In Case You Missed It – August 24, 2020

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 teachers march for Public Education, November 2019

TEACHERS DECLARED "ESSENTIAL"

The Trump administration declared teachers ‘essential workers.’ Here’s what that means.

Teacher are "essential" -- except when it's time to negotiate a new contract.

From the Answer Sheet

The Trump administration is now labeling teachers “essential” workers, a move aimed at pushing school districts to open for in-person instruction for the fall semester amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The declaration of teachers as “critical infrastructure workers,” which came in an Aug. 18 guidance published by the Department of Homeland Security, means that teachers exposed to coronavirus but who show no symptoms can return to classrooms and not quarantine for 14 days as public health agencies recommend.

DHS said the label is only advisory and not meant to be a federal directive. Still, school districts that want teachers to return to classrooms — even when teachers don’t think it is safe enough — could use the federal designation to bolster their own mandates.

INDIANA WILL TRACK COVID-19 IN SCHOOLS

Indiana will start tracking COVID-19 cases in schools

From Chalkbeat Indiana*

Indiana will start matching COVID-19 tests to student records to notify schools of positive cases and create a public dashboard tracking the spread of the coronavirus in schools, the state’s top health official announced Wednesday.

The state aims to launch the public dashboard next month. Schools will be asked to submit numbers daily on new positive cases among students, teachers, and staff, said Dr. Kristina Box, the state’s health commissioner.

"BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR"

MI: Teacher Fired Over Political Tweet. If Only There Was A Way Protect Against Such Injustice.

“And while conservative outlets large and small whined about the unfairness of Kucera's firing, somehow not one that I read managed to connect the dots between this unjust firing and the gutting of laws to protect the due process of teachers and the kneecapping of their unions. I'm sorry for what happened to Justin Kucera--here's hoping that he realizes that it was not sucky liberals who are responsible.”

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

...the Michigan GOP totally asked for this.

A decade ago, they were busily hacking away at public education through ever manner of attack they could devise. That included a package of laws that then-governor and never-a-friend-of-education Rick Snyder that cut teacher tenure off at the knees. For instance, the old job security laws (what we call "tenure" really isn't, but it's the term everyone's used to) required that a district had to show "reasonable and just cause" to fire a teacher with tenure; the new law just requires proof that the firing was not "arbitrary and capricious."

The new batch of laws also made tenure harder to get, and that's where Kucera's troubles seem to lie. A teacher is "on probation" for the first five years of their career, meaning they can be fired for pretty much any reason at all, including Pissing Off The Wrong People or Looking Like A Potential Source of Headaches for Administration.

When tenure battles were all the rage, teachers and their supporters said repeatedly that teachers need job protections so that they don't have to constantly looking over their shoulders and worrying about a hundred little things like political affiliation. "You big wimps are just afraid of accountability," was the reply.

PROCRASTINATION BY THE GOVERNOR

State leaders kick the can

From Steve Hinnefeld at School Matters

Faced with questions about state funding for schools that are operating online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Eric Holcomb came up with an answer: Kick the can down the road.

Holcomb, together with leaders of the Indiana House and Senate, proposed delaying the “count day” for recording school corporations’ official fall enrollment from September until at least December. That means schools will continue to receive complete state funding through the fall semester.

But it doesn’t address what happens beyond that. Neither does it ensure that schools will get their get the funding they expected for the 2020-21 school year, without having it reduced because some students attend virtually. That will be up to the legislature.

APPOINTED STATE SUPERINTENDENT FOR EDUCATION STILL A MISTAKE

Strong voice to advocate for schools indispensable

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction is now an appointed position, along with every member of the State Board of Education. Your vote is more important than ever.

The Governor appoints the Superintendent and 8 other members of the eleven member board. The other two members are appointed by the majority leaders of the state's legislative houses -- the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate. Indiana's one-party government has a history of snubbing public education in favor of privatization.

Vote for pro-public education candidates.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

If we could count on Jennifer McCormick occupying the top state schools post come January, it would be easier to accept the governor's “trust us” pledge to fully fund public schools – both those with students in classrooms and those where it is necessary to offer online-only instruction.

But the power play that made the state superintendent of public instruction a gubernatorial appointee goes into effect in 2021, and those responsible for it are now asking us to trust them on school funding. Without McCormick's fierce advocacy for public schools, any pledge to do no harm to schools and students should be regarded warily.

Events over the past 10 days have fueled school districts' financial concerns, beginning with a warning from Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray that schools not offering classroom instruction were subject to a 15% budget cut, per the current funding formula for virtual instruction. School leaders, some of whom have been forced to offer only online instruction because of their local health department's COVID-19 guidance, objected.

Gov. Eric Holcomb insisted Wednesday it was his intent to deliver full funding. But it's not his call unless he steps up with an executive order...

SACS E-SCHOOL TAKES SHAPE

SACS' e-school years in making

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

For Southwest Allen County Schools, dreams of launching a virtual school didn't begin with COVID-19.

The planning started about five years ago, and efforts to launch the program began in earnest last fall as administrators began meeting with teachers to develop some courses, said Park Ginder, Homestead High School principal.

Administrators envisioned offering the program to homebound students and those needing to make up a credit.

“Then COVID hit,” Ginder said. “We're able now – because we were past the ideation stages – able to use a catastrophe, basically, to meet needs and push things forward.”

Called eSACS, the virtual school was one of three learning options the district offered middle and high school students this fall.

SACS OPENS eSACS TO ALL OF INDIANA

Southwest Allen County Schools opens enrollment for eSACS to all Indiana Students

From WANE.com

Southwest Allen County Schools is allowing access to its eSACS Virtual Secondary School to all students in Indiana. Enrollment opened Wednesday for students in 7th through 11th grades.

“We are now at a point with our e-learning school that we are going to be able to open it up to students from across the state,” said Superintendent Dr. Phil Downs.

The district has been working on this plan for over 5 years. The ongoing pandemic isn’t the reason it was started, but COVID-19 accelerated the district’s plans.

“Certainly the COVID situation, when we decided we were going to have to put something together for our students, it very quickly became obvious to us this is something that students around the state would be interested in maybe having access to,” said Dr. Downs.

*Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, EdChoice, Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both, are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/

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In Case You Missed It – Feb 25, 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.

SBOE THREATENS SCHOOL CLOSURE

'Unbelievable.' South Bend's Navarre school could close because leaders still have no plan

Is it appropriate that the entire burden of low student achievement be placed on the school, teachers, and staff? Is the cause of low student achievement the school's alone?

From the South Bend Tribune

Without a plan to act on in March, the state education board could consider other steps for Navarre: closing the school, taking it over and assigning a group to operate it, or merging the school with a higher-performing one.

WILL HOOSIER TEACHERS STAND UP FOR THEIR PROFESSION?

As pay debate plods on, Indiana teachers unions want more. Will they walk out?

Will Hoosier teachers ever stand up for their profession? Or will they continue to validate state legislators’ opinions that teaching is for losers and that their students and public education don’t matter?

From Chalkbeat

In a fiery Facebook post, Kokomo teachers union president Nicki Fain Mundy tallied the toll: It took her 14 years and a master’s degree to crack a $50,000 salary.

The numbers tell her that she’s making far less than college-educated professionals in other fields. She fights for small raises but watches her pay disappear when insurance costs rise and when the rising cost of living bites deeper and deeper into her paycheck.

Indiana’s legislative leaders are pledging to find money to increase teacher pay, which, at an average salary of around $50,000, ranks the lowest among neighboring states. But so far, their proposals have included studying the problem, asking districts to save money to fund the raises, and funneling small increases to schools in the hopes that teachers could get pay bumps.

These lukewarm proposals, plus an overall concern that Indiana lawmakers don’t value teaching, could create conditions that lead to a teacher walkout. State teachers union leaders aren’t encouraging action just yet, but other local leaders say they want lawmakers to know that teachers are fed up and fired up.

We asked Indiana teachers why they’re leaving the classroom: ‘Death by a thousand cuts’

An indictment of our legislators on the subject of public education and teaching in Indiana.

From Chalkbeat

"I felt overwhelmed by what the legislators were inflicting on us, the lack of true support from administrators, and just the stress that is teaching even in the best of times. Most of all — I was exhausted, I guess. Death by a thousand cuts, more or less."

What will it take for Hoosier teachers to stand up?

More money for charters. More money for vouchers. Teacher salaries will have to wait.

From Live Long and Prosper

What will it take for Indiana's teachers to stand up for themselves and their students? (Teachers, who did you vote for in the last election?)

What will it take for Indiana to get fully funded public schools...with qualified teachers in every classroom...with reasonable class sizes...with competitive salaries...

The legislature isn't going to help.

W. VA. TEACHERS STRIKE FOR THEIR STUDENTS

This time, it wasn’t about pay: West Virginia teachers go on strike over the privatization of public education (and they won’t be the last)

From The Answer Sheet

This time, it wasn’t about pay.

West Virginia teachers walked off the job across the state Tuesday to protest the privatization of public education and to fight for resources for their own struggling schools.

It was the second time in a year that West Virginia teachers left their classrooms in protest. In 2018, they went on strike for nine days to demand a pay increase, help with high health-care costs and more school funding — and they won a 5 percent pay hike. On Tuesday, union leaders said that, if necessary, they would give up the pay hike as part of their protest. They are fighting legislation that would take public money from resource-starved traditional districts and use it for charter schools and for private and religious school tuition.

INDIANA LEG. EXPANDS VOUCHERS AGAIN

School voucher surprise

Indiana legislators add more money to the nation's largest voucher program. The ed reform in Indiana through vouchers and charter schools has yet to be "evaluated" by the legislature which funnels tax money into private pockets.

From School Matters

Indiana Republican legislators dropped a surprise Monday. They are proposing to increase state funding for some students who receive state-funded vouchers to attend private schools.

They want to add a new category of voucher, bridging the gap between low-income families that qualify for “full vouchers” and middle-income families that get “half vouchers.”

Currently, students who qualify by family income for free or reduced-price school lunches qualify for a voucher worth 90 percent of state per-pupil funding received by their local public school district.

Students whose families make up to 150 percent the free-and-reduced-price lunch cutoff can get a voucher worth 50 percent of state per-pupil funding for their local public school district.

Under the proposal, students from families that make up between 100 percent and 125 percent of the cutoff would qualify for an “intermediate voucher” worth 70 percent of state per-pupil funding for the local public schools.

DISCRIMINATION OK WITH INDIANA LEG.

Legislators OK with discrimination

From School Matters

Indiana House Republicans lined up four-square in favor of discrimination last week. They rejected a proposal to prohibit private schools that receive state funding from discriminating against students and staff because of disability, sexual orientation or gender identification.

THE TESTING CHARADE

Why one Harvard professor calls American schools’ focus on testing a ‘charade’

The reform policies adopted and supported by Hoosier legislators termed “an unmitigated disaster.” It's time to start voting for people who respect public education, teachers, and children.

From Chalkbeat

Harvard professor Daniel Koretz is on a mission: to convince policymakers that standardized tests have been widely misused.

In his new book, “The Testing Charade,” Koretz argues that federal education policy over the last couple of decades — starting with No Child Left Behind, and continuing with the Obama administration’s push to evaluate teachers in part by test scores — has been a barely mitigated disaster.

The focus on testing in particular has hurt schools and students, Koretz argues. Meanwhile, Koretz says the tests are of little help for accurately identifying which schools are struggling because excessive test prep inflates students’ scores.

REPUBLICAN VS. REPUBLICANS

Indiana: Just How Corrupt Are Our Elected Officials?

State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick, a Republican, has strong words against her party colleagues in the legislature.

From Diane Ravitch

McCormick, a Republican, blasts Indiana Republican lawmakers by saying they aren’t about helping kids or schools, they’re about making deals with edu-businesses at the expense of our children.

A Republican in the driver’s seat of education is bearing witness to the corruption in Indiana’s education system. Hopefully voters will listen.

The Republican party in Indiana is no longer about “small government” or “family values,” they are about backroom deals and crony capitalism.

