the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow and institutional racism without introducing the Confederate point of view?" -- Diane Ravitch in Indiana: New Law Requires Professors to Teach “Diverse” Views or Face Firing

ACADEMIC FREEDOM UNDER ATTACK IN INDIANA

Indiana: New Law Requires Professors to Teach “Diverse” Views or Face Firing

Will Indiana's college teachers be forced to teach right-wing propaganda?

From Diane Ravitch

Republicans have grown frustrated by their inability to get their views represented on college campuses, so they have grown more assertive in passing laws to ban ideas they don’t like (such as “critical race theory” or gender studies or diversity/equity/inclusion or “divisive concepts).

Indiana is imposing a different approach. Instead of banning what it does not like, the Legislature is requiring professors to teach different points of view.

The New York Times reports:

A new law in Indiana requires professors in public universities to foster a culture of “intellectual diversity” or face disciplinary actions, including termination for even those with tenure, the latest in an effort by Republicans to assert more control over what is taught in classrooms.

The law connects the job status of faculty members, regardless of whether they are tenured, to whether, in the eyes of a university’s board of trustees, they promote “free inquiry” and “free expression.” State Senator Spencer Deery, who sponsored the bill, made clear in a statement that this would entail the inclusion of more conservative viewpoints on campus.

The backlash to the legislation, which Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, signed March 13, has been substantial. Hundreds wrote letters or testified at hearings, and faculty senates at multiple institutions had urged the legislature to reject the bill, condemning it as government overreach and a blow to academic free speech.

TAX-FUNDED RELIGIOUS CHARTERS ARE COMING

Religious Charter Schools are Coming. Be Worried.

Public funds are being diverted from public schools to private religious schools. The anti-public school forces are expanding to include religious charter schools.

From Have You Heard Podcast

Last year Oklahoma approved the nation’s first tax-payer funded religious charter school. It won’t be the last, warns Rachel Laser of Americans United for Church and State. We’re joined by Laser and two plaintiffs in a legal effort to keep the school from opening. As our guests explain, the school is part of a larger project to roll back the clock on civil rights, disability rights and labor protections. Now for the good news: tearing down the separation between church and state turns out to be really unpopular.

VOUCHER EXPANSION IN OHIO THREATENS TO REACH INDIANA LEVELS

Will Untenable Voucher Expansion Threaten Public School Funding in Ohio?

In Indiana, a family with an income not more than 400% of the amount to qualify for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program can get a school voucher. That amount is more than $200,000 for a family of four.

Ohio residents beware. It won't stop...the dollars will continue to be diverted from public schools to religious schools.

From Jan Resseger

The Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s Laura Hancock reports this week that the enormous expansion of EdChoice vouchers in Ohio will bring the state’s investment in its five private school tuition voucher programs to at least a billion dollars by the end of Fiscal Year 2024 on October 1. In Ohio, a total of 152,118 students, according to Hancock’s data, now attend private schools using tax funded vouchers.

Ohio began offering private school vouchers to students in a relatively small program in Cleveland in 1996. Ohio now has five school voucher programs, one program for children with autism, another for students with disabilities, the original Cleveland program, and two statewide school voucher programs, including EdChoice Expansion by which any student can now qualify to carry public tax dollars to pay private school tuition.

This year, after the legislature expanded eligibility for EdChoice vouchers in the state budget—by raising the income qualification to include students with family income up to $135,000 and offering partial vouchers to students in families with income above $135,000—the number of students and the diversion of state tax dollars skyrocketed. Hancock explains: “As of March 18, state spending on all five scholarship programs was $980.4 million, with several months yet to go in the state’s fiscal year. ”

PROFITING ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

The Atlantic: Private Equity Eyes Child-Care Industry as Profit Center

As the research has built up on the value of early childhood education, more states are directing money toward expanding access. Wherever money flows, the private equity industry turns its gaze and seeks to do what it does best: privatize and profit. In this age, private equity figures out how to maximize profit from services that used to be public.

