A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

On Being a Concerned Citizen (Revisited)

October 1, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

(General programming note for blog readers in the West Lafayette school district: I am a candidate in the 2020 West Lafayette School Board election. There are four seats open, and I would like to fill one of them. If you want to know more about my campaign, ask questions, request a yard sign, please go to https://masson.us/schoolboard.)

Back in 2015, I offered some thoughts on Being a Concerned Citizen. I’m re-posting that below. It’s my sense that there is much more interest in government now than there was back then. A couple of notes: I sort of specifically excluded civil rights protesters from this post. That strikes me as a different dynamic than what I have in mind here which is less about dramatic change and more about participating in the day-to-day grind of government to keep it responsive to the citizenry.

Also, this is not about how the government committee should respond to the citizens. That’s perhaps a post for a different day — but generally speaking, the board should be communicative and responsive to the citizens on the one hand while, on the other hand, recognizing that the folks who show up at meetings or are most active at any given time don’t necessarily speak for the public at large. On the openness front, adherence to the Open Door Law and the Access to Public Records Act is very important. Their existence acts as a sort of “panopticon,” improving the behavior of governmental bodies even when those tools aren’t actually used. (The Panopticon was a prison designed by Jeremy Bentham on the principle that you could improve prisoner behavior with fewer guards if the prisoner knew the guard could be watching at any time — with the ODL and APRA, the citizen could take an interest at any time.)

That said, you want the meetings to be open without turning them into something like government-by-YouTube-comment-section. I slag on YouTube, but I’m not even sure if those comment sections are that bad anymore. Newspaper comment sections are maybe a better example. If you’ve been online some place that allows unrestricted commenting on controversial issues, you know what I mean. The loudest and most aggrieved commenters can tend to dominate the conversation driving out more casual participants who don’t need that kind of hassle. A committee meeting, like a Presidential debate, needs rules and a moderator willing to enforce them; otherwise, you might find that nothing useful is being accomplished.

But that’s on the government side. Like I said, this post was intended for the citizen side. Here is what I posted back in 2015:

Between my former work as a legislative services attorney and my current work as a county attorney with some other government work thrown into the mix at various times, I’ve attended a lot of public meetings over the past 20 years. Like, really a lot.

Mostly these are not attended by citizens and, for the most part, that’s more or less ok. There is a lot of routine business handled at these meetings by people who are good at what they do. For example, there’s really no call for John Q. Public to get involved with every drainage plan that gets reviewed when some business wants to add some parking spaces.

But, occasionally a concerned citizen or citizens will undertake a kind of watchdog role by trying to come to every meeting of a government body or all of those concerning a particular topic. This can be beneficial and is certainly the citizen’s right. But, I’ve noticed that some approaches are more effective than others. The overarching rule for being an effective concerned citizen is “don’t be a jerk.” Now, I’m not talking here about people whose goal is to effect far reaching social change — civil rights protesters and the like. That’s above my pay grade, and I’m not presuming to know what is effective in that context. I’m thinking more of the good government watchdog who wants to ensure that local decision makers are acting in the best interest of the public.

The most effective people I’ve seen working for that purpose are clear, direct, brief, and polite. They aren’t shy about speaking up when they don’t like things, but they don’t belabor the point, don’t wander off topic, recognize the scope and limits of the public body they’re attending, and avoid delusions of grandeur or that they’re participating in some Manichean battle of good versus evil (where their place on the side of good is never in doubt.)

These individuals attend consistently and, often, don’t have to speak at the meeting. Before and after the meeting, they are willing and able to chat with the public officials in an amiable, friendly way, even if they disagree with the official’s politics. They don’t always get their way. In fact, very often they don’t get their way. But, public policy isn’t binary — decisions are usually made on a spectrum. And, in the back of the public official’s mind — it seems to me — the official will maybe ratchet the policy a notch or two just because they know they’ll get some push back from a citizen whose position they’ve come to know, understand, and perhaps respect to some degree — even if the official will never necessarily agree with that position or frame of reference.

Contrast this with the belligerent bellyacher. This person will never be happy and often treats the public official rudely. Public life being what it is, officials usually don’t have thin skin and can usually endure some level of criticism. But, if you don’t agree with the citizen’s policy views in the first place, the citizen is never going to be happy, and he or she treats you badly besides, what is the upside to accommodating such a person? Mostly the rest of the public will find such a person off-putting in any case, so there is likely no political downside to simply enduring that citizen as best you can and then moving ahead without regard to that individual’s preferences.

Somewhere in the middle you have the people who are not up to speed on the purpose or the powers of the public body in question. A technical planning board isn’t going to be able to do much when the plans are in order but a citizen complains, not about the plans, but — for example — the social value of the business submitting the plan. Or maybe they’ll complain about federal policy to the local government officials. Or they’ll spend a great deal of time talking about extraneous information. These citizens aren’t disagreeable. In fact, they often present very sympathetic stories. But, ultimately, they are not effective because, even where the policymaker wants to help them, there is simply nothing that can be done for them in the context of whatever the public body is designed to consider.

So, be nice, be persistent, be focused, and be concise. Government generally benefits when citizens can engage with it in this fashion.