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Vic’s Statehouse Notes #233 – October 14, 2015

Dear Friends,

Despite the deep questions about too much testing raised by the General Assembly in the last session, the State Board of Education is poised to set new cut scores that will drive Hoosier schools to double down on the teaching and learning time needed to pass tougher math and English tests.

Expectations for Indiana students have been ratcheted upward, and lower rates of passing ISTEP+ are the result. Lower test scores will lower school letter grades and will impact teacher compensation linked to test scores.

At today’s meeting of the State Board of Education, recommendations for cut scores were presented but not passed pending additional information. The agenda materials presented to the board and to the public showed the impact of the proposed cut scores: Grade 3-8 pass rates would drop 12% to 18% in English/Language Arts from the previous year. In math the Grade 3-8 drops would range from 19% to 29%.

State Superintendent Ritz has called for a plan to prevent the change to more rigorous standards and tests from punishing our schools. Governor Pence and his appointees on the State Board have said no to her proposals to “pause” school letter grades during this transition. Public school advocates should look at the data and let our leaders know that raising standards should not be used as a tool to lower school letter grades and punish our schools or our teachers.

Consider the Data

In a memo attached to the State Board of Education agenda item on “ISTEP+ Standard Score Setting” available for all to see online, the pass rates (“Impact Data”) using the cut score final recommendations were listed as seen in the first column below. The second column shows pass rates from the previous year on the 2013-14 test, which are documented on pages 10-15 of the attached report entitled “A 25-Year Review: Improvement in Indiana’s Public Schools.”

................................Pass rates based on new.................Pass Rates 
........................recommended cut scores 2014-15......2013-14............Change

Grade 3 English/Language Arts..........71%........................83%....................-12%
Grade 4 English/Language Arts..........70%........................86%....................-16%
Grade 5 English/Language Arts..........63%........................81%....................-18%
Grade 6 English/Language Arts..........64%........................78%....................-14%
Grade 7 English/Language Arts..........63%........................77%....................-14%
Grade 8 English/Language Arts..........59%........................76%....................-17%

................  ............Grade 3 Math....................61%........................80%....................-19%
................  ............Grade 4 Math....................64%........................83%....................-19%
................  ............Grade 5 Math....................67%........................89%....................-22%
................  ............Grade 6 Math....................60%........................85%....................-25%
................  ............Grade 7 Math....................52%........................80%....................-28%
................  ............Grade 8 Math....................52%........................81%....................-29%

Important Questions Loom

• Did anyone consider the fiscal cost of investing more time and effort in getting students above ever higher cut scores in English and math?

• Will this redoubled effort in English and math continue the decline in time and attention paid to the arts, world languages, social studies and even science?

• Do these proposed cut scores reflect accurate judgments about what students must know or has the cut score process failed to get it right?

• Will lower pass rates punish schools and teachers through lower school grades and lower teacher compensation bonuses?

• During this transition to higher standards and higher expectations, should schools and teachers be “held harmless” to avoid the negative consequences of sharply lower test scores on this new test?

• Should adjustments be made since the 2014-15 test will only be used this one time to be followed in 2015-16 by a new test from Pearson?

Ever More Rigorous Tests: We’ve Seen it Before

Since the 1999 Accountability law was passed, more rigorous tests have been introduced with great fanfare two times, most recently in 2008-09 when the test was switched to spring. The 2008-09 change resulted in pass rates going down by an average of 5% per grade in Grades 3-8.

The figures released this morning which are seen above show a starkly greater impact than a 5% drop.

The average for Grades 3-8 in English/Language Arts is a 15% drop in the pass rate.

The average for Grades 3-8 in Math is a 23% drop in the pass rate.

I urge you to discuss these testing changes and these pass rates with your state legislators as well as your State Board of Education members.

Before they approve these cut scores, are they sure they have it right?

Are schools and teachers going to be punished as collateral damage to a policy effort to raise standards and tests in English and math to the most rigorous level we have ever seen in Indiana?

Do we need to step back and figure out a way to “hold harmless” the impact on schools and teachers in this huge change in testing?

Thanks for your advocacy for public education!

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 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 continues to represent ICPE during the interim study committee meetings in September and October. Our work in support of public education in the Statehouse goes on. 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.

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Letter to Newly Appointed SBOE Member, Steve Yager

NEIFPE member Anne Duff published the following letter to new SBOE member Steve Yager on her blog.

LETTER TO NEWLY APPOINTED SBOE MEMBER, STEVE YAGER

Dear Mr. Yager,

I am writing to you as not only a member of the Fort Wayne Community Schools Board of Trustees, but also as a mother of three children who attend FWCS who are subjected to an exorbitant amount of high stakes testing.

With new academic standards barely in place before the school year began, our teachers had to learn these standards and be ready to implement them for this school year. New tests were developed over these standards, and our children were yet again obligated to endure another testing nightmare. As practice tests were given on computers, malfunctions occurred including the inability to choose the appropriate response, slow response time, navigation issues, freeze and reboot issues, and other issues that make young test takers fear and worry about these high stakes tests.

As I’m sure you are aware, FWCS chose paper and pencil tests so that our children would no longer have to worry about these issues that arose from the computerized tests. And, although testing was shortened, I believe there is still entirely too much of it and that stakes –especially for a brand new test and brand new standards with no historical data – are too high.

When Glenda Ritz put a resolution on the agenda at the February 13 State Board of Education meeting about pausing accountability this year, I was shocked and disappointed that this item was immediately dismissed. The resolution was stricken from the agenda with little explanation. It is my hope that when Gordon Hendry said, “and today I believe is not the right time or place to have the discussion that you presented as it relates to pausing accountability. I might add that I’m opposed to that. But I’m more than happy to have that debate at a future meeting” he sincerely meant that he would have this discussion at a subsequent meeting. Our schools – my children’s schools and our community’s pride - need a pause in accountability. It is time to reflect on what we are doing to our schools and our neighborhoods as we label them as successes and failures. It is time to take a look at the 12 options from our federal government on pausing accountability and consider one of these options. We have been given this opportunity. As a parent, I have had enough. There are no strings attached to pausing our accountability, and I feel it’s time to take a step back and take a breather from all of this testing mayhem for once and choose an option, as 26 other states have already.

