There is an interesting discussion brewing between State Rep. Randy Truitt and the Indiana Dept. of Education, reported upon by Mikel Livingston. Based on concerns expressed to him by educators in Warren and Tippecanoe County, Rep. Truitt has questions about whether the Indiana Dept. of Education’s implementation of education legislation actually reflects the language and intent of that legislation. The Indiana Dept. of Education is working on a formal response, but its response to the newspaper was that (and I paraphrase) those silly teachers are telling tall tales.
Rep. Truitt’s letter is here (pdf). By way of disclosure, I know Randy, I like him, and through working with him a bit, I’ve grown to respect him a lot. I think if he ran the state based on his own preferences, I’m not sure I’d find a lot to disagree with him about. My primary quarrel with him is that he’s one member in a large body, and it’s politically necessary for him to go along with initiatives of his colleagues that I don’t care for. By contrast, I don’t know Tony Bennett, head of the Department of Education; and I do know that I’ve disagreed fairly sharply with some of his policy initiatives — intentional or not, I feel like his initiatives undermine local control and seek to undermine the public school model in favor of a private one. (And, for that matter, I’ve not had warm feelings about Truitt’s challenger, Rick Cornstuble, who has mixed feelings about Truitt’s efforts in this matter.)
Rep. Truitt’s concerns include reports that, rather than retaining local control, teachers would be evaluated from Indianapolis without the evaluator even necessarily observing the teacher directly; that it would be possible for the Indiana Dept. of Education to override local evaluations of a teacher’s performance. He is concerned that the State Department of Education does not recognize itself as being subordinate to the General Assembly; that it’s a tool to implement the will of the General Assembly, not the other way around.
Another concern is that the for the IREAD-3 test, schools are evaluated on which students happen to be in their school at the moment of the test, with no consideration as to how much or little that school had to do with that particular student’s education. If the kid moved from a bad school yesterday but fails the test in your school, that’s on your school.
Here is a passage I liked:
If our educators are required to be evaluated by data and are required to be given a school grade, quite possibly our IDOE leaders should be equally accountable for the state data. They should be graded on the number of turnaround schools they have. This would be a motivator to encourage IDOE to work to prevent these rather than give the perception that educators currently have, which is the IDOE wants to take over more schools faster. One great idea is to give our local schools (our community) the flexibility to improve instead of waiting to some arbitrary length of time and then give that same flexibility to an outside source with no community “skin” in the game.
The entire letter is worth a read — particularly by those who are more knowledgeable about Indiana’s education system than I am. I can get the sense of the concerns, but I’m not in a position to evaluate the details.
I’ll be able to post more detailed reactions, but I would say that Truitt, while not an expert on the issues, at least listens to his community. And if there is another community in Indiana more attuned to education issues, I’d like to know how. Tippecanoe County is always well-represented at the statehouse by the three local superintendents whenever there is ANY issue involving education – not to mention Purdue and the local teachers associations.
Ah, Doug, you reported on a story that’s been brewing beneath the surface. Several Republican legislators disagree with the DOE on how policy is being implemented by the Department.
I have absolutely no inside knowledge, but just having a sense of how things work, I’d guess that the Department – Bennett in particular — have a sort of unalloyed philosophy about how to change education. Legislators, even if they are sympathetic toward that philosophy, are mitigated by constituents who: a) have different philosophies; and/or b) have to make theories function in the real world.
Supt. Bennett is a Daniels acolyte.
I agree IDOE should be held accountable, along with the school districts, teachers, and especially parents. Testing is a pain in the butt for everyone…but at least it’s a safety mechanism to prevent schools from becoming and staying abysmal. Without standardized testing, IPS high schools would go on being horrible, forever, and no drastic corrective action would ever occur. (I went to IPS, btw).