In Case You Missed It – September 14, 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.

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MCCORMICK ENDORSES DEMOCRAT

Republican Indiana schools chief endorses Democratic candidate for attorney general

Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick, is in a class by herself. How many Republicans nationally, have had the courage to go against their local or national Republican leadership? The answer is not very many. It's true that she's at the end of her term and hasn't expressed any interest in running for other positions, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

On the other hand, McCormick isn't new to crossing political lines. When she ran for the state's top education position she denied that campaign donations from school "reformers" would influence the way she ran her Department of Education, and she followed through on that promise. For four years she's been an advocate for public education just as strongly as her Democratic predecessor, Glenda Ritz. She also spent some time earlier in the election cycle, touring with Democratic State Senator, Eddie Melton, who was considering a run for governor.

The bad news is that McCormick is the last elected state Superintendent of Public Instruction. From now on, the Governor will make an appointment for that position -- as well as for the majority of members of the state school board. That will make things easier for the Republicans in the state, though not for Indiana's public schools.

From the South Bend Tribune

The Republican state schools chief is crossing party lines to endorse the Democratic candidate for Indiana attorney general.

Jennifer McCormick, the state superintendent of public instruction, announced Thursday she’s backing former Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel over Republican former U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita, a Munster native, in the Nov. 3 election for attorney general.

“This isn’t about politics,” McCormick said. “This is about who has the experience, the integrity and the vision to best represent all Hoosiers, especially our children.”

MCCORMICK-1, DEVOS-0

Court affirms McCormick’s position on private school funding

Superintendent McCormick hasn't just worked against state Republicans. She also stood up to US Secretary of Education, and ultra-privatizer, billionaire Betsy DeVos.

DeVos wanted states to take pandemic money and send piles of it to private schools. McCormick said no. A fight ensued. McCormick won.

From Steve Hinnefeld at School Matters

Indiana Superintendent of Public Education Jennifer McCormick was on solid legal ground when she rejected federal guidance on distributing CARES Act funding to private schools. Three federal courts have now made that clear.

Most recently, in a decision that applies nationwide, a judge ruled that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was wrong when she and the U.S. Department of Education tried to divert more funding to private schools than Congress intended.

“In enacting the education funding provisions of the CARES Act, Congress spoke with a clear voice,” wrote U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich. “It declared that relief funding shall be provided to private schools ‘in the same manner as provided’ (in federal school funding law). Contrary to the Department’s interim final rule, that cannot mean the opposite of what it says.”

Strike Three! Another Federal Court Ends A Betsy DeVos Plan To Use Public Money For Private Schools

From Peter Greene in Forbes

Judge Dabney Friedrich, the U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia (and a Trump appointee) this week became the third federal judge to stymie Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s plan to direct additional CARES money to private schools. This ruling is the most decisive of the three, not merely imposing an injunction but issuing a summary judgement against the secretary.

The issues was this: Congress set aside some CARES relief money to be distributed among public and private schools based on the number of students from low-income families. DeVos issued first a guidance, then a ruling, that the funds should be passed on to private schools based on total enrollment rather than low-income enrollment. This would have had the effect of steering CARES funds away from public schools and toward private schools, a long-time DeVos goal.

FWCS CHANGES CLASSROOM SETUPS

FWCS elementary teachers to teach in-person or remote, not both

Fort Wayne Community Schools has changed class structures for elementary classroom after a month of school. It's good that the administration is willing to change when something is not working well. On the other hand, more planning during the summer could have prevented the need to make this change.

From WANE.com

Some Fort Wayne Community Schools students could have new teachers starting next week.

In a letter to parents Wednesday, Superintendent Dr. Mark Daniel said the district was making some “adjustments” to ensure students are educated.

The adjustment: elementary teachers will teach either in-person or fully remote, rather than teaching both ways in a single classroom. Daniel said a survey of teachers last week overwhelmingly supported the change.

“While teachers may have liked the idea of having a classroom with some students in person and some remote, it turned out to not be a practical or effective way to teach young students,” said Daniel. “We believe the changes we are making will alleviate those frustrations and provide a better learning experience for all.”

STANDARDIZED TESTING ISN'T INDISPENSABLE

Standardized Testing: Indispensable to Those Who Are Not Subjected to It.

Who benefits from standardized tests...other than testing companies?