From Diane Ravitch

Private equity’s interest in child care has been growing in recent years. “While there has been corporate for-profit child care since the 1970s, private equity only got in starting in the early 2000s,” Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow who studies early childhood education at the nonpartisan think tank Capita, told me. Now four of the top five for-profit child-care chains—KinderCare, Learning Care Group, the Goddard School, and Primrose Schools—are controlled by private-equity funds, and private-equity-backed centers represent 10 to 12 percent of the market.

Private investors are intrigued by child care for the same reasons they became interested in nursing homes and other health-care services: intense demand, government money, and relatively low start-up costs. “Their goal is not long-term sustainability; their goal is to try to turn a profit,” Haspel said.

Private equity’s foray into child care could go a number of ways, but its introduction has largely not worked out well for other sectors—and certainly not for many people who rely on those sectors’ services. In his book, Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America, Brendan Ballou, who investigated private-equity firms at the Department of Justice, posits that the private-equity business model has three basic problems. First, these firms buy a business with the intention of flipping it for a profit, not long-term sustainability, meaning that they are trying to maximize value in the short term and are less likely to invest in staff or facilities. Second, they tend to load businesses up with debt and extract a lot of fees, such as charging child-care providers for the privilege of being managed by the firm. And perhaps most important, their business structure insulates firms from liability.

AI LESSON PLANS?

How About AI Lesson Plans?

Peter Greene warns teachers not to fall for the cheap and lazy artificial intelligence (AI) that designs lesson plans.

From Curmudgucation on Substack

Some Brooklyn schools are piloting an AI assistant that will create lesson plans for them.

Superintendent Janice Ross explains it this way. “Teachers spend hours creating lesson plans. They should not be doing that anymore.”

The product is YourWai (get it?) courtesy of The Learning Innovation Catalyst (LINC), a company that specializes in "learning for educators that works/inspires/motivates/empowers." They're the kind of company that says things like "shift to impactful professional learning focused on targeted outcomes" unironically. Their LinkedIn profile says "Shaping the Future of Learning: LINC supports the development of equitable, student-centered learning by helping educators successfully shift to blended, project-based, and other innovative learning models." You get the idea.

LINC was co-founded by Tiffany Wycoff, who logged a couple of decades in the private school world before writing a book, launching a speaking career, and co-founding LINC in 2017. Co-founder Jaime Pales used to work for Redbird Advanced Learning as executive director for Puerto Rico and Latin America and before that "developed next-generation learning programs" at some company.

FLEXIBLE DIPLOMAS

Indiana officials propose new ‘streamlined’ high school diplomas for Hoosier students

If approved, there will be two main diploma paths. Each will have “flexible” options for “personalization” in grades 11 and 12.

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

A proposal to streamline Indiana’s high school diplomas and reduce options to just two primary graduation paths was announced by state education officials on Wednesday.

The plan is part of an ongoing statewide effort to “reinvent” the high school experience and better prepare Hoosiers for their lives post-graduation — whether they want to pursue college or other skills training, or choose to directly enter the workforce.

The new options will take effect beginning with the Class of 2029 — for students that are currently in seventh grade. Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said some Hoosier schools will likely roll out the revamped graduation requirements sooner, though.

“How do we make the four years of high school as valuable as possible for students? What does that look like in a country where high school education has not changed, for most, in over 100 years? And yet the world around us, technology, is advancing — the world around us is changing,” Jenner said, noting that Indiana’s diploma has not been “significantly updated” since the late 1980s.

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

Southwest Allen County Schools plans pre-K program

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Southwest Allen County Schools is preparing to launch a pre-K class in August for 24 children living within the boundaries of its largest elementary school.

Startup costs are budgeted for $234,000 to $260,000 and include about $80,000 for equipment. The district hopes to offset expenses with partnerships, donations and grants, Superintendent Park Ginder said.

He brought the item to the school board for discussion last week. The administration wants the elected leaders to participate in the decision-making process because of the costs involved.

“We know that other districts run this program at a very big loss,” Ginder said after the March 19 meeting. “We also know there are other districts that have very, very large donors – six-figure donors, in some cases – that help pay for these opportunities.”

Ginder told the board he recommends launching the Covington Elementary School class – which would have one teacher and two aides – next academic year regardless of the outside funding secured.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – March 25, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. 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 of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"How do you build a world-class human? Well, you give him or her the benefits of a broad, humane, liberal arts education that confers judgment, wisdom, vision, and generosity. Greene shows us, from her own classes over three decades, exactly how that happens.

