Dear Friends,
This is the first “Vic’s Election Notes on Education” for 2018. Notes under this title contain commentaries on election candidates and my personal candidate endorsements. There is no link between “Vic’s Election Notes on Education” and any organization. __________________________________________________________________________________ Which candidate for U.S. Senate from Indiana should be favored by public education advocates? If you are a voter who puts a high priority on public education, Joe Donnelly is the best candidate in the U.S. Senate race. As an advocate for public education, I have reviewed the record, and Joe Donnelly has my full endorsement over Mike Braun. Here are my reasons. Mike Braun Has a Poor Record on Public Education Mike Braun served in the Indiana House of Representatives representing District 63 for three sessions: the long budget session of 2015 (after winning the 2014 general election unopposed), the short session of 2016 and the long budget session of 2017 (after defeating Democrat Andrea Hulsman in the 2016 general election). Then he resigned to run for U.S. Senate in November, 2017. [Please note: Indiana Code 3-14-1-17 says that government employees including public school employees may not “use the property of the employee’s government employer to” support the “election or defeat of a candidate” and may not distribute this message “on the government employer’s real property during regular working hours.” Ironically, the law does not prevent private school employees from using computers purchased with public voucher money to distribute campaign materials. Private schools now financed in part by public voucher dollars have retained all rights under Indiana’s voucher laws to engage in partisan political campaigns.] It intrigued me that Mike Braun’s U.S. Senate primary campaign ads ignored his three years in the General Assembly and made it sound like he was a businessman with no experience in government. During those three sessions, he had a poor record on issues related to public education:
Joe Donnelly Has a Strong Record on Public Education
It’s a clear difference. If supporting K-12 public education is a concern as you vote, I urge you to support Joe Donnelly in this tight election race and to ask friends and family to do the same. Good luck in your work! If public education is going to survive in Indiana, voters will make all the difference. Thanks for advocating in support of public education! Best wishes, Vic Smith [email protected] Dear Friends,
Was Monday’s special session the death knell of accountability in Indiana? How can the General Assembly vote that Muncie public schools don’t need to follow the accountability and school letter grades law without questioning the need for any school to have letter grades. Their action Monday leaves a huge question mark over the accountability mandates that have dominated Indiana education policy since 1999. The Indiana General Assembly opened a new can of worms called “beyond accountability” when they passed House Bill 1315ss by votes of 63-30 in the House and 34-14 in the Senate. The roll call showing individual votes is below. As planned, no amendments were allowed in the contentious bill. If the supermajority party had a plan to dampen controversial election issues before the November elections, that plan got tossed out on the way to passing an extremely controversial bill which will resonate through November. Three Firsts in Indiana History When the history of public education in Indiana is written, the special session approving House Bill 1315ss will serve as a landmark moment when threepreviously unassailable pillars of public education were knocked off. As a result of this bill, which went through finance committees but not education committees, public education has changed in three ways:
Pillar 4: Every public school district should be run by a school board of district residents. In my Notes #321, I described the deconstruction of public education in Indiana, pillar by pillar. I cited three pillars that have already fallen and more pillars that would fall if HB 1315 is passed. They have now fallen, starting with an attack on school boards and the basic belief held for the past 180 years that every public school district should be run by a school board of district residents. The passage of HB 1315 has dissolved the elected school board in Gary and turned it into an advisory board, a move that Gary leaders including Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson vigorously and futilely denounced. The new law includes no pathway to return to having a school board. In Muncie, as many as three of the seven school board members appointed by Ball State can be non-resident outsiders. Allowing outsiders to serve on a geographically based public school district is a first for Indiana history and forces everyone to rethink the meaning of democratic self-rule. How can this be considered democratic representation when school board