http://ahuntingtonteacher.blogspot.com/2012/10/tony-bennett-selling-big-lie-about.html
Tony Bennett Selling the Big Lie about Need for Hoosier Teacher Accountability
In 2010,
Tony Bennett and the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) introduced relaxed teacher qualifications known as REPA. A slideshow presented by Bennett stated the need for REPA was a grade of “D” for “policies affecting teaching quality”. This grade was given by the National Council for Teaching Quality (NCTQ).
The grade of “D” was endorsed by NCTQ’s technical panel. Tony Bennett sits on the technical panel of NCTQ.
The NCTQ’s report was described by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) as “so fundamentally flawed it is not worthy of your engagement.” The AACTE went as far to call the report “unprofessional” in its obvious attempt to deteriorate traditional education.
Perhaps the NCTQ’s report and Indiana’s grade of “D” for teaching quality policies would have never gained much merit except for a strong endorsement that followed by a group known as Chiefs for Change.
The Chiefs for Change have only eleven members. Tony Bennett is one of them.
In sum, much of the turmoil surrounding the need for greater teacher accountability is because Bennett has said teachers need improvement and endorsed his own statement saying so.
Bennett has a history of disregarding public opinion, or even the law, for that matter, and forcing through his plan to dismantle public education. This also might explain language found here at the IDOE website:
Final RISE rubric ratings did not sufficiently differentiate teacher performance (61% Effective, 30% Highly Effective) or identify specific teacher strengths and weaknesses (67% of teachers received no rating lower than “effective” on all 19 RISE rubric competencies). When all the data is analyzed in the fall, these ratings are unlikely to accurately reflect actual teacher and student performance.
Bennett’s mind is stuck in a bell curve; a percentage of students must always be failing, a percentage of teachers must therefore also be failing. Bennett’s goal in Indiana is to continually fail a portion of students, teachers, and schools for the sake of privatization.
Teachers have not bought into the RISE evaluation system that creates:
· a detrimental “teach to the test” atmosphere.
· greater focus on only select students, especially “bubble” students.
· an environment of competition, not cooperation, among colleagues.
· teacher flight from schools most in need.
· less qualified teachers who do not stay in the profession.
The RISE evaluation has nothing to do with improving instruction. Bennett purposefully took away funding for advance degrees to create funds for merit pay. (Lest we forget, Bennett stood idly by while Daniels cut $300 million from Hoosier school budgets. This shortfall was felt most by teachers, who on average have taken huge pay cuts. In my district, teachers have taken between a 12% and 20% pay cut over the past three years.)
As one commenter said, (Bennett is) driving down teacher’s salaries and forcing them to fight over what spare money is left. Then he is telling the public he rewards the best teachers with merit pay.
Perhaps that is why Bennett also had to include this on the IDOE webpage:
Increased collaboration and conversation promotes overall satisfaction with the new evaluation system and belief that the new system raises student achievement.
This quote is reminiscent of one attributed to Joesph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Indiana, it is time for a change. How can Bennett think he is putting students first by continually putting teachers last? A teacher’s working conditions are the student’s learning conditions. Bennett’s denigration of the Hoosier teacher results in the denigration of all public education students.
It will take years to fix the damage Bennett has wreaked on Hoosier schools. Four more years of Tony Bennett’s policies and the damage may well be irreversible.
We need a new superintendent who will work with teachers, not against them. Glenda Ritz needs your support. She does not have the million plus dollar funding from huge corporations that will profit from Bennett’s privatization efforts. For Ritz to claim victory, it will take a grass roots effort from every citizen who cares about public education in Indiana. Get out the vote for Glenda Ritz.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here is a song about Tony Bennett and the issues addressed in this post. It was written, performed and recorded by an Indiana teacher living and working under the Bennett regime.There is no attempt to profit from this song. PLEASE PASS IT ON to spread the word about the ridiculous situation in which Indiana students, families, teachers and school administrators find themselves. And yes, vote Glenda Ritz!
If this link doesn’t work do a youtube search for “Public School Fight Song (Indiana Version)”.
