Indiana's Education Battle Has Deep Roots
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
Bennett, along with a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, put in place a lot of education reforms – things like school vouchers, the A to F grading system and teacher accountability measures.
Teachers – and teacher unions – were not fans of these reforms. They organized behind Ritz and she was elected.
That makes Ritz the chairman of the State Board of Education. I’m sure she feels obligated – and ideologically bound – to fight those reforms.
Rightly so.
Problem is, that’s not really the role of the education superintendent.
By statute, Ritz is bound to “implement the policies and procedures established by the state board.”
The state board of education is made up of 10 members appointed by the governor – one member from each of Indiana’s nine U.S. congressional districts and one at-large.
Not more than six of the 10 can be from the same political party. The board is charged with establishing the educational goals of the state, developing standards and objectives of local school corporations, assessing the attainment of established goals, assuring compliance with established standards and making recommendations to the governor and the legislature concerning the educational needs of the state, including financial needs.
Ritz leads the board and gets a vote, but she’s charged with implementing the board’s policy. The board as a whole crafts the policy and makes recommendations to the legislature.
Ritz has angrily walked out of meetings. There have been lawsuits. The legislature is considering removing her as the chair of the board. There has been talk of enacting legislation to make the state superintendent’s position appointed instead of elected, which, for seemingly good reason, is done in 36 other states.[[In-content Ad]]But I truly believe what is happening in Indiana is a microcosm of a national clash over education that has been brewing for quite some time.
Diane Ravitch is known, according to Salon, as “the nation’s highest profile opponent” of charter-based education. She has written a book, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.” Here’s an excerpt:
Reform” is really a misnomer, because the advocates for this cause seek not to reform public education but to transform it into an entrepreneurial sector of the economy.
The “reform” movement is really a “corporate reform” movement, funded to a large degree by major foundations, Wall Street hedge fund managers, entrepreneurs and the U.S. Department of Education. The movement is determined to cut costs and maximize competition among schools and among teachers. It seeks to eliminate the geographically based system of public education as we have known it for the past 150 years and replace it with a competitive market-based system of school choice – one that includes traditional public schools, privately managed charter schools, religious schools, voucher schools, for-profit schools, virtual schools and for-profit vendors of instruction. Lacking any geographic boundaries, these schools would compete for customers. The customers would choose to send their children and their public funding wherever they wish, based on personal preference or on information such as the schools’ test scores and a letter grade conferred by the state (based largely on test scores).
The reformers are Republicans and Democrats. They include not only far-right Republican governors but some Democratic governors as well.
The leading funders of the reform movement are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports charter schools and test- based teacher evaluation; the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which supports charter schools and trains urban superintendents in its managerial philosophy; and the Walton Family Foundation, which funds vouchers and charters.
The most unexpected supporter of corporate reform was President Barack Obama. Educators enthusiastically supported Obama, expecting that he would eliminate the noxious policies of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind.
So Ravitch is no fan of the current brand of education reform and largely considers it the destruction of public schools in America.
The odd thing about Ravitch?
She was an assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush. She was an advocate of school choice and charter schools; under George W. Bush, she supported the No Child Left Behind initiative. Guess she changed her mind.
But back to Indiana. You’ve got Ritz, a likely devotee of Ravitch’s way of thinking, leading a board of reformers. Remember, Indiana has done all those things that Ravitch says are “errors.”
This is not a good recipe for sound policy making.
Democrat Gordon Hendry serves with Ritz on the state board of education as the at-large member. His day job is Midwest regional director of CBRE’s Public Institutions and Education Solutions Group. His resume includes a doctor of juris prudence from The George Washington University Law School and a bachelor’s degree, with distinction, in economics and political science from I.U., Bloomington (Phi Beta Kappa). He serves on the board of directors of La Plaza, a Central Indiana organization with the mission of preparing Latino students for educational success and connecting Latino families to health and social services.
He recently wrote an opinion piece for the Indianapolis Star about the current state of the education board. Here’s an excerpt:
To me, education policy is economic policy. Without world-class schools, we can’t attract top talent and jobs to Indiana. And as the father of an Indianapolis Public Schools student, I have a personal stake in making sure our schools are the best they can be. Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed firsthand the absolute chaos that now defines the State Board of Education under Superintendent of Public Instruction and Board Chair Glenda Ritz. These meetings used to be staid, high-level debates about important education policy. There were disagreements, but there was a bipartisan commitment to putting our kids first. Now, the grueling get-togethers are more akin to high school student council meetings where 15-year-olds argue about soda machines and lunch menus.