West Lafayette Schools Strategic Plan

September 27, 2020 by Doug Masson 11 Comments

One of the things that I would like to do if elected as a school board member is to focus on implementation of the school corporation’s strategic plan. My involvement with this document started in the middle of 2018 as part of the strategic planning committee which made recommendations for updating the mission statement, statements of belief, objectives, and strategies. That committee consisted of approximately 30 administrators, educators, and community members such as myself. Later, throughout 2019, the “Re-imagining West Lafayette School Corporation” committee (about 25 people this time) followed up on the work of the strategic planning committee by drafting action plans for the strategies. I served on this committee as well.

The strategic plan and action plans were recommended to the School Board which adopted them in February 2020, right before COVID upended everyone’s plans. The dates for various milestones were always fairly speculative and now they’re going to be delayed further, but that’s not critical as long as the corporation continues to make the sort of improvements contemplated by the strategic plan. The Mission Statement is high minded and ambitious:

Our mission is to engage students in a world-class educational experience that prepares them to be well-rounded, ethical, innovative, creative, productive, and adaptive citizens who shape our global society.

It’s very West Side in its scope. We’re not just preparing students for survival or getting them a degree or a vocation. We’re preparing them to live lives with meaning. This mission informed the Statement of Beliefs:

We Believe:

Our students are our foremost priority.
Highly effective faculty and staff are critical to our success.
Parenting and family support are fundamental to successful educational outcomes.
Public education is a shared resource and responsibility that defines and unites our community.
Student engagement in learning leads to higher achievement.
Academic excellence is the hallmark of our school corporation.
Public education’s primary purpose is to develop educated citizens.
Children deserve an equal opportunity to achieve their highest potential.
There is inherent worth and dignity in every person.
Students learn in different ways.
Accountability is critical to the success of our school corporation.
Involvement in extracurricular activities enhances the educational experience.
School safety is essential.
Public education contributes to the development of productive, ethical, adaptive, and healthy citizens.

The Statement of Beliefs (along with the Mission Statement) further informed the objectives, strategies, and action plans. I won’t belabor the whole document, but two points of emphasis which received particular attention above and beyond what they had received in the prior strategic plan were the ideas that we wanted a sense of ethics to inform our students, and we wanted to remove or at least minimize barriers to learning related to a student’s socioeconomic status.

With respect to the question of ethics, the committee grappled with the concept but did not settle with any precision on what that term meant. Philosophical considerations of ethics can and does form the basis of entire lifetimes of study. At the broadest level, however, the committee wanted to emphasize that our educational system should not just be teaching facts and figures. It should be giving students the background they need to become good citizens, and lead lives with value to themselves, their families, and their communities. One of the action items will be to form a committee that will focus more directly on defining a corporation-wide definition of what it means to be “ethical,” provide professional development to help staff and parents understand what an “ethical K-12 education” looks like, and create awareness of the concept for our students.

With respect to socioeconomic concerns, a world-class educational system doesn’t just mean a few of your students are among the best and the brightest. It means that you are consistently providing all of your students with a high quality education. And, if out-sized individual achievement is what a parent wants for their particular student, the fact remains that if all students are starting from a high base line, more of them are going to reach the highest levels of achievement (however you want that defined.) The Corporation will, among other things, conduct research to determine best practices from other high achieving school districts for ensuring that socioeconomic status does not form a barrier to education and collect data from our own district to determine what needs we are not meeting.

Those two items are just the tip of the iceberg to some extent. There is a lot in the way of studying, data collection, and fund raising to be done. We want to continue learning from school systems in other parts of the country and other parts of the world so we can learn from their successes. We want to enhance our early childhood education offerings. We want to identify sustainable short term and long term funding models. We want to identify any current sources of waste, grant opportunities, and areas where we can leverage relationships with Purdue and other community partners. If you take a look at the strategic plan, you’ll see there is a lot we want to do.

This is a big undertaking and, chances are, there will be a lot remaining to be done when it comes time to draft the next strategic plan. But, that’s not really a problem. Setting high aspirations will help us do great things even if we don’t quite hit the target. As a school board candidate, hoping to become a member of the board at this next election, I would love to be part of moving this process along.

West Lafayette Education Association Endorsement

September 24, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

I am happy to announce that I am one of the four candidates for the West Lafayette School Board who has been endorsed by the West Lafayette Education Association. I think teachers are the backbone of our education system, so having their support is extremely gratifying. As part of its endorsement process, the WLEA sent out a questionnaire to the candidates and then interviewed us as part of a process with the League of Women Voters. (With 15 candidates, that’s no small investment of time; even if not all of the candidates sought the WLEA endorsement.)