From deutsch29 Mercedes Schneider's Blog

This is what standardized testing has been in public schools across America ever since No Child Left Behind (NCLB):

It’s like some president-backed, bipartisan Congress decided that we need to measure student physical health based on student weight. Of course, student physical health is by far too complex a concept to be captured by student weight, but let’s just put that reality aside in favor of the appearance of being able to pack a huge, complex package into a matchbox by getting those kids on the scale and putting the onus on teachers and schools to make students weight what the state (answering to the federal government in exchange for funding) decides those students should weigh.

Now, it is ridiculous on its face to hold teachers and schools responsible for student weight– which is why no bathroom scale company will guarantee that their scales are meant to be used to determine anything beyond the weight of the person standing on the scale. However, that president-backed, bipartisan Congress has decided that schools and teachers must ensure that their students achieve some predetermined optimal weight.

So. Weight-prep programs are instituted for students at risk of not achieving their state-determined optimal weights, the point of which is to drill students in scale-optimizing strategies (i.e., where to stand on the scale in order to make the weight appear higher or lower; how to push down on the scale to “weigh more”). In order to make time in the school day for these at-risk weighers to be drilled and redrilled, they must miss lunch, group sports, and playtime, but what is important to the school and to the teacher is achieving the optimal weight number so that we can tout that number, tag the student as physically healthy, keep our jobs, and collect federal dollars.

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NEIFPE Talks With Jennifer McCormick

McCormick: “irresponsible” not to review voucher program

“You know, we’re spending roughly $146 million on a program and not really reviewing it. That is irresponsible,” said McCormick, a Republican who took office in January.

Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick, has been in the news lately since she was interviewed by National Public Radio for an article titled, The Promise And Peril Of School Vouchers.

Earlier this month NEIFPE sat down with Superintendent McCormick to discuss the education policies in Indiana and what we could do to help support public education. Our discussion was very cordial and we were happy to discover that Dr. McCormick agrees with us on several important issues. She is convinced that there are some things we cannot change, like vouchers and charters. Our goal, instead, should be to prevent them from draining more resources from public schools. This goes along with her public comment about the irresponsibility of spending millions on vouchers without any review of the program.

Dr. McCormick emphasized the need for public accountability for every school receiving tax dollars. Transparency, she said, is an important part of the Republicans' political message. We should remind our Republican legislators of the need for transparency in education when we contact them.

Some other topics we discussed...

• The Legislature may not let the change to the appointment of the State Superintendent wait till 2025. She thinks they'll move up the date during an upcoming legislative sessions. If (and when) that happens our focus should be on publicizing what the Gubernatorial candidate's education platform has been/will be.

• We suggested that, since the Superintendent will become an appointed position, we should lobby for an elected State Board Of Education. While she didn't disagree with the idea, she doesn't think it will happen.

• She said that the Indiana Association of School Business Officials seems to be the only group that has the ear of Indiana legislators – more than principals, school boards, superintendents, and, of course, teachers. This group would include school system business managers and chief financial officers. Lobbying them could be helpful.

• The Superintendent's office will be sending people to legislative conferences including ALEC. She was very clear about her distaste for ALEC, but is sending someone to find out what the legislators are hearing. She will also be sending representatives from her office to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a more middle-of-the-road legislative conference. The people she is sending will include educators. Her goal is to be able to combat the information coming to legislators with the truth about public education in Indiana.

• She accepts that vouchers and charters are here to stay. Her goal in the IDOE and in discussions with legislators is to try to minimize the damage the funding drain for those programs does to public schools. For example, she said she worked hard to get voucher money separated from the education budget. She succeeded in the Senate version, but the House stripped it out.

• We discussed Indiana state legislators. She said that Senator Dennis Kruse is very willing to listen to what she has to say and, while they disagree on some things, she will continue to talk to him. She indicated that she is also in contact with Senators Luke Kenley and David Long. Her feeling seems to be that the Senate has had enough of "education reform."

• Testing: Dr. McCormick came from a school district where there wasn't a lot of mobility among the families, but she understands how unfair it is that schools are being judged when their student population is transient. In addition, she understands the effect of poverty on student test scores. She said she is still hoping to get an "off the shelf" test for K-8. She is also concerned with the problems associated with testing at the secondary level.

• She and her team are coming up with policy points for the next legislative session. They intend to disperse the points throughout the state for citizens to use when contacting legislators so that they hear the same information over and over again...to give us a united focus.

Read more about Dr. McCormick's views on Indiana's voucher plan. See Steve Hinnefeld's blog, School Matters.