It is my hope that the pausing accountability options from the federal government are presented at the July 1 SBOE meeting, and that options are discussed and selected. This is our opportunity as a state to stop and reflect about the testing and the stakes placed on our children and schools.

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Vic's Statehouse Notes #222 – May 12, 2015

Dear Friends,

The step-by-step dismantling of public education in Indiana continued in the 2015 session. The passage of Senate Bill 1 on the final day of the legislative session marked a significant upheaval in the tectonic plates undergirding the once-sturdy foundation of public education in Indiana.

Under Senate Bill 1, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, elected by the public, will lose the power of chairing the State Board of Education, a power held by the State Superintendent since 1913, over a hundred years.

After December 31, 2016, the chair will be elected by the appointed members of the board, not the voters. Since no qualifications for the new chair were set by Senate Bill 1, the General Assembly has opened the door to have a non-educator chair the State Board of Education for the first time.

No effort was made in the bill to protect the importance of public education experience in chairing the State Board.

Milton Friedman, the inventor of private school vouchers, in a speech to state lawmakers at the American Legislative Exchange Council in 2006 answered his own question of "How do we get from where we are to where we want to be?" by saying "the ideal way would be to abolish the public school system and eliminate all the taxes that pay for it." Demoting and marginalizing the State Superintendent of Public Instruction appears to be a step along the path endorsed by Dr. Friedman.

Governors and State Superintendents: Who Controls Education Policy?

There was a time in my career when every Governor did not want to be the "education Governor." I began teaching in the era of Governor Whitcomb who left education policy to the State Superintendent and the State Board. Governor Bowen, after engineering the landmark collective bargaining law of 1973, essentially did the same thing.

In the 1980's, when the history of unending education reform began, Governor Orr ran on a platform of assisting with the early grades, and his interest resulted in major funding for Project Primetime, a popular and effective program to lower the class sizes in Grades K-3. He followed that initiative with the A+ reforms of 1987 which brought us the ISTEP tests. Governor Orr resisted President Reagan’s call for private school vouchers and consistently supported public education, but with his actions, gubernatorial involvement in Indiana education policy was firmly established.

Every Governor since has been deeply involved in education policy, but no Governor has sought to take over the duties of the State Superintendent until Governor Pence took office. In 2013, even before State Superintendent Ritz was inaugurated on January 19th, House Bill 1309 was introduced in the General Assembly on January 14, 2013 requiring the state board to elect a vice chairperson who “may call meetings; set and amend agendas; arrange for witnesses; and carry out any other administrative function as it relates to meetings of the state board.” The bill went nowhere, but the plan to diminish the previous powers of the State Superintendent was already in place as both Governor Pence and State Superintendent Ritz began their terms of office. Governor Pence has shown no willingness to work with the elected State Superintendent from the beginning.

Senate Bill 1: New Potential Sources of Confusion and Conflict

While the stated purpose of SB 1 was to resolve conflicts and bickering, the language of the bill appears to open a new arena for conflict. The supermajority decided it was too dangerous politically to change the powers of the State Superintendent in the middle of the term of office, so the removal of the State Superintendent as chair was delayed until the beginning of the next term of office, after December 31, 2016.

More immediately, however, under provisions of the new law, "a vice chairperson shall be elected at the first meeting of the state board after June 30, 2015" who "shall act as chairperson in the absence of the chairperson."

Here is the new problem: "The chairperson and the vice chairperson are jointly responsible for establishing agendas for state board meetings after receiving and considering recommended agenda items from the members of the state board." This last minute addition to the language of the bill leaves many questions:

1. Is the vice chairperson supposed to actually function as a co-chairperson?

2. If there is a disagreement about the agenda between the State Superintendent and the vice chairperson, does each have a veto over the final decision?

3. Why can’t the chair have the normal power of setting the agenda with the input of the board members, as it is now?

4. Did the General Assembly have to micromanage even the agenda powers of the State Superintendent?

It seems obvious that the seeds of further conflict have been sown by these words of the General Assembly.

Who Will Appoint State Board Members?

The reason Senate Bill 1 took until the last day was a disagreement between the Senate and the Governor over appointments to the State Board. The original House Bill 1609 left all 10 appointments to the Governor, as it has been since 1984, when the reform creating the State Board of Education was passed under Governor Orr. Senate Bill 1 reduced the total size of the board to nine, with four appointments by the Governor, two by the Speaker of the House and two by the President Pro Tem of the Senate. The State Superintendent was to serve as the ninth member.

House Bill 1609 never got a hearing and died in the Senate. Senate Bill 1 was amended by the House and passed in the final meeting of the House Education Committee. The House version called for a 13 member board, with the Governor appointing ten, the Speaker one and the President Pro Tem one, with the State Superintendent serving as the 13th member.

Senator Holdman, the bill’s sponsor, dissented on the House changes and took the bill to Conference Committee. The Conference Committee did not meet until April 27th, only two days before the session ended. The proposed Conference Committee report sliced the State Board back down to nine members and delayed the removal of the State Superintendent until after the next election.

The bill remained in flux until the final day, April 29th. The final deal was to leave the number at eleven, the number on the State Board now, with the Governor getting eight appointments, the Speaker one, and the President Pro Tem one. No doubt the Governor was not pleased about losing two appointments to the legislative branch, but that is how it came out.

Senate Bill 1: Partisan Support and Bipartisan Opposition

Senate Bill 1 was passed by the supermajority Republican members, but some courageous members of the Republican caucus joined the Democrats in voting against the bill. Some Republicans were "taken to the woodshed" over their opposition to SB 1. It can be damaging to a political career to vote contrary to the wishes of the caucus leadership.

Public school advocates should thank the members of the Republican caucus and the Democrats who opposed Senate Bill 1 in the House and in the Senate.

They were standing up for the power of voters. In the 2012 election, voters had the power to choose the chair of the State Board, but in 2016, the voters will lose that power. As few as six appointed members of the State Board will gain the power to elect the chair of the State Board.

