After a hurricane and a presidential election as expensive as our last one, news analysts eventually get around to other issues. Politicians are now focusing on the “fiscal cliff,” and some of that is even affecting education coverage. But there is also education news, and that is starting to pick back up.
For one, voters in Indiana elected a new superintendent of public instruction, replacing Dr Tony Bennett with Glenda Ritz, a vote most educators see as a message from the people about the pace and direction of school reform. Ms Ritz ran almost entirely against what Hoosiers saw as the anti-teacher, anti-school policies of Dr Bennett’s administration.
For example, he was seen nationally as a promoter of reforms based on standardized testing, and in Indiana, he instituted a program of giving schools letter grades, A through F. He announced to the state board on Oct. 31:
More than 61 percent of Indiana’s schools received A or B letter grades for the 2011-2012 school year. … In total, 40.9 percent of schools earned As, 20.1 percent of schools earned Bs, and 20.3 percent of schools earned Cs. Only 18.6 percent of schools earned D or F grades, similar to last year’s percentage and lower than in the 2009-2010 school year. This year, 207 schools received As for the first time.
This program has come under fire, because many educators working in actual schools say the plan puts schools in Indiana down unfairly and attempts to make them appear more in need of state takeover and eventual operation by private (charter) organizations. Indiana Citizens for Public Education writes on its blog:
… the plan would result in 22 percent D’s and F’s for Indiana schools. In comparison, Florida last year gave D’s and F’s to 6 percent of their schools. Indiana schools are not over three times worse than Florida schools! This fact is grounded in data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a test taken in common by all states and known as “the nation’s report card.” On NAEP, Indiana consistently outscores Florida in fourth- and eighth-grade math and in eighth-grade reading.
Tony Bennett’s A-F system has demeaned the performance of Indiana’s schools compared to Florida. Conveniently, low grades would feed more schools into his pipeline for state intervention which in Indianapolis and Gary has resulted in for-profit corporations taking over schools, accompanied by discord, litigation and fragmented communities.
Indiana’s governor-elect, Mike Pence, is a Republican, and Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-to-1 in Indiana’s legislature. Mr Pence has been quoted as saying he’s willing to work with Ms Ritz, who was formerly named Indiana’s Teacher of the Year, but that by enlarging the Republican majority in the legislature, voters ultimately endorsed the education agenda promoted by Dr Bennett and enacted by legislators and Gov. Mitch Daniels.
The role of Indiana’s superintendent of public instruction is mostly a bully pulpit. In other words, she can expect to have a big microphone, and how much of Dr Bennett’s reform agenda she can roll back will depend on how she uses that microphone.
Other education-based results from Election Day
Idaho voters definitively shut down three separate “reform” initiatives on the ballot
All three measures had the support of Tom Luna, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, and Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, and all were defeated soundly.
One initiative in Idaho, the one most defeated, was an attempt to give $180 million to technology companies, which would then lease laptops to Idaho students. This initiative would have also required Idaho high school graduates to complete online courses.
On this one, all I have to do is present the facts for you to see how this is a not-so-veiled attempt to allow private companies to make profits off the inefficient running of our public schools. Give tech companies profit, make our schools less efficient, and replace high school teachers with machines that can be controlled by Big Brother. Superintendent Luna and the governor aren’t even trying to hide it.
Proposition Nos. 2 and 3, each defeated by about 12 percent, would have limited collective bargaining rights and instituted a merit-based (aka. standardized-test-based) pay scale for public school teachers. Note that Idaho is one of 11 states in the nation where teachers’ unions can legally authorize a strike, so union activists spent about $4 million in the state to defeat these measures and keep their collective bargaining rights.
However, now that the vote is in, union officials said they would like to work with Superintendent Luna to improve the quality of schools in the state.
“Now that the voters have spoken, it’s up to us—the adults—to come together and model for our children, how grown-ups with very diverse opinions and ideas can put their differences aside to do what’s right,” the Associated Press quoted Penni Cyr, Idaho Education Association president, as saying.
Maryland voters approve in-state tuition for children of illegal immigrants
Question No. 4 on the Maryland statewide ballot, known locally as the DREAM act, was approved by voters. The law allows certain illegal immigrants and their children who have graduated from a Maryland high school and lived in the state for a few years to pay tuition to Maryland public colleges at the in-state rate.
“For older students, they came from another country, but they want to study—they need it,” the Baltimore Sun quoted Zara Urgiles, 31, of Baltimore, as saying at a rally in Washington shortly after Maryland voters made that one step closer.
As I mentioned above, Congress is likely to look toward fiscal issues and away from immigration reform for a while, but President Obama gave fixing the nation’s immigration system priority status in his victory speech. In addition, many Republicans believe the GOP’s future may depend on its ability to reach out to a growing and politically powerful Latino demographic.