I may have started with a bit of an edge over some of the other candidates inasmuch as I’m a known quantity to the members. Obviously, I was on the school board for a couple of years. But I’d say I really got to know the union members after I lost in the 2016 election. They were instrumental in working for passage of the school referendum in 2017. I walked door-to-door with several members over the weeks of canvassing West Lafayette for support. Knocking on doors with someone is a great way to get to know them! There were also many teachers involved with the school strategic plan during the 2018-2019 process, and I had the good fortune of learning from and brainstorming with a number of them as we broke into work groups as part of the planning process. Additionally, I’ve offered my full-throated support for teachers on my blog over the years. Probably the entry that has received the widest circulation was the post I wrote in support of Red for Ed entitled “Some thoughts on Red for Ed, Caleb Mills, and Indiana’s School Policies.” Here’s a sample:

At root, there is a lack of appreciation as to what a world-class educational system provides and possibly a lack of ambition by policymakers. Can we afford one? We can’t afford not to have one. Opportunity is slipping away from Hoosiers because we’re allowing our foundation to erode. The high stakes testing and privatization approach that have been in place for the better part of a generation have put us in a downward spiral. Teachers have been scapegoats and their salaries have remained mostly stagnant as their burdens have grown.

When it comes to education, we are too often shrewd with our pennies but foolish with our dollars. This is an investment.

It bears mentioning that this was a post directed to state policymakers. I recognize that the power of a local school board is very much circumscribed by state law. Even in a community like West Lafayette that is very supportive of its schools, there are significant limits on funding. If elected as a school board member, I will work to make teacher compensation a priority but we will have to work within fiscal constraints and recognize that the school has other needs as well. I expect that the relationships I’ve made with the teachers outside of the school board will help on both sides of these negotiations. Because we know each other, we’ll all recognize that each party is advocating in good faith on behalf of the constituents they represent. Hopefully that will result in an amicable relationship that’s in the best interest of the school, the students, the teachers, and the community.

But, one step at a time. The first step would be to get elected. We have great teachers in West Lafayette, and I’m honored by their endorsement.

Vote 411 Guide – School Board Responses

September 23, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

Vote Masson, tell your friends!

The League of Women Voters are putting together a “Vote 411” guide for candidates. They ask a few questions, but it turns out the responses are limited to 1,000 characters. I thought I’d put the full responses here. My 411 responses have been shortened and edited a bit to fit the 1,000 character limit. (As always, if you want to know more about my school board campaign, go to http://masson.us/schoolboard.)

The questions:

Why are you running for the school board?

I’m running because I think traditional public schools are critical, not just to the students they educate but also to the communities they serve. Our kids need a world-class education so they can compete as workers, contribute as citizens, and thrive as people. The school also serves as focal point for West Lafayette that knits our community together.

I believe I have a skill set and a temperament that would make me a good Board member. I have past school board experience but have been off the board for the past four years, balancing experience with fresh perspective and energy. Additionally, I have a background in municipal law and have worked on and with community boards of various kinds which I think will assist me in contributing to the School Board.

I served on the School Board in 2015 and 2016 and have served on the West Lafayette Schools Education Foundation since 2018 (as its President since 2019). The Foundation is a non-profit corporation dedicated to supporting the mission of the schools. Among other things, it helps fund the Backpack Program, conducts alumni outreach, provides scholarship support, provides teacher grants, and has raised approximately $1.6 million in support of school capital projects.

From 2017 to the present, I have been a citizen participant on the school corporation’s policy review committee, working with current board members to conduct a decennial review of the School Corporation policies and make recommendations to the School Board on policy revisions and updates. Part of the update process was making the policies digital and searchable.

In 2017, I was also an active participant in the Friends of West Lafayette Schools effort to extend the property tax referendum, knocking on doors and educating the public on the need for the referendum and how it would impact their taxes. That effort was successful and the measure passed with resounding community support.

In 2018 and 2019, I participated on the Reimagining West Lafayette Schools Committee which made recommendations to the Board for updating the school’s strategic plan and action items for implementing that plan.

In 2019, I drafted a taxpayer petition in support of West Lafayette’s challenge to the charter school legislation that would potentially allow a charter school to acquire WLCSC’s six million dollar Happy Hollow facility for $1.

As an attorney with a practice devoted to municipal law and past employment with the General Assembly, I have a legal background that gives me experience with much of the regulatory framework in which the school operates. For example, I help the County navigate issues concerning personnel, local government finance, public record and open door law requirements, Constitutional concerns, legislative developments, and a variety of other issues. As the County Attorney, I represent a big organization with a number of elected officials who have independent decision-making authority and do not always agree. That has given me an ability to help people find common ground, and I’ve had reasonably good success at avoiding the types of personality conflicts that sometimes hinder compromise.

What in your view is the current school board doing right in its guidance of the district during the Covid 19 pandemic? What are your recommendations?

The School Board is remaining flexible and adapting to the situation as it develops. I think the school is handling COVID about as well as it can. I am the parent of two students in the West Lafayette schools. One is taking classes in-person and one is taking classes virtually. I think both of my kids have made the correct decision for themselves.

I would have preferred a steadier line of communication concerning the COVID re-opening. But, ultimately, I think the schools were in a fairly impossible situation in terms of decision making: there is a lot we don’t know about COVID, and it’s difficult to know how to properly balance the risks of COVID against such things as the impact of closing schools or limiting in-person teaching. Furthermore, the schools were at the mercy of decisions made, made slowly, changed, or not made at all by others at the federal, state, and local levels. It is my understanding that a lot of administrators, educators, and community members worked long hours coming up with a workable approach. That said, parents of students were understandably anxious and concerned about what and how decisions were being made. A consistent line of communication letting parents know more details about the planning process, and the specific challenges school decision-makers were facing might have provided reassurance and more insight into the reasons for choosing to act or not act in a certain fashion.

