Sen. Carlin Yoder (R-Middlebury), IPS Superintendent Louis Ferebee and State Board of Education member Brad Oliver discuss the new plan for failing schools at the BDG Legislative Conference.
One of the biggest accomplishments from Wednesday’s State Board of Education meeting was a recommendation from the board to the governor and legislature regarding turnaround efforts for failing schools.
The board accepted the recommendation from its turnaround committee to overhaul the way the state intervenes in failing schools.
The recommendation includes a few big changes. First, the board will now intervene after four consecutive years of receiving a D or F, rather than six years of consecutive Fs.
The recommendation was approved with a 9-2 vote, with Cari Whicker and state superintendent Glenda Ritz voting against it, citing issues with certain parts of the plan. Continue Reading →
Governor Mike Pence is signing an executive order to dissolve his education agency, a group that has been a point of contention between himself and state superintendent Glenda Ritz.
The governor created the agency in August 2013, and it has been a point of controversy between himself and state superintendent Glenda Ritz ever since. Ritz says the agency is a threat to her own Department of Education.
“We’ve all seen the headlines, we’ve seen the confusion and even the friction at the highest levels of state government, we’ve all been frustrated” Pence says. ”To maintain our momentum and implement new policies, we’ll also need to fix what’s broken in education in Indiana.”
Pence expressed pride in the work the CECI has done in the last two years, but says he is aware of the controversy that has surrounded this center since its creation.
Indiana’s pre-k pilot program launches in four of the five participating counties in January, a little less than a month away. But many leaders in those counties say they’re still finalizing the details – crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s of fundraising, getting providers up to speed and children into the classrooms.
On an agenda packed with policy recommendations and legislative agenda discussions, the item that got the most attention at Wednesday’s State Board of Education meeting focused on eLearning.
The conversation started last month, when district officials in the Twin Lakes School Corporation announced on Facebook that the Indiana Department of Education had approved its application to hold “eLearning Days” to replace traditional snow make-up days. Board member Brad Oliver immediately took to his own social media accounts to question why the board had not been involved in the decision to offer this option.
Rachel Morello / StateImpact Indiana
IDOE Director of eLearning Candice Dodson speaks before the State Board of Education.
Oliver reiterated his comments at Wednesday’s meeting.
“My concern is not with the value of eLearning,” Oliver said. “My concern is that schools are being permitted to expand the use of eLearning in a way that constitutes a substantial policy change in Indiana’s attendance requirement.”
State code requires 180 instructional days per school year.
“I don’t understand why such an expansion of eLearning would not be taken back through the Indiana General Assembly to ensure we have sufficient legislative direction with respect to virtual attendance,” Oliver added.
Board member Dan Elsener echoed that sentiment. He added that while eLearning might be a good enhancement for classroom activities, he doesn’t see it as a replacement for an instructional day.
“We have no business reducing school days,” Elsener said. “It may be convenient in the short-term, but…that’s not leadership.”
According to IDOE guidance, school corporations may allow students to complete their classwork online during snow days.
State superintendent Glenda Ritz and members of the State Board of Education focused on turnaround efforts during their monthly meeting in December.
The end of the calendar year means some clarity for the state’s failing schools as to how they’ll move forward with turnaround efforts.
At their meeting Wednesday, the State Board of Education heard recommendations from an outside consultant as well as the board’s three-person committee on School Turnaround.
That committee has spent the fall meeting with leaders from the state’s nine ‘failing’ schools, and compiled a list of options for the board to consider. We’ve already reported about those options, but here’s a recap of the highlights:
Approve the “transformation zone” – allowing the school corporation in question to develop its own turnaround plan to operate under varying degrees of state oversight – as a primary turnaround strategy. Such a model is currently working well in the Evansville-Vanderburgh school district, and it’s been recommended as an option for Indianapolis Public Schools as well.
Eliminate the “Lead Partner” model. Under this option, an external partner contracted by the state works with a district in a limited capacity to operate certain aspects of the school. To date, all original Lead Partners have withdrawn from the turnaround academies they operated.
Allow the state board the ability to assume management over failing school corporations as a last resort.
Modify the current statute to allow for earlier state intervention in failing districts and schools. The method for doing so would mean a big change to existing rules – namely, allowing the board to implement turnaround strategies for schools that receive a D as well as an F, and move the intervention timeline up to assist schools after they’ve received four consecutive F’s, instead of the current six.
Establish a board-specific turnaround unit to manage state intervention activities.