In the House of Representatives, this bill was opposed by ten Republicans and all Democrats in the final day 60-38 vote. Those voting no included Republican Representatives Arnold, Beumer, Braun, Dermody, Harman, Judy, Koch, Mahan, Nisly and Truitt and Democrat Representatives Austin, Bartlett, Bauer, C. Brown, DeLaney, Dvorak, Errington, Forestal, GiaQuinta, Goodin, Hale, Kersey, Klinker, Lawson, Macer, Moed, Moseley, Niezgodski, Pelath, Pierce, Porter, Pryor, Riecken, Shackleford, V. Smith, Stemler, Summers and Wright.

In the Senate, the final day 31-17 roll call showed nine Republican Senators and all eight Democrats who voted opposing the bill. Those voting no included Republican Senators Alting, Becker, Delph, Ford, Glick, Head, Leising, Messmer, and Tomes and Democrat Senators Arnold, Breaux, Broden, Lanane, Randolph, Rogers, Stoops and Tallian.

As the 2015 session of the General Assembly ends, the foundations of public education in Indiana are showing new cracks and the voters have lost an important power.

Many have called Senate Bill 1 a power grab. This has two meanings. One is that the Governor has grabbed power from the State Superintendent. In broader terms regarding our democracy, it also means that government appointees have grabbed power from the voters. Will the voters notice and react?

Our democracy and the role of voters have been diminished by the legacy of Senate Bill 1.

Thanks for your advocacy for public education during the 2015 session of the General Assembly!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith vic790@aol.com

“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. Joel Hand will again be our ICPE lobbyist in the Statehouse. Many have renewed their memberships already, and we thank you! If you have not done so since July 1, the start of our new membership year, we urge you to renew now.

We must raise additional funds for the 2015 session, which begins on January 6th. We need 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.

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Vic's Statehouse Notes #221 – May 5, 2015

Dear Friends,

After watching 19 sessions of the General Assembly, I have come to expect a surprise on the last day. The surprise last Wednesday on the April 29th deadline was a bold last minute gambit to remove State Superintendent Ritz’s authority over private school vouchers and over Scholarship Granting Organization private school scholarships and give that authority to the State Board of Education, controlled by Governor Pence.

This unexpected cliffhanger power grab, a concept not discussed in any previous bill in the entire session, was part of the budget released to the public about 10pm on Tuesday night (April 28th). It is not clear who inserted the language in question, but it is clear who took quick action in their caucus to reverse it: Senate Republicans. The Senators did not endorse this last minute policy change over vouchers, a change which the Indianapolis Star highlighted in an online mid-day story. The Senate Republicans acted decisively to prompt a second draft of the final budget, which was released to the public about 5pm Wednesday and passed by both chambers just before midnight.

Give kudos to the Senate Republicans and direct your questions to the House Republicans and the Governor about this inappropriate last minute maneuver.

Sections 234 and 236

One sentence in a 248 page budget set up the abrupt policy change on Scholarship Granting Organizations. In Section 234 of the first conference committee report, referencing IC 20-51-3-11, the word "department" was crossed out to read: "The state board shall adopt rules under IC 4-22-2 to implement this article."

That is all it took to end the authority of the State Superintendent to supervise Scholarship Granting Organizations.

A similar change in Section 236 ended department authority over choice scholarships and the voucher program.

Senate Republicans, however, had not agreed to this last minute change and took action to reverse it.

In the Senate version of the budget passed in early April, the Senators had frozen the Scholarship Granting Organization tax credits at the current $7.5 million. The Governor and the House Republicans had endorsed an expansion to $12.5 million with an escalator clause that would automatically raise the amount each year by 20% if the SGO donations reached the maximum amount.

Many Senators have now recognized that this is an uncontrolled method of expanding vouchers to nearly all current private school students since a year with an SGO scholarship makes any student eligible for a choice scholarship voucher in the subsequent year. This makes the voucher program no longer about funding a transfer to private schools but about giving public funds for a private decision made long ago to students who have always been in private schools.

Consider these astounding numbers gleaned from the straightforward data in the Feb. 2015 Annual Financial Report on the voucher program prepared by the Indiana Department of Education: From 2012-13 to 2014-15, in just two years, the self-pay private school students dropped from 71,000 to 55,000, down 16,000, while the voucher funded private students jumped from 9,000 to 29,000, up 20,000. Overall, private school enrollment went up only 4000, from 81,000 to 85,000 in those two years. (Figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand.)

The conclusion is that tax dollars are not supplementing private school tuition to produce vast numbers of new voucher students, but rather tax dollars are supplanting private school tuition by funding students who have always been in private schools. Giving an SGO scholarship to a current private school student has become the biggest pathway to making that student eligible for a voucher the next year.

Final Budget Numbers

In the final budget compromise, the Senate and the House settled on raising the SGO tax credits to $8.5 million in the first year of the budget and to $9.5 million in the second year of the budget.

Clearly, advocates for public education should thank members of the Senate for trying to hold the line on voucher expansion through Scholarship Granting Organization tax credit scholarships.

Then it is time to ask the tough questions to members of the House. Why is the House so supportive of expanding vouchers through Scholarship Granting Organizations? Why does the House want to accelerate the shift of public money to private schools by allowing the unlimited growth of tax credit scholarships?

Removing the Cap on Grade K-8 Vouchers

In addition to the SGO expansion, Governor Pence wanted to remove the $4800 cap on vouchers for grades K-8, at a cost his office projected to be $3.8 million per year. Despite the objections of many public school advocates, the House and Senate both endorsed the expansion of vouchers in this way. The cap for K-8 vouchers is now the same as for 9-12 vouchers, that is, 90% of the per pupil funding in each school district.

The Education Controversy of this Generation: Will public tuition dollars go to private schools?

This is the fourth budget in a row in which the last minute education battles have been waged over funding private school tuition with public dollars.

In 2009, the General Assembly deadlocked and could not pass a budget by the end of April. In a June special session, a final budget deal which barely passed by July 1 included the first ever Scholarship Granting Organization tax credits funded at $2.5 million.

In 2011, the bill establishing the voucher program had to use the budget bill as a trailer bill to fix details in the voucher bill (HB1003) that Representative Behning couldn’t get fixed in a conference committee.

In 2013, the budget had to be amended one more time on the last day, just as this year, when key Senators balked on giving private school vouchers to areas served by D schools. Only F school areas were allowed in the voucher expansion plan in the final budget.

