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Be True to Your School Reform

A few items of note to report this morning regarding education…

ISTEP test scores are scheduled to be released Tuesday at 10 a.m.  State officials tell me that they will be taken into account in determining whether the state will intervene and takeover several failing schools.  The scores will also help determine whether schools in their fifth year of academic probation become ripe for takeover next year.

More than 100 private/parochial schools have been approved to participate in Indiana’s school voucher program, 13 of them are in Indianapolis.  You can view the entire list here.  One thing that I found was ironic was that one of the schools approved to participate was Cathedral High School on the northeast side of town.  It is less than five minutes from Arlington High School which could be taken over by the state.  It’s amazing to think that although the schools are just a few blocks apart the quality of the education in both places are light years apart.  Hopefully, vouchers will help bridge some of that gap.

I have to give a big thumbs up to Wayne Township schools and their latest education innovation, the creation of a virtual high school.  The Virtual Education Academy will allow students from across the state to get a high school diploma on-line.  The classes are taught by accredited teachers and final exams will have to be taken in person.  One of the best things about the program is that it allows the school to deliver educational services in a cost effective manner, and can even be a revenue generator for the school.  Now there’s a thought, a public school district that actually makes money instead of costing the taxpayers money.

Finally, if you get a chance, join me and the Friedman Foundation for Education Choice on July 29 at the Conrad to celebrate the life of Milton Friedman.  It’s from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.  If you are a big believer in education choice and that a student’s education should not be limited by his zip code or some status quo bureaucrat, then you definitely want to be there.   You can RSVP to Keri Hunter at keri@edchoice.org. Try to do it by July 22 and it’s also free. Hope to you see there.

Posted: 07|11|11 at 6:29 am by Abdul Hakim-Shabazz
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  • Taxpayer_834512

    TA, Pascal & others can better comment than I, but I think  school boards, superintendents, et al, need to more fully disclose results and finances if they’d like to fight-off technological competition.
     
    I’m certainly up for seeing a comprehensive presentation of where the money’s going and what the results are.  However, I need to have some trust.  Realistically, in Marion county, I need a third party involved or slowy acquire that trust.  That means we consistently hear about the programs, teachers, and facilities that aren’t working out and the subsequent actions taken, as well as the glowing dog and pony show presented per meeting.  
     
    I’d very, very much like Indiana students to be taught by live instructors, but given our economic plight and the history of obfuscation, it’s tough sledding and the school districts needs to be more forthcoming (to put it nicely). 

  • pascal

    The Teaching Company has a number of courses on sale thru July 14 for $20.00  Try one.  Better than Bullshit! 
         Government schools are based upon lies.  To fully disclose results and finances would be their doom.  College lecture classes often can have more than 200 students in them.  That is little difference from a virtual school or a teaching company tape.  Anyone who has been to college has also suffered from poor quality instruction at one time or another. 
        Why fight technology?  Get every kid who can read a Kindle and let them have at it.  The establishment does obfuscation as a matter of course and necessity. 

  • Taxpayer_834512

    I’ve spend a lot (for me) of money with the Teaching Company, and am very happy with their product. 

  • Notwaitingforsuperman

    ISTEP was invented by corporations to discredit inner city schools and educators in order to privatize. The test varies in content from year to year. Many test items are subjective in nature and the DOE is making it harder to have test items re-evaluated. Some test items don’t count while others are weighted. ISTEP doesn’t really test what a student knows. It just finds out which students are tricked easiest. People who claim public education in Indiana was better 20 years ago need to look for the ISTEP scores from those years- we didn’t have any! Students and their homes were accountable.Schools do MORE for a kid other than provide them with a test score. I’m sure the DOE will take into consideration their numerous computer screw ups and shutdowns during the test this spring. Ha, not likely. Hope the teachers got what they were tricked into voting for this past November.

  • gdm

    is this the complete list of schools applying for vouchers.  I know of several who are suppose to be on it that aren’t?   Indpls area

  • Think Again

    Notwaiting is more right than wrong.  (Sigh).  The whole testing mantra is so bloated with corporate greed.  Still taxpayers demand and deserve some yardstick for their tax dollars’ effectiveness.

