The General Assembly is in session. A bus load of terrible education legislation is coming your way!
I know I’ve been critical of the General Assembly for its approach to educational policy over the years, but its really outdoing itself with the fire hose of shit it’s directing at our local schools this year.
The biggest turd in the punch bowl is HB 1134. Let’s start with its “transparency” requirements. (Transparency is good, right? Can’t be against transparency any more than you can be against God, Mom, and Apple Pie!) The new IC 20-30-17 requires school corporations to post a ton of curricular material for classes in the August preceding the school year. I’m not sure you can tell exactly what’s required because, IC 20-30-17-5(b), which really seems like it’s going to be the critical bit of that chapter does not seem to be written in a complete sentence. Not later than August 1 of each year, the school corporation is required to post, in a manner that is disaggregated, in a manner that is accessible, and in a manner that shows bibliographic information, …. something. It’s not clear what. The next subdivision says that a summary of educational activities (which is a broadly defined term) has to be posted as far in advance as possible, but it’s not at all clear what has to be posted by August 1. In any case, this is just another administrative burden heaped on the shoulders of teachers and administrators that is extremely unlikely to have any real world benefits. If a parent has questions about their kids’ education, how about just asking?
A similarly misguided effort at transparency or parental input or some other glittering generality would mandate a “Curricular Materials Advisory Committee.” Right out of the gate, it’s clear that the advisory committee has no jurisdiction over standardized tests. That could obviously cut into the College Board’s bottom line, and that just wouldn’t do. The advisory committee is directed to have more parents than educational professionals and to have a majority of people who don’t work for the school corporation. The advisory committee is charged with making sure educational materials “are representative of the community’s interests and aligned with Indiana academic standards.” Most communities have a wide variety of interests that sometimes conflict with one another, so that’s not terribly helpful guidance. They also will make recommendations about how to comply with the incomplete sentence about posting curricular materials.
Then there is the “CRT” inspired provisions that I discussed in an earlier blog post. All sound fairly inoffensive taken on their face (e.g. no one should be taught or forced to embrace the idea that a person can be racist simply by virtue of their race). But it’s more than suspicious that these bills are reactive to efforts to teach, for example, that racism has resulted in structural inequality that persists regardless of anyone’s individual intent. Politically, I think the right has deemed it advantageous to take advantage of a panic among parents that little Johnny might be taught to believe that he should feel guilty about being a racist because he’s a white boy. Regardless of the underlying substance, I’m on record as not liking the General Assembly dictating curriculum. Additionally, there is a provision that would create an incentive to bring suits by awarding attorney’s fees to a prevailing plaintiff (which could be an out of district advocacy group) while not awarding such fees to a school that successfully defends against a suit. (To get fees, the school would have to prove that the out of district advocacy group or whoever was litigating in bad faith — which is a very heavy lift.)
Finally, there are provisions limiting a school’s ability to provide social-emotional support to students. Candidly, I do not understand the nuances of these provisions. I don’t know the support services and recommendations schools are currently providing, how they are objectionable, and what schools would be permitted to do in terms of addressing social emotional problems that are affecting the students’ educational progress if this legislation passed. Friends of mine seem to indicate that this is sparked by questions of sex and gender. (HB 1134 also has the provisions directed at school librarians discussed in connection with SB 17, below.)
SB 83 would mandate the right of members of the public to yell at school boards; something that’s not guaranteed with respect to any other public body. It’s dressed up as preserving the right of the public to provide input to their elected officials. And, I think a lot of us have a sort of Norman Rockwell vision of the informed citizen participating in the civic process. But, you’ll note that this legislation is borne out of a series of school board meetings where angry patrons sought to intimidate school boards away from implementing mask mandates as the pandemic was surging. The Public Access Counselor was asked what boards could do to maintain civility at these meetings as necessary to do their jobs. He observed, “[G]overning bodies can choose whether to extend the courtesy of a comment forum, and therefore revoke it if misused. Tumult, disorder, and disturbance on the part of the audience should not be tolerated by a board, council, or commission.” That discretion is removed only in the cases of school board meetings. And, what’s more, the provision is incredibly vague, the meeting must “be open at all times for the purpose of permitting members of the public to provide public comment.” It doesn’t say anything at all about what the public comment must look like. Can the Board limit the comment period to 30 seconds? Prohibit repetitive comment? No idea! Presumably if angry anti-maskers are allowed to remain in close proximity to make hostile noises at the members of the school board, the spirit of the law will be satisfied.