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Vic’s Statehouse Notes #235 – November 2, 2015

Dear Friends,

Did the Indiana General Assembly really think it would be right for Grace College and Theological Seminary, a private religious college in northern Indiana, to intervene controversially in the public education climate of Monroe County, 150 miles away, against the wishes of the Bloomington-Ellettsville community?

On January 19, 2011, just twelve days after ICPE was born, Joel Hand gave testimony for the first time on behalf of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, opposing a bill to allow private colleges to authorize public charter schools.

He said that private colleges should not be authorizers of public charter schools because they are not accountable to public tax payers.He was joined by three other public school advocates including me in opposing this provision, but the General Assembly passed the bill anyway with the strong support of State Superintendent Tony Bennett.

Now four years later, the Seven Oaks charter school proposal that was turned down twice in 2014-15 by the Indiana Charter School Board could be given life by the privately appointed trustees of Grace College, of Winona Lake, Indiana, near Warsaw.

Should privately appointed trustees, living far away and not accountable in any way to public voters and taxpayers, have the power swoop in to commit public tax dollars to establish charter schools resisted by the local community and already turned down by the Indiana Charter School Board? I say no.

You can say no also in two ways:

1) Speak against the charter school proposal at the only public hearing on this charter school plan. It will be held on Wednesday, November 4, 2015, 5:30 to 7:00pm at the Holiday Inn Express, 117 S. Franklin Rd., near 3rd Street and 37 on the west side of Bloomington.

2) Let your own Senators and Representatives know that this power obviously undermines local control and the wishes of the local community to point where this law should be changed and the power to shop failed charter school proposals to private colleges should be reined in.

Meanwhile, the private trustees of Grace College should withdraw this proposal so as not to prompt a legislative initiative to end authorizer shopping for failed charter school proposals.

Authorizer Shopping

This charter school was reviewed by the Indiana Charter School Board in the fall of 2014 and rejected by the board, a rare event. The proposal was resubmitted to the same body in the spring of 2015 but was withdrawn without a vote after the ICSB staff recommended that it be declined a second time.

Then the same proposal was shopped to other authorizers, and Grace College got involved. Grace College sponsors two other charter schools, one in Dugger new this year and one in Fort Wayne with a two year track record of F in 2013 and F in 2014. Grace College gets 3% of the tuition for authorizing a charter school. Thus, for example, if the state tuition for a charter school is $6000 per student, Grace College would get a cut of $180 per student.

Is Grace College doing this for the money or are they out to make a name for themselves, and I would say, muddy their name with public school advocates across Indiana?

Documentation

In the first attachment to “Notes #235”, you can read for yourself the numerous problems found by the Indiana Charter School Board staff in their recommendation saying this proposal should be declined by the ICSB in the spring of 2015.

In the second attachment, Steve Hinnefeld of Bloomington has documented that no significant changes were made in the proposal before shopping it to Grace College. Steve has carefully detailed in a blog dated October 27, 2015 the shortcomings of the charter proposal, providing an excellent summary that need not be repeated by me. If you are not familiar with Steve’s work, he does a masterful job of analyzing public education issues, and I highly recommend his blog, entitled School Matters.

Local Opposition

For two years in a row, the leaders of the Monroe County Community School Corporation and the Richland- Bean Blossom School Corporation in Ellettsville have opposed this ideologically driven school proposal linked to an out-of-state charter school network based at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Judy DeMuth, superintendent of the Monroe County Schools, has written a strong letter objecting not only to the charter school but to the frustrating fact that the same proposal was turned down twice after a thorough review by the Indiana Charter School Board but was then revived controversially by shopping the proposal to Grace College.

The Indiana Coalition for Public Education – Monroe County has opposed this proposal for two years and is actively looking for public school advocates who will speak at the November 4th hearing. You can email them at icpe.mc@gmail.com for more information about speaking out against this proposal at the hearing.

If you don’t live close enough to get to Wednesday’s hearing, raise this issue with your own State Senator or your own member of the House of Representatives. This practice of authorizer shopping should stop.

If the Indiana Charter School Board rejects a proposal, it should not be shopped ad infinitum around the private colleges of Indiana. Ask the General Assembly to revisit and correct that part of the charter school law.

Private colleges should not have the power to commit public tax dollars to public charter schools without giving tax payers who want to hold the private officials accountable a recourse for their objections.

This practice muddles the lines between private and public authority and in this case between church and state, and it further fragments our local school communities and our society in general.

I hope you can attend the November 4th hearing or else communicate with your legislators about your opposition.

Thank you 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. Our work in support of public education in the Statehouse goes on as we prepare for the short session beginning in January. 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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