This year in 2015, the last day battle over control of the voucher program came out of the blue. In the 2013 session, House Bill 1342 to separate voucher administration from the State Superintendent passed the House Education Committee on a party line vote, but then died. In the 2014 or the current 2015 sessions, no bills addressed a voucher takeover until this final day budget maneuver.

This astounding move confirms that the battle over vouchers runs deep in the hearts and minds of the contestants vying to control the future of education in Indiana: Will education in Indiana be delivered through strong community public schools or will education gradually be privatized via vouchers as public schools lose priority?

It is the education question of our generation.

Thanks for your advocacy for public education during the 2015 session of the General Assembly!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith vic790@aol.com

“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. Joel Hand will again be our ICPE lobbyist in the Statehouse. Many have renewed their memberships already, and we thank you! If you have not done so since July 1, the start of our new membership year, we urge you to renew now.

We must raise additional funds for the 2015 session, which begins on January 6th. We need 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.

###

Vic's Statehouse Notes #219 – April 27, 2015

Dear Friends,

Keep up the messages opposing Senate Bill 1, which removes the State Superintendent as chair of the State Board of Education. Your drumbeat of opposition is making a difference.

At today’s 10am Conference Committee meeting on Senate Bill 1, Senator Holdman unveiled a proposed conference committee report that mitigated the worst partisan move in the bill. It no longer would change the power of the State Superintendent in the middle of the electoral term. Instead, the chair would be chosen by the other board members after December 31, 2016, after the 2016 election.

While this was a small gain in the proposed compromise, the bad news is that new language has been added that would give additional powers to the State Board. Representative Austin stated in discussion that the proposal to make the State Board an educational authority "within the meaning of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act" had been voted down in House Bill 1072. Under current rules, a rejected proposal is not to be brought back in a conference committee.

Senator Holdman said he would look into that.

This bill is not done. More messages opposing SB 1 would help. The bill is unnecessary. It diminishes the power of the elected State Superintendent. If you have not yet contacted your legislators about Senate Bill 1, please do so tonight or tomorrow.

Appointment Powers

Senator Holdman's compromise plan is to have nine members on the State Board, instead of the current eleven. The Governor would appoint six, of which four must be experienced educators defined as having at least 5 years of professional experience in education and no more than four can be of the same political party. The Speaker and the President Pro Tem would each appoint one. The State Superintendent would be the ninth.

As Senator Lanane analyzed the numbers in today’s meeting, the plan would result under our current circumstances in a board with six Republicans and three Democrats.

No Qualifications Listed for the New Chair

This bill has ignored addressing the qualifications of the chair of the State Board that under SB 1 would succeed the State Superintendent. For 102 years, by having the State Superintendent chair the State Board, the citizens of Indiana have been guaranteed that the chair of the State Board is thoroughly knowledgeable about the schools of Indiana from personal experience. Now SB 1 proposes a new chair with no qualifications stated who would now become the most powerful policy leader in education. This person should be an experienced professional educator with deep experience in Indiana.

Is the supermajority proposing in this bill that the most powerful policy leader in education in Indiana could be a non-educator without personal experience in teaching or administration? That is where it now stands. I hope you will ask legislators to fix this flaw in the bill, if they don’t withdraw the bill altogether.

New Language

While the delayed implementation of demoting the State Superintendent as chair was welcome, it came at the same time new language was proposed that has not been considered before in this session. This is very late in the process to be starting new language, especially language that leaves lots of questions.

One new section regarding plans for a turnaround school reads "The state board may require the department to report to the state board regarding implementation of a recommended plan." Does the State Board expect noncompliance if they ask the IDOE for a report? Is this language assuming confrontation?

Another new section regarding ISTEP says the state board shall "authorize and approve the development and establishment of passing scores." Does this mean the State Board staff can wrest the management of setting the cut scores away from the IDOE testing staff who have supervised the setting of cut scores since Public Law 221 began in 1999?

We don’t need last minute controversies about giving the State Board new powers. We don’t need Senate Bill 1.

Send a Message to Members of the Conference Committee

If you have not already done so, send a message to the conference committee members.

The Senate Conferees are Senator Holdman, chair of the committee, and Senator Lanane.

The House Conferees are Representative McMillin and Representative Vernon Smith.

Senate Advisors on the Committee are Senators Kenley, Breaux, Rogers, Kruse and Yoder.

House Advisors on the Committee are Representatives Behning, Cook, McNamara, Austin, Errington and Moed.

The easiest way to email committee members is to go the Indiana General Assembly website and click on the Conference Committee on Senate Bill 1. When the committee information comes up, each member is pictured on the left. Clicking on each picture allows you to send an email to each member. Click here for the Conference Committee page.

Then send a message to your legislators since all will be voting on Senate Bill 1 at least by Wednesday, the last day of the session.

Thanks for your strong advocacy for public education!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith vic790@aol.com

“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. Joel Hand will again be our ICPE lobbyist in the Statehouse. Many have renewed their memberships already, and we thank you! If you have not done so since July 1, the start of our new membership year, we urge you to renew now.

We must raise additional funds for the 2015 session, which begins on January 6th. We need 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.

###

Vic’s Statehouse Notes #218 – April 24, 2015

Dear Friends,

If you object to the Republican supermajority taking away the power of the State Superintendent to chair the State Board of Education, you have one more weekend to communicate your concerns with legislators.

Senate Bill 1, taking the power to name the chair of the State Board away from the voters for the first time in 102 years and giving that power to appointees on the State Board, has been scheduled for a Conference Committee meeting at 10am on Monday, April 27, 2015 in Statehouse Room 130, a small room on the first floor.

Please note the conferees listed below and communicate your objections to this bill. They are shaping the final conference committee report. Then communicate your thoughts to your legislators or to all legislators, since all will be voting on the final version by Wednesday, April 29th, the last day of a difficult session.

You could also attend the Conference Committee meeting. There is no guarantee that public testimony will be taken on the Conference Committee proposal, although in many Conference Committees in this session, the chair of Conference Committee has invited public testimony. Whether public testimony is allowed is completely up to the chair of the committee.