I want to be clear: This is not a partisan issue. I’m a proud Democrat who can remember the days when my party held the governor’s office and the superintendent was a Republican. We never saw someone angrily walk out of a meeting, withhold information from fellow board members or file a frivolous lawsuit against them to make a political point.
Doug Martin is the author of “Hoosier School Heist.” He also blogs at schoolsmatter.info When he joined the blog he was introduced like this:
Martin’s exposures of the corporate takeover of public education have appeared or been referenced in the Washington Post Answer Sheet, the Associated Press, Diane Ravitch’s Blog, and other places. Martin holds a PhD in literary prosody and 19th-century American literature from Oklahoma State University.
When Hendry was appointed to the board by Gov. Mike Pence, Martin wrote this (unedited) at schoolsmatter.info:
When Mind Trust board member and Bill Bennett operative David Shane (whose wife is a former Eli Lilly Endowment “education consultant”) recently stepped down from the Indiana State Board of Education, I was not shocked when Mike Pence quickly picked Democrat Gordon Hendry to join the state board.
Hendry is married to Jennifer Wagner, the former spokesperson for the Indiana Democratic Party. Wagner has been in bed with the rightwing in Indiana for some time. Her company Mass Ave. PR filmed the corporate-theocratic 2012 Ed Reform Rocks Rally at the statehouse, starring Democrats for Education Reform founder Kevin Chavous, who is also a Bradley, Walmart, DeVos, and Mitch Daniels operative who holds a special place in my upcoming book Hoosier School Heist as doing the dirty work and profiting handsomely from the money of white rich people who hate blacks. Wagner’s PR firm is now doing marketing for the Indiana Democrats for Education Reform (IN DFER), and Gordon Hendry donated to IN DFER’s Mary Ann Sullivan’s campaign.
OK, that’s the rhetoric, but how are Indiana students actually doing under these reforms?
Data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2014 KIDS COUNT® Data Book shows fewer Indiana fourth-grade students scored below proficient reading level in 2013, an 11 percent change from 2005, and fewer Indiana eighth-graders scored below proficient math level, also an 11 percent change. Indiana’s ranking for education is 26th, up from 34th in 2013.
Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on education policy and I am sure the issue is a lot more complex than the few statistics cited in that last paragraph. But it doesn’t seem like we’re headed in the wrong direction.
Given the current makeup of the state board of education, I don’t really see much hope of meaningful reconciliation on the state board of education.
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Bennett, along with a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, put in place a lot of education reforms – things like school vouchers, the A to F grading system and teacher accountability measures.
Teachers – and teacher unions – were not fans of these reforms. They organized behind Ritz and she was elected.
That makes Ritz the chairman of the State Board of Education. I’m sure she feels obligated – and ideologically bound – to fight those reforms.
Rightly so.
Problem is, that’s not really the role of the education superintendent.
By statute, Ritz is bound to “implement the policies and procedures established by the state board.”
The state board of education is made up of 10 members appointed by the governor – one member from each of Indiana’s nine U.S. congressional districts and one at-large.
Not more than six of the 10 can be from the same political party. The board is charged with establishing the educational goals of the state, developing standards and objectives of local school corporations, assessing the attainment of established goals, assuring compliance with established standards and making recommendations to the governor and the legislature concerning the educational needs of the state, including financial needs.
Ritz leads the board and gets a vote, but she’s charged with implementing the board’s policy. The board as a whole crafts the policy and makes recommendations to the legislature.
Ritz has angrily walked out of meetings. There have been lawsuits. The legislature is considering removing her as the chair of the board. There has been talk of enacting legislation to make the state superintendent’s position appointed instead of elected, which, for seemingly good reason, is done in 36 other states.[[In-content Ad]]But I truly believe what is happening in Indiana is a microcosm of a national clash over education that has been brewing for quite some time.
Diane Ravitch is known, according to Salon, as “the nation’s highest profile opponent” of charter-based education. She has written a book, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.” Here’s an excerpt:
Reform” is really a misnomer, because the advocates for this cause seek not to reform public education but to transform it into an entrepreneurial sector of the economy.
The “reform” movement is really a “corporate reform” movement, funded to a large degree by major foundations, Wall Street hedge fund managers, entrepreneurs and the U.S. Department of Education. The movement is determined to cut costs and maximize competition among schools and among teachers. It seeks to eliminate the geographically based system of public education as we have known it for the past 150 years and replace it with a competitive market-based system of school choice – one that includes traditional public schools, privately managed charter schools, religious schools, voucher schools, for-profit schools, virtual schools and for-profit vendors of instruction. Lacking any geographic boundaries, these schools would compete for customers. The customers would choose to send their children and their public funding wherever they wish, based on personal preference or on information such as the schools’ test scores and a letter grade conferred by the state (based largely on test scores).