HB 1251 and SB 356 provide for “adjunct teachers.” The “adjunct teacher” doesn’t have to know much about how to teach, just has to have experience in the content they are going to teach. At root, this is a declaration that teaching is not a profession. Understanding how different kids learn, knowing how to assess their current level of understanding and communicate the new information based on learning styles and existing sets of knowledge, etc. is incidental. Any geek off the streets who’s spent 4,000 hours reading John Grisham novels, can be a reading teacher. Not incidentally, this looks like a way to water down collective bargaining contracts. There is also a provision that directs the Department of Education to study “parent-teacher compacts” which seem to be some sort of individual contract between teachers and parents that would potentially entitle the teacher to get paid through the state and access public teacher retirement benefits.
SB 17 removes protections for school librarians that currently exist with respect to material alleged to be “harmful to minors.” The public commentary on this has been a little overwrought since “material harmful to minors” is defined by IC 35-49-2-2 and basically tracks the definition of obscenity: appeals to prurient interest, patently offensive to prurient interests, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. So, the likelihood of schools having much in the way of qualifying material seems pretty small. But, by the same token, the utility of removing bars to prosecution of school librarians is nil. It’s a political move to exploit a panic among parents that naughty stuff might be in the school libraries. Probably comes from the same folks who were certain that there was Satanic ritual abuse of children in the Comet Ping Pong basement. And, now that I type it, I suppose there’s a group of people who similarly imagine that our public schools are immoral corrupters of children.
HB 1072 would reward traditional public schools for the hard work of promoting and securing passage of a referendum tax levy public question by diverting the resulting funds to charter schools. This is pernicious because, among other things, the traditional public school can identify the nature of its needs and educate the public on how the referendum will address those needs (e.g. continue to support music, sports, extracurricular activities, smaller class sizes, etc.) but cannot make any such commitment on behalf of the charter schools. And, as we’ve seen from recent scandals, charter schools in Indiana are more likely to suffer from lack of oversight, conflicts of interest in contracting, unreliable student counts, opaque spending, and no discernible advantage in student outcomes as compared to traditional public schools.
I’m sure there is more oozing about in various bills, but that’s enough for a Sunday afternoon. If someone with more knowledge wants to correct or expand upon what I’ve written, I’d appreciate it. There’s a *lot* floating around out there, and I just took a crash course by reading a lot of the legislation. I don’t pretend to have a lot of deep knowledge.
In any case, you’ll note that none of this is particularly geared toward making our kids smarter, wiser, more productive, or better citizens. Mainly they’re just cultural proxy wars where teachers, school boards, and liberals are the enemy and students are collateral damage.
Thanks for the summary. I’d seen some of these but was unaware of some of the more egregious (librarian liability – really?). It sometimes seems as though the destruction of public education is a major policy goal of the GOP.
Glad you posted it! I haven’t seen your posts recently.
It is what Sagan referred to when he stated:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
I am a retired teacher, school administrator, and mentor for new teachers. The comments here are accurate and clearly outline reasons to eliminate each and every one of the referenced pieces of legislation. HB1134 is a particularly scurrilous bill.
Talented and dedicated teachers feel defeated and are leaving the profession. In addition, enrollment in teacher education programs is dwindling. These thinly-veiled legislative attacks on teachers and public schools in general are significant reasons for the classroom exodus and continuing teacher shortage. Citizens, please call your legislators today. Your voices in opposition matter now more than ever.
Thank you for this summary.
I laughed when you pointed out the incomplete sentence in HB1134
A long time ago, I drafted legislation for the Indiana General Assembly. Proofreading habits die hard!
My brother Mark said the same thing about the kids coming out of law school. The majority of them would constantly type incoherent or incomplete sentences. They all rely on Microsoft Word to fix their errors.
Just to be fair, my writing style lacks any form of clarity at times. English composition was not my forte. LOL
That stint with LSA and the period when I was constantly blogging helped my writing quite a bit, I think.
Wondered what it has for counselors and social workers. Anthing?
I recall reading the part of 1134 that requires parent approval for any outside counseling or therapy. Parents have to make the appointment, transport and pay for that service, presumably with their medical insurance, so what does their “permission” mean? That the psychologist or administrator get permission to suggest it? The school will certainly not provide ongoing counseling/therapy, but if a school did unlikely have the services of a counselor/therapist who would provide those services, it’s not something they would do surreptitiously without the involvement of parents. This is not written by someone who knows much about schools.
Hmmm just about every student (6th graders and younger) have phones. I googled Tiktok and here what it says, “it contains mild fantasy violence, suggestive themes, sexual content and nudity, drug use or references, and profanity or crude humor. At times, users may use inappropriate words as hashtags.”. Will the legislators outlaw phones? I wouldn’t want to be at school board meeting when banning phones was discussed.
