IN State Super of Ed

[BravoMike]

I disagree with many of Tony Bennet's policies and therefore voted him out, just like you would with any other politician. Glenda Ritz may not be perfect, but if she comes up with bad policies, or if she appears to be a union puppet I will vote her out in the next election as well. I was always pretty suspicious of Tony Bennet's wife and the role she played. I think it appeared that it may have been a little self-serving. Also, I disagree with many of the "No Child Left Behind" policies, as I don't see how this effectively grades how good a student or teacher is. I think it does more harm than it does good. And why not hold public schools, charter schools, and private schools to the same standards? I am tired of the Government policies constantly trying these "social experiments" claiming "It's for the kids" only to constantly screw things up.

 

[LockStocksAndBarrel]

"At the end of the day, the major difference in ALL of this is the parents caring. If the parents care, the students do better. End of discussion."

Not quite the end since this thread is still thriving.

I agree with your premise about parent involvement and caring. The caring parents should be allowed to send their kids to the best school available. Allowing school choice will create competition and competition is what makes the world go around.

It seems to me that .gov wants competition killed. It seems that they are living what they teach. Competition is bad because there are winners and losers and losers will have their self estem damaged.

Competition will improve the entire system. Good teachers and good schools will be rewarded with more students and more of our tax doillars.

Poor ones will be incentivized to improve themselves to get some of the pie. A rising tide will lift all boats but until some scrutiny is allowed in terms of evaluating schools and teachers within them, nothing much will change.

 

[cordex]

So if I'm following this discussion correctly:
Ritz says that teachers and schools should not be held to specific standards or judged based on student performance because more goes into performance than just teaching. On the other hand she says home-schoolers should be more regulated because some home-schooled kids fail to achieve specific standards or have poor performance. Do I have that right?

The absolute audacity of people who are professionals to expect to be paid a living wage that is on a level with the education that they needed to be qualified for the job.

Whenever someone brings up "a living wage" I mentally translate that to "more than my performance is actually worth to the people paying for it."

At the end of the day, the major difference in ALL of this is the parents caring. If the parents care, the students do better. End of discussion

I definitely agree that parents are the make or break factor.

So you want to entrust your kids education to private companies?

I guess I don't understand why "private companies" are so scary to you.

Private schools (run as companies) can do very well. There is a reason some people are willing to pay twice for their kids education at private schools. Private companies have to perform or they fail - unless they get in bed with the government. That's some good incentive, and seems to work well.

A similar incentive program (perhaps overseen by the parents of the attending students instead of some half-baked government agency) might do the same thing for public schools. Yet typically I hear teachers and their unions vehemently objecting to performance-based funding, preferring either the status-quo of schools being funded by underlying district population rather than performance or by some mythical Federal unlimited money spigot.

Vouchers enable people to choose to go to a private school (or a parochial school if you so choose). These are typically schools that can expel you for poor performance. Public schools cannot do this. So, fast forward 10 years if the voucher program gains popularity. There will be a "Haves" and "have not" system in place where public schools are stuck with what is left of the kids since people will choose to go elsewhere, if they don't perform, they get kicked out and put back in public schools.

This sounds more like an argument for allowing public schools to expel for performance than anything else. If kids (and their parents) are unable or unwilling to learn, no reason to waste resources on trying to educate them. That goes double for "public" resources.

Here's something that has been bugging me. It has been claimed in this thread that pay at private schools pay is lower than public schools. Market forces should dictate that the very best teachers would go to public schools and the worst teachers would be left for private schools, right? If public schools have the better teachers, and good teachers are important for educational outcomes then shouldn't the educational outcomes of public schools be better? If not, why not?

 

[Mad Macs]

"At the end of the day, the major difference in ALL of this is the parents caring. If the parents care, the students do better. End of discussion."

Not quite the end since this thread is still thriving.

I agree with your premise about parent involvement and caring. The caring parents should be allowed to send their kids to the best school available. Allowing school choice will create competition and competition is what makes the world go around.

It seems to me that .gov wants competition killed. It seems that they are living what they teach. Competition is bad because there are winners and losers and losers will have their self estem damaged.

Competition will improve the entire system. Good teachers and good schools will be rewarded with more students and more of our tax doillars.

Poor ones will be incentivized to improve themselves to get some of the pie. A rising tide will lift all boats but until some scrutiny is allowed in terms of evaluating schools and teachers within them, nothing much will change.

