Indiana Blog Review

Education Kick

RiShawn Biddle, always with smart commentary on education:

• "Are Public Schools Really Diverse?"
• An assessment of Superintendent H. Douglas Williams
• And the petty snubbing of a chart school in Gary high school sports

Graduation Rates

RiShawn Biddle was impatient for the numbers.  Now that they're out, Advance Indiana laments, and Abdul has a radical suggestion.  Mark Rutherford, "But at least we have palaces to house our failed government schools."  His suggestion for regional centers sounds promising.

Leo Morris says of the methodology, "Both ways of calculating the graduation rate are arbitrary, and you could make good arguments for either one . . . The important thing is to have a system everyone understands."

But Biddle counters that the new rate isn't arbitrary.  Both agree that greater transparecny will lead to new solutions.

Counting Noses

RiShawn Biddle:

How will school districts, after being forced by the state to report more accurate graduation rates, deal with the fact that they must admit by month's end that their graduation rates have been inflated for far too long. Judging from the responses so far, many will come up with seemingly reasonable arguments that fail to stand up to scrutiny.

Scandalista

FWOb asks, "How is Fort Wayne Community Schools like Nicaragua?"

Teach Your Children Well

RiShawn Biddle lobs a bomb at IPS.

Supersuperintendent Peterson

Abdul Hakim-Shabazz suggests replacing the IPS school board with the Mayor's office.

Green Wood

RiShawn Biddle:

For those who took offense when I mentioned Arlington High School Principal Jackie Greenwood's role in the dropout crisis that hurts young Blacks in Indianapolis -- and Indiana -- more than any other racial or ethnic group, here are some sobering numbers for consideration.

In Step ISTEP

Annette Magjuka:

The biggest problem with public education in Indiana is the focus on minimum standards. ISTEP standards are lower than national standards, yet passing ISTEP is seen as a goal rather than what it should be, the bare minimum.

Graduation Rates?

RiShawn Biddle fact checks . . . the Indianapolis Star:

Anyone reading Expresso or the Star Editorial Pages knows by now that Indiana's high school graduation rates are atrocious. Some 25,000 students drop out of Indiana's high schools a year, while the state's actual graduation rate -- not the official inflated version due to be replaced by year's-end --has hovered around 70 percent since 2001.

So you can imagine the interest I had in news-side colleague Staci Hupp's report on Monday that the Annie E. Casey Foundation, through its Child Trends survey, ranks Indiana as having the worst dropout rate in the nation. The problem is that the Casey study overstates the case by a country mile. Why? The statistical basis for its estimate has long ago been revealed as a poor measure of educational attainment.

Dropping Out

RiShawn Biddle:

But Carpenter and those out there who think as he does, will have a much difficult time arguing additional evidence -- this time from state education department data -- that there isn't a dropout crisis.

Priorities in Education

Annette Magjuka on Indiana's dismal education data, "We need crisis management. The biggest gains in education can be made with the top students and the youngest students. First, we need to bolster the top achievers. We must stop holding them back until the rest of the class catches up. Too often in Indiana, this is never."

Secondary-and-a-half Education

Dick in the Dirt, "Earning a Degree in High School -- An Idea Whose Time Has Come."

Will Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson's bold new plan succeed?  "Let's hope the feds and the State stay out of the way on this one."

Losing Architecture

Matthew Stevenson:

Visiting Bloomington today, I was moved to tears when I saw that the University had moved ahead and demolished the beautiful fraternity house of Kappa Sigma. The house was built in 1920, played host to Hoagy Carmichael but had been abandoned for quite some time. Rather than try to renovate it, the University let the building sit empty. The destruction of this building and the way the decision was reached were questionable and lacking in public input. The cowardly leadership of the Trustees, President Herbert and Vice President Clepacs in this case is just one more example of their backwards leadership.

Seeing Stars II

And now some praise for the Star, as RiShawn Biddle continues to provide a good public service by posting more election profiles of IPS candidates in Expresso.

I Step Because I Can't Drive

RiShawn Biddle, "The seriousness the state shows when it comes to drivers isn't shown when it comes to education.  Why else would it be harder for someone to pass the state's written driver's exam than it is to pass ISTEP?"

Injustice in Academe

FWOb reports:

Danny Epple, an IPFW student who pleaded guilty to a felony charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing death, was elected to an Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) student government office in last week's campus elections.  The death he caused was that of IPFW economics Professor John P. Manzer.

Mr. Epple is to be sentenced later this month in the drunk driving death of Professor Manzer.  The accident happened last August on Coldwater Road north of Dupont Road.