A Partisan Bill

Senate Bill 1 is a controversial highly partisan bill. The most controversial part is the thought that the powers of the office of State Superintendent are being changed during the term of the office, without waiting for the next election.

This directly undermines the power of voters. This hurts our democracy by reducing the power of the ballet box.

A glimmer of hope was raised in committee discussions about the possibility that in the final version, the powers of the State Superintendent would not be reduced until after the 2016 election. That would allow the person who the voters thought that they were selecting to chair the State Board to serve out her term before the rules change. The rules should not change in the middle of a term.

A decision to make this change would take the most partisan sting out of the bill and would be worth advocating when you communicate with legislators about Senate Bill 1.

Members of the Conference Committee

Conference Committee members will resolve the differences between the two versions of the bill described below and will set the final language of the bill.

The Senate Conferees are Senator Holdman, chair of the committee, and Senator Lanane.

The House Conferees are Representative McMillin and Representative Vernon Smith.

Senate Advisors on the Committee are Senators Kenley, Breaux, Rogers, Kruse and Yoder.

House Advisors on the Committee are Representatives Behning, Cook, McNamara, Austin, Errington and Moed.

Communications this weekend on Senate Bill 1 should start with these legislators and then extend to others of your choice who will be voting on the bill by Wednesday.

The easiest way to email committee members is to go the Indiana General Assembly website and click on meetings for April 27 on the calendar. Then click on the Conference Committee on Senate Bill 1. When the committee information comes up, each member is pictured on the left. Clicking on each picture allows you to send an email to each member. Click HERE to open the Conference Committee on Senate Bill 1 page.

The Dispute over Appointments to the State Board

The dispute between Governor Pence and legislative leaders over who should appoint members of the State Board has pushed this controversial bill later in the session than expected. The versions that passed each house are quite different in appointive powers.

The Senate version, which passed 33-17, changes the board to nine members instead of the current 11, with 4 appointed by the Governor, 2 by the Speaker of the House and 2 by the President Pro Tem of the Senate. The State Superintendent would be the ninth member.

The House version, which passed 56-41, changes the board to 13 members, with 10 appointed by the Governor as he does now, 1 appointed by the Speaker, and 1 appointed by the President Pro Tem. The State Superintendent would be the 13th member.

Both versions said that the appointees would select the chair.

The House version gives the State Board the explicit power to hire staff and to request the help of the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency in conducting evaluations and audits. The latter has become a huge issue because it represents an executive branch agency (State Board) tapping the services of a legislative agency (LSA) for potentially controversial purposes, threatening the non-partisan reputation of LSA.

Senator Holdman did not concur with the House changes, leading to the Conference Committee and the meeting on Monday.

Let Your Voice Be Heard

Do the 1.3 million voters of Indiana who elected Glenda Ritz agree that the supermajority should reduce the powers of the State Superintendent without waiting for the next election to let the voters decide?

If not, let legislators know how you feel by Monday morning.

My testimony on Senate Bill 1 in the House Education Committee on April 9th is attached.

I opposed the bill strongly as an affront to our democracy and the power of voters. I called it a skirmish in a greater war over whether a strong public education system will survive in Indiana. I argued that the dissension in the State Board centered on policy disputes related to questions of maintaining a strong system of public education. I stated my belief that this bill clearly downgrades the power of the voters and tips the balance in policy debates in favor of the State Board. I concluded that reducing the power of the voters before the next election diminishes our democracy.

I urge you to consider these arguments and then to send your own message by Monday morning.

Thanks for your strong advocacy for public education!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith vic790@aol.com

“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. Joel Hand will again be our ICPE lobbyist in the Statehouse. Many have renewed their memberships already, and we thank you! If you have not done so since July 1, the start of our new membership year, we urge you to renew now.

We must raise additional funds for the 2015 session, which begins on January 6th. We need 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.

###

Vic's Statehouse Notes #215 – April 7, 2015

Dear Friends,

The bill to remove State Superintendent Ritz as chair of the State Board of Education, Senate Bill 1, will be given a public hearing this Thursday, April 9th at 8:30am in Room 156C of the Statehouse.

This highly controversial bill diminishing the powers of the elected State Superintendent has been ignored in recent weeks during the highly controversial debates over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Now at the end of today's House Education Committee meeting, Chairman Behning said Senate Bill 1 will be heard on Thursday.

If you have strong feelings about this bill and reducing the powers of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, you should come to testify on Thursday or send messages to members of the House Education Committee before the meeting.

Add Your Voice to the Testimony on Thursday

Over a thousand people came to an impressive rally on February 16th in support of public education and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. If you were among those who came, you should consider coming back to testify against this bill.

Any citizen can testify. You simply need to sign in before the meeting begins at 8:30am on the form provided for those who wish to speak. The time may be inconvenient and the notice is short, but that is the way the General Assembly operates. I hope you will decide to make your opinions known to the legislators.

Update on Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1609

The House and the Senate passed differing bills removing the elected State Superintendent as chair of the State Board of Education. I and many others opposed both bills, but both were passed in the first half of the session.

House Bill 1609 did not get a hearing in the Senate and died. Senate Bill 1 is the only bill left on this topic.

House Bill 1609 left the other appointments to the State Board in the hands of the Governor, as it is now. Senate Bill 1 changed the appointment of the State Board to give the Governor four appointments, the Speaker of the House two appointments, and the President Pro Tem of the Senate two appointments. The State Superintendent would be the ninth and final member of the board. Senate Bill 1 changed the size of the State Board from 11 to 9. It is expected that the House Committee will further amend the Senate plan on Thursday after the public hearing.

Talking Points

Many people are deeply concerned about this proposed change in the powers of the State Superintendent and already have their list of talking points. Here are other points against this bill:

1) It is not fair to the voters in our democracy to change the powers of an office during the term of the office. This is just plain wrong. Any changes should be implemented after the next election. This bill would clearly diminish our democracy and the powers of voters.

2) This bill overturns long historical power allocations. The State Superintendent has chaired the State Board of Education since 1913.

3) This bill overturns the will of 1.3 million voters who elected Glenda Ritz thinking she would chair the State Board as part of her elected duties.

