The following is a guest post from Robert Enlow.    Enlow is the President and CEO  of the Friedman Foundation which advocates education reform and school choice.

Call me crazy, but I want to know why no one gets upset when the state doles out over $10,000 to Carmel millionaires so that they can send their kids to swish suburban public schools but everyone goes nuts when you ask the state to give $1,000 to poor and working class families so that they can escape poorly performing urban public schools and send their kids to private schools.

Call me crazy, but I want to know why Bradley Balch, the dean of the college of education at Indiana State University, thinks that it is more important that teachers know how to teach math than to actually know the math they are teaching. Don’t you think that it is interesting that the daily newspapers in the two cities with the largest schools of education, Bloomington and Muncie, have editorialized in favor of Tony Bennett’s teacher licensing reforms? They must know something we don’t.

Call me crazy, but I want to know why well-meaning education reformers think that standards and accountability models as they are currently defined work worth a darn. Hands up if you understand what it means if a school is on academic watch or if you think that it makes any sense to wait until a school is on academic probation for six straight years before the state can take it over.

Without true consequences and absolute transparency the accountability system we have had in Indiana for the last ten years hasn’t led to any serious growth in test scores. It must be the kid’s fault or the parent’s fault, right?

Moreover, the kind of accountability system we have now still allows part time school boards to get full health care benefits for themselves and their family and still means that no one really understands school funding unless you have three master’s degrees, a PhD. and the ability to read upside down.

The only way this changes is by having an understandable system of accountability (i.e. judging schools in a manner that even you and I could get), a clear set of consequences for failure (i.e. being free to transfer to other public and private schools), and a truly transparent budgeting process for schools (i.e. publicly available).

At least in Indiana – thanks to Mitch Daniels, Tony Bennett, Brian Bosma and some other key leaders – we have a real shot of getting real reform in the next few years.

Hey guys,  as I’m heading out of town today I figured now would be a good time for us at Indiana Barrister to unveil a new project we’ve been working on.

It’s called Indiana Discussion.  It’s a web site where you can talk about local, state and national issues whenever you want.

My good friend Kevin Hood who manages Indiana Barrister has been working on this for a while.

We think you’ll like it and more importantly, we think if you guys behave yourselves, it will add to the productive dialogue about the issues regarding this state.

Now go talk amongst yourselves.

I’m doing the morning show from the Indiana State Fairgrounds today and then I have some wedding things to work on shortly afterwards.  So if there is a post today, it won’t be until later.

In addition, with the wedding coming up, I’m soliciting some guest posts from different members of the community on issues ranging from health care, to education reform to city finances.

I’ve also asked my Democratic, Republican and Libertarian friends to all contribute. So don’t be surprised if you see an occasional guest post between now and my wedding day, a few weeks from today.

And if you’re up for making a contribution feel free to click on the “Submit a Story” link.  The criteria is pretty simple.  It must be between 250-300 words, interesting and relevant.  Please, save the conspiracies theories for another blog. You may also want to include a small bio about yourself.  I only edit for style and clarity, not content.  Indiana Barrister gets about  8,000 visits per week so you are guaranteed an audience.

Happy writing.

Indianapolis Public Schools are missing a few thousand students.

According to my friends over at RTV 6,  IPS was scheduled to have between 33,000 and 34,000 students show up in its classrooms, however as of Friday, there were slightly more than 30,000 students in school.

School officials hope to have 2,000 more students in class by September 11, which is the day the District does its official headcount.  But even if the District does reach that goal, there are still 1,000-2,000 students still missing.

Will someone please explain to me how so many kids go missing, and more importantly, how do these parents “forget” to send their kids to school.   The RTV 6 story listed a number of reasons, I call them excuses.   My personal favorite was the parent at the the District Office who didn’t know what school her kid was attending.

However, I’m willing to bet most of these people know when to get their hair and nails done or know when to DVR Oprah and NASCAR or know what day the government check arrives.

There is no excuse for children missing school, particularly for most of these children where education is their only hope for a way to a better life.  But once again, it goes to my belief that if parents don’t put a value of education, you can’t expect that to be passed on to their kids.

There’s nothing like starting out the week with a good bunch of gossip, rumor and political innuendo.  Most of  it falls on the Democratic side today.  And as always, take it for what it is worth…

Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson apparently has felt the need to justify some recent purchases in these tight budget times.  Anderson reportedly sent letters out to members of the council justifying the acquisitions of some motorcycles and other vehicles, saying he got a good deal on them.