I think the easiest way for a Democrat to win is to go on TV or radio and list the priorities of the state. I have driven thru over fifty large, medium and small towns in Indiana and there are houses and building that are missing windows, need painting or are just in need of massive repairs. Number two there are so many trees dying due to disease and propose the state implement a program to replant trees. This would resonate with the people outside of the Democratic strongholds. Throw in drugs and the usual political BS and then at the end start laughing and say “critical race theory is (whoever your opponent is) and banning books is that all he has?”. I think humor works better then attack ads and trying to inform the public in a serious manor.
Phil, no other way of communication seems to work with those guys. I write letters to my House Rep. and my Senator, but unless my letter reflects their predisposition, I might as well shout down a rathole. As a rule, I think those folks (especially southern Indiana, and Fort Wayne and, just about all Republicans) are pretty rigid and authoritarian, and might be blown out of the water by something really fun and creative. Something like that might even generate some letters to them asking if they really feel that way that begin to confront their goofy plans and ideas.
Phil, come to think of it, we need to remind folks that instead of doing something creative and purpose-driven to constructively deal with the fact that Indiana ranks number 33 in Quality of Life index, they returned $125 of the paid taxes to taxpayers. These aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree.
Comet Ping Pong didn’t even have a basement! Grin!
That being said, having lay people teaching with no experience boggles my mind. Teachers are trained to teach a specific subject and how to grade and deal with the different ways students learn. It’s bad enough that in Indianapolis if you are a warm body and pass the background check, you to can be a substitute teacher.
The Republican reply (from Indiana Week in Review) states that the school corporation doesn’t have to hire these people.They should be able to vet them out. A applicant can easily lie on their resume.. They might say I was a math or English tutor in college, good luck verifying it.
The Career Centers hire teachers with no teaching experience and they are horribly underpaid. My son spent three hours a day taking classes at the Central 9 Career Center.his Junior and Senior year. They had networking software and equipment and he learned literally nothing about networking since neither instructor was versed in networking. They were paying both lay teachers in the low $50 when beginning networking students right out of college are pulling in $80 thousand or more. Good luck finding anyone with up to date experience to work for peanut wages.
That’s the joke!
Very sorry to hear about your son’s experience at Central 9. If we want our kids to have a solid foundation for working and becoming solid citizens, we have to pay teachers like professionals, train them like professionals, and then step back and allow them to use their training and experience to do their jobs.
Using cut rate compensation to acquire warm body short timers to physically exist in the same classroom with students isn’t going to cut it.
In all districts, applicants for substitute teaching permits must have at least a high school diploma. Some districts may require a college degree or some college credit. Check with your local district for their requirements. No college and a high school diploma – got to love it. At many Indiana schools they don’t even average $15.00 a hour. Thus the shortage.
Thanks for putting it out there! I retired from teaching 4 years ago and went back as an IA until COVID hit. I think all the packing the Statehouse and rallies they have are terrific but the Statehouse is deaf to all the talk! I know teachers can’t strike, but they have to come up with some more drastic measures to make the general public understand what is going on. It makes me sick to see my teacher friends and my grandkids struggling because of low teacher pay and not enough subs or people to fill jobs. I am glad I am not teaching anymore. Keep putting out there, we can only hope someone is paying attention. Thanks Mitch D for screwing us all!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/op-ed-hb-1134-disheartening-114417133.html The lastest on Bill 1134
indystar.com/story/opinion/2022/01/05/op-ed-social-emotional-learning-not-critical-race-theory/6486957001/
Op-Ed: SEL offers academic and emotional gains. Banning it is about politics not education
Another Star Article
copy and paste it – the link does work
https://www.wdrb.com/news/indiana-teachers-plan-to-pack-the-house-in-opposition-of-controversial-education-bill/article_3328bccc-89e4-11ec-850a-0fdcb808f038.html Ok this is the one I should have posted. – – Gotta go to Louisville to get all the news on Indiana. Posted yesterday at 3 PM. Hmmm wondering if the Senate will cave. I’ll wager 75 percent on the Senate and 25 percent on the teachers. Hope I am wrong again!!! Then again I bet $25 that K.C. would beat the Bengals. Hope I am wrong again!!!
How many citizens know that Florida has a shortage of 4,200 teachers? Or that 10% of classes are no longer taught by certified teachers? Florida has the fourth-largest economy in the United States but ranks 45th in education funding.
Locally, we are experiencing dramatic shortages of teachers, counselors and support staff. Sixteen percent of our bus routes have no assigned drivers. According to the Florida Education Association, our state universities are down 35% in training teachers. Polling of present teachers who are considering resigning shows 81% are due to low pay — 48th.
I guess the legislature wants us to become like Florida – onward and downward we go!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/indiana-senate-bill-167-whats-173526871.html
Indiana House Bill 1134 summary: Find out what’s in controversial Indiana education bills per the Indy Star
https://www.yahoo.com/news/indiana-senate-kills-crt-inspired-232811499.html Well House bill 1134 went down. One small victory