My statement was closing out the discussion about student performance, not necessarily the education reformation discussion. Sorry for the confusion.

Bennett's problem was that he was just screwing up education and not actually fixing anything. Hopefully Glenda can right the ship and start us moving forward.

I have a radical idea, we should just break up school district boundaries. As a state we should allocate a certain dollar amount to each student and then let them pick where they want to go to school. That dollar amount is the majority of the funding that school will receive for the year. Good schools will attract good students, bad schools won't. The downside to this is that the parents have to get their own kids to school. Busing isn't possible with this system.

 

[ATOMonkey]

I never said I didn't want them to get a good education. I know the system needs to be fixed.

Vouchers enable people to choose to go to a private school (or a parochial school if you so choose). These are typically schools that can expel you for poor performance. Public schools cannot do this. So, fast forward 10 years if the voucher program gains popularity. There will be a "Haves" and "have not" system in place where public schools are stuck with what is left of the kids since people will choose to go elsewhere, if they don't perform, they get kicked out and put back in public schools.

Only families who qualify financially can take advantage of the voucher program.

Your scenario doesn't work.

 

[88GT]

Bennett's problem was that he was just screwing up education and not actually fixing anything. Hopefully Glenda can right the ship and start us moving forward.

How did he screw it up?

Moving forward? Like restricting the freedom to homeschool? Is that your idea of progress?

I have a radical idea, we should just break up school district boundaries. As a state we should allocate a certain dollar amount to each student and then let them pick where they want to go to school. That dollar amount is the majority of the funding that school will receive for the year. Good schools will attract good students, bad schools won't. The downside to this is that the parents have to get their own kids to school. Busing isn't possible with this system.

Aside from the source of the funds, that's essentially privatization of education by introducing the element of choice/competition into the equation.

It's also exactly what the voucher system does.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Indiana has Open Enrollment.

Children can go to school pretty much where ever.

 

[Mad Macs]

How did he screw it up?

Moving forward? Like restricting the freedom to homeschool? Is that your idea of progress?



Aside from the source of the funds, that's essentially privatization of education by introducing the element of choice/competition into the equation.

It's also exactly what the voucher system does.

I never said I was against a voucher system, I was against the voucher system Tony Bennett put into place.

I don't care if you homeschool, if you do and your child does well, I think you should keep your $$. How does that sound?

Tony was an *******, he was the typical GOP hardline "WE ARE DOING IT MY WAY OR YOU CAN GO **** OFF" mentality. That doesn't fly. If he had sat down with teachers and come up with a plan to fix edu that would have been totally different.

 

[Mad Macs]

Indiana has Open Enrollment.

Children can go to school pretty much where ever.

Up to a certain extent they can. However most districts frown upon that due to over enrollment.

 

[ATOMonkey]

I will give you the NCLB bologna. That was a terrible idea. I don't like that we adopted it.

Tony went with the NCLB becasue 1) It graded schools (bad grading system though) 2) It allowed students to transfer from failing schools.

Then he passed a Voucher program, a tax deduction for private education ($1k/kid) and deductions for those who pay INTO scholarship programs.

Mitch and Tony also worked to pass open enrollment laws.

They also changed the way schools are funded, as it comes out of the general treasury, not local prop taxes.

And for this we fired him.

I'm having a hard time connecting the dots.

 

[88GT]

I never said I was against a voucher system, I was against the voucher system Tony Bennett put into place.

I am serious and here's why. Our former Supt. had a thing for privatizing education via vouchers and giving away poorly performing schools to private companies.

Except that your justification for opposing it is wrong.

I don't care if you homeschool, if you do and your child does well, I think you should keep your $$. How does that sound?

When you are in the big boy chair and can make the decisions, great. But you're not. And your candidate is on record as opposing homeschool freedoms.

Tony was an *******, he was the typical GOP hardline "WE ARE DOING IT MY WAY OR YOU CAN GO **** OFF" mentality. That doesn't fly. If he had sat down with teachers and come up with a plan to fix edu that would have been totally different.

LOL, so it wasn't what he did, but the fact that he didn't ask your permission for it first?

Do you think Ritz is going to consult homeschoolers across the state when she pushes for standardized testing requirements for us? Or when she requires us to register?

