Ongoing
Indiana General Assembly: Stop the attempts to dilute the authority of Supt. Glenda Ritz’s office.
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February 22
Legislative coup d’état
GOP leaders have been chipping away at Ritz’s power in other ways – seeking to eliminate her co-chair status on the Education Roundtable, for example, or to abrogate her authority as chairwoman of the State Board of Education.
To Ritz’s credit, the superintendent has sought only to work with Republican leaders, acknowledging that some reorganization is needed and offering sound measures to improve the formula behind the A-F grading system.
Nothing she has done so far suggests that she’s attempting to unravel the laws Bennett pushed, even if election results suggest Indiana voters did not like them.
Without Bennett as the face of Indiana’s education agenda, Republican lawmakers should know that responsibility for additional changes affecting public schools falls to them. The next legislative election, Nov. 4, 2014, is not too far away.
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February 20
OUR VIEW: Education 'war' continues
The second piece of legislation would prevent schools from automatically deducting union dues from teacher paychecks. If passed, it’s another blow to unions, and comes on the heels of last year’s right-to-work legislation and limits on teacher collective bargaining.
This bill is petty. It only serves to punish teachers who would be forced to write a check to pay their union dues.
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February 20
Teachers decry union-dues move
“This is being done, in my opinion, to do nothing but stifle their representative voice, as other legislation that has been passed in recent history,” said Rick Muir, president of the Indiana Federation of Teachers.
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February 19
Teachers, unions cry foul over legislators' surprise move to prevent dues collections
“It is another anti-union attack. It does nothing to improve schools,” said ISTA President Nate Schnellenberg. “I am disappointed that these anti-teacher attacks continue. It takes away a teacher’s right to decide how they want to pay dues.”
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February 19
Another dark day for Indiana's public schools
The actions by House Republicans, however, make it increasingly difficult for them to claim that the education bills are “all about the kids.” If that’s the case, why move administration of the voucher program from the Department of Education to a fiscal agency?
Here’s why: Authors of Indiana’s voucher law don’t want taxpayers to find out that some of the money is going, with virtually no oversight, to poor-performing schools.
Taking the voucher program from Ritz’s department wasn’t intended to ensure faithful administration of the program. The newly elected superintendent is following the letter of the law. But voucher advocates don’t want to allow Ritz access to information that threatens their efforts to expand the entitlement program, close down more public schools and eliminate more union jobs.
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February 19
GOP moves to weaken Glenda Ritz, unions
Republicans on the Indiana House education committee Tuesday pushed through a spate of controversial proposals that would limit the power of new State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz and potentially weaken the teachers unions that support her.
If enacted, the three bills would strip Ritz — the only Democratic statewide office holder — of authority over Indiana's private school voucher program, force her to share more of her power with the state board of education and the Education Roundtable and end automatic dues collection for teachers unions.
The moves angered the outnumbered Democrats on the committee.
"This is very political," said Rep. Shelli VanDenburgh, D-Crown Point. "We have one lone Democrat serving in this entire statehouse and it happens to be Superintendent Glenda Ritz."
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February 18
Reform-weary teachers say state leaders missing the mark
"There's a sense of declining morale, a sense we're being vilified," New Castle history teacher James Thurston said. "I spend more and more of my time dealing with documentation and data, looking at state standards and preparing for an evaluation. We want to do the right thing, but the speed, intensity and quantity of education reforms has been overwhelming."
From spring to fall ISTEP and back to spring again. Teacher merit pay legislation. A move to Common Core standards. A complicated letter grade system for schools. A new teacher evaluation system. Taxpayer money being taken away from public schools and given to private operation. These are a few of the recent education reforms that, in some cases, are still in process of being implemented.
Teachers feel state leaders have made education goals a moving target and taken the focus off what's really important: the student.
"It's about money, not raising standards," New Castle Community School Board President Liz Whitmer said.
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February 18
Potential blow to local control
Lawmakers have been chipping away at local control of Indiana schools for several years; now they are poised to end it entirely for some districts. A bill that has received little to no attention allows the appointed State Board of Education to dissolve elected local school boards if a district receives a D or F on the state’s flawed grading formula for four years...the legislation represents a shameless power grab by Behning and Huston – a willful effort to overturn results of the last election and to seize control of local school districts.