members are not from Muncie? Representative Tim Brown, the bill’s author, said in defending this stark departure from previous school board law that the Ball State appointed board might need to have a member who is an expert from Indianapolis, maybe from the Mind Trust. Here is his exact quote as he presented the bill on the floor of the House: “Maybe we could have a specialist from education that came out of – maybe could come out of Indianapolis, somebody who has dealt with a turnaround school and innovation going forward. Maybe somebody from the Mind Trust could be on the school board, something like that.” I wonder how that comment is going over among the electorate and property tax payers of Muncie who have now lost their right to elect their school board members with no legal provision to return to local elections. The Senate version of HB 1315 inserted a plan to elect two board members starting in 2022. Senator Mishler, however, lost the argument to Representative Brown in the Conference Committee, and Representative Brown’s vision of an entirely appointed board pushed Senator Mishler’s election plan aside. Pillar 5: Every public school district should follow the education laws of Indiana. For the first time in Indiana history, a public school district will be not have to follow hundreds of Indiana education laws, including the bullying prevention law and the law requiring instruction in child abuse and child sexual abuse. This makes the Muncie public school district, which must follow only 29 laws listed in HB 1315, essentially equivalent to a charter school, which must follow only 21 laws listed in the charter school law. This change clearly undermines the Indiana Constitution in Article 8 which says the General Assembly has a duty “to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition will be without charge and equally open to all.” It is no longer a “general and uniform system” if all public school districts must follow hundreds of education laws except for Muncie which must only follow 29. Pillar 6: The accountability law applies to every public and private school. For the first time since its 1999 passage, the General Assembly has given a school district a pass on following the accountability law, a dominating law established with bipartisan action that has been given the highest priority for two decades. No group of schools has ever been excluded from the accountability law:
Now, Muncie schools will not have to follow the accountability law. When Minority Leader Terry Goodin objected to this fact in Monday’s debate, Representative Brown said that Ball State would have to report back to the General Assembly and to the Distressed Unit Appeals Board in 9 months, implying that this report would provide accountability. Apparently, giving a report to the General Assembly is now equal to school letter grades which under IC 20-31 can threaten the future existence of a school. The General Assembly’s hard-nose stance on accountability has been changed for the first time. Have we now entered the “beyond accountability” era of report and reassure? I’m quite sure many school districts would trade the punitive letter grade law for a report to the General Assembly about their progress. Representative Goodin asked Representative Brown if following the accountability law could be amended back into the bill as a third reading amendment or in the next session. Representative Brown said “we will consider all things” but “I don’t again want to commit to the future.” With that comment, the accountability law in Indiana has entered a new controversial era of selective enforcement. Partisan Support and Bipartisan Opposition in the House Three Republicans in the House joined all 27 Democrats voting to oppose HB 1315ss. They should be thanked. Republicans voting against HB 1315ss: Representatives Nisly, Saunders and Siegrist Democrats voting against HB 1315ss: Representatives Austin, Bartlett, Bauer, C. Brown, Candelaria Reardon, DeLaney, Dvorak, Errington, GiaQuinta, Goodin, Hamilton, Harris, Hatfield, Klinker, Lawson, Macer, Moed, Moseley, Pelath, Pierce, Porter, Pryor, Shackleford, V. Smith, Summers, J. Taylor and Wright. All 63 voting to pass HB 1315ss were Republicans: Representatives Abbott, Aylesworth, Bacon, Baird, Bartels, Beumer, Borders, Bosma, T. Brown, Burton, Carbaugh, Cherry, Clere, Cook, Davisson, DeVon, Eberhart, Ellington, Engleman, Friend, Frizzell, Frye, Gutwein, Hamm, Heaton, Heine, Huston, Jordan, Judy, Karickhoff, Kirchhofer, Lehe, Lehman, Leonard, Lindauer, Lucas, Lyness, Mahan, May, Mayfield, Miller, Morrison, Morris, Negele, Olthoff, Pressel, Richardson, Schaibley, Slager, Smaltz, M. Smith, Soliday, Steuerwald, Sullivan, Thompson, Torr, VanNatter, Washburne, Wesco, Wolkins, J. Young, Zent and Ziemke. Five were excused from voting: Representatives Behning, Culver, Kersey, McNamara and Speedy Two did not vote: Representatives Forestal and Stemler Partisan Support and Bipartisan Opposition in the Senate Six