One of the few certainties to emerge from the intense effort to privatize public education is that giving A-F letter grades to schools is incoherent, punitive, and does nothing to help schools. Former superintendent Tony Bennett, a hard-right ideologue out to destroy public education in Indiana, imported the A-F grading system from his mentor Jeb Bush. No matter where it came from, it is useless.
Bennett resigned his job as state commissioner in Florida after the news broke that he toyed with the A-F to help a charter school founded by a major campaign contributor.
Instead of throwing out this tainted system, the State Board handed responsibilty for it over to the legislature, to further dilute the authority of State Commissioner Glenda Ritz, who beat Tony Bennett.
What a civics lesson for the students I’d Indiana: if you don’t like the winner of the election, carve her job away.
Whatever you do, the reformers believe, pay no attention to research, evidence, experience or election results.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This appears strikingly similar to the behavior of those in the House of Representatives these past 2+ weeks
It appears to be the MO for various people these days.
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My way or the highway.
Been there done that with an a….w….e of an adminstrator.
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What, you mean Indiana isn’t the leader in ‘education reform’? Our local paper in NW Indiana kept telling us we were. Tony Bennett [not the singer] and former Governor Mitch Daniels made a mess of this state. Will we ever recover?
The stresses that come from poverty -crowded conditions, lack of money, no adequate child care, lack of health care and poor diet- lead to impaired learning ability. Several years of studies which matched stress hormone levels to behavioral and school readiness tests have proved this.The way to improve student achievements is to reduce the stress in their lives.
Neither former Governor Daniels nor Tony Bennett recognized the problems of poverty. Their approach to education reform is to attack teachers (salaries and evaluations largely based on test scores) and create vouchers for charter schools. Teachers are not allowed to strike in Indiana and they cannot bargain for better working conditions. The protests made by teachers and superintendents were never heard.
I live in NW Indiana. Thanks for speaking the truth about ‘education reform’ in this state.
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Carol, your post is alarming. We need strong teacher unions now more than ever not only to preserve the integrity of our profession but to protect students from corporate “reforms”.
Here is a post from a teacher/administrator who knows what it is like to be an educator without a union.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/06/in_defense_of_teachers_unions.html
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The teacher unions top echelon (I refuse to call them “leaders”) have been bought off!!
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“The way to improve student achievements is to reduce the stress in their lives.”
And one would think the way to improve teaching is to reduce the stress in the job.
Stable conditions are needed for great learning to thrive.
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I agree completely. I have worked in schools where the stress level was completely unbearable. People in their 30’s and 40’s looked as worn out as I felt. Teachers, who used to joke and laugh now ate their lunches by themselves in their rooms, trying to get all the paper work done.
We are professionals but when we are stressed, there is an atmosphere in the school that affects children. It is not a learning environment but an environment of fear. How sad that the people with legislative power don’t recognize that kids, and teachers, are more than robots who can’t feel. We are feeling humans and we all need compassion and love.
I am honored to be reading Dr. Ravitch’s blog. It is refreshing to realize that there are people who understand what is really happening in our schools.
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Also in NW Indiana… and yes, working conditions for many teachers in Indiana are HIDEOUS!!!!
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Are there other states where school accountability letter grades are decided by the legislature? And if Glenda Ritz is “taking her time” in releasing the letter grades it’s only because she is cautious with the process….after the Bennett mess there is no reason for haste. She actually wants to be fair and accurate…which is also hard to do because inherently letter grades are NOT fair and accurate for most schools OR the teachers and principals who work there.
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Hi Emily, I don’t believe Ritz has control of releasing the letter grades.
“The battle for control of Indiana’s education policy escalated Friday when top Republican lawmakers shifted calculation of school accountability grades for the 2012-13 school year from the Department of Education to the Legislature’s bill-drafting shop…It’s also the latest scuffle in what’s becoming a power struggle between Republicans [who totally control our state government] and Ritz, the lone Democrat holding a statewide office. Since Ritz defeated Bennett last November lawmakers have considered diluting her power on the board, a Bennett ally on the board has taken control of long-term planning for the group and Gov. Mike Pence created a second education agency charged with shaping education policy.”
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NC has a new Read to Achieve mandate. I was reading the brochure for parents and at face value it seems OK. I asked a classroom teacher if schools would be graded or rated on how many kids are retained after third grade (because it stands to reason such a grade might not account for ESL etc). This teacher said, and I found it an interesting idea, that buildings could also measure growth themselves and send info like that to the papers. In other words, rather than the state humiliating school communities through one published standard, that individual schools could also go about keeping up with growth and making that information known in the community.
I think it is an idea any school who sees unfair consideration by the state might try. ???
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I like that…beat them to the punch. Report the data to the people who pay for the school.
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I was just reading our local paper named The Times of NW Indiana. Here are some interesting quotes:
“The battle for control of Indiana’s education policy escalated Friday when top Republican lawmakers shifted calculation of school accountability grades for the 2012-13 school year from the Department of Education to the Legislature’s bill-drafting shop…It’s also the latest scuffle in what’s becoming a power struggle between Republicans [who totally control our state government] and Ritz, the lone Democrat holding a statewide office. Since Ritz defeated Bennett last November lawmakers have considered diluting her power on the board, a Bennett ally on the board has taken control of long-term planning for the group and Gov. Mike Pence created a second education agency charged with shaping education policy.”
It’s much worse here than just teachers and superintendents not being heard. Our elected head of the Department of Education Glenda Ritz, a former teacher, isn’t being heard.
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AMEN!!! Those of us who have suffered under Bennett know all too well what a disgrace he was to “education” here in Indiana. Long letters to the editor have been written and even published by many people but the power of the media, owned by corporate CEOs, have seemingly overpowered our message. “Don’t confuse us with facts, we have already made up our mind” or if it serves our fiscal bottom line, kill the messenger if you cannot kill the message kind of thing.
Thanks to Dr. Ravitch and people like her for fighting the good fight.
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