Remember that Tony Bennett, after being beaten by Glenda Ritz in an election last fall, was hired to be Commissioner of Education in Florida? Remember that he resigned his position in Florida after the Associated Press released emails showing that Bennett had changed the grading system to lift the grade of a charter school founded by a big campaign contributor (both to his campaign and to the state GOP).
Indiana grades just came out. Christel House Academy, Bennett’s favorite charter, dropped from the A that he manufactured, to an F.
Lots of excuses from the charter school.
The dog ate its homework.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I followed the ISTEP debacle in Indiana because ed reformers are pushing online testing hard in Ohio, and whatever happens in one state under ed reformers tends to be lock-step adopted in all states run by ed reformers. I figure we’ll be mandated to buy this garbage in my district shortly:
“In May, about 80,000 of the roughly 500,000 students who took ISTEP experienced problems taking the test online. In some cases, the test froze or response time lagged. Some students had to repeatedly log back in.
Over the summer the state hired an outside evaluator to verify the validity of the scores. His report found just 1,400 student tests were invalid, causing virtually no impact on school and district results, state officials said.
Still, it’s not just Christel House that is concerned that their grades were impacted by the testing problems, despite the education department’s assurances.
“That was a pretty widespread thought,” said Todd Bess, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Principals. “Whether that manifested itself into actual grade changes. That’s a good question.”
It really was rough on students and teachers. Looks like the contractor was incompetent. I can’t imagine how much Indiana spent on the system.
It isn’t just that very young kids were thrown into a testing system that was frustrating as heck and didn’t work, it’s the TIME they spent testing. Reading the piece below, it looks like Indiana kids were testing for a long period in May because the system was a piece of over-priced crap:
http://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/tag/istep-2013/
I just love your humor, Diane! Thanks for the giggles!
Haha…the DOG ate his homework.
A-F = FRAUD x Tony + Jeb
My school experienced many of those delays in the testing. And yes, it did effect the kids and threw some of them off, but in the end they mostly “performed” as expected. The school grades that were released reflect something far more disturbing than technical problems from an incompetent vendor. The grades illustrate that public schools did very well, private schools performance slipped significantly and charters were worse than bad. So in my opinion the results do not show the problem to be the test interruptions as Tony’s favorite school would have you believe, but it is the vouchers that are putting more students of poverty into the private schools and the increase in charters that cater to high poverty students. Anyone with any kind of educational experience whether you are a teacher, administrator or the custodian can see that the grades reflect the effect of poverty. A local blogger recently wrote that “Pence (Mike Pence our current gov) is right to move the needle on education,” in reference to Pence’s recent announcement to increase charters and vouchers. But it is obvious that we need to “move the needle” on poverty. It is just so frustrating that these incompetent, fraudulent politicians continue to call for the destruction of public education, when it is the one social system we have that is the most likely to address poverty.
Your explanation doesn’t entirely jibe, as the majority of the highest poverty students are still in public schools. Private schools don’t typically offer meals or transportation, so even with a voucher that eliminates a lot of high poverty students. Also, just the process of looking for and apply at a private school takes a certain amount of engagement and savvy, so children of the least engaged/knowledgeable parents are still in public schools. So why did public schools perform so well on the tests?
I still stand by my assumption. Private and charter schools are having to deal with poverty and have no social service networks to help. Public schools have been dealing with poverty for decades and we know how to help these kids overcome their obstacles. Private and charter schools which are getting a big boost from our current incompetent governor are not doing well to serve students that experience challenges in life such as poverty, inequality and developmental disabilities and it shows in their test scores. Not to worry though, now that our state has decided that anyone can get a voucher, the tax payers of Indiana will be financing the education of upper-middle class children that are sent to schools where they learn that evolution is a farce and that the earth is merely a few thousand years old. They will not have room for those less fortunates (translation: low-income, ELLs or Special Ed) and their state test scores will improve.
Have public schools in Indiana improved under ed reform?
I know, I know, silly question. Who cares about the other 90% kids in the state, right?
If you regard the state test scores as an indication of improvement, then probably yes. Our graduation rate has increased, more students are taking AP courses and also taking the SAT and ACT. But students going on to college is still low, probably a statement more about the economy in Indiana as opposed to the public schools. And those that do get to college need serious help in the form of remediation. But we all know that is due to 10+ years of NCLB. Links below reference the low incomes of Indiana residents, and the Indiana DOE.
http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/indianas-employment-numbers-income-levels-60425/
http://www.doe.in.gov/accountability/annual-school-performance-reports
Isn’t it amazing that all of that clapping and snapping that the Charter Schools do isn’t really improving education for students?