Republicans in the Senate joined all 8 Democrats voting to oppose HB 1315ss. They should be thanked as well. Republicans voting against HB 1315ss: Senators Alting, Becker, Bohacek, Ford, Ruckleshaus and Tomes. Democrats voting against HB 1315ss: Senators Lanane, Melton, Mrvan, Niezgodski, Randolph, Stoops, Tallian and Taylor. All 34 voting to pass 1315ss were Republicans: Senators Bassler, Boots, Bray, Brown, Buchanan, Buck, Crane, Crider, Delph, Doriot, Eckerty, Freeman, Glick, Grooms, Head, Holdman, Houchin, Koch, Kruse, Leising, Long, Merritt, Messmer, Mishler, Niemeyer, Perfect, Raatz, Sandlin, Smith, Spartz, Walker, Young, Zakas and Zay. Two were excused from voting: Senators Breaux and Charbonneau Three more pillars have now fallen The controversies of House Bill 1315 go deep into the fabric of public education:
These surprising outcomes of a short session now become the fodder for the fall election debates if the candidates or the voters take actions to make them issues in the campaign. Best wishes, Vic Smith [email protected] “Vic’s Statehouse Notes” and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma! Join ICPE-MC. We need your help. Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well throughout the 2018 short session and during the special session in May. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word! Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio: I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998. In 2013 I was honored to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU School of Education, and in 2014 I was honored to be named to the Teacher Education Hall of Fame by the Association for Teacher Education – Indiana. In April, I was honored to receive the 2018 Friend of Education Award from the Indiana State Teachers Association. Dear Friends,
Two questions:
The unprecedented experiment in HB 1315 to have Ball State run Muncie public schools “subject only to” following 29 out of hundreds of Indiana’s education laws cries out for an amendment. Allowing a public school district to follow only a small list of education laws is a first in Indiana history. As currently written, the bill will (1) remove important protections for students, (2) remove community protections, (3) remove basic standards, and (4) remove opportunities for state grants for student programs. It’s a flawed plan that has received little attention. For the safety of Muncie public school students and to preserve accountability to the Muncie community, HB 1315 must be amended. Yet after a two hour hearing on HB 1315 today in the Legislative Council, the bill was approved with no amendments for consideration in the May 14th special session. The vote was 10-4, a party line vote. To restore the laws protecting Muncie students and other important laws, contact your legislators and contact Ball State to ask them to delete Section 3 (c) on pages 32 and 33 of the proposed draft of House Bill 1315 ss. How Does HB 1315 Remove Protections for Muncie Students? Under this unprecedented experiment, Ball State can ignore:
How Does HB 1315 Remove Accountability to the Muncie Community? Under this unprecedented experiment, Ball State can ignore:
How Does HB 1315 Lower Basic Standards? Under this unprecedented experiment, Ball State can ignore:
How Does HB 1315 Remove Opportunities for Grants for Student Programs? Under this unprecedented experiment, Ball State can ignore:
This isn’t right. Ignoring these laws has nothing to do with the financial problems that Muncie is digging out of. This appears to be one more step in the deconstruction of public education in Indiana. In the long history of public schools in Indiana, an Indiana public school district has never been allowed to ignore the hundreds of education laws except for a cherry-picked few. It’s an ominous signal to the future of the rule of law in Indiana schools. Ball State should actively dictate an amendment to repair these student protections or else they should withdraw from the plan. Their reputation is at stake. It saddens me that Ball State is involved in a plan that would remove laws protecting Muncie students and the Muncie community. I am an honors graduate of Ball State, Class of 1969. The best thing that Ball State could do is to run Muncie public schools based on the education laws that all other public school districts follow by asking for the deletion of Section 3 (c) on pages 32 and 33 in the proposed House Bill 1315ss. What Can You Do? If you agree that these changes are needed, please contact your House member or your State Senator this week to let them know that Muncie students should not lose the protection of the bullying prevention law or of any of the hundreds of other laws the Indiana General Assembly has passed. This experiment to lop off hundreds of Indiana education laws makes no sense. Tell your House member and your State Senator before the May 14th special session that they must make changes to protect Muncie students and the Muncie community. Even after a two-hour hearing today we still must ask: What is wrong with having Ball State follow the education laws of Indiana when they take over the Muncie Community public schools? Thank you for your active support of public education! Best wishes, Vic Smith “Vic’s Statehouse Notes” and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma! ICPE has worked since 2011 to promote public education in the Statehouse and oppose the privatization of schools. We need your membership to help support ICPE lobbying efforts. As of July 1st, the start of our new membership year, it is time for all ICPE members to renew their membership. Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well throughout the 2018 short session and will represent us during the special session in May. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word! Join ICPE–Monroe County. Some readers have asked about my background in Indiana public schools. Thanks for asking! Here is a brief bio: I am a lifelong Hoosier and began teaching in 1969. I served as a social studies teacher, curriculum developer, state research and evaluation consultant, state social studies consultant, district social studies supervisor, assistant principal, principal, educational association staff member, and adjunct university professor. I worked for Garrett-Keyser-Butler Schools, the Indiana University Social Studies Development Center, the Indiana Department of Education, the Indianapolis Public Schools, IUPUI, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, from which I retired as Associate Director in 2009. I hold three degrees: B.A. in Ed., Ball State University, 1969; M.S. in Ed., Indiana University, 1972; and Ed.D., Indiana University, 1977, along with a Teacher’s Life License and a Superintendent’s License, 1998. In 2013 I was honored to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU School of Education, and in 2014 I was honored to be named to the Teacher Education Hall of Fame by the Association for Teacher Education – Indiana. In April, I was honored to receive the 2018 Friend of Education Award from the Indiana State Teachers Association. Dear Friends,
The Special Session of the Indiana General Assembly on May 14th has turned deeply controversial. Two pillars of public education are now at stake. The Governor had recommended a non-controversial loan to the Muncie Public Schools in the Special Session, with the rest of the controversial House Bill 1315 to wait until the next session. The leaders of the General Assembly announced on April 20th that they will ignore the Governor and resurrect the entire controversial House Bill 1315, and they will pass it with no amendments and no public testimony in a one day session on May 14th. Take that. HB 1315 was the most controversial education bill of the short session
These provisions are wrong. The bill fails the test of common sense. It must be amended. The thought that it almost passed in this condition is disturbing. The thought that Ball State supports the bill in this condition is hard to understand. Ball State should ask for changes to follow all Indiana education laws in order to protect students or they should walk away from the plan. Unfortunately, this controversy will no doubt be ignored in a busy election season unless public school advocates go into action by objecting to the bill forcefully to their legislators in the Indiana House and the Indiana Senate. The General Assembly leaders have the votes to ignore the Governor’s advice and do what they want, but will they regret stirring up such controversy in an election year? That is up to you voters and advocates. Why Does House Bill 1315 Deserve Your Attention and Time? Now that a month has passed since time ran out on House Bill 1315, the full extent of its experimental departure from two pillars of public education in Indiana has come into focus. First it violates for the first time in the 180 years of Indiana public school history the requirement that every public school district should be run by a school board of district residents. Second it violates for the first time the requirement that every public school district should follow the education laws of Indiana. The Deconstruction of Public Education in Indiana: The Pillars Keep Falling This bill is not just about Muncie and Gary. It represents two more steps in the drumbeat of steps to deconstruct the system of public education in Indiana. House Bill 1315, debated in a short session without ever going through an education committee in either the House or the Senate, takes out not one buttwo long-standing pillars of public education in Indiana. That is why it deserves the attention of all Hoosiers, not just those in Muncie and Gary. Strong forces in the Indiana General Assembly favoring the privatization of our public schools have previously acted to demolish three pillars. Pillar 1: Public money should not pay for private school scholarships. This pillar fell in 2009. For the first