Some thoughts on the South Bend School Board elections - part 2

Don Wheeler

In the background piece, I tried to set the local stage to where we are now.  Complicating matters, lurking on the periphery is one Tony (or is it toney) Bennett.

This Tony Bennett is not the renowned singer; rather, the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Indiana.  His conduct would seem to indicate he aspires to higher office than the one he holds, however.

Mr. Bennett is full of righteous indignation about the state of public education.  He blames local school boards and teachers unions for gross dereliction of duty and characterizes their decision making as being self-serving.  He claims he can swoop in and make all things as they should be.  His forums are characterized with catch phrases and zingy one-liners.  They are just for show.

The State of Indiana has many policies which make things very difficult when it comes to educating our young.  I’ve written a lot about this in the past.  As evidence, compare Indiana’s student outcomes with those of other states and it is pretty clear that our local challenges are not unique in the state.  But Mr. Bennett never discusses anything the state legislature can do correct this situation. Instead (as far as state policy goes), he’d prefer to distract us by screwing around with teacher licensing and things of that nature.

Mr. Bennett would have us believe that if his department takes over management of our High Schools on Probation, dramatic improvement will occur as a result.  He doesn’t explain how this magic will occur, but since he’s not a particularly imaginative fellow and pretty representative of the Daniels administration, he’ll likely pick an approach which is considered fashionable.  The most likely:  He will retain a for-profit management company to run the schools.  (This would be consistent with the Daniels strategy of privatizing seemingly everything).   Less likely, but possible, he’ll appoint some Hotshot who reports directly to him.

There’s a lot that could be discussed about these types of approaches – they’ve been attempted many times in recent years.  For an exhaustive analysis, I’d refer you to The Death and Life of the Great American School System, by former United States Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch.  Anyone who cares about public education - what works and what doesn’t - should read this book.   Spoiler alert:  The approaches described above have (up to now) not benefited children’s overall education.

There are two aspects shared by imposing these outside management strategies I think people need to consider carefully.  The first is that both are top-down concepts which, for the most part, leave the people actually working in the buildings out of any role in policy making.  Secondly, these typically make operations nearly opaque to citizens and the people in charge don’t have to answer to anyone locally.

I think it very likely Mr. Bennett will intervene.  My guess it’s in his political interest to do so.  So it becomes important to consider who sits on our school board in this context.

More to come…

IN State Education Dept. needs to address its own deficiencies

Don Wheeler

I was heartened to read the editorial of the South Bend Tribune July 25, which declared "Early start is key to children's school success." Two years ago, as a candidate for South Bend Community School Corp. Board of Trustees, conversations with neighbors made it clear