This news article explains the background of State Superintendent Glenda Ritz’s lawsuit against Mike Pence, Governor of Indiana.
The state board–whose members were appointed by former Governor Mitch Daniels and his successor Mike Pence–moved to strip control of the state’s controversial A-F grading system from the office of State Superintendent Ritz and turn it over to the Republican-controlled legislature. The decision was made, Ritz says, in her absence (she is chair of the state board) and in violation of the state’s Open Meetings Law.
Since Ritz’s surprise upset of former State Superintendent Tony Bennett last November, Governor Pence has acted repeatedly to dilute or remove any powers from the State Superintendent. Bennett moved on to become State Superintendent in Florida, where he resigned shortly after the story broke that he had manipulated the A-F grading system to protect the charter school of a campaign contributor.
The A-F grading system is of dubious value, as are all such simplistic grading systems, which reduce the performance of complex institutions to a single letter grade. It sets schools up for failure and closure, and the metrics behind the grades are nearly incomprehensible. A recent study by scholars in Oklahoma criticized that state’s A-F grading system as opaque, incoherent, and confusing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DR: How should schools be evaluated and graded so that parents have some understanding of the relative quality of a particular school?
Visit it. Talk to the principal and teachers. Get a feeling for the climate of the school, the attitude of the adults, the spirit of the children, the involvement of the parents. Choosing a school is not like buying a pair of shoes.
DR: “Visit it. Talk to the principal and teachers. Get a feeling for the climate of the school, the attitude of the adults, the spirit of the children, the involvement of the parents. Choosing a school is not like buying a pair of shoes.”
I agree. Choosing a school is nothing like buying a pair of shoes.
It is more akin to choosing a physician or a lawyer. And most people are not knowledgable about evaluating something like that. Generally, if they “like” a physician or lawyer, then they conclude the physician or lawyer is “good”. That’s not a good standard to measure competence. While some people would be good at evaluating a school, a significant percentage of parents simple do not have the skills or background to do so. For them, I think it would be helpful if there was some (relatively) objective guidence available to help them with that task.
When you visit a school, it should be a happy, boisterous place where the children’s contributions are welcome. If the children are sitting silently in rows (or, worse, chanting, clapping and snapping in unison), run like hell. Children’s individual expressive work should be displayed proudly, even if it’s not “perfect”. If the children’s work all looks identical and mass-produced, run. Worse, run faster if there is no children’s work displayed, only “motivational” posters. School discipline should focus on understanding and correcting the underlying problem, not on punitive measures (or rewards). Class sizes should be small enough that every teacher can form a good relationship with each student. The curriculum should include science, social studies, art, music, foreign language, and physical education. If there are large (more than one hour) blocks for “literacy” or math, again, run.
You’ll note that none of these things are easily quantified and boiled down to an A-F grading system. That’s a good thing.
” For them, I think it would be helpful if there was some (relatively) objective guidence available to help them with that task.”
Then I guess it’s high time we set up systems like that for docs, lawyers, architects, etc. . . , eh! Let’s work on this together Lorentjd and we can become multi-billionaires. (Who’ll give a shit if the system is completely bogus and causes many people harm-oh wait a minute the lawyers just might.)
Duane:
I think rating other professionals (such as docs and lawyers) would be helpful to those who use those professionals. In any profession, there are those who are outstanding, those who are middling, and those who are poor performers, whether we’re talking about medicine, law, teaching, or any other profession. But, it’s very difficult for a layperson to assess a particular professional’s quality. Generally, if a layperson “likes” a particular professional, then they deem that professional to be “good” at what they do. That’s a poor measuring stick. There are a lot of lawyers who are very nice, earnest, and hardworking but who are also pretty incompetent…the kind of incompetence where I wouldn’t even want them handling a speeding ticket for me, let alone something more significant or serious. The same is true of teachers.
But, judging and slotting teachers as being excellent, good, or poor is an anathema to unions (it goes against the concept of “We’re-all-in-this-together” solidarity) and, probably, to most teachers (who may tend to be relatively risk averse – preferring job security to an opportunity to be evaluated and rewarded for excellence while risking being punished for poor performance).
