Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the College of Education at Indiana University, wrote a letter to the editor of the Indianapolis Star agreeing with the dean of the College of Education at Purdue: Indiana is on track for an education disaster because of the policies enacted by the legislature at the behest of former Governor Mitch Daniels (now president of Purdue) and continued by his success Mike Pence.
He wrote:
Indiana’s downward trend in education enrollments can be traced directly to the policies promoted under then-Gov. Daniels and Indiana schools superintendent Tony Bennett. Between 2000 and 2012 constant-dollar teacher salaries in Indiana decreased by 10 percent, outpaced nationally only by North Carolina’s 14 percent decrease.
At the same time, the wrong-headed Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability policies promoted by Daniels and Bennett increased regulation of education schools and licensure requirements for teacher education students while lowering standards of preparation for nontraditional teacher prep programs. Coupled with the equally flawed testing and test-based teacher evaluation policies implemented in the state, these rules have driven out experienced, effective teachers while discouraging new teachers from entering the field.
Unless Indiana changes course, its public education system is headed for disaster. Already teacher shortages are being felt across the board, not just in traditional shortage areas.
It is wonderful to see education leaders speaking out fearlessly and telling the truth. Indiana’s leaders have led education to a precipice. Will the electorate permit them to continue destroying public education and higher education?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Read the comment section on the linked article (if you have a strong stomach). To be fair, read the comment sections on pretty much any education article in pretty much any major newspaper. While there are usually several very cogent commenters who clearly know what they’re talking about, there’s always the voice of the rabble, talking about “whiny teachers” or whatnot. I have no idea how representative of the actual world these proudly ignorant commenters are, but it’s almost enough to make me throw up my hands and surrender. Some people deserve what they have coming. Only problem is, the rest of us are getting it good and hard too. Maybe secession isn’t such a bad idea. Can we have a separate country for the sane among us?
LikeLike
Dienne, I have the bad habit of reading comments sections. Here’s my impression of what I read in the Detroit dailies:
* There are 3-5 posters who hate teachers and respond to every pro-teacher and pro-public education comments.
* There any many who post once only and generally support public education.
Our primarily problem is that most people are fully unaware of what public education has endured. I have extended family that doesn’t know what a charter school means. Therefore, education article comments sections tend to be teacher versus union-hating conservatives.
LikeLike
It is good to finally see higher ed speaking out, but I have to wonder why so many of them kept quiet as we in K-12 have been suffering for well over a decade. In my graduate institution, my professors liked NCLB, agreed with its “pillars”, and many capitalized on the various ways that NCLB privatized public dollars. I found it odd, given that they were supposed to be scholars, that they did not disclaim the ideologically-based NCLB in favor of research-based strategies for so-called “failing” schools. Instead, I watched as my institution – and others – pushed and shoved their way into the charter school feeding trough, becoming authorizers or even running their own, with professors putting their own children in these segregated enclaves even as they hypocritically proclaimed that they were in favor of public education (and the Bush education agenda). I warned that once they had sucked as much as they could out of K-12, the reformers would come after higher-ed, but my professors did not listen, thought I was a nutty anti-Bush conspiracy theorist from a left-wing state. I ended up leaving that institution ABD, due to financial issues and disagreements with that faculty. Now here we are, with the moronic Duncan going after Colleges of Ed, the University of Wisconsin eliminating tenure, other states like Arizona and Louisiana decimating their higher ed budgets since they already killed or privatized K-12. And now we finally have loud voices coming from higher ed.
LikeLike
You raise excellent points, and I certainly don’t have answers to them. However, I can tell you that if suddenly the General Assembly and Governor took a series of bills to laws that said that all cities in Indiana had to have three different police departments, and the taxpayer had to fund all three, people would be in revolt. Through the flash and dance of words and the sudden change to “school choice” wording, this is pretty much what is going on. There were numerous “referendums for funding” that traditional school districts put on the most recent ballots in Indiana because they needed money for busing, building repairs, etc. Most of the requests for money would not have happened had not money been siphoned off from traditional school districts to pay for charter tuitions and private vouchers, which perform no better than traditional public schools. You are right about higher education — once they have broken traditional public schools, they will go after higher education, especially the small universities. If that is so broken, why does the world seek to come to American universities? There is general consensus in Indiana that if Pence is re-elected, and the General Assembly gets another Supermajority the next election cycle in 2016, public education will be completely destroyed in Indiana and there will be a critical shortage of teachers in all levels, in all content, whether university trained or by just passing a test. Very few will choose teaching as a career and put up with this nonsense.
LikeLike
School ‘choice,’ is pure Orwellian double-speak. I heard it on a tv political as in NYC last night, Vote for choice, … raise the number of charters schools.
Ending a choice for public education by pitching privatization using tax-payer money.