The reformers are Republicans and Democrats. They include not only far-right Republican governors but some Democratic governors as well.
The leading funders of the reform movement are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports charter schools and test- based teacher evaluation; the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which supports charter schools and trains urban superintendents in its managerial philosophy; and the Walton Family Foundation, which funds vouchers and charters.
The most unexpected supporter of corporate reform was President Barack Obama. Educators enthusiastically supported Obama, expecting that he would eliminate the noxious policies of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind.
So Ravitch is no fan of the current brand of education reform and largely considers it the destruction of public schools in America.
The odd thing about Ravitch?
She was an assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush. She was an advocate of school choice and charter schools; under George W. Bush, she supported the No Child Left Behind initiative. Guess she changed her mind.
But back to Indiana. You’ve got Ritz, a likely devotee of Ravitch’s way of thinking, leading a board of reformers. Remember, Indiana has done all those things that Ravitch says are “errors.”
This is not a good recipe for sound policy making.
Democrat Gordon Hendry serves with Ritz on the state board of education as the at-large member. His day job is Midwest regional director of CBRE’s Public Institutions and Education Solutions Group. His resume includes a doctor of juris prudence from The George Washington University Law School and a bachelor’s degree, with distinction, in economics and political science from I.U., Bloomington (Phi Beta Kappa). He serves on the board of directors of La Plaza, a Central Indiana organization with the mission of preparing Latino students for educational success and connecting Latino families to health and social services.
He recently wrote an opinion piece for the Indianapolis Star about the current state of the education board. Here’s an excerpt:
To me, education policy is economic policy. Without world-class schools, we can’t attract top talent and jobs to Indiana. And as the father of an Indianapolis Public Schools student, I have a personal stake in making sure our schools are the best they can be. Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed firsthand the absolute chaos that now defines the State Board of Education under Superintendent of Public Instruction and Board Chair Glenda Ritz. These meetings used to be staid, high-level debates about important education policy. There were disagreements, but there was a bipartisan commitment to putting our kids first. Now, the grueling get-togethers are more akin to high school student council meetings where 15-year-olds argue about soda machines and lunch menus.
I want to be clear: This is not a partisan issue. I’m a proud Democrat who can remember the days when my party held the governor’s office and the superintendent was a Republican. We never saw someone angrily walk out of a meeting, withhold information from fellow board members or file a frivolous lawsuit against them to make a political point.
Doug Martin is the author of “Hoosier School Heist.” He also blogs at schoolsmatter.info When he joined the blog he was introduced like this:
Martin’s exposures of the corporate takeover of public education have appeared or been referenced in the Washington Post Answer Sheet, the Associated Press, Diane Ravitch’s Blog, and other places. Martin holds a PhD in literary prosody and 19th-century American literature from Oklahoma State University.
When Hendry was appointed to the board by Gov. Mike Pence, Martin wrote this (unedited) at schoolsmatter.info:
When Mind Trust board member and Bill Bennett operative David Shane (whose wife is a former Eli Lilly Endowment “education consultant”) recently stepped down from the Indiana State Board of Education, I was not shocked when Mike Pence quickly picked Democrat Gordon Hendry to join the state board.
Hendry is married to Jennifer Wagner, the former spokesperson for the Indiana Democratic Party. Wagner has been in bed with the rightwing in Indiana for some time. Her company Mass Ave. PR filmed the corporate-theocratic 2012 Ed Reform Rocks Rally at the statehouse, starring Democrats for Education Reform founder Kevin Chavous, who is also a Bradley, Walmart, DeVos, and Mitch Daniels operative who holds a special place in my upcoming book Hoosier School Heist as doing the dirty work and profiting handsomely from the money of white rich people who hate blacks. Wagner’s PR firm is now doing marketing for the Indiana Democrats for Education Reform (IN DFER), and Gordon Hendry donated to IN DFER’s Mary Ann Sullivan’s campaign.
OK, that’s the rhetoric, but how are Indiana students actually doing under these reforms?
Data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2014 KIDS COUNT® Data Book shows fewer Indiana fourth-grade students scored below proficient reading level in 2013, an 11 percent change from 2005, and fewer Indiana eighth-graders scored below proficient math level, also an 11 percent change. Indiana’s ranking for education is 26th, up from 34th in 2013.
Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on education policy and I am sure the issue is a lot more complex than the few statistics cited in that last paragraph. But it doesn’t seem like we’re headed in the wrong direction.
Given the current makeup of the state board of education, I don’t really see much hope of meaningful reconciliation on the state board of education.
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