Now, there is a lot of disagreement over HOW we might evaluate teachers. I think evaluation standards probably need to be a mixture of quantitative and subjective standards. Quantitative standards (such as measuring test score trends) are often viewed as unfair by teachers because (correctly) they don’t have control over so many of the factors that influence test scores (particularly out-of-school factors). Subjective standards are often viewed as unfair and subject to abuse because an administrator can easily manipulate a subjective evaluation in an effort to target a particular teacher. But, the answer to those difficulties should not be: “Well, let’s just throw up our hands and declare that higher teacher quality is simply correlated to longer tenures and advanced degrees,” or that if someone is hardworking, puts in long hours, and is earnest, then that the person is, by definition, “competent”.
If you don’t trust your own judgement in picking a school (though where you live generally determines where your kids go to school). You should ask neighbors, people you trust, look at the graduation rate at the HS, look at where the students go to college when they are done with that particular school system, these are all good indicators of what kind of school system that particular town has. House prices are usually high where the schools are good for this very reason. I didn’t need a test or test scores to know the school in the town I moved to 20 years ago were good. We had a very high percentage of our HS graduates going to good colleges. The town passed almost every referendum that came up to support improving the school district. For the most part the teachers lived in the same town they taught in, they trusted the schools so much. This let me know that this particular town cared about education and that having good teachers and a good school district were important. Had I moved two towns over my children wouldn’t have fared so well. They had ow college rates, they never passed referendums to improve the schools, and they have continued to decline as the years have passed. The houses were much cheaper, the taxes lower and in the end if I found this to be a valid indicator (but I don’t) the test scores much lower.
It is better to buy the cheapest and smallest house in a good town than to have a large house in a town that doesn’t care about education.
Parents, teachers & those Hoosiers who value the democratic process need to let Governor Pence & members of the Indiana General Assembly know they will not tolerate elected officials who undermine the power of their votes. Our votes count & we need to vote these people out of office.
Another article worth viewing is this piece (which is linked at the bottom of the article cited here):
http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20131022/BLOGS01/131029807
Apparently the GOP-appointed members of the board forgot that Glenda Ritz is a registered Republican. She only changed her party affiliation to run against Bennett in the November 2012. election.
**Below is a re-posting of my comments about an article yesterday.**
A little history of Indiana’s November 2012 election might be worth remembering (for those non-Hoosiers reading this blog); Glenda Ritz got more votes than even Governor Pence. By trying to dilute her influence, he is going against the will of the people. Pence is ignoring voters’ voices at his own peril.
Indiana is such a red state that if you are on the republican ticket and you lose, then there’s something seriously wrong with (1) your policies, (2) your message, or (3) just “you.” Bennett richly deserved this defeat, yet even after losing, he tried to spin it to sound as if he still did some good for the state. Bennett’s puppet-master, outgoing Governor Mitch Daniels (term-limited), was in such a froth about Bennett’s loss that he accused teachers of using school time to gin up opposition to Bennett. He even claimed he had proof, but never produced it:
(http://www.indystar.com/article/20121130/NEWS05/121130014/Gov-Mitch-Daniels-claims-teachers-used-illegaltactics-
defeat-GOP-state-education-chief-Tony-Bennett)
Joining Bennett in the losers’ column in Indiana was Richard Mourdoch, a tea-party candidate for US Senate whose message angered women voters because it sounded like Todd “legitimate rape” Akin. Bennett had big problems because of his overweening attitude to teachers, but he got thumped fair-and-square, even though he outspent Ritz 10 to 1. (Most of his funding came from big name reformers outside of Indiana who would never cast a vote in the state. Funny how that works…a rich reformer doesn’t vote in a state, but wishes they could…)
It is also worth remembering that Glenda Ritz is/was a registered Republican, switching parties only to run against Bennett. She did not caucus with the rest of the Democrats, and it was such a well-kept secret that I wasn’t even aware of it until election day.
I have been teaching in Indiana schools for 29 years.
Superintendent Ritz’s situation is just one of many education degradations in Indiana that have happened when you no longer have a balance in government. The Republicans legislators and past and the current Governors have done everything they can to dismantle a proud public education system. Those currently in power, with their super majorities, will not be happy until they have totally paid off the corporate “education” establishment buddies and profiteers. All who care about public education and fairness, should stand behind Superintendent Ritz and demand that the attempt to usurp her elected authority end!