The COVID emergency will eventually pass, and the School Board needs to retain a broad enough focus that, while keeping the kids and the community as safe as possible from COVID, the schools retain the ability to educate students while the pandemic is ongoing and to bounce back as rapidly as possible when the threat begins to abate.

What safety and security issues should the school district be addressing?

We are fortunate enough to live in a district where the risks from external security threats are relatively low. I think our current security infrastructure is probably adequate to address those threats. There is, however, the potential for conflict arising out of interactions among students with a wide range of social, emotional, academic, and behavioral needs. I believe students can enjoy a healthier, happier, safer school experience if the school more deliberately looks to implement a multi-tiered approach to supports and interventions for the students.

In particular, I would like to see the School move forward on the part of its strategic plan which addresses establishment of a multi-tiered system of support. Tier one is directed to all students and is dedicated to creating an academically, behaviorally, and emotionally supportive school wide atmosphere. Among other things, it would consist of frequent, positive interactions that establish relationships between staff and students and build community within the school while setting clear expectations, reinforcing positive behaviors, and redirecting negative behaviors. The tier one engagements also help identify kids who might need more focused support. The additional tiers involve similar goals but with the smaller number of kids who need more attention. Tier two involves smaller groups with brief interactions designed to provide those supports, interventions, and strategies. And tier three involves individualized supports with the potential for providing help from outside third parties to those students who might need it.

By providing kids with the academic, behavioral, and emotional supports they need, preferably before conflicts arise, the likelihood of safety and security concerns decline.

If elected what are the most pressing issues you want to address during your first or next year of service?

We need to begin preparations for renewing the referendum tax rate. While the current rate will remain in effect for several more years, its preservation is critical to the health and success of our schools. We will need to analyze our use of the funds to make sure we are managing the revenue responsibly, then educate the public so it can be confident in the need for the tax rate. As part of this process, we will need to determine the proper renewal rate to request, ensure that the public question is on the ballot, and mobilize supporters to vote in favor.

I would like to see work continue on implementation of the recently adopted strategic plan. The plan has broad goals such as providing a world-class education to all students, and developing and maintaining a viable funding plan. Strategies identified for implementing those goals involve such things as reviewing the systems that have been successful in other parts of the world; implementing those aspects that are within the school’s control and lobbying the State or other entities with respect to those aspects that are outside of the school’s control. The School Corporation would also seek to identify or otherwise reduce barriers to education for low socioeconomic status, “at risk,” or other students who might face challenges that may not be well-addressed under our current system. One of the end goals is to ensure that all students at West Side consistently develop the attributes for becoming “well-rounded, ethical, innovative, creative, productive, and adaptive citizens.”

I would like to see planning for the future of Happy Hollow. The most likely use seems to be as an early childhood education center. The school needs to continue its efforts toward eliminating the risk posed by the State’s mandate that the facility be made available to a charter school operator for $1. In addition, I would urge a feasibility study that analyzes the costs of renovation, the market demand for early childhood education in West Lafayette, the benefits such a facility could provide to the community, the concerns of stakeholders, and the potential for revenue to offset the costs of renovation and providing early childhood education services.

I believe COVID will have a significant financial impact on our schools. Because of how the state budget process works, I expect that impact to be at its most acute in fiscal years 2022 and 2023. We should begin preparations for that crunch by looking for ways to maintain our cash reserves, by mobilizing the public to lobby the legislature to preserve school funding, and by looking for additional sources of revenue. When the tough choices come, we should recognize that teachers are the backbone of the school corporation and prioritize teacher retention and preserving their compensation.

Re-Post: State Impact on High School Career and Technical Training

September 22, 2020 by Doug Masson 7 Comments

As I’m in the middle of my campaign for West Lafayette school board, I’m going through some of my older posts on education. This one from July 2017 remains relevant:

Peter Balonon-Rosen, writing for State Impact Indiana has a good article on career and technical training initiatives in Indiana schools:

A new state law could allow job training programs to replace other high school graduation requirements. The law requires the State Board of Education to develop new pathways to high school completion.

It comes just as job training in Indiana high schools has taken on a new life — and new name.

“I think there’s a negative perception associated with the term ‘vocational training,’” Deuberry says. “Instead it is kind of like job training program. It’s so much bigger.”

. . .

Career and technical education programs are growing across Indiana. Today, students learn skills from welding to 3D printing to cooking – not just shop class skills, as was common in the past.

This is probably a good concept if done well but subject to abuse if done poorly. (Not very insightful: you could probably say that about almost literally any initiative.) Earlier in the article, Balonon-Rosen mentions that policymakers have struggled with whether education should be about getting kids ready for college or for the workforce. Molly Deuberry, speaking for the Department of Education, says “both.” And that’s correct as far as it goes, but I cringed a little at the idea of “college” being the counterpart to “workforce” because you run into the same question in college. Is that just advanced vocational training?