I thought I had posted this comment on your GA charter amendment post early this morning– for some reason it is still “pending moderation”
this frustrates me
Bertis Downs
Bertis Downs Your comment is awaiting moderation. October 18, 2012 at 7:14 am thanks for drawing attention to this insidious referendum in Georgia along with Washington state, right now Georgia a critical battleground for the profiteers to continue their merry march to creating a further divided two-track school system.
But amidst all the negativity here due to unbelievably, and probably actionable, slanted language on the ballot itself, and threatening opinions of the Atty General and lawsuits to squelch those who dare to oppose the measure, there is a bright light yesterdays YouTube video released by the Southern Education Foundation, in which two sharp HS seniors help adults go to school on whats really at stake with Amendment 1. http://bit.ly/Qvqgv1
okay a taste of what us No voters are up against:
tactics of the overlords:
http://bit.ly/U3ZEaq
language on the ballot beware first time readers:
http://bit.ly/OHGWDi
where the $ comes from shocking SHOCKING I know:
http://bit.ly/T86f1g
Reply
This is a letter from a man who was a teacher and principal in Indiana for over 30 years…
At no time in the one-hundred-and-twenty-one years that my grandfather, my father, my kids and I have been teaching in Indiana public schools has education faced a bigger crisis. We are on the verge of losing local control of our schools to the corporate, for profit, privatization movement. This movement has started in parts of Indiana already as State School Superintendent Tony Bennett has sold off inner-city schools to private, profit making companies and charter schools. Studies show that these schools either fail or do no better than public schools, even though they are often given more money, more staff and more resources. What this does is take money away from public schools and gives it to private, profit-making schools. This year Fort Wayne Public Schools lost 2.6 million dollars that was given to private schools in their district. This sets up public schools to fail, which some feel is the purpose anyway (the more public schools that “”fail” the more private, for prophet schools we can create.)
Why is he doing this? Follow the money. Check out the big donors to Tony Bennett’s campaign. It is pouring in from out-of-state, from big corporations and testing services that stand to make a profit from privatizing Indiana’s schools. If Tony wins re-election, they stand to make a nice profit. Tony Bennett doesn’t want to answer public concerns about this. He stays out of the public eye, failing to show up over four times in my town when asked to attend a forum. He even delivered his annual State of Education speech to a hand-picked, private audience so he wouldn’t face any embarrassing questions.
How is he setting up schools to “fail” so he can take them over? By spending millions of dollars on testing programs (pleasing his donors) that don’t begin to assess what all schools really do. He repeats the dubious message that schools are “failing” until it becomes his and his followers reality, neglecting to praise schools for their many successes (when we were in high school, the graduation rate in the U.S. was 50%: now it is 85% and climbing; actually higher when you factor in those who go back and get a G.E.D.) He is setting up a grade system for schools, publicly calling them out as F, D, C, B, or A schools, based on what kids did on a test. Does anybody not know how that will come out? Indianapolis Public Schools will largely “fail.” Carmel will be “A+, and he will award them and turn IPS over to private, corporate schools which will do no better and maybe worse.
What is the elephant in the room? What Bennett and his friends don’t want to admit is what hundreds of studies have shown: that the number one predictor of lower functioning schools is their level of poverty. This is obvious to any teacher who has taught in the inner city. I personally have visited over 130 schools in Indiana and several out of state, and have served on and chaired North Central Association (the nation’s major school accreditation agency) evaluations of over 25 inner city, rural, and surburban schools, from Lake Michigan to the Ohio River . I have great respect for the teachers in the inner city schools. No one works harder under adverse conditions than they do. To let Tony Bennett label them failures is beyond reason and shows how great his disconnect is from the reality of what schools really do. Heard enough? Then hear this: after he labels them failures, he plans to get rid of them!
What can we do about this? We need to let everybody who cares about the future of education know what is going on. Feel free to share his and talk about it before the election. I have grave doubts that the schools we knew and benefited from will be available to kids in the future if we don’t speak up and become active.