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February 17
Letter to the Legislature
My deepest hope is that you will stop voting for expanding vouchers, giving tax credits to home schoolers and private schoolers in materials, while you don't do the same for public school parents, and all the myriad of ways you've been undermining this cornerstone of our democracy: public education.
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February 16
Web letter by Michael Schmid: Election results made clear public’s charter opposition
If the last election said anything about education reform in Indiana, it said the people of Indiana are not happy with what our officials are doing with it. And who can blame them? When you look at the overall results of charters, they are underwhelming.
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February 15
Carpe Diem: Seize the tax dollars
Indiana supporters of corporate education reform are determined to force a charter school on Fort Wayne– whether the community wants one or not.
With Ball State University prepared to shut down three corporate-controlled charter schools here, Arizona-based Carpe Diem has apparently been summoned to set up shop in Fort Wayne. The Indiana Charter School Board will hold a "hearing" in just 11 days...Carpe Diem's ties to Indiana are through former state Superintendent Tony Bennett. He traveled to Arizona to visit the charter schools and apparently invited them to come to Indiana. Rather than seek a charter through Ball State or the Indianapolis Mayor's Office, Carpe Diem won its charter from the newly established Indiana Charter School Board, created as an easier path for charter expansion.
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February 15
Dan Carpenter: Actions by his allies make Tony Bennett's election loss a mulligan
While Glenda Ritz holds the title, there is every indication thus far that the power will continue to reside in non-Indiana resident Tony Bennett, the man she decisively ousted.
The latest example of Bennett's rule-from-exile is Indiana House Bill 1358, which would authorize parents to change their "failing" public school to a charter school via a 51 percent vote on a petition.
It's the handiwork of Rep. Todd Huston, who was Bennett's chief of staff before he joined the Republican-controlled legislature that danced in step with Bennett and is not about to let Ritz call any tunes.
Having landed on his feet in a much-better-paying superintendency in Florida, the state he loved to fallaciously cite as a model for his reforms here, Bennett must be smiling to see his surrogate marching on. And given the politics of the supermajority and the Pence administration, Huston may as well be House speaker as a freshman lawmaker in terms of power.
The aptly named "parent trigger" bill is of a piece with a spate of "reform" legislation -- expansion of vouchers for private schools, dropping licensing requirements for local school superintendents, diminishing the role of the state superintendent on state panels -- aimed at two basic prizes: consolidation of GOP control over the multibillion-dollar public education system, and diversion of those dollars to private entities unencumbered by professional credentialing and collective bargaining.
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February 15
Vouchers reduce public school opportunity
Unlike public schools, private schools do not have to accommodate non-English speakers or those with physical or mental disabilities. Vouchers were originally introduced as a means by which our most underserved students may seek an alternative education, yet HB1003 defeats that purpose in lieu of one that benefits only private interests. Thus far, Indiana voucher programs have been shown to be a thinly veiled attempt at pushing an elitist agenda above that of the public.
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February 13
Vic’s Statehouse Notes #113– February 13, 2013
All of Vic’s Statehouse Notes are available at http://www.icpe2011.com/At_the_Statehouse.html
It looks like “Cut Glenda’s Powers Day” in Rep. Behning’s committee, starting at 8:30 Thursday morning in Room 156-C.
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February 12
The myth of failing schools
If Glenda Ritz's election as superintendent of public instruction didn't catch Indiana lawmakers' attention, you would think comments from their own constituents might.
School vouchers will "kill public education," a county councilman from Union County told Republican lawmakers Jud McMillin and Allen Paul at a legislative breakfast last weekend in tiny Liberty, Ind.
No, insisted McMillin, the state's voucher program will continue and will be expanded.
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February 11
Parent trigger: Taking aim at Indiana schools
Indiana Republicans' attack on public education continues this week with the latest incarnation of the "parent trigger law." Former Tony Bennett aide Todd Huston, now a legislator, is sponsor of House Bill 1358, which would allow the parents of just 51 percent of the students attending a school to petition the State Board of Education for takeover...The bill is not parent-driven, of course. Parent trigger laws are a tool of corporate reformers, generously supported by the Wal-mart heirs and other anti-union forces...The laws are built on a terribly flawed premise: That a school belongs to the parents whose children currently attend there.