The larger question, in my mind, is whether you are teaching the student to be a worker or teaching the student to be a person. The ability to make a living is a big part of what is going to make you a productive, happy, fully developed citizen and human. But, it’s obviously not the only thing. Schools have to focus on vocational capabilities as a significant part of what will make a student a good person and a citizen who will improve the community. College preparation is not necessarily the path to excellence in those non-vocational areas of life.

But, I’m straying a bit from the point. When I was a kid, it seemed like vocational classes were a place where the troublemakers were shunted off. As I walked the hallways, I saw lots of rough kids through the doors of shop rooms that I never set foot in. The danger is that these vocational classes won’t be used so much as an alternate route for a fully developed education as storage space for “troublemakers.”

But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way, and from the article it sounds like the aspiration of the career and technical training initiatives is to recognize that college isn’t for everyone. (And, as I say this, I’m extremely wary of sounding like Judge Smails in Caddyshack when he tells Danny, “the world needs ditch diggers too.”) A strong career and technical education path was one of the recommendations of the NCSL report on how to build a world-class educational system after the study group reviewed a number of other educational systems around the world. As I put it in a blog post from last year:

Develop a Career and Technical Education path for those students preferring more of an applied education rather than a more academic approach. This shouldn’t be an educational backwater like so many vocational programs. It should be geared to boosting the national economy and providing a higher standard of living for a broader base of the population.

Life on Venus

September 14, 2020 by Doug Masson 1 Comment

As we’re mired in our day-to-day parochial concerns, it’s nice to be reminded that there are people still working on the big picture stuff. Jennifer Chu, writing in SciTech Daily, has an article about likely discovery of life on Venus. Scientists have discovered phosphine in a layer of Venus’ atmosphere that is the most likely to be hospitable to life. Venus has an atmosphere that is really, really inhospitable to life — extreme heat and acidic clouds, among other things. But, there is apparently a pocket between 48 and 60 kilometers above the surface, where temperatures range from 30 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. If Venus had life, that’s where it would be expected. And that’s where they’ve detected phosphine.

Phosphine is associated with biological processes, and scientists have ruled out the non-biological explanations they can think of. So, their conclusion is that this probably means there is life of some kind in the air of the (relatively) hospitable pocket of Venus.

Extra-terrestrial life seems like kind of a big find. Josh Claybourn, writing on Facebook, suggested that the two most likely scenarios for the origin of that life would be that something hitched a ride on the Soviet probes to Venus 50 years ago or that something ejected from earth (debris from a meteor strike) made its way to Venus.

Indiana AG Candidate Weinzapfel promises criminal investigation into $86 million charter school debacle

September 12, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

Taylor Wooten, writing for the Statehouse File, reports in an article about (Republican) Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick’s endorsement of (Democratic) candidate for Attorney General, Jonathan Weinzapfel:

Weinzapfel, former chancellor of the Ivy Tech Evansville campus, has said he wishes to be a “champion for education” by fighting for enhanced pay for teachers and increased accountability for educational institutions that receive tax dollars.

The $86 million controversy regarding two Indiana virtual charter schools will be a subject of criminal prosecution if he becomes attorney general, Weinzapfel said. The Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy collected over $80 million from the state by falsifying student enrollment data.

(For those who don’t know, Weinzapfel was also mayor of Evansville from 2004-2011.)

That’s good news. I’ve said before that there is some indication that charter schools can be successful — but not under the conditions that Indiana is ever likely to put them on offer. In Massachusetts, strong regulation and oversight seems to make them complementary to the traditional public school system in a way that can benefit students for whom traditional public schools aren’t a great fit. In Indiana, we have a system with weak regulation and poor oversight where charter and voucher schools divert funds from traditional public schools, work at cross-purposes, provide a comparable or worse education, and — as we saw in the case of the virtual charter schools — line the pockets of their operators.

Indiana is unlikely to implement Massachusetts’ approach because the quality of educational opportunities appears to be mostly incidental to the motivations of voucher and charter school enthusiasts in Indiana. Higher priorities seem to be: a) reducing the influence of teachers unions; b) redirecting the flow of education money to friends and well-wishers of policymakers supporting charters; and c) using public money to subsidize religious education.

Fun fact: Indiana Virtual School used a Brink’s armored truck instead of a school bus.

The state’s experience with the Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathway Academy is instructive of how, under the state’s approach to charter schools, public money can be hideously misspent.

The joke is that dead people vote in Chicago. Apparently they go to school in Indiana. Stephanie Wang, reporting for Chalkbeat Indiana, has an article about the Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathway Academy which, among a number of other abuses, kept a dead kid on their claims for state money for two years after he died.

“Five years after two students moved to Florida, they reappeared on enrollment records for Indiana Virtual School and its sister school.

And nearly every one of the more than 900 students kicked out of Indiana Virtual School and its sister school in the 2017-18 school year for being inactive were re-enrolled the next school year, included in per-pupil funding calculations that netted the two online schools more than $34 million in public dollars last year.

These were among the ways that Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy allegedly inflated their enrollment to at least twice its actual size, according to the findings of a state examiner’s investigation released Monday.”