Mr. Epple emerged victorious among three candidates for the post of Vice-President of Programming.

Advance Indiana asks:

So explain this to us: why would the university not allow other student candidates to raise questions about this student's criminal record? Or better yet, why has this student not been expelled from the university? Could the university have found anything worse to slap Professor Manzer's widow in the face with?

Complaining about IT

IU Prof. Eric Rasmusen voices a common complaint in Bloomington, "Indiana University used to have a quite good software system for student-teacher communication called OnCourse. We still have the name, but we have yet another example of a new version of software that is distinctly inferior to the old . . . Somebody should be fired, but as usual nobody will be. "

The switch to the new software system was a presidential initiative started by Myles Brand (now gone, but not forgotten) and implemented by Michael McRobbie (now -- inexplicably -- interim Provost).

School Bored

RiShawn Biddle is all over the IPS elections, including a profile of school board challenger Derek Redelman.

If you read IBR (or Expresso) and live in Indy, chances are you are all ready a responsible citizen.  Please urge your neighbors to be so as well.

ISTApundit

Despite the fact that no one seems to have seen the lawsuit yet, the Hoosier Blogosphere is producing some good commentary on the ISTA challenge to Indiana's school funding policy.

Most notably, RiShawn Biddle has some background and a prediction, "The ISTA suit may open the door for growing school districts, notably Hamilton Southeastern, to demand a full and immediate conversion to per-pupil funding to their benefit -- and to IPS' detriment."

Abdul finds that such lawsuits aren't rare, "Indiana is not alone, according to some research I did this morning, 37 states have been sued over education funding, 21 have been successful and nine are pending."

And Doug Masson concludes, "I might be wrong, but this does not look like the sort of issue a court is well suited to address. School funding within broadly defined parameters strikes me as a legislative matter. The suit might be useful in producing information that can educate the General Assembly, but this seems like a very inefficient way of conducting a study."

Knife Fight

Heaps of scorn for the Warren Township School District for suspending a student for accidentally bringing a pocketknife to school and immediately turning it over to the proper authority, via Mike Kole and Michael Packer.  Packer's got contact information in case you want to complain.

Update:  Plans to expell the boy have been dropped, "the school board said in a letter that 'we can all learn from this incident and in the future apply some common sense when interpreting rules.'"

Update II:  Mike Kole has more.

School Fees Out

Advance Indiana explains a recent Indiana Supreme Court ruling that declares student services fee unconstitutional.  The Indiana Law Blog quotes Indiana Education Insight, "The 4-1 ruling is likely to send shock waves across the state, since many school districts have turned to charging students supplemental fees to offset budget deficits. The extra income has been used to pay for everything from the salaries of school librarians to the cost of fine-arts and alternative schools."

Indy Law School

Lucas Sayre notes that the new U.S. News & World Report law school rankings have been leaked to the blogosphere.  IU Law - Indy moves up to 77th.

Bradford

IndyLawNet posted a press release from interim Dean of the IU Law School in Indy Susanah Mead announcing that Profs. Mitchell and Roisman have been cleared of ethics charges.

Advance Indiana has more background on the story.

Update:  IndyLaw Net picks up on a story revealing what will happen to former Prof. William Bradford.  <cough>

Grading Professors

Ever wonder what happens to those course evaluations you filled out in college?

Yeah, what you suspected is correct.

Dropping Outside the Big Cities

RiShawn Biddle:

For those who think the state's dropout crisis is primarily an urban matter and a problem for just Indianapolis or Gary, here's some analysis of preliminary state graduation numbers that show otherwise.

Got Junk Food?

A week ago, Dave Haxton noted that Senate Bill 111, which regulates vending machine contents in schools, "would effectively classify whole milk as a junk food. Milk that's been processed, dried and had every bit of natural goodness sucked right out of it would be just fine - but not whole milk, and certainly not real milk. "

Does anyone know if that made it through to the final version?

Carroll 'satire' published online

Fort Wayne Observed features the book, "Carroll (The Book), A Student's Guide to Bureaucracy Inaction" that resulted in the explusion of a Fort Wayne High School student.

Writes Nathan Gotsch at FWO:

Over the last few days, Tracy Warner, Frank Gray and Leo Morris have all been kind enough to read a copy of Carroll (the Book) and tell us whether writing it rises to the level of expulsion.

Like you, I wanted to see it myself before passing judgment.  Yesterday I read it and earlier this morning posted my thoughts.

And I think that you ought to be able to do the same thing before deciding if the author in question deserved to be expelled. That's why I've decided to post the pages of the book here on Fort Wayne Observed.