And she shows us how, under the “standards”-and-testing occupation, all that is being lost." -- Bob Shepherd, quoted in Bob Shepherd: Gayle Green on How to Make a Human by Diane Ravitch.

THE CASE FOR NOT TAKING A WRECKING BALL TO WHAT HAS WORKED

Bob Shepherd: Gayle Green on How to Make a Human

The so-called "education reform" movement to privatize education has been decimating schools for more than two decades. Has it worked to improve student outcomes?

From Diane Ravitch

Bob Shepherd, author, editor, assessment developer, story-teller, and teacher, read a book that he loved. He hopes—and I hope—that you will love it too.

He writes:

Like much of Europe between 1939 and 1945, education in the United States, at every level, is now under occupation. The occupation is led by Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation and abetted by countless collaborators like those paid by Gates to create the puerile and failed Common Core (which was not core—that is, central, key, or foundational—and was common only in the sense of being vulgar. The bean counting under the occupation via its demonstrably invalid, pseudoscientific testing regime has made of schooling in the U.S. a diminished thing, with debased and devolved test preppy curricula (teaching materials) and pedagogy (teaching methods).

In the midst of this, Gayle Greene, a renowned Shakespeare scholar and Professor Emerita at Scripps University, has engaged in some delightful bomb throwing for the Resistance. Her weapon? A new book called Immeasurable Outcomes: Teaching Shakespeare in the Age of the Algorithm.

SCHOOLS NEED COUNSELORS, NOT CHAPLAINS

Hindu “Statesman” Will Move to Florida if DeSantis Signs the Bill to Let Him Guide Students

The founders chose to keep church and state separate. Using chaplains instead of counselors flies in the face of that basic American concept. States should fully fund schools so that qualified counselors can be hired.

A similar bill failed to pass in this year's Indiana General Assembly, but our guess is that it's not gone forever.

From Diane Ravitch

The Miami Herald reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to sign a bill that would allow chaplains to offer counseling in public schools, but one colorful religious figure says he is already eager to volunteer.

He’s a self-described “Hindu statesman” from Nevada who says he would like to bring “the wisdom of ancient Sanskrit scriptures” to students — perhaps not exactly what Florida lawmakers had in mind when they approved a bill that supporters tout as a way to make up for a shortage of mental health counselors in many schools.

The offer from Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, may amount to just his latest effort to raise his organization’s profile, but it also underlines concerns from critics. Mainly, that the bill’s vague definition of “counseling” will invite religious groups — whether they are Hindu, Christian or otherwise — to use it as a door to teaching their beliefs in secular school systems.

IT'S STILL POVERTY

Will the U.S. Senate Waste this Year’s Opportunity to Reduce Child Poverty?

Child poverty is the number one cause of low student achievement in the US (and worldwide). No amount of scripted lessons, overuse, and misuse of testing, or insulting and demeaning educators will improve student outcomes. We've known this for years.

"...we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

As you read this post, you will see that there is one political party in the US that is more interested in providing tax breaks for businesses than helping poor children. Remember in November.

From Jan Resseger

One of three huge structural injustices for American children and their public schools—along with inadequate and unequally distributed school funding across the states and persistent economic and racial segregation—is our society’s outrageous level of child poverty. Right now Congress may squander a real opportunity to begin helping our society’s poorest children.

Although, on January 31, the U.S. House passed by a large margin a bipartisan compromise bill that would modestly increase the Child Tax Credit along with some business tax breaks that are a Republican priority, the bill has never been brought to the floor of the U.S. Senate for a vote.

Last week, the NY Times‘ Kayla Guo described the impasse and some of the politics: “A bipartisan bill to expand the Child Tax Credit and reinstate a set of business tax breaks has stalled in the Senate after winning overwhelming approval in the House, as Republicans balk at legislation they regard as too generous to low-income families. The delay of the $78 billion tax package has imperiled the measure’s chances and reflects the challenges of passing any major legislation in an election year. Enacting a new tax law would give President Biden and Democrats an achievement to campaign on, something that Republicans may prefer to avoid.”