According to a State Board of Accounts audit filed in February of this year, the best estimate to date is that the schools improperly cost the State $86 million. It would definitely seem appropriate to follow the money trail identified by the SBOA and, where appropriate, prosecute individuals lining their pockets instead of educating our kids. So, it’s good to see Mr. Weinzapfel taking an interest. Hopefully Superintendent McCormick’s endorsement will carry some weight in the Attorney General election. (To be candid, I was skeptical of Dr. McCormick when she was elected, but that skepticism was misplaced. She’s been an excellent Superintendent of Public Instruction, particularly given the political environment in which she has been navigating.)

(I am running for West Lafayette School Board in the 2020 election. If you’re interested in my candidacy, check out my campaign website. If you like what you see & live in West Lafayette, I’d appreciate your vote. Tell your friend & request a yard sign!)

West Lafayette Community School Corporation wins round in effort to protect Happy Hollow

August 28, 2020 by Doug Masson 2 Comments

This is an update to a previous post which I’m just going to copy below for convenience. By way of reminder he General Assembly has adopted a law that (simplified a bit) requires a school corporation to sell its real estate to a charter school for $1 if the school corporation is not currently using the facility. West Lafayette Community School Corporation currently owns the Happy Hollow property but it is not being used for school purposes at the moment. Rather, it’s being leased to the City of West Lafayette as a city government building while West Lafayette renovates the old Morton facility. Happy Hollow has structural issues that need to be remedied which is what led to the school corporation building the new West Lafayette Intermediate School. Long-term, the plan is to renovate Happy Hollow so that it once again becomes suitable for use by WLCSC – the current thinking is that it might be a good location for an early childhood education center. The state’s $1 charter school legislation is an impediment to long-term planning of this kind.

WLCSC filed suit in Tippecanoe County in September of 2019 challenging the law. Not long thereafter, however, it became apparent that a lawsuit filed by Lake Ridge School Corporation and School City of Hammond in Lake County, schools that had similar concerns, would be a better vehicle for the litigation challenging the law generally. WLCSC dismissed its Tippecanoe County suit and filed a motion to intervene in Lake County (45D05-2001-PL-2). The State filed a motion to dismiss very similar to the one it had filed in Tippecanoe County, arguing primarily that the issue was not “ripe” for adjudication (because no charter school was yet actively seeking to purchase one of the affected properties) and also arguing — somewhat breathtakingly — that the State has no obligation at all to pay for property it takes from local government. For reasons I explained more in the previous post, I think the State does have to compensate local government if it takes local government property. I’m also of the opinion that this law would violate Art. 10, §1 of the Indiana Constitution which provides requires the General Assembly provide a “uniform and equal rate of property assessment and taxation.” Happy Hollow was paid for by property taxes that were not “uniform” to those that you would find in, say, unincorporated Tippecanoe County. That non-uniform taxation is appropriate insofar as it is used to benefit the school district. It is inappropriate to use taxes peculiar to the District to benefit the State at large. See City of Richmond v. Scott, 48 Ind. 568, 572-73 (Ind. 1874) (determining that unequal rates of municipal taxation do not violate Art. 10, §1 because “taxes for corporate purposes cannot be equal. The wants and necessities of towns and cities cannot be equal. Some require a higher and some a lower rate of taxation.)

While not necessarily reaching the substance of these arguments; yesterday, the Lake County Superior Court gave the first round to the schools – determining that West Lafayette would be permitted to intervene (i.e. participate in the case) and that the State’s motion to dismiss would be denied. That means the parties can proceed with discovery, summary judgment arguments, and, if necessary, trial. This wouldn’t seem to be the type of case where trial is likely to be necessary because the relevant facts shouldn’t be in much dispute. The contested issues will be issues of law — e.g. whether the State is required to compensate local government for takings and, if so, whether the law making the property subject to purchase for a dollar by a charter school amounts to a compensable taking. Issues of law are decided by the Court. The trial court’s decision will not be the final word. However the trial court rules, somebody will almost certainly appeal.

I’m obviously pulling for WLCSC. Even putting my local loyalties aside, the way the State has handled charter schools has undermined public education in Indiana. As I’ve said before, there is some evidence (out of Massachusetts mostly) that properly regulated charter schools can do some good. But the Indiana General Assembly is decidedly uninterested in any sort of rigorous regulation of charter schools.

(Earlier post follows).

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State of Indiana Claims Right to Take Local Government Property Without Compensation

Our Price: $1.00
Cheap!

West Lafayette Community School Corporation has sued Governor Holcomb in his official capacity (Cause 79C01-1909-PL-115 in the Circuit Court of Tippecanoe County) to challenge a law that requires local school corporations to make unused buildings available to charter schools for a dollar before they can sell them, leave them vacant, or (the law is less clear) lease them for non-school purposes. West Lafayette has an old building, Happy Hollow, that’s on its last legs and the school corporation has long term plans to use the site, likely as an early education facility, once it gets a solid model put together and can line up the proper funding. In the meantime, it’s being leased to the City of West Lafayette as a temporary city hall for which the City is paying the School a healthy lease payment which, in turn, is being used to fund School operations.

Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed HB 1641 which added IC 20-26-7.1 featuring the $1 lease/purchase requirements. (If a school sells real estate in violation of this requirement, proceeds from the sale go to the State to fund charter school grants). In the case of Happy Hollow, the school corporation arguably has to forego a revenue stream from the City lease or put long term plans on hold if a charter school expresses interest and an intent to get a charter school up and running in the next two years.

