Ed Eiler, former Lafayette School Corporation Superintendent, has a column in the Lafayette Journal & Courier entitled Smoke, Mirrors, and a ‘hold harmless’ ISTEP. He predicts that the General Assembly will congratulate itself on mitigating the damage caused by the poorly thought out implementation of changes to ISTEP (last year’s test won’t be used in calculating teacher compensation or for giving schools A-F grades) and won’t address the faulty premise of using standardized tests to measure school effectiveness.
He mentions some school privatization efforts that are under way at the General Assembly. Referring to Rep. Tim Brown’s HB 1311 and Sen. Raatz’s SB 397, Dr. Eiler says:
The bills expand nonpublic school vouchers to high income parents, reduce accountability as there are no accountability measures built into the bills, reduce the required curriculum to reading, grammar, mathematics, science and social studies, and leave the education money to be supervised by the parent without strong fraud protection. The program would pay textbook fees for private schools children while public school parents get no help with textbooks. The program would also allow wealthier parents to divert money intended for K-12 education into their 529 college fund. The vouchers may be used at an ill-defined “participating entity” that are entitled to screen and select students. The end result is the clear majority of child in private schools would be receiving a voucher which would reduce the money available to serve the children in our public schools.
The bills have been assigned to their respective education committees, and I do not believe either has yet been scheduled for a hearing. Hopefully they will die in committee.
Public schools are, obviously, places for our children to learn. But, they are more than that — among other things, they are part of the social fabric that binds our community together. They are also hugely important economic development tools — the companies you want to have in and around your community are going to be run by people with kids. Those people will want to locate in places with strong communities and strong schools. Eroding the strength of public schools is like eating your seed corn. Short-term you might get something you like. But, long-term, you will suffer.
Dr. Eiler was exposing the dangers of high stakes testing and charter/privatized schools while he was superintendent of Lafayette School Corp. As usual, legislators who know little about the Education Process and who refuse to consult experts like Dr. Eiler and Rocky Killian (West Lafayette Superintendent ) continue to work to undermine Indiana Public Schools.
“Eating your seed corn”. Never had there been a more Indiana way of describing the treatment of education.
It has been almost ten years to the day since Rishawn Biddle, formerly of the Indy Star took me to task for using the phrase in reference to selling off our highway.
Maybe this is what Mike Pence means when he talks about the “Indiana way” of doing things.
And it’s not just education. Look at the way we treat our roads and fund our pension obligations. IIRC, we crow about our surplus yet we have billions in pension obligations.
We spend the money either way. Either up front on enhanced education or on the back end on prisons and welfare.
While I don’t disagree with the linked article particularly, it’s oversimplifying the issue substantially.
“Short-term you might get something you like.”
What this actually means is that we are telling many parents now, whose kids are going to enter an urban HS with a graduation rate of 40% in the next few years, that it is too late for them. That we’ve given up on their children, who will have to have a substandard education…but, hey, long term, we’ll fix things. Maybe your grandkids will have great public schools. It’s pretty facile
I agree that public schools are very important. But it’s also pretty easy to stand for the principle of strong public schools when you live in an area with strong public schools. But if you live an area with bad public schools, where public schools have been bad for 40 years, not only do you want a remedy in time for your children to benefit from it, but you are also going to be justifiably skeptical that anyone can actually fix the public school issues where you live. Since they clearly haven’t done so in the past 40 years.
“But if you live an area with bad public schools, where public schools have been bad for 40 years,”
Then you move.
Of course if you review what is actually being proposed here it does nothing to help people in the situation you describe. It is simply a “trickle up” of vouchers for the most part.
Of course, you can always place any failure of the public schools onto teachers, or you can expand that understanding and consider that the schools are the mirror reflecting failing communities and a state failing to come to grips with difficult situations by going for irrelevant solutions that fail to address the problems. These “solutions” are leading us into the toilet. Excellent comment, Doug.