I've talked to Jeff Fraser, and -- surprise -- he doesn't want the book to be made public. But he's also trying to get as much public support for his plight as possible, and that's hard to do when you're not willing to let people read the book in question.

Mitch at Indiana Parley also has good coverage of the issue.

Mike Sylvester at Fort Wayne Libertarian reports the school board will have a closed meeting on the issue tomorrow.

It is now reported in today's Journal Gazette that The NACS Board will be meeting in a closed hearing tomorrow at 6 PM. There is no doubt in my mind that they will overturn the expulsion and I fully expect them to overturn the expulsion unanimously.

Expelled blogger round-up

Fort Wayne Observed is keeping track of the Fort Wayne high school student who was expelled for satirical blogging against his school's administration.

In fact, I can report that "Free Fraser" t-shirts are in the process of being printed and will be available at tomorrow's event.

Indiana Parley reports that the blogger was a no-show for a radio interview.

Comments Leo Morris:

I'd really like to read the book.

Most people who've been commenting on the case of Jeff Fraser, the 17-year-old Carroll High School student expelled for writing a "parody book" said to be "satirically critical" of the school and some people in it, haven't read it. That leaves them commenting in a vaccum, relying mostly on their own preconceived ideas about the way school-student relationships should be. An exception is Tracy Warner of The Journal Gazettte (an editorial in his paper says the book "includes an occasional expletive and heavy amounts of criticism, but it is at times funny and perceptive"). A school board member, on the other hand, says the book has "some pretty pointed comments made towards certain personnel that I think were way out of line.”

Blogger suspension fallout

Indiana Parley comments on the story reported here yesterday about the Indiana blogger who was expelled from his high school. 

Free Speech is not allowed for students at Carroll High School in Ft. Wayne Indiana, where a student was expelled for writing a satire about the school's administration.

Also weighing in on the story is Marie at Welcome to Hoosier Land!

Kids are not allowed the same freedom of speech at school and he wrote it on the school's computers. If he wrote what appeared to have been harassing comments about other students or teachers then by all means he deserved expulsion but without the document I could not say that. Unfortunately for us we will never know because school officials are not allowed to discuss a students record in public. Clearly it will be a case to watch and I hope only the best outcome for all those involved. Some lessons are learned the hard way.

Allen County School Board candidate and Fort Wayne Libertarian blogger plans to address expulsion issue in a future post.

I attended the last school board meeting and have been collecting information about this situation...

Teacher's union dues fund educational missions?

Joshua Claybourn at In the Agora has the story about where NEA teacher's dues are going.  Evidently, they aren't advancing educational missions.

Thanks to new federal rules large unions must disclose how they spend their members' money, and with the NEA that disclosure isn't pretty. The union spent over $65 million of its members' money on an array of liberal groups such as "Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups." As the WSJ notes, many of the organizations have little or no educational mission.

1/3 of Allen Co. students in private school

Indiana's statistics show that 91% of Hoosier students attend public school.  In Allen County, only 64% attend public school.  Fort Wayne Libertarian has some thoughts and announces he's running for his local school board.

If you include children who are home schooled in these statistics then fewer then 64% of all children in Allen County are attending Public Schools; in fact, Allen County has the highest percentage of children enrolled in private schools in the entire state. Allen County has 5.4% of the total population of Indiana. Allen County has 21.3% of all children enrolled in Private schools in Indiana.

Intelligent Design battle fizzles

A recent Pennsylvania  federal court's decision against teaching Intelligent Design may have a group in Indiana rethinking its litigation plans, reports Abdul Hakim-Shabazz at Indiana Barrister.

The Pennsylvania federal judge's ruling that booted intelligent design out of the Dover school district has found its way to Indiana. A group that threatened to sue the Hamilton Southeastern School District (HSE) over its refusal to teach intelligent design appears to be calling it quits.

Fetal education classes proposed

Advance Indiana has the scoop on proposed fetal education classes for Indiana's public school students:

Under SB 45, high school health education curriculum will be required to include instruction on: the result of human sperm and egg convergence, the resulting development of human conception, the health consequences of early termination of pregnancy, photographic images portraying each state of uterine development, and descriptions of human fetal development.

Daniels' schools plan

Gov. Mitch Daniels has set two priorities for education reform: school deregulation and consolidation of purchases and services, reports Masson's Blog.

The draft legislation has not yet been released, and the devil, as always, is in the details (not, as some would have you believe, in the evolution curriculum). Still, as general matters, those sound like good ideas.

Overpaid?

Mike Sylvester at Fort Wayne Libertarian comments on a report that Indiana's teachers are underpaid.