So that’s the background. Being a strong proponent of local government and of public schools, it will come as no surprise to anyone that I take the school’s side on this one. But that’s not what prompted me to write this.

In defending the lawsuit, Governor Holcomb (by counsel) has made the breathtaking argument:

“[T]he Takings Clauses and Just Compensation do not apply to the State’s relationship with political subdivisions.”

“[M]unicipalities and subdivisions of the State cannot request just compensation even if there is taking[.]”

The State’s argument does not offer any limitation to this principle which is unique to schools. The State can take local government property and not pay for it. Full stop. The argument is that local government is merely a “subalternate instrumentality” of the State government — in other words, local government is just a tool of State government, so there’s really been no loss if the State commandeers local property for its own purposes.

There is an old United States Supreme Court case, Board of Commissioners of Tippecanoe County v. Lucas, 93 U.S. 108 (1876) where the Court said, “the legislature of a state possesses the power to direct a restitution to taxpayers of a county or other municipal corporation of property exacted from them by taxation, into whatever form the property may be changed, so long as it remains in possession of the municipality.” (emphasis added) It’s true that the State has a lot of power to direct the affairs of local government. So, if the State said that the school had to sell vacant property at market value and, for example, use the proceeds to buy school buses for itself, the “taking” argument would be much weaker. Yes, the State is meddling in local affairs, but taxes paid by local residents are not being diverted to other entities.

But that’s not the argument the Governor is making. Local government property can be used for any purpose the State wants. It doesn’t matter if taxpayers supported a local tax rate precisely because decisions about the use of those taxes were being made by the city council or school board. This goes well beyond taking local school property to subsidize charters. In principle, it could be used to sell off the Wayne County Courthouse in Richmond and use it to subsidize toll road operations in northern Indiana. Or whatever. Like I said, the argument doesn’t offer any limiting principle to the State’s authority to seize local government property without paying for it.

Now, if I had to guess, this is probably the case of an attorney operating out of Indianapolis trying to grind out a win without having run the argument past any political types. I highly doubt that Gov. Holcomb knows anything about this argument even though it’s being made in his name. I suspect the political types would understand that an assertion by the State of unfettered control over local resources is unlikely to be well received outside of the State House.

Re-Post: Some thoughts on Red for Ed, Caleb Mills, and Indiana’s School Policies

August 4, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

Re-posting this because, with all that’s going on with our schools these days, it’s easy (and understandable) to slip into a sort of survival mode that makes us lose track of the longer term threads of what’s going on with education in Indiana. This was originally posted on November 13, 2019. Also, I’m running for school board.

Read, Circulate, and Discuss

The recent $40 million failure of the ILEARN test has prompted the “Red for Ed” rally scheduled for November 19, 2019 at the State House when the General Assembly gathers for its annual organization day. Among other things, the movement is asking for schools and teachers to be “held harmless” from the consequences that the legislature has tied to such testing. That would include not penalizing schools for performance on this test, stopping the clock on the time given to “failing schools” to improve (since this testing year was essentially wasted), and not penalizing teachers based on data generated by this test.

It is also a good time to revisit our overall approach to education policy in Indiana. What we have now isn’t really a “system” per se in that its component parts don’t work well together. Rather than our current ideologically driven approach based on what policymakers think ought to work, we should evaluate the systems and curricula that actually are working in places like Singapore, Canada, Finland, and Japan and adapt their approaches as best we can to Indiana. Ultimately, a good educational system will have to be built on the quality of its teachers. That means attracting the best and the brightest high school students to the teaching colleges. It means preparing those incoming teachers to teach the curriculum which, in turn, requires a stable approach to education. And, once trained, it means retaining those teachers.

There has been some criticism of the Red for Ed rally and its goals by school privatization enthusiasts. But it has mostly been hand waving. Shane Phipps, writing at Inside Education does a pretty good job of addressing some of these criticisms.

At root, there is a lack of appreciation as to what a world-class educational system provides and possibly a lack of ambition by policymakers. Can we afford one? We can’t afford not to have one. Opportunity is slipping away from Hoosiers because we’re allowing our foundation to erode. The high stakes testing and privatization approach that have been in place for the better part of a generation have put us in a downward spiral. Teachers have been scapegoats and their salaries have remained mostly stagnant as their burdens have grown.

When it comes to education, we are too often shrewd with our pennies but foolish with our dollars. This is an investment. As Caleb Mills, the father of Indiana’s common school system observed in the 19th century, a good education system adds to the social, literary, and intellectual capital of the citizens and adds materially to the real and substantial happiness of everyone. Mills said that we must “convince the ignorant man that knowledge would increase his happiness and satisfy the prejudiced man that he has only misapprehended the best means of securing his own welfare.” In 1848, a referendum was put to the people of the State, asking “are you in favor of free schools?” The result was narrowly in favor, but it was significant that the opposition came chiefly from the areas with the highest level of illiteracy. The people with better educations recognized the tremendous opportunity provided by public education.