Will you be as irate and profanity-prone when she pulls the same heavy-handed behaviors to push her agenda that Bennett did?

 

[steveh_131]

Do you think Ritz is going to consult homeschoolers across the state when she pushes for standardized testing requirements for us? Or when she requires us to register?

Will you be as irate and profanity-prone when she pulls the same heavy-handed behaviors to push her agenda that Bennett did?

You seem to be missing the point.

The idea here is to restrict the freedoms of people who dare to try to raise their own children while removing all standards of accountability for the government employees who think they ought to raise our children for us.

Makes sense, right?

 

[BravoMike]

I will give you the NCLB bologna. That was a terrible idea. I don't like that we adopted it.

Tony went with the NCLB becasue 1) It graded schools (bad grading system though) 2) It allowed students to transfer from failing schools.

Then he passed a Voucher program, a tax deduction for private education ($1k/kid) and deductions for those who pay INTO scholarship programs.

Mitch and Tony also worked to pass open enrollment laws.

They also changed the way schools are funded, as it comes out of the general treasury, not local prop taxes.

And for this we fired him.

I'm having a hard time connecting the dots.

Personally, I fired him for the adoption of NCLB because it has a great potential to penalize good teachers and good schools. Like you said, it's a bad grading system. It also hurts our education system.

He also promoted private schools and charter schools and he has significant ties to both (his wife and at Marian University). Shouldn't all schools be held to the same standards? For those that homeschool, I think that is honorable and a good thing, but keep in mind that what you are feeling now is how teachers have been feeling while Bennett was in office. If teachers are to be "graded" then shouldn't all teachers be graded, even those that homeschool? I am not suggesting this, but let's be real here, why support something when it doesnt apply to you and when it does, say "no that's not right, it's not fair!"

 

[88GT]

He also promoted private schools and charter schools and he has significant ties to both (his wife and at Marian University). Shouldn't all schools be held to the same standards? For those that homeschool, I think that is honorable and a good thing, but keep in mind that what you are feeling now is how teachers have been feeling while Bennett was in office. If teachers are to be "graded" then shouldn't all teachers be graded, even those that homeschool? I am not suggesting this, but let's be real here, why support something when it doesnt apply to you and when it does, say "no that's not right, it's not fair!"

Absolutely not. Nobody is paying me for my services and has no claim to any particular level of success.

 

[BravoMike]

Absolutely not. Nobody is paying me for my services and has no claim to any particular level of success.

So does this suggest that those who homeschool should not be held to the same standards?

 

[88GT]

So does this suggest that those who homeschool should not be held to the same standards?

Yes, it does. What authority do you have over me and my children's education?

 

[BravoMike]

Me? None. Did you direct the question of authority at me or am I mistaken?

 

[88GT]

Me? None. Did you direct the question of authority at me or am I mistaken?

It was rhetorical to a large extent. In order to justify oversight and regulation, you would have to show the right to oversee and regulate. Since education is a fundamental aspect of raising children, I have to wonder where the authority to regulate and oversee my efforts originates.

If you (or anybody else) has no right/authority, why does the government?

 

[BravoMike]

It was rhetorical to a large extent. In order to justify oversight and regulation, you would have to show the right to oversee and regulate. Since education is a fundamental aspect of raising children, I have to wonder where the authority for to regulate and oversee my efforts originates.

If you (or anybody else) has no right/authority, why does the government?

Understood. Thank you for clarifying. I can understand your perspective that as a parent it is your fundamental right for you to educate your children in a manner that you wish.

Let me ask then what about charter, private, and public schools. Should they be held to the same standard?

 

[88GT]

Understood. Thank you for clarifying. I can understand your perspective that as a parent it is your fundamental right for you to educate your children in a manner that you wish.

Let me ask then what about charter, private, and public schools. Should they be held to the same standard?

Yes, no, and yes.

Charter schools are public schools. Public schools/educators should have specific standards so that the people know what they're paying for. We don't have the option of choosing not to pay for these services. You don't expect to pay for a vehicle repair that didn't fix the problem. We shouldn't expect to have to pay for education that doesn't take place (or for proselytizing or preaching from the ones were paying).

Private schools can have whatever standards they want. If people don't like them, they won't pay to send their kids there. They'll have to change the standards or close their doors.

Indiana standards apply only to public schools Private schools are subject only to compulsory attendance requirements and instruction in English.