LikeLike
The counter productive “reforms” by conservative governors are paying off. You should consider moving to Indiana so you can enjoy lower pay, more supervision, fewer resources and the liberty of a declining system. > > >
LikeLike
Of course, if you have no idea what you are doing, you can at least get a low paying job as a teacher in Indiana or Wisconsin since apparently all you need to do to qualify is to be breathing.
LikeLike
Pulse optional!
LikeLike
I agree. The silence has been part of the problem, but education faculty have also been active in shaping the very policies that have led to the demolition derby.
Among the most obvious is the failure of a coordinated effort to shut down dumb ratings, whether these are generated from the use of VAM and SLOs for teacher evaluation or the fraudulent Gates- funded ratings system published in US News sand World ReportT.
LikeLike
True. As a grad student, I taught some of the undergrad teacher ed classes and was appalled at how the faculty in my institution embraced rather than questioned so much of what was being done in and to K-12. Rather than equip these new teachers with knowledge about the history of standardized testing, or show them how to evaluate good curricular materials or teaching strategies, they taught them test-taking strategies, brought in curricular materials like Open Court and had students practice “teaching” lessons. Very few of the faculty had ever taught in K-12, yet they were tasked with preparing this next generation of teachers. About the only faculty member who ever spoke up was my qualitative research professor who was on the critical pedagogy side of things, and she, too, was dismissed for being too radical.
LikeLike
The rest of the states are heading in Indiana’s directions. In NYS, many teachers are counting the days until they can retire. Some aren’t waiting. Let us take heed and learn from Indiana’s mistakes.
Stupidity: Implementimg increasingly restrictive policies, then somehow expecting better results.
Ellen #TrueGrit?
LikeLike
Wasn’t it Gov. Daniels who set the stage for the Bush tax cuts by predicting federal budget surpluses
as far out as the eye could see?
LikeLike
It’s too bad these professors didn’t speak up before their own ox was gored, but better late than never.
LikeLike
Some have always spoken up – David Berliner, Gene Glass come to mind right away. I attended a forum where David Berliner also warned of many of these things, and one of my professors who was in attendance (nowhere near as published, distinguished, or knowledgeable about K-12) promptly dismissed his claims in our next class.
LikeLike
Sadly, the courageous people you mention are outliers, and most education schools are indoctrinating their students in the so-called reform ideology of “data-driven instruction,” (which translates as, “We tell you what’s important, and you go fetch”), even as they are being attacked and undermined.
LikeLike
Cross posted http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Indiana-University-Dean-Ag-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Accountability_Disaster_Education_Education-Funding-150603-756.html with this comment WHICH HAS EMBEDDED LINKS TO THIS SITE.
Look at how, state by state Public education is being demolished. My series 15,880/50 traces, http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.htmlusing many of Ravitch links, what is happening in the almost sixteen thousand districts in 50 states, as public education is privatized;
But there is a real conspiracy i to end our democracy by destroying the only road to opportunity for our 99%.
Look who is on board for this travesty: “In Atlanta, local NBC channel 11 station did an expose of the secretive far-right group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC. Under the aegis of ALEC, Georgia legislators met in a posh resort with corporate lawyers to decide their priorities for the next session.
Ravitch explains “Except for Bill Moyers on PBS, this is a topic the mainstream media won’t touch.
“For a thorough and chilling review of ALEC’s plans to privatize education, see ALEC Exposed. ALEC loves charters and vouchers, hates unions, loves profits.
“ALEC has model legislation, which legislators introduce into their states. It even has tax credit legislation, similar to the one that Governor Cuomo introduced in New York. It has already been adopted by several states to benefit private and religious schools.”
“The field of education is awash in conflicting goals, research “wars,” and profiteers” says Diane Ravitch Separating Fact and Fiction About Charter Schools. “In education, there are no federal or state laws protecting consumers from bad educational practices. And education researchers have never united as a field to agree on methods or curricula or practices that have sound scientific backing. That makes it very difficult for the non-expert simply to look to a panel of experts for the state of the art in education research. There are no universally acknowledged experts. Every parent, administrator, and teacher is on his or her own.
LikeLike
Those of us who live in Indiana are well aware, at least the educators, of the truth of the writings described. I know of teachers so angry, frustrated, ad nauseum that they are ready to quit the ‘profession”. And these are some of our best teachers. Others are just trying to hang on until they can retire.
LikeLike
It seems this administration and the one prior have one agenda when speaking of INDIANA EDUCATIONS……..the dumbing down of our children. I am proud to say that I have 2 sons,a daughter-in-law a niece, 2 nephews and a brother-in-law that are or have been educators. All are highly intelligent people that could have made thousands more each year in another field but chose education knowing it is the backbone of the country. Each work 55-65 hours per week and spend much out of their own pockets for class supplies. A son even hold test prep class many times on a Sunday afternoon when he could be home with his own children. Anyone able to read this feeble post can go thank an underworked,overpaid TEACHER.
LikeLike