There is a charitable, moral argument for paying to educate your neighbors. But, even on the level of simple self-interest, we have an interest in the proper education of all who are socially and politically connected to us. Better schools lead to (as Mills pointed out) “more valuable real estate, productive capital, lightened public burdens, increased social enjoyments, and security of possession.” Investment in education pays further dividends in reduced expenses from crime and costs of punishment. What’s more, for most areas, the school serves as the nucleus of the social fabric. It’s an important part of what turns a collection of individuals into a community.

Mills again: “There is but one way to secure good schools, and that is to pay for them.” How much should we pay for them? As much as they are worth. Taxes are absolutely part of the equation. This will require some courage from legislators as taxes inevitably cause initial dissatisfaction. Per Mills, “a legislature that would wait for a harmony of views before action would never affect anything great and noble.” As with any investment, benefits come later. Politicians who crow about surplus funds and low taxes while we are unable to attract and retain teachers should receive the same reception as a homeowner who brags about a shiny new car and a healthy bank account while the foundations of his home are crumbling. The State has taken over the business of funding schools. Locals lack the power to move the needle very much. If we want good schools, we will have to persuade the legislators we have or get new ones. Because the State made the decision to swallow the elephant of public education, it now represents about half of the state budget. As such, there is a strong argument to be made that education should be a central focus of every legislator and that the General Assembly should be judged based on the resulting quality of Indiana schools. In 2021, as the Governor takes total control of the State’s education system (by virtue of the Superintendent of Public Instruction becoming an appointed position), a gubernatorial candidate’s education bona fides should be one of the electorate’s primary concerns.

Ultimately, we need to produce the best teachers at our institutes of higher learning and pay teachers commensurate to their training and value. We are entrusting them to instill in our children the capacity to be productive citizens. What’s that worth? To attract and retain teachers of the highest caliber, we need to recognize what society gains by attracting the best and the brightest to the profession. Mills describes the situation in the 1840s: “What inducement had a youth of commanding talents, noble and generous aspirations, to spend years of time and hundreds of dollars [19th century money] to fit himself for an employment that would not command a higher compensation than was given for services requiring no intellectual training or moral culture?” The young men you would have wanted as teachers chose instead to become preachers and lawyers. History may not repeat, but it certainly seems to rhyme.

The privatization fad isn’t working. Voucher and charter schools do not produce better results than traditional public schools and there is some evidence that they produce worse outcomes. A fractured approach to education cannot produce consistent results. If we’re looking to be responsible with our money, we can’t afford to have education dollars sucked up by self-dealing charter management companies with opaque accounting or vouchers sent to private institutions with books closed to the public. We can’t spend tens of millions of dollars on tests with arbitrary faulty metrics. The reason we’re having so much trouble with the tests and vouchers and charters is because the arguments for them were always pretexts. The tests weren’t designed to provide feedback to improve education — they are designed as cudgels for proclaiming that public schools are failing (and to redirect public money to testing companies.) Vouchers weren’t designed to give poor children attending public schools a way out — they were designed to subsidize religious education and give “good families” a way to keep their kids away from undesirables. If we were serious about our approach to charter schools, we’d consider the rigorous accountability process used in Massachusetts. But, we’re not, so we get charters authorized by tiny Daleville and overseen by apparently nobody.

If the concern was truly that Indiana’s traditional public schools were not performing as well as they should, the rational approach would be to look to those school systems in our country and around the world that are producing the desired outcomes. That’s not what we did because those systems would not have provided a rationale for subsidizing private, religious education; reducing the influence of teacher’s unions; or redirecting public education money to friends and well-wishers of privatization enthusiasts. So, they had to come up with this cobbled together mess of half-measures and contradictions they could market to the public with rhetoric about “choice,” “accountability,” “empowerment,” and “the market.” When the results fail to materialize they either ignore the results or just say we have to do it harder. Privatization can’t fail, it can only be failed.

We have been some place like this before. Prior to creation of common schools, Indiana’s commitment to public education was more aspirational than real. The qualifications of teachers were left to local trustees. The quality of education was wildly uneven. There was a powerful disincentive for educated Hoosiers to become teachers. At a time other institutions were becoming well organized and efficient, the schools were struggling with unequal lengths of term, incapable teachers, dishonest trustees, diversity of textbooks, lax enforcement of school laws and school discipline, neighborhood quarrels over school sites, narrow views of education, and a lack of wise leadership. (Worley at p.6) This description reminded me powerfully of our recent charter school debacle at the Indiana Virtual School.

We pulled ourselves off the educational floor once. So did Finland and Singapore and Ontario and any number of places that now surpass us in educational outcomes. We can do it again. But we have to look to examples that work and craft a system with pieces that fit together, one enhancing the other. A Hobbesian war of all-against-all, even if marketed under the banner of “choice,” will inevitably result in a cacophony of cross-purposes. We need to rethink our policies.

—One of the People

Education

August 4, 2020 by Doug Masson 1 Comment

So, I just filed to run for the West Lafayette School Board. (Some of you may remember my run from four years ago where I lost by a nose.) I intend to write more later about this particular race, who I am, and what I want to do. But, in case people are looking me up before I get that taken care of and want to get more insight into my thoughts on education, I figure it’s probably good to have a link to the Education category of my blog front and center: Click here for that link.