Offered ‘my way or the highway,’ Indiana Democrats take to the road

State Rep. Mary Ann Sullivan is as moderate a voice on education issues as you’ll find among Indiana House Democrats. An organizer of the new group Indiana Democrats for Education Reform, she is co-author of a bill to expand charter schools and favors parts of the Daniels-Bennett education agenda. But she’s with her Democratic colleagues [...]

National Education Policy Center vs. Los Angeles Times

For all the education research and policy types out there, there’s a pretty good food fight taking place between the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado and the Los Angeles Times. It concerns value-added modeling of teacher effectiveness – in particular, the Times project last summer that used test-score data and a [...]

What’s the story on IPS Arlington Woods Elementary School?

The Indianapolis Star is running a compelling series about Arlington Woods Elementary School on the east side of Indianapolis, where an initiative called Project Restore has produced impressive gains in student performance, especially in math. The series began Feb. 13 and continued Feb. 16 and Feb. 20; additional installments are scheduled Wednesday and next Sunday. [...]

Gary, IPS are biggest losers in GOP school funding plan

Many school districts would face hardships under the budget and school funding formula unveiled last week by the Republican leaders of the Indiana House of Representatives – but none of them gets slammed harder than the Gary Community School Corp. The GOP plan would cut funding for Gary schools by nearly $20 million over a [...]

The MCCSC referendum funding: An argument for doing what’s best for students

Someone claimed in the Bloomington Herald-Times that no one has come forward to say he or she voted for the Monroe County Community School Corp. referendum just so the school board could decide how to spend the money, or words to that effect. Well, I cast one of the 18,701 votes in favor of the [...]

Catching up with the legislature (or trying to, anyway)

Several of the bills to implement Gov. Mitch Daniels’ education agenda are moving through the Indiana General Assembly — some faster than others. Up next: House Bill 1003, the school vouchers bill, is scheduled for a hearing Tuesday before the House Education Committee, which meets at 9 a.m. in the House Chambers. The bill, supported [...]

CEEP survey on K-12 education: mixed messages for policymakers

The 2010 Public Opinion Survey on K-12 Education in Indiana finds support for some of the education changes being pushed by Gov. Mitch Daniels and state Superintendent Tony Bennett, but not for others. The telephone survey of 612 Indiana residents was conducted for the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University in November [...]

Bennett: Retention rule holds kids accountable

We need to start holding 9-year-olds accountable, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said – that’s why they must be held back in third grade if they can’t pass a new state reading test. The State Board of Education on Tuesday approved a reading rule that says schools must retain students in third grade [...]

State board about to decide on third-grade retention rule

A proposed rule that would force schools to retain students who don’t pass a third-grade reading test could face a vote by the State Board of Education this week. The board meets Tuesday at 1 p.m. in Indianapolis. The rule, which was the subject of a previous post on School Matters, also requires elementary schools [...]

Money talks in the Indiana school voucher debate

“Follow the money,” Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, famously told the young reporters in All the President’s Men. The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette took that advice to heart for an editorial on the push for school vouchers in the Indiana legislature, and here’s what it found. The “loudest voice” supporting publicly funded vouchers for students attending [...]