    Abdul: no governmental entity is supposed to “make money.”  You might want to re-think that part of your post.

    And if you think the voucher thing will work in the Cathedral-v-Arlington debacle, you’ve got a lot to learn.  Your answer is a typical black/white answer to a very gray question.  As in:

    Cathedral has been able to filter their student body for decades.  That’s their right.  the voucher rules are loose at this time; but I bet they’re still able to accept only the students who fit their mold.  Arlington never had the option, and never will.  If your radio station had to accept all advertisers at the lowest-possible rate-card rate, you’d be broke in a few months.  

    I’m waiting for a school model, that advances pupils when they’re ready to move on, regardless of calendar age.  Some 10-year-olds are smarter than some high school graduates, and if so, with proper guidance, they should matriculate as promptly as possible.  Conversely:

    Some 24-year-old need more remedial help and should not be walking the streets as a high school “graduate.”  The word has lost a lot of its effectiveness.

    We’re locked into this k-12, 18-and-done model that hasn’t worked in five decades.  It gets progressively worse with each decade.  Unless you’re in the top 10-20% of a class, we’re basically warehousing and marking-time for June 1 to come each year, so the pupils can move on.

    I don’t know the entire answer.  I suspect my answer would potentially be more expensive–but I bet it’d be more effective.

  • Think Again

    One more thing–this will be likely to upset some Wayne Twp. folks, but:

    As a general rule, a system that is graduating less than 60% of its students is not likely to be a good example for an innovative online instructional method.

    It’s a struggling school system, under the most-rosy application of educational standards.  If I lived in that township, I’d ask:

    **will the new online system support itself, via fees?
    **if not, why aren’t those dollars being directed to the large numbers of current students who aren’t graduating on time or performing well?
    **or, is this program supposed to answer my second appoint above?
    **what kind of faculty effort is being directed to this program? 
    **is that faculty being “pulled away” from regular duties?  New faculty being hired?
    **what’s being done to reach the students who do not have internet access or computers?  

    If Wayne is just redirecting existing dollars, I’d have serious questions.  But, it may be worth a try, so long as strict monitoring is in place.

    To sum up, I’m not so much against the program.  I just question the program managers, whose track record is consistently in the bottom three-county-wide.

  • Anonymous

    Government schools = teacher union monopoly

  • pogden297

    Anyone who thinks schools are better prepared for college than they were 20-30 years ago should talk to college professors and see what they think.  They will all tell you that they are not.  It doesn’t matter if they profs are Republican or Democratic, conservative or liberal, they all talk about how the quality of students has declined greatly the past few decades. 

  • melyssa

    I’d be happy if the superintendents would have an actual goal for graduation rates and present a transparent plan to their boss (us) about how they are going to reach stated goal. 

    Seems to me the only goal the superintendent’s care about is how much money they are going to get. 

  • Anonymous

    Our graduation rate was over 80 percent last year.

  • Anonymous

    Just looked it up…83.5 percent at Ben Davis High School and 96.3 percent at Ben Davis University High School.

  • Ramon

    Abdul,  you are being very disingenuous in comparing Catherdral and Arlington solely on their geographical location.  You know better than try to peddle that crap to your readers.

  • Scooter

    Abdul’s words have quite a bit of merit.  Those two schools are just a stone’s throw apart.

    Another way of looking at the ‘school choice/voucher’ program is a parent driven voluntary form of busing.

    Woaaahhhhhh.  Here come the haters in five, four, three, two….

  • Scooter

    That’s why there are so many folks on the ’5-year plan’. 

    I was able to see the end product of US High Schools while in the USAF.  West Coast had problems with math, East Coast had problems with the written word. Southern folk wanted to go play instead of work.

    But one thing was apparent.  These teens coming into the USAF were not a bunch of eggplants.  We would get a kid that could only add & subtract on his fingers, and within a year he could compute the fuel and cargo load positioning of a KC-135R in percent of MAC (Mean Air Chord), in his head.   The kid who couldn’t compose a letter home to Mom, was authoring technical data changes on a B-1B bomber in only 18 months.

