Read here to learn Indiana State Superintendent Tony Bennett’s description of “a beautiful day.”
I can think of so many other ways to describe a beautiful day.
I’m going out to take a walk and experience one of those beautiful days in Brooklyn. I want to forget about the people who smile when they cause other people to be miserable. Who smile when children are taking tests again and again, for hours on end. Who smile when teachers and principals are fired. Who smile when all the joy is squeezed out of learning and teaching.
I have a different idea about a beautiful day. I’m going out to enjoy one.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And after closing that first school, he’ll start taking candy from children. The Burgermeister Meisterburger is back in town, kids!
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I wonder if he really said that, or if the interviewer took it out of context? This seems to shocking.
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You must not know the guy. Call the IDOE and ask anyone there, off the record, if this sounds like something he would say.
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Here is a song/video about the current state of education in Indiana (and America). Please PASS IT ON to help get the word out about Tony Bennett and the privateers.
If this link doesn’t work do a youtube search for “Public School Fight Song (Indiana Version)”.
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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 profit 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.
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