4) This bill diminishes the powers given to the State Superintendent because her policies oppose in many ways the policies of Governor Pence. This bill is to make sure the Governor's policies prevail, but that undermines the will of the voters who endorsed the policies of Superintendent Ritz in the 2012 election.

5) Under current law, voters choose the chair of the State Board of Education by electing the State Superintendent. This bill gives the power to choose the chair to appointees on the State Board. Senate Bill 1 directly reduces the power of voters.

6) Diminishing the powers of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is an obvious symbol of diminishing Indiana’s priority on public education, in line with the Governor's policies to promote private schools.

You can add many other talking points as you communicate with members of the House about Senate Bill 1.

Come One, Come All!

Come to the public hearing on Thursday at 8:30am if you can. Legislators need to hear from those who have been deeply offended by this move to ignore the will of the voters in our democracy and win the policy debates by removing the State Superintendent as chair of the State Board. When the voters spoke in the 2012 election, they did not expect to be ignored and disrespected in the ensuing policy debates as this bill implies.

If you can't come in person, please communicate with members of the House Education Committee before Thursday morning.

Let your voice be heard.

Once again, an easy way to contact members of the committee is to go to the Indiana General Assembly website and click on Committees, then on Standing Committees, and then on the name of the committee. The pictures of committee members appear on the left. As you click on each picture, an email form comes up that you can use to register your concerns with each member.

[Click HERE to go to the House Education Committee page]

Thanks for your strong advocacy for public education!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith vic790@aol.com

“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. Joel Hand will again be our ICPE lobbyist in the Statehouse. Many have renewed their memberships already, and we thank you! If you have not done so since July 1, the start of our new membership year, we urge you to renew now.

We must raise additional funds for the 2015 session, which begins on January 6th. We need 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.

###

Vic's Statehouse Notes #213 – April 2, 2015

Dear Friends,

In their meeting yesterday, the Senate Education Committee amended House Bill 1638 to take out all powers of the State Board to intervene in local school corporations. This is a good step in the right direction, removing an unprecedented new power.

Unfortunately, the bill is still alive. The remainder of the bill passed the committee 9-2.

It now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee. It is time to contact members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to let them know of your opposition.

Keep those messages and letters coming about House Bill 1638. They are making a difference in whittling away at this unnecessary bill which gives more school takeover powers to the State Board of Education.

Senator Leising reported in her discussion of HB 1638 that she has received 48 messages against the bill and zero messages for the bill. Keep it up!

Amendment 19

Senator Rogers worked with Chairman Kruse to bring Amendment 19, a more comprehensive amendment than last week's amendment. It deleted all references to State Board interventions at the school corporation level. It also deleted all references to transformation zones. All references to federal funding for takeover schools were deleted.

In a positive development, the new provisions regulating State Board closures of local schools proposed by Senator Rogers last week remained in the amendment. These provisions require a two-thirds vote and a 60-day response plan.

The amendment was adopted by the committee by consent.

What Remains in House Bill 1638?

The remaining parts of House Bill 1638 focus on extending the power of the State Board to take schools over quicker, moving from the current six year sequence to four years. State Board Member Dan Elsener in presenting the bill on March 18th said that the State Board wanted to have a Turnaround Office staffed by State Board staff under State Board control to fix these schools. The House budget includes a $5 million dollar appropriation for "Turnaround Support", which is more than the Indiana state budget now gives for technology in the Senator Ford Technology Fund, currently budgeted at $3.09 million.

The General Assembly rejected proposals to cut the timeline from six years to four years in 2009, in 2012 and in 2013. The Governor and the State Board are pushing hard this year to expand the powers of the State Board in this way. Should the General Assembly grant Dan Elsener and the State Board more power this year for quicker takeovers?

I say no, based on two reasons:

1) The five schools taken over by the State Board previously have been expensive disasters, marked by community upheavals, costly contracts, endless controversies and multiple lawsuits. Takeovers have changed the State Board from functioning as a statewide policy board to functioning as a local board debating specific details at length about specific schools they are now running. Despite all the effort, extra investments, and controversy, four of the five remain F schools and one is a D school, despite having much smaller enrollments. Instead of giving the State Board more power to take over schools quicker, the General Assembly should reign in the powers of the ambitious State Board and endorse the successful turnaround efforts of local districts that have now been well documented in data presented by the Indiana Department of Education. A net total of 103 schools statewide have moved from D/F schools to A/B/C schools in the past year under current IDOE turnaround programs.

2) Quicker takeovers are based on school letter grades. We in Indiana still do not have a school grading system in place that is proven and has the confidence of the citizens of Indiana. We are still using the same flawed system that the 2013 General Assembly found so problematic that they ordered it to be voided by November 15, 2013. The State Board missed the deadline and has dragged their feet, ignoring the emergency powers the General Assembly gave them to write temporary rules by that date. The General Assembly should not entrust the State Board with more power for quicker school takeovers until a measurement system for grading schools has been established which is respected by all. The A-F panel appointed in part by the General Assembly recommended a new A-F system in October, 2014, but the State Board nitpicked the panel's work and six months later still has not settled on a new plan. The State Board's defiance of the General Assembly's 2013 law should not be rewarded by giving them even more powers to take over schools quicker.

Contact Senators

I urge you to contact members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and other Senators as soon as possible. Just one week remains for committee work. They must consider HB 1638 by April 9th.

Tell them we don’t need more changes at this time when standards and testing are all changing. Tell them you oppose HB 1638.

Once again, an easy way to contact members of the committee is to go to the Indiana General Assembly website and click on Committees, then on Standing Committees, and then on the name of the committee. The pictures of committee members appear on the left. As you click on each picture, an email form comes up that you can use to register your concerns with each member.

Thanks for your support of strong local control of public schools and your advocacy for public education!

Best wishes,

Vic Smith      vic790@aol.com

“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.  Joel Hand is again serving as our ICPE lobbyist in the Statehouse.  Many have renewed their memberships already, and we thank you!  If you have not done so since July 1, the start of our new membership year, we urge you to renew now.   

We still must raise additional funds for the 2015 session, which began on January 6^th.  We need 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.