Whenever a superintendent speaks truth to ower, their voice should be heard. What is more, they deserve to be honored. I am glad here to honor William G . Hochgesang, Superintendent, Northeast Dubois public schools and to add him to our honor roll as a champion of public education. The politicians are hurting children, hurting teachers, and decimating public education. Thank you, Superintendent Hochgesang, for speaking up with courage and clarity for our kids and our democracy.
This letter from Superintendent Hochgesang came from another Indiana superintendent, Dr. Terry Sargeant:
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
Over the weekend, I received this letter through the Indiana Small & Rural Schools Association. It was written by Dr. Bill Hochgesang, Superintendent of Northeast Dubois Schools, to his school board the evening he asked them to approve their new teacher contract. In a nutshell, I have not heard the circumstances currently faced by Indiana Public Schools expressed any better. This letter is beginning to go viral in Indiana and I thought you might enjoy reading it. I agree with Bill 100% and I only hope that the political pendulum in Indiana will begin to swing the other direction soon – for the sake of our kids.
Most sincerely,
Terry
Dr. Terry R. Sargent
Superintendent
Jennings County School Corporation
34 W. Main Street
North Vernon, Indiana 47265
(812) 346-4483
tsargent@jcsc.org
“All children are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others.”
– Michael Carr
” Board,
I am recommending to the board this evening that they ratify the contract as presented. This contract for the second year in a row has a zero increase . Our Classroom Teachers Association does this fully knowing that zero isn’t in reality a zero. It is a negative as our insurance rate increased by 4% in 2013 and increased 8% for the 2015 school year. In the past there was a salary schedule for teachers that had an increment in place for experience . That option was taken away two years ago by our legislature. So this is a true pay cut for the second year in a row. Along with our teachers, all employees of Northeast Dubois have taken this same cut in salary the past two years . It saddens me to have to ask for this and accept this. But that is the reality of what we are currently dealing with.
It does however give me great pleasure to work in this school system where kids truly come first. Our school corporation is a system where people honestly put students’ needs ahead of their own as evidenced by these actions. Our school corporation is innovative as shown by our technology, our atmosphere and, of course, our success . Still we are never satisfied and continuously work to improve. Our school system strives to provide students the opportunity to pursue their passions and excel in many areas! Our school system is one where there is no talk of cutting any programs or enlarging class sizes in order to save money-yet. I worry about this trend continuing. Staff has shown their dedication to students by forgoing pay in order to protect these programs and class sizes.
I only wish I lived in a state where legislators cared as much for students as we do at Northeast Dubois. In 2009, $300,000,000 was taken from the education budget and never returned. Yet we all read in the news that the state has a $2,000,000,000 surplus. One doesn’t have to be a math expert in order to see where 75% of that money came from. Take five years times $300,000,000 and it is crystal clear that $1.5 Billion has come at the cost of the schools in Indiana. Many schools have turned to referendums, just to make ends meet. In fact, after the May election one out of every three schools in Indiana has run a referendum on the voting ballot. Yet, what do we as educators get from our legislators? We get higher standards, more accountability and forced competition, competition for money that is not increasing. We are forced to compete for students, as the money follows the child . We get forced competition where students are ranked, teachers are ranked and schools are ranked. Ranking always produces winners and losers, there is always a top and always a bottom, and in education there cannot be any losers! The education of every child in this state is critical. I am a firm believer that every school in this state is giving their best effort! I wish the legislators would truly see what great things are happening in our schools and begin to support our efforts . I feel they have forgotten the essential role education has played in the success in their own lives and that an education is the most important aspect in leaving a legacy for our children. Public education as we know it is in grave danger. Our legislators need to know just how much we care about our schools and we need their support!
Northeast Dubois is surviving like every other school corporation in this state; we are surviving by a slim margin. We are surviving because of our dedicated, caring and giving people. To all Northeast Dubois employees: Thank you for truly putting kids first! I am humbled to be a part of this school corporation. And hopefully better days are ahead! Let’s keep working together for all our students!
Thank you,
William G . Hochgesang,
Superintendent, Northeast Dubois ”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Superintendent Sargent’s letter should provide the template for letters, from all school districts, plagued by self-dealing politicians.
The state auditor of Ohio said 22 corrupt charter operators, in Ohio, have been convicted and his office identified $9,000,000 in stolen of misspent public money. All tax payers, across the nation, are forced to rely on the vigilance and integrity of state auditors and the prosecutorial will of the states’ attorney offices. Which means, taxpayers could be far more screwed, than they know.
The public school system has an excellent record of serving the people who generate GDP. The system has, tragically, been co-opted by the same types of people who brought the U.S., to the brink of financial Armageddon.
Great letter and sad.
I would really like to know why state legislators have elected to target public schools, teachers, and students for budget cuts.
Also, why the grand silence from the majority of adults who not only graduated from public schools, but can also name the teacher(s) who really “added value” to their lives, likely with actions that are totally off the books of accountability and never included in those dumb VAM scores.
The misrepresentations of the “condition of schooling,” in every state and nationally are perpetuated by narratives constructed by numbers, not the life stories of real people including parents, teachers, and community members who pitched in with the right touch, specific opportunity, needed boost to affirm the potential and worth of a student.
I can name at least 10 of these individuals (k-12), not one of them likely to pass muster on any of these student surveys, observation schedules, stack ratings of teachers based on student scores on standardized tests. A great number of teachers had some combination of redeeming qualities, quirks, and unremarkable but essential coping strategies for dealing with large numbers of students in the place called school. These special places may have looked like factories Only one teacher that lives in memory was really mean-spirited and (in retrospect) was really unfit to teach.
A pathological preoccupation with tests scores as if these are credible and trustworthy measures of the “value added” to the lives of their students needs to be exposed as a fraud, part of what Diane has aptly named as the “Reign of Error.”
The courageous stance of these teachers and this superintendent in Indiana is, i think, not that unusual but the context in which they are working is too rarely publicized. I hope more superintendents will join in this process of “coming out” even if it may seem to be politically incorrect. We need these voices.
Let’s hear what his teachers have to say. Administrators praising administrators may or may not be noteworthy. In this case, I tend to think the praise is deserved, but comments from those directly affected by his stewardship would go even further.
He has to send it to parents. People who work in schools know all this. Parents have just a snapshot for the period their children are in school. They probably don’t know we once had federal and state lawmakers who supported public schools. They probably don’t know public schools are replacing state funding with local tax levies. The midwest has had ed reform for more than a decade now. Public schools getting screwed by ed reformers in government is the new normal.
I don’t think they should ask nicely for federal and state lawmakers to support their schools. It isn’t optional for lawmakers, “choosing” to support public schools. It’s part of their job. No one hired them to replace public schools. The promise was “improve” public schools.
I’d like to know how many politicians have lost a position due to their education policies? I can’t think of many.
Standing ovation for the letter.
Not enough have lost their positions. We are trying to remedy that in Indiana on November 4th. There are over a dozen teachers running for state legislative seats!
Saddened to see him refer to the “school corporation” throughout the letter, although he does use school system also.
I was wondering if that reference wasn’t just how the school districts are referred to in Indiana, perhaps a legal term.
Someone from the Hoosier State please fill us in.
The are commonly called school districts and corporations throughout Indiana, referring to all the schools in the district (in this case 2 elementary schools, a middle school, and high school).
I don’t know the fine points of the law on this, but as a Hoosier, “school district” and “school corporation” sound about the same to me.
Yes, we refer to most school systems as School Corporations. It doesn’t mean anything and has been that way for at least the last 40 year, since I can remember.