    These young folks were not stupid, slow, or unteachable.  They were the product of crappy public schools, run by crappy administrators & instructed by even crappier teachers.

    Think really hard for a moment…. that 18 or 19 year old with their name on the side of a $285 million dollar B-1B, or a $1.75 billion dollar B-2A is only a high school graduate…. with a little extra class time.  Many of those that teach them in the military are in possession of an Associates, or if they were really lucky, a 4-year in an engineering field…. and teaching these young pups was not their primary job.

    In my observations and experiences, only a quarter of the HS grads entering the aircraft maintenance field(s) were competent in math or reading/writing at a level where their training could get going without a bunch of remedial course work.

  • http://twitter.com/AttyAbdul Abdul-Hakim Shabazz

    This was the current list.  More are being added.

  • pogden297

    Jon, graduation rates are constantly being manipulated. Tully, suprrisingly, had a good column talking about how IPS manipulated its numbers to have a sudden increase in the graduation numbers.

  • Anonymous

    Paul,
    Take it up with the state.  They set the process, the grad formula, and grant waivers.  Wayne’s grad rate is as I stated.  That is according to the formula the state prescribes.

  • Think Again

    10-year avg is hovering around 54.  Nice improvement.  Hoe it continues.  The kids deserve it.  Check the cohort grad rate computation:
    http://www.doe.in.gov/gradrate/

    But pardon me if I’m skeptical of a district whose governance is, well, suspect.  That Superintendent’s exit deal was sweet, to say the least.  

  • Turk182

    Scooter, having a parent who cares where and how a child gets to school and what school is important.
    The parent who thinks government knows better and makes that decision, well, look at the results!

  • jeckyrayen jeckyrayen

    I think in the school teachers have to teach innovative so people like it and they can learn the things very easily. I think have to give the award to that school who teach innovative way.
    ecole de film

  • Notwaitingforsuperman

    Think Again…you need your own radio show..let’s say from 6 am to 9 Monday thru Friday. You seem to be the only one who seems grounded in the real world. Everyone else, including the webmaster, has a personal axe to grind, whether it be with unions, Dr. White, or their third grade music teacher that paddled them once for chewing gum. Cathedral WILL take Arlington kids..if they can hit a baseball 410 feet or run the 40 in 4.4 seconds. Same with Wayne Township..we call them IPS west..Pike is IPS north. No difference.

  • melyssa

    Paul, The dumbing down of students via the public educational system is a goal of the globalists.  They don’t want slaves who can think for themselves.  If you are a slave owner, you don’t want a slave who can read. 

  • gdm

    I hope that the state is inspecting the applying schools and not just taking it for granted that they meet standards

  • http://www.facebook.com/AttyAbdul Abdul-Hakim Shabazz

    Obviously you haven’t seen today’s ISTEP test results.  IPS schools are the 2nd worst in the state, last year they were third.  Now that’s progress! 

  • MH

    Yep..and The Globalists are headquartered down at the beech Grove Amtrak yards.    :O

  • Turk182

    Looks like the Southern Democrats are still in control, long after the civil war! What a shame!

  • Anonymous

    Wow, you need to get back on your meds!

  • pascal

    Close enought that they shared the same football field for years.

  • pascal

    Are there meds for delusion?

  • Think Again

    I hear you on the Wayne and Pike references.  Sad but true.  But hey, BD IS graduating 80%!  Isn’t it amazing what figures can do? And you’re spot-on about Cathedral’s athletic recruitment too.  

    Don’t want a radio show.  I am happy listening to Abdul’s show.  He usually does a good job.  I know when he’s being a GOP hack, and I think he secretly does too, but his slice of the AM audience demands that.  It’s all good.  Here’s what I know about Abdul:

    He spends more time getting ready for that show, and his WRTV gig, and his column-blog, than any reporter in town.  I haven’t seen a reporter in this town bust a sweat in 15 years.  

    Is Abdul wrong sometimes? Hell yeah.  Does he like to hear that? Hell no.  

    It all makes the world go round.

  • Think Again

    Ben Davis has a University High School. That’s rich.

  • Abdul

    The latest number is 125.