The new bill to expand the Child Tax Credit is inferior to what was incorporated in the 2021, COVID relief, American Rescue Plan, which helped America’s poorest families by making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable to families without income or with such meager income that they don’t pay enough federal income taxes to cover the amount of the full Child Tax Credit. When Congress let that expansion of the Child Tax Credit expire at the end of 2021, U.S. child poverty increased by 41 percent.

SCHOOLS CAN BREAK UP ILEARN THROUGHOUT THE SCHOOL YEAR

Indiana schools get legislative green light to break up ILEARN testing throughout school year

The Indiana General Assembly offers some flexibility for schools.

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

An option for schools to divvy up portions of Indiana’s ILEARN exams was approved by state lawmakers at the end of the 2024 legislative session and will change how thousands of Hoosier students are tested.

The provision was included in House Enrolled Act 1243, an omnibus education bill filled with action items supported by the Indiana Department of Education.

The assessment plan includes what state education officials call “flexible checkpoints” for schools to administer ILEARN preparation tests in language arts and math before the typical end-of-year summative tests. A dozen other states already have similar models.

Based on a plan approved by the Indiana’s State Board of Education last summer, the “checkpoints” will consist of 20 to 25 questions and hone in on four to six state standards. The exams are designed to be administered to students about every three months, but local schools and districts can speed up testing if they wish.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – February 5, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. 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 of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"'The primary role of chaplains is to provide pastoral or religious counseling to people in spiritual need,' the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana said in a statement. 'Allowing them to assume official positions — whether paid or voluntary — in public schools will create an environment ripe for religious coercion and indoctrination of students.'

"Without any oversight to prevent chaplains from imposing their own religious viewpoint on the children they counsel, HB 1192 and SB 50 could undermine the religious freedom of students of all faiths and no faith." -- the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette** editorial board.

INDIANA GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 2024

Faith-based school chaplains would test First Amendment

We included this article from last week's In Case You Missed It again this week. It continues to be read and spread through social media. And now the Senate has passed their version of the bill.

Contact your state representative to stop this bill before it goes any further. We need trained counselors in our public schools, not religious indoctrination. Indiana taxpayers already fund sectarian religious instruction through school vouchers. No more.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Indiana’s student-to-counselor ratio ranks worst in the nation, according to the 2023 State of the Indiana Girl Report published in September.

Two bills introduced in the General Assembly — one in the House, the other in the Senate — seek to fill the counselor void, but critics say their solution is unconstitutional and could end up further harming some children’s emotional and mental health.

...Proponents of HB 1192 and SB 50 likely will tout the proposals as remedies to the mental health needs of Hoosier students.

Chaplains are trained and certified to provide spiritual and emotional support. Lawmakers should leave mental health care services to the professional school counselors qualified to do that job.

Allen County school districts react to bill aiming to address 3rd graders who fail state reading exam

Does retention even work?

"Tamyra Kelly, a public information officer for East Allen County Schools, said they’re in favor of any extra support for students learning to read.

"'In our experience, retention would not be the answer. A bill that could fund earlier intervention and supports would be most favorable to schools and their students,' Kelly said."

From WANE.com

School district leaders in the greater Fort Wayne area are reacting to a state bill that focuses on making sure students can read proficiently by the end of 3rd grade.

Senate Bill 1 would support holding back students who fail the Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination assessment (IREAD-3), a grade three reading assessment developed in accordance with state legislation, while also requiring schools to give remediation to students at risk of not passing.

The bill was written by Sen. Linda Rogers (R) and 30 other GOP lawmakers. Once referred to as the “retention bill” by some, Senate Bill 1 has been amended to contain more efforts before getting to retention, with that being more of a last resort.

CHILD TAX CREDIT EXPANSION

U.S. House Passes Child Tax Credit Expansion. Bill Heads to Senate.

Children learn best when they are safe, well-fed, and well-cared for. The tax credit expansion will help.

From Jan Resseger's Blog

For a long time, the needs of poor children have not been much of a motivator for American social policy reform.