time public money was budgeted for private school scholarships through tax credits for donors to Scholarship Granting Organizations. Taxpayers will pay $12.5 million for this purpose in 2017-18. Pillar 2: Public money should not go directly to private schools. This pillar fell in 2011. For the first time, the passage of the voucher law gave public money directly to private schools. Taxpayers will pay $153 million to private schools in 2017-18, according to the Indiana Department of Education. Pillar 3: Voters should elect the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. This pillar fell in 2017, in the long session of the current General Assembly. A bill passed taking the power to select the State Superintendent of Public Instruction away from voters and giving the Governor the power to appoint a secretary of education after the 2020 election. The new law does not even directly require the appointee to have K-12 experience. Now Pillars 4 and 5 are targeted on May 14th under the plan of Speaker Bosma and President Pro Tem Long Pillar 4: Every public school district should be run by a school board of district residents. The bill would allow three school board members appointed by the Ball State board of trustees to be non-residents of the school district. It would also legally end the Gary school board in favor of a board of advisors with no pathway in law to return to having a school board. Questions flow:
No real rationale has been offered for having non-resident outsiders on the Muncie school board except a statement by Representative Tim Brown, the bill’s author, that Ball State should be able to appoint David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey or Bill Gates to the school board. Pillar 5: Every public school district should follow the education laws of Indiana. Quoting from House Bill 1315: “the Muncie Community school corporation is subject only to the following IC 20 provisions:”, an unprecedented watershed statement followed by a list of 29 laws. Such language has never been used for public school districts in Indiana. The bill calls it “flexibility”. It was likened in discussion of the bill to charter schools. The list of 29 laws does not begin to capture the body of law that the General Assembly has passed in previous decades to protect students and help them achieve. Despite claims that this bill has been vetted, it deletes vital protections for Muncie students including (1) 20-30-5-5.5 bullying prevention and (2) 20-30-5-5.7 instruction on child abuse and child sexual abuse. Students in the Muncie school district will lose the protections of the bullying prevention law and the child abuse instruction law. With these glaring problems, passage of HB 1315 in one day with no amendments would just be wrong. Tell legislators about this problem. They apparently haven’t heard from Speaker Bosma and President Pro Tem Long that the final language of HB 1315 that nearly passed will remove these laws protecting Muncie students and many other important laws. Questions flow again:
This is an astounding claim to say that Muncie schools need only 29 of the hundreds of Indiana education laws to function under the control of Ball State. While the General Assembly leaders have said this bill was vetted in the House and the Senate, the many questions about operating Muncie schools without regard to Indiana law were never reviewed by the education committees of either the House or the Senate, only the finance committees. That is not a proper review in a short session for a bill that brings into question the need for the entire list of education laws in Indiana. What Can You Do? This controversy will get little attention from the press during an important election season. Public school advocates need to speak up anyway.
Public education will remain in jeopardy until candidates and voters in election campaigns make it clear that the deconstruction of our system of public education in Indiana and in the nation is unacceptable and is damaging to students and to our democracy. Thank you for your active support of public education in these challenging times. Keep doing what democracy needs! Best wishes, Vic Smith “Vic’s Statehouse Notes” and ICPE received one of three Excellence in Media Awards presented by Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, an organization of over 85,000 women educators in seventeen countries. The award was presented on July 30, 2014 during the Delta Kappa Gamma International Convention held in Indianapolis. Thank you Delta Kappa Gamma! Our lobbyist Joel Hand represented ICPE extremely well throughout the 2018 short session and will represent us during the special session in May. We need your memberships and your support to continue his work. We welcome additional members and additional donations. We need your help and the help of your colleagues who support public education! Please pass the word! Join ICPE–Monroe County! |
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