Public schools belong to the public – the taxpayers who created them, built them, maintain them and provide for their operation. It's a dangerous precedent to confer control of a school to parents currently involved. Imagine the tumultuous effect on education if key decisions were left to the whims of an ever-changing group of parents.
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February 11
Indiana officials to Ritz voters: Drop dead
Hoosiers who voted for Glenda Ritz for state superintendent of public instruction no doubt did so for a variety of reasons. But many of those reasons added up to this: Ritz was an unapologetic champion of public education and it often seemed that her opponent, Tony Bennett, wasn’t.
So it’s a slap in the face to the voters who elected Ritz that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Republican legislators are now pushing bill after bill to undermine public schools.
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February 8
Election? What election?
When former Gov. Mitch Daniels and Republican lawmakers said that education "reform" would continue, they weren't kidding. Superintendent Glenda Ritz's election hasn't represented much more than a speed bump for House Education Committee Chairman Bob Behning. His committee on Thursday voted 9-3 for a $47 million expansion of school vouchers.
Never mind that no data yet exists to justify expanding the nation's largest voucher program. Never mind that the original intent of allowing students an escape from failing schools was the goal. Never mind that any pretense of restricting the program to low-income families has been eliminated.
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February 6
Vic’s Statehouse Notes #111– February 6, 2013
All of Vic’s Statehouse Notes are available at http://www.icpe2011.com/At_the_Statehouse.html
Unbelievably, the tax deduction for home school and private school parents would triple under this bill while public school parents still get no deduction for textbooks or school expenses. The gross inequity of this provision is obvious and should be made clear as you contact members of the House.
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February 4
Vic’s Statehouse Notes #110– February 4, 2013
All of Vic’s Statehouse Notes are available at http://www.icpe2011.com/At_the_Statehouse.html
House Bill 1003 – How will it damage public education?
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January 30
Voucher expansion would undermine public education
Mitch Daniels and Tony Bennett sold Indiana’s voucher program with the argument that children shouldn’t be stuck in failing schools because their parents can’t afford anything better – that children have a right to a good education “regardless of background, income or zip code.”
But the changes now being pushed by Gov. Mike Pence and some legislators suggest the program has nothing to do with social justice. They want to award vouchers to students who have never enrolled in public schools – and in some cases, to families that clearly don’t need help paying private school tuition.
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January 29
Dan Carpenter: Leave education to the pros
It is one of the enduring mysteries of our political discourse in Indiana, this widespread notion that the Daniels-Bennett regime raised the quality of public education and that the new superintendent of public instruction threatens to undo their noble work for our children's future.
In other words, that the teachers, administrators and parents who swept Glenda Ritz into office by word of mouth against towering financial odds were complacent, callous, wrongheaded and not ready for the 21st century.
How, one wonders, does that square with the persistent lowering of teacher and administrator qualifications that has taken place since Tony Bennett's election four years ago and even -- over her protests -- since Ritz's election in November?
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January 28
Vic’s Statehouse Notes #108– January 28, 2013
All of Vic’s Statehouse Notes are available at http://www.icpe2011.com/At_the_Statehouse.html
We are back to the question of whether non-educators should be superintendents.
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January 15
Sore losers target Ind. superintendent
"Sore losers" would appear to be the best way to describe Indiana Republicans angered by Glenda Ritz's election as superintendent of public instruction...House Bill 1251, which would remove the requirement that at least four members of the State Board of Education be actively employed in Indiana schools and hold a teaching license.
Another bill, HB 1309, looks like a clear effort to marginalize Ritz.
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January 8
Vic’s Statehouse Notes #104– January 8, 2013
All of Vic’s Statehouse Notes are available at http://www.icpe2011.com/At_the_Statehouse.html
Right out of the box as the General Assembly begins, Senator Kruse has scheduled a hearing on a bill to expand the voucher program for Wednesday, January 9 at 1:30pm in Statehouse Room 233.
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January 7
Indiana legislators are up to their usual mischief
Will Rogers famously said that “it’s better to have termites in your house than the legislature in session,” and the Indiana General Assembly looks to be well on its way to proving him right again, at least when it comes to education.
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