Many of us remember Bill Clinton “ending welfare as we know it” in 1996, but we have very likely forgotten the title of the bill that ended welfare: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, a law whose name specifically blamed the poor for a lax attitude about bettering themselves through work. The American Rescue Plan generously expanded the Child Tax Credit and made it fully refundable. That COVID relief bill, passed in March of 2021, reduced child poverty in the United States by 40 percent during that year, but Congress allowed it to expire at the beginning of 2022, when Joe Manchin and the majority of Congressional Republicans said the modest cash payments were discouraging parents from working. This month, the Washington Post reported another example of politicians punishing children for the supposed sins of their parents: Republican governors in 15 states have rejected a new, federally funded program to give food assistance to hungry children during the summer when school is not in session. Nebraska’s governor said: “I don’t believe in welfare.”

While a lot of politicians have shown themselves willing to overlook the well documented needs of millions of U.S. children, last night the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan compromise tax bill that combines business tax breaks and significant expansion of the Child Tax Credit. The bill will now move to the U.S. Senate.

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

Southwest Allen County Schools begins strategic plan process

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Small-group conversations Wednesday among Southwest Allen County Schools stakeholders – including students, parents and teachers – marked the beginning of a four-month effort that should end with a roadmap for the district.

School board President Jennifer Bennett expects the final product – a strategic plan – will ensure that district leaders are basing decisions on a cohesive vision.

“I’m excited to get this process going,” she told about 40 people gathered at the transportation conference room for the first of four strategic planning sessions.

Along with collecting feedback from invited participants, SACS will seek input from the broader community via an emailed survey, Superintendent Park Ginder said.

Bidding closes for NACS construction projects

From WANE.com

Northwest Allen County School Board Members approved maximum price amendments for three construction projects in the district.

Bids for the Carroll High School additions and renovations, Willow Creek Middle School, and Central Office construction are closed as contracts with Weigand Construction were approved Monday.

The guaranteed maximum price amendment for the three projects adds up to approximately $130 million. They will be funded through lease financing which will keep the community’s tax rate the same. Wayne Barker, Superintendent of NACS, said the costs are less than what they expected.

Groundbreaking nears for Northwest Allen County Schools construction projects

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Northwest Allen County Schools expects to celebrate groundbreakings next month as three projects totaling $130 million in construction costs get underway.

“Countless hours have been spent to get us to here,” Superintendent Wayne Barker told the board Monday, adding that contractors could start moving dirt next week. “It won’t come soon enough because we have students to educate, and they keep coming. So that’s a very good problem.”

The board agreed last spring to address increasing enrollment by building a third middle school and by expanding and renovating Carroll High School. The elected leaders also approved construction of a central office because it has outgrown its space at Perry Hill Elementary School. That project includes renovations to Perry Hill.

Board action Monday addressed the projects’ guaranteed maximum price. Willow Creek Middle School will cost about $73.5 million; the Carroll improvements will cost about $41.1 million; and the new central office and Perry Hill renovations will cost about $15.8 million.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – January 29, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. 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 of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"'The primary role of chaplains is to provide pastoral or religious counseling to people in spiritual need,' the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana said in a statement. 'Allowing them to assume official positions — whether paid or voluntary — in public schools will create an environment ripe for religious coercion and indoctrination of students.'

"...Chaplains are trained and certified to provide spiritual and emotional support. Lawmakers should leave mental health care services to the professional school counselors qualified to do that job." -- Editorial in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

SCHOOL CHAPLAINS INSTEAD OF COUNSELORS?

Not content with diverting tax dollars meant for public schools to religious and private schools, Indiana Republicans are now trying to open the door to religious proselytization in public schools. Write or call your local legislators and tell them NO! to chaplains in public schools.

Bills to employ school chaplains, allow religious instruction move forward in Indiana legislature

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

Lines between church and state blurred at the Indiana Statehouse on Wednesday as lawmakers gave the go-ahead for two education bills that seek to increase students’ access to faith leaders and religious instruction.

One proposal, House Bill 1137, would require schools to approve parental requests for students to leave school during the day for religious instruction. A separate measure, Senate Bill 50, could bring paid chaplains into Indiana’s public schools. Both bills advanced from their assigned committees and now head to the respective chambers for further consideration.

Faith-based school chaplains would test First Amendment

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Indiana’s student-to-counselor ratio ranks worst in the nation, according to the 2023 State of the Indiana Girl Report published in September.