Based on my experience I feel that teachers are OVERPAID.  ...

The teacher has ALWAYS had:
Much better benefits of every kind including retirement, medical, etc.
Has always worked fewer hours. On average the teacher works about 25% less hours.

Mike also has a new poll about legislative priorities and the results of his earlier questionnaire asking if a downtown Fort Wayne hotel should be subsidized by the public.

Oral Report

The controversy about the Columbus North student newspaper article about the dangers of oral sex will be spun by Bill O'Reilly on tonight's No Spin Zone, advises Leo Morris.  The show airs on the Fox News Network at 8 p.m. Indiana time.

Times they are a changin'

A walk down memory lane at IU is featured at Paul Musgrave's blog.

Let's talk about sex, baby

Leo Morris, Masson's Blog and Liberal Indiana weigh in on Libertarian Kenn Gividen's declaration to the Indianapolis Star that a student newspaper isn't the proper place for a discussion of the risks of sex.

Watching Weight

Leo Morris:

Is it really schools' job to help students lose weight and get fit? The state thinks so, but its voluntary plan to have schools measure the weight and height of Indiana's 1 million public school students this year is running into school concerns about privacy. Only 320 of Indiana's nearly 2,000 public schools have signed up to participate. The privacy concerns are legitimate; I can remember being a fat kid in school, and I wouldn't have wanted my weight in a database (although, way back then, it would have been a notebook).

Calling Out Teachers

A post from a student on the state of high school education in Indianapolis, from the Indy Star's Fresh Thoughts:

Recently, I was in a class where not everyone completed an assignment. The punishment? The teacher let us complete it in class or bring it the next day. That’s like saying “If you don’t do your assignment there won’t be consequences so bring in you work whenever you want.”

Show us the consequences. Stop allowing us in class without books, paper and proper supplies. Teachers, step ya’ game up.

Raising Questions

Masson's Blog on Indiana's tax amnesty program, which ends tomorrow:

[...]Some information I would find useful:

• Gross amount collected or promised.

• Breakdown between amount actually received and amount promised. (As a debt collector, I can tell you that every once in awhile, a debtor's promise to pay doesn't work out. Or, more accurately, "most of the time" the promise doesn't work out.)

• Collection costs -- how much did we pay outside contractors or additional to state employees to get what we got.

• Amount compromised -- how much debt was forgiven to get what we got.

My guess is that the executive branch press releases will tell us the answer to the first question but none of the rest.

PREVIOUSLY: Taking Down Words on tax amnesty

Sad News

RiShawn Biddle on Indy Star's Expresso blog:

Just 28 percent of Manual High's original class of 2005 actually made it to graduation according to preliminary state education numbers. Out of 617 students students, only 173 graduated. Worse, a mere 101 students were actually promoted from grades 9 through 12, meaning the graduation rate would have been worse if not for those additional 72 students.

A mere 292 students -- out of 1,093 freshmen -- entering Arsenal Tech in the 2002 school year graduated this past school year. Only 38 percent of the 593 freshmen in Broad Ripple's class of 2005 actually garnered their sheepskins; Northwest only had a 26 percent graduation rate, or 188 graduates out of 726 students. As for Arlington? Try a 27 percent graduation last year.

But IPS isn't the only district with dropout factories. One suburban Marion County high school, Perry Meridian in Perry Township has a graduation rate that remains a shade under the public school Mendoza line of 60 percent; same for Pike High School, where just 399 of the 664 freshmen who entered the school in 2002 school year actually graduated. Ben Davis did slightly better with 64 percent of the 992 tenth-graders arriving at its doors in the 2003 school year graduating three years later.

Nor can the rest of the state's high schools sit pretty when it comes to graduating students. Few can be surprised that Gary's Theodore Roosevelt High School graduated just 41 percent of the 245 students that entered as freshmen in 2002. But it's almost as bad in Shelbyville where a mere 64 percent -- or 199 -- of the 309 freshmen entering Shelbyville High School graduated on time last school year.

Oops

From Monday's Indiana Daily Insight:

Didn't an Indianapolis-suburban school district that requires all of its teachers and staff to be paid via direct-deposit accidentally double-pay employees on Veterans Day . . . forcing them to do some red-faced scrambling over the (bank) holiday weekend?

Summer Vacation

Deliberate Chaos:

Want to travel for free? Even better, want to do it on the taxpayers' dime?

Join the Gary School Board.

Intelligent Debate?

Advance Indiana summarizes an Indy Star article on a crack within the "House of Bosma" over intelligent design and suggests the school board election results in Dover, DE might be causing Republicans to reconsider making this an issue.