An essential conversation about K-12 education in America, Indiana and Monroe County, reported and edited by Steve Hinnefeld and Anne Kibbler, former education reporters for the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times.
School Matters
K-12 education in Indiana
School Matters 
Good blog, Steve and Anne. Keep up the good work.
Hi Steve and Anne. Great site! I’ve been digging up dirt on Daniels and Bennett and I’ve posted links below to my stories you might want to read. One is in the Indy Star and two are from Firedoglake. I’m working on a longer one with a more investigative reporting tone now. Thanks. Hope you are well. Doug Martin
http://www.indy.com/posts/check-out-connections-with-charter-school-operator
http://my.firedoglake.com/dougmartin/2011/02/21/eugene-v-debs-day-at-the-indiana-statehouse-a-history-lesson-for-mitch-daniels/
http://my.firedoglake.com/dougmartin/2011/02/27/letter-to-the-indiana-chamber-of-commerce-hoosiers-say-no-to-charter-school-scammers/
I am a public educator who just left the NYC system (had been teaching in Brooklyn) to come back to Indianapolis where I was raised. I am actually stunned by what seems to be a lack of opposition to the sweeping reforms Bennett is initiating. I am taking two years off teaching to raise two small girls and am using the time to genuinely understand as much as I possible can about this movement across the country. Indiana disappoints me. Why are more educators NOT advocating for themselves AND THE STUDENTS? Where is the voice of opposition? Where are the teachers? As far as I can discern, it is Eugene White who is taking a brilliant and courageous stand but I want the community to become involved. Is it just a vaccuum out there?
Check out Indiana Coalition for Public Education…they are attempting to interject some common sense into the conversation and many times oppose our IDOE which is trying to run roughshod over public education. But you are right, where are the teachers? And I don’t mean the union. And where are the parents?
Hi Allison. You are right. Indiana has been asleep with all this. School Matters is a good source for info, so I’m glad you found this site. And do check out B-Town Errant, the blog out of Bloomington, too. There, I track and piece together the corporate school reformers working in Indiana, and Douglas Storm takes them out with his brilliant attacks. Also, if you are on facebook, check out my site called “Indiana Government Exposed,” which has daily updates on the corporate school reformers in Indiana and elsewhere. And don’t forget to check out Karen Franciso’s blog at the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, if you haven’t already. In Indy, there’s a new group called Innovate Indy which is active, as well as an opt-out of testing Indiana facebook site from Indy.
Good work – I have been engaged in similar research and come to the conclusion that poverty is only weakly correlated with school grade. As you show, there are many more A,B or C schools in the high poverty zone that D and F. Overall I am delighted with this result – as you said, these schools are doing something right. I tried to get Glenda Ritz to celebrate what I call the “Hit Parade” of schools, the 73 schools graded A in the meal percentage range of 70-100%. She has not responded. I have a web site for you to take a look at – it is schoolgraded-d.org I get into some other topics, especially what it is like to teach in a school graded D. Another interesting finding is that Charter schools just don’t measure up – See my “Indiana School Data” under “Telling the Story”
Glad to see you doing such important research – we need folks outside of the school system to be taking a hard objective look. I will redo all of my work once the new grades are released.
Richard Garrett PhD
Indianapolis