A report obtained by the AP shows evidence supporting criminal charges against Tony Bennett, although none were ever pursued.
A state report released to the Associated Press reveals evidence against former state superintendent Tony Bennett that could have supported charges of federal wire fraud, which carries up to 20 years in prison.
But Bennett was never charged.
Instead, an ethics committee, which looked at Bennett’s use of state resources during his 2012 re-election campaign, concluded Bennett committed minimal ethics violations and forced him to pay a fine.
The Associated Press’ Tom LoBianco writes the Indiana inspector general’s report the AP obtained indicates the evidence against Bennett was much more serious.
The investigation, which was completed by the inspector general’s office in February, found more than 100 instances in which Bennett or his employees violated federal wire fraud law. That contrasts sharply with an eight-page formal report issued in July that said the office found minimal violations, resulting in a $5,000 fine and an admonishment that Bennett could have avoided fines by rewriting rules to allow some campaign work on state time.
The Indianapolis City-County council approved a $40 million preschool program for low income students.
The Indianapolis City-County Council voted 19-8 last night in favor of Mayor Greg Ballard’s preschool program, which will give more than 1,300 low income children in Marion County the opportunity to attend preschool. The program will cost an estimated $40 million.
The money would come from removing 35,000 homes from the Homestead Tax Credit program, reallocating funds for charter school oversight, and interest from the Fiscal Stability Fund.
The program would also leverage about $20 million in private funding from businesses and foundations. About $2 million of that would come from Eli Lilly and Company, which is also leading an effort to raise another $8 million from other corporate donors.
The compromise is smaller than one Mayor Greg Ballard proposed earlier this year, allowing three- and four- year olds to take advantage of the program, and prioritizing the children of poorest families. Under the plan, a family of four with an annual income of just over $30 thousand dollars would get highest priority.
As Indiana’s academic standards and statewide assessments change, educators are being tasked with adjusting what they teach while still continuing to help students succeed. How students perform in class and on standardized tests is a key factor in how those teachers are evaluated — and in turn, how they’re paid.
And when compared to the state’s administrators, teachers are still generally more skeptical about the state’s evaluation system, according to a study brief issued by the Center on Education and Lifelong Learning (CELL) at Indiana University.
Kyle Stokes / StateImpact Indiana
Teachers are a bit more skeptical about their evaluation system than the administrative counterparts in their districts, according to a new study.
CELL researchers conducted a large-scale survey of Indiana public school administrators and teachers regarding feelings about the state’s teacher evaluation system and how it has been implemented in their districts.
Results showed that superintendents are most favorable of the evaluation system, followed by principals and lastly teachers. Principals generally say they have more confidence in their knowledge of the system and their ability to conduct effective evaluations than do the teachers they’re rating.
These response patterns are consistent with findings in similar studies from around the country, including Georgia and New Jersey.
Non-teacher employees in the Mishawaka school district will lost collective bargaining rights when their current contract ends Dec. 31.
The Mishawaka School Board voted to terminate collective bargaining rights for school employees like custodians, bus drivers and food service workers starting Jan. 1.
This decision stems from the employees’ choice to not renew a contract with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees labor union, which ends Dec. 31.
[...] AFSCME’s bylaws prohibit members from contracting with another union under the AFLCIO umbrella for a year after disassociating with it, Steve Bolin the former union president said. Bolin contacted the Indiana State Teachers Association, which is not under the AFLCIO umbrella, and asked a representative to talk with the 3060 group, which represents 59 of the eligible 114 members.
Last month, Bolin said, the group voted in favor of associating with the teachers’ union beginning in 2015.
Then, “all hell broke loose,” Bolin said. “AFSCME has gone crazy on the (school) corporation, relieved me of my duties and taken over all of my duties.” Continue Reading →
Technology has become increasingly prominent as a teaching tool in classrooms around the state.
Think about the last time you used technology in your daily life.
Maybe it was dialing up a colleague on your smartphone, using your laptop to take notes in a meeting or an online tool to help you put together that big presentation. Digital tools play a big role in today’s economy, and the ability to operate different technologies appropriately is one of the top skills employers look for.
Nationally, President Obama is pushing for schools to increase their use of technology in the classroom in order to prepare students for life in today’s world. Teachers nationwide are introducing “Bring Your Own Device” policies, and beginning to use tools like Skype to bring in guest lecturers from around the world. Teachers in Indiana are being recognized for paving the way when it comes to new technology, but effectively incorporating it into teaching can be a challenge.
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