From a reader who read the emails gathered by investigative
reporter Tom Lobianco of the Associated Press, insights about the
back room discussions to impose “reforms” without talking to
legislators.
She wrote:
“Todd Huston, Tony Bennett’s Chief of
Staff, Indiana Department of Education is clearly in collusion with
a small circle of deformers to destroy public education in Indiana.
Al Hubbard, a classmate and fundraiser for GWB and David Harris of
the Mind Trust are involved in the plan of destruction. According
to Hutson, “We have to lead the media.” and “If we respond to the
educrats, we will always be on the defensive.”
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/an-email-timeline-of-indianas-education-reforms
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_documents/ind_ed/choice.pdf
pg 1 of 3 Al and I have encouraged him to pay attention to ed and
he’s having lunch soon w D Harris. He knows the Mind Trust has
hired commissioned a study that will support Mayor control. pg 3 of
3 4) We have to lead the media. If we respond to the educrats, we
will always be on the defensive. Instead, we should begin a strong
communications effort focused on the major media markets. Our
experience has been that the Indianapolis, South Bend, Evansville
and Lake County papers really desire educational reform and those
are the markets we have to win in. The rural and small town markets
won’t care and could even be persuaded that it might mean more
money for them.
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_documents/ind_ed/last_nights_agenda.pdf
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_documents/ind_ed/notes_and_agenda.pdf
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_documents/ind_ed/agenda_wrap.pdf
http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_documents/ind_ed/meeting_notes.pdf
http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/auber/bios/miles.pdf
http://inhrcc.com/candidates/37/todd-huston
http://www.indystar.com/VideoNetwork/1334522956001/Matthew-Tully-with-Mind-Trust-CEO-David-Harris
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I find this really depressing. They are lowlifes.
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See this:
“6) We are going to have to build capacity during this time. We will have to work with the Archdiocese and other private providers so that we can make the argument that these kids will have choices. Giving vouchers to over 30,000+ kids only works if we can create a market for them. We don’t have to have a market for all of them immediately but we have to show that there will be one for some immediately and more to come.”
Create a market for some, don’t worry about “all of them”…more to come….kids are props, kids are things to manipulate and move around, toss aside, etc. Choices, yup, that’s what this is all about…nasty human beings.
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Indiana State Representative Huston is another so called reformer who is really all about an ideology & I think that ideology is himself! Too bad these jokers never have the public good as part of their agenda.
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I see two of the “Chiefs for Change” have been laid low by what seem to be simple FOIA requests. What about the other six?
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Ron, that will happen.
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I can write the second chapter of this tale for public school parents in Indiana, because we’ve had status quo reform in Ohio for 16 years.
Here’s the marketing pitch from the salespeople:
“The rural and small town markets
won’t care and could even be persuaded that it might mean more
money for them.”
And here’s the reality.
http://innovationohio.org/2013/06/24/news-release-io-gop-budgets-help-private-charter-schools-at-the-expense-of-public-schools/
What those in “rural and small town markets” will find out is that reformers will gut public education funding as soon as they get a foothold in the state, and capture the legislature. Not only will they NOT improve public schools, they will actively damage your local school. We’re down 1.6 million a year under “reform” and we don’t have any privatized schools. We lost funding and we gained standardized tests. That’s the sum total of “reform” after 16 years. It’s ALL downside.
Run, Indiana. Take it from your neighbors. Run as fast as you can away from these folks.
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“Also, we must engage the business community
to assist Higher Ed in understanding what the market requires and not let them
offer options for students with no long-term economic gain for the student or
state”
It strikes me as kind of odd to hear statements like this. I get that we don’t want students learning underwater basket weaving, but, aren’t there noble academic pursuits that lead to innovation? Even if there’s not a technical or vocational aspect to a degree, don’t some of those areas have value for our society? Don’t we need our dreamers and those who will make new things out of the ideas they develop from seeing issues in other areas?
When did we nix the idea of a well rounded critically thinking human being, being a solid goal of education? How many people in their jobs today, necessarily use their college major as the starting point of where their job skills come from?
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The five day work week is gone. Even teachers are being pressured into working Saturdays either to baby sit for students who have discipline problems or have fallen behind in credits or need special tutoring or re-teaching during what Administrators happily call Saturday School. The schools get hundreds of dollars per student and pay the teacher a small fraction of that, maybe $18 per hour per class which may be 35 or more if the Administration can get enough students to attend. School Administrations make a nice profit, but who are they spending this surplus on during these times of cutting teacher pay? This must have been something created by one of those Capitalists like Bill Gates. I think Micro-soft might use something like this to rate their workers. Lets see, cut teachers pay, then force them to have to work Saturdays to pay for their home mortgage if they have a home or to pay their ever increasing electric or gas bills which seem to increase without any public input. Is this a tax increase? Oh No, it is Capitalism and a group of wealthy people are getting their well deserved profit from their investment. No one gets a profit from any Educational System, unless you live in a foreign country like Germany. So we should not invest in them? Next idea will be Sunday School and We are not talking about Church related Sunday School even though someone may figure out a way to pay the Churches to do it for less and of course it will be more successful if the state pays them enough money and we can do this with vouchers and give the money directly to the family to use at the Church or school of their choice. I wonder why Arne Duncan hasn’t imposed this idea on schools, yet? Oh, he is currently telling the President to fire missiles at Syria and reward with RTTT grands to the different ships depending on how well they perform and close or mothball the worst performing ships and fire all the crew or replace 25% of the crew with SFA (Solders For America) who could be recruiting from the unemployed. He told the President to give Waivers to the ships willing to go ahead without Congressional Approval. No problem, HE is either The Dictator or some GOD, who knows all the correct answers and HE said let the Capitalist System work as it should.
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I am hard pressed to define when I am working and when not. Sometimes, like this afternoon, when I am grading, it is clear. But when I am reading the New York Times or the Economist of even simply noting the world around me, is it for my own ends or so I can communicate with students?
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I never had a “40 hr” work week in my life of 42 years a teacher, and 20 years of studenting. Perhaps “labor” sees life differently. Take me out to the ball park.
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Connect the deform dots in Indiana. Cam Savage, Limestone Strategies is working over time through the print media to defend Tony Bennett and Heather Neal. She was hired as legislative director for Pence after she worked for Bennett. She resigned from her position in Pence’s office and now works for Cam Savage at his “political strategy firm.”
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/sep/01/a-few-leaves-dont-necessarily-paint-portrait-of/
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/aug/19/no-headline—lobbyist/
http://thestatehousefile.com/pences-chief-lobbyist-headed-to-private-political-strategy-firm/12891/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/camsavage
Communications Director
Indiana Department of Education
Government Agency; 10,001+ employees; Government Relations industry
January 2009 – February 2010 (1 year 2 months)
Communications Director
Mitch Daniels for Governor Campaign
May 2007 – December 2008 (1 year 8 months)
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Is it against the law, or unethical, for attorneys to knowingly give false information? One needs to follow up on ms neal and her actions. cam has always been a political mouthpiece, sad to see that supposedly smart business people would hire his firm. Tells me alot about their company. cam was put in place at the doe to help give voice to tony as tony really did not know anything about the ed issues they were pushing, he was just willing to be a bully for them. All this is really too bad, some of the ideas this bunch put forward were pretty good and would have had buy in from the ed community, but it is not in their nature to be inclusive or to collaborate–do it their way or get out of the way. And of course, they had money to make.
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