Wayne Township Trustee David Baird is offering up retirement benefits to members of the Wayne Township Board.   However, my sources say the Board is going to tell him, thanks but no thanks.

A new name is being surfaced in the nomination for U.S. Attorney in the Southern District.  I’m hearing Marion County Superior Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt as a likely nominee.

The new City-County Council maps are expected to be complete by February 2011. Officials say the census will be done by December 2010.   It will be interesting to see how they are drawn now that there is a Republican Council and Republican Mayor.

Expect a major change to occur in the Mayor’s Office in about two weeks.

Rumor has it there was a serious mix up in the pay of some IPS teachers this past week.  It was reportedly so bad that IPS spokeswoman Mary Louise Bewley had to send out a formal apology to staff.

The above is French for “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”   That phrase has been on my mind a lot lately as I have monitored the health care reform debate.

As an observer of political events, I tend to chuckle somewhat slightly as political roles tend to reverse over time.

For example, some Democrats have labeled some of the protesters as “un-American” and “political terrorists” and of course Republicans cry outrage.

However, six years ago, Republicans accused Iraq war protesters of providing aide and comfort to the enemy.  And I don’t recall anyone yelling “read the bill” when the Patriot Act was passed, although nice chunks of it were later found to be unconstitutional.

Now of course, the posts and responses will start with how Iraq and health care are two totally different issues, please save it for someone who cares.

If you believe in liberty, freedom and free speech, then you have to believe it for everyone, regardless of the issue and not just when it’s convenient.

But then again, I of all people should know better that the truth is never the first casualty of political gamesmanship, consistency is.

The Mayor made an appearance on C-SPAN yesterday.   He was interviewed as part of a series on the economy’s impact on cities.  My favorite caller was the Democrat from Indianapolis who said the Mayor was doing a good job.

RTV 6  is reporting this morning about a homeless advocate who was carjacked at 38th and MLK Drive.

Andrea DeMink was carjacked at a convience store.   DeMink runs Pourhouse, an agency that helps the homeless.

Oh well, at least  the guy wasn’t panhandling.

As I was looking for something to talk about during the first hour of my morning radio show,  I had a person call in who identified themselves as an IPS school teacher. He told me that during their first general meeting of the semester, Dr. Eugene White berated the teachers and told them the reason students got poor test scores was because of their inability to teach.

Now I don’t know if that’s exactly what went down, but it does bring up an interesting question.  When schools fail, whose fault is it?

Is it teachers who can’t teach?

Is it administrators whose policies aren’t based in reality?

Is it parents who are uneducated themselves and could care less?

Or are some students just incapable of learning, regardless of the teaching style you use?

I personally put the blame more so on the shoulders on parents.  And if a student has parents, or in most cases a parent, who is uneducated and has no appreciation for education, that attitude is going to transferred down to the kid.

I’ll be interested in your thoughts.

Now that the Indianapolis City-County Council has passed the one-percent hotel tax increase,  I’m in the process of gauging the fallout from the bi-partisan 15-14 vote.   And I can report so far my political geiger counter is not picking up very much.

There’s been some chatter in the blogosphere, but there have been no calls to either the Mayor’s office nor the Council office from citizens complaining about the tax increase.

I also spoke to several City-County Councilors who voted both for and against the tax increase and reaction has been scant at best.   One councilor told me he got a handful of e-mails, but they were split 50-50.  One got four text messages thanking him for voting against the tax.   Another just got one complaint on their facebook page.  The most replies were nearly dozen and a half e-mails of support for a Councilor who voted no.

Councilors also told me they got more calls from constituents over the smoking ban, human rights ordinance,  and dangerous dog ordinance than they did the hotel tax increase.   And even in those instances, the Council chambers were packed with citizens.  With the hotel tax vote, the room was barely half full.

I bring this up because despite what the chatter class might say,  anyone who thinks the hotel tax is going to be a game changer in 2011 is probably in for a surprise.  The income tax increase of 2007 was a mandatory tax that was passed in an election year.  The hotel tax was a voluntary tax paid for by visitors and it occurred more than two years before the next municipal election.

Now, if there’s a bailout of the Indiana Pacers and the city takes over the operations of Conseco Fieldhouse for $15 million and gets nothing in return there will be blood in the streets and citizens shall bend their plowshares back into swords and rightly so.

But for now, the world moves on and maybe it’s time for the rest of us to do the same.