Two bills introduced in the General Assembly — one in the House, the other in the Senate — seek to fill the counselor void, but critics say their solution is unconstitutional and could end up further harming some children’s emotional and mental health.

House Bill 1192 and Senate Bill 50 would allow public and charter schools to employ chaplains, or approve them as volunteers, to counsel students and staff. Though school chaplains wouldn’t be required to divulge privileged or confidential communications, the bills are written to invite skepticism as to the ultimate goal of allowing pastoral care.

The Senate version, authored by Sen. Stacey Donato, R-Logansport, says a chaplain may only provide secular assistance, unless the student (or their parent or guardian) gives consent for religious advice, guidance and support services. The House proposal of Rep. Doug Miller, R-Elkhart, does not include such language.

“The primary role of chaplains is to provide pastoral or religious counseling to people in spiritual need,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana said in a statement. “Allowing them to assume official positions — whether paid or voluntary — in public schools will create an environment ripe for religious coercion and indoctrination of students.”

Without any oversight to prevent chaplains from imposing their own religious viewpoint on the children they counsel, HB 1192 and SB 50 could undermine the religious freedom of students of all faiths and no faith.

KINDERGARTEN FOR KINDERGARTENERS!

Nancy Bailey: It’s Time to Take Back Kindergarten!

Play is children's work...for better health, better learning, and happier children!

From Diane Ravitch

Nancy Bailey is a retired educator who has seen the damage wrought by No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the nonsensical grandchild called Every Student Succeeds Act. We can say now with hindsight that many children were left behind, we did not make it to the Top, and every student is not succeeding.

Nancy knows that the greatest casualty of these ruinous federal laws and programs are young children. Instead of playing, instead of socializing, instead of living their best lives as children, they are being prepared to take tests. This is nuts!

Nancy explains in this post (originally from 2021 but nothing has changed) why the status quo is harmful to small children and how it should change...

INDIANA POLITICS

NPE Action endorses Jennifer McCormick for Governor of Indiana.

Jennifer McCormick, former Indiana State Superintendent of Public Instruction, gets NPE-Action's endorsement for Indiana Governor.

From the Network for Public Education Action

The Network for Public Education Action gives its strongest endorsement to Jennifer McCormick for Governor of Indiana. Jennifer is a lifelong educator and native of Indiana. 

Jennifer is a former teacher, principal and school superintendent. She served as State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 2017 to 2021. During that time she took on the legislature, eventually changing political parties. 

Jennifer told us that as governor, she “will focus on aggressively funding the expansion of quality and affordable childcare as well as universal PreK so all children have the foundational skills necessary to succeed in the K12 environment. She said she “will appoint a Secretary of Education and members of the state board of education that understand the ever-evolving needs of Indiana students and implement programs that develop the skills critical to thrive in a changing world and prepare Hoosier kids for careers, college, and life after high school.”

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

We have lots of news from Allen County and Fort Wayne this week. See the link to subscribe to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette at the end of this post.

Implications are imposing for education overhaul bills

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Lawmakers are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks in their quest to educate more Hoosiers — whether through job training or traditional college.

But some of the discussions carry concerning consequences. Two major proposals this year deserve in-depth examination that a short session likely can’t provide.

First up is an effort by House Republicans to allow key higher education scholarships and grants to be used for job training instead of toward full-time college credits.

The legislation impacts the 21st Century Scholars program, Freedom of Choice Grant and the Higher Education Award. Collectively, the current budget includes about $330 million annually in state funding for that aid.

Each program has slightly different rules, but generally there are GPA and credit completion requirements. And all specify that students must be attending a two-year or four-year program on a full-time basis...

...The second major proposal is Senate Bill 8, which will blur the line between two- and four-year degree institutions that was set up 20 years ago.

At that time, under Gov. Mitch Daniels, a study by the Government Efficiency Commission recommended establishing Ivy Tech as a true community college system, and phasing out associate degree programs at other campuses.

That’s because it would be cheaper to earn an associate degree at Ivy Tech the first two years then transfer to a traditional four-year school for bachelor’s and graduate degrees.

Indiana education secretary says schools can get started on proposed literacy initiatives

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Will Hoosier schools have the funds to launch new literacy mandates proposed by state lawmakers? Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner this week maintained they do – at least for now.

She said Thursday the Indiana Department of Education has enough holdover dollars to roll out additional reading tests and expanded summer school options laid out in Senate Bill 1, which is under consideration at the Statehouse.

And more state funds are expected to be requested in the 2025 budget session.

FWCS to offer employees child care stipend with $750,000 grant

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools will use $750,000 in state funding to help employees pay for child care.

The program’s implementation should provide the district with information it doesn’t have about its 4,050 workers, said Mitch Sheppard, philanthropy director.

“If you were to say, ‘What do our employees need? How severe is the child care need?’ We really don’t know,” she told the school board Monday.

The one-time grant from the Family and Social Services Administration will be distributed on a reimbursement basis to employees using state-licensed child care facilities. The program will launch as soon as possible, Sheppard said.

Remote learning challenges: What school officials in Allen County are considering

From WANE.com

Area school district officials told WANE 15 Tuesday they are learning as they go as winter weather challenges have led to more remote learning days.

WANE 15 spoke with Mark Daniel, superintendent of Fort Wayne Community Schools (FWCS), and Park Ginder, superintendent of Southwest Allen County Schools (SACS), and Tamyra Kelly, the Public Information Officer at East Allen County Schools (EACS) to see how remote learning days have gone so far...

...At FWCS, Daniel said there’s a lot of room for improvement. He said they want students more engaged and interactive.

“Remote learning days are not the same as being in school in person,” Daniel said. “So we know that we’re trying to be flexible, but at the same time, we need our students and our parents and our staff to fully engage.”

Each school year, each district gets 3 e-learning days where students work independently, but remote learning days that require students to Zoom with a teacher are unlimited.

Daniel said if things don’t improve, there could be changes.

Northwest Allen County Schools sees challenges due to property tax cap

From WANE.com

Northwest Allen County Schools (NACS) is seeing the effects of a property tax cap passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 2023.

House Bill 1499 capped property taxes at 4% to provide relief for homeowners as home values were skyrocketing over the past few years. That cap has resulted in less money than anticipated being funneled into Indiana schools. Most districts are faring well because their growth in student population is stable. But NACS is an outlier, said Superintendent Wayne Barker.

According to Barker, the rapidly growing district is losing out on around $1.2 million in tax money over two years due to this cap. As the more people move into the district limits, the district needs more buses, drivers, faculty and staff. All of that requires money. This means other projects will have to wait, Barker said.

FWCS board accepts $500,000 for $14.7 million early learning center, more fundraising expected

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A formal campaign should be announced soon for a $14.7 million early learning center benefiting teen parents in Fort Wayne Community Schools, the district’s philanthropy director said.

About $4 million in contracts and soft commitments has been raised so far, Mitch Sheppard told the school board Monday while presenting a $500,000 Early Learning Indiana grant for approval.

“We’re bringing this one forward because the donor has asked us to get the grant on the books,” she said. “You’ll be hearing a lot more about (the project) soon as we’ll have some donations of land and significant additional fundraising to back it up.”

Southwest Allen County Schools receives Juul settlement payments

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Southwest Allen County Schools’ participation in a nationwide lawsuit against electronic cigarette giant Juul Labs Inc. has started paying off.

The district’s nine traditional schools received a collective $43,193 boost from the settlement’s first installment. The school board approved the distributions Tuesday as part of its consent agenda.

SACS, Fort Wayne Community Schools, East Allen County Schools and Northwest Allen County Schools were among entities nationwide that accused Juul of designing and marketing its products to appeal to youth.

Fort Wayne Community Schools to limit students' access to cellphones

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools leaders agreed Monday to spend $120,864 on equipment limiting students’ access to their cellphones during the school day.

The district will pilot the use of magnetic lock-and-release student phone pouches at four middle and high schools beginning this academic year, although the exact timing is unknown, said Jack Byrd, chief systems officer.

The sealed magnetic devices will allow students to keep their phones in their possession throughout the school day, but the phones will be inaccessible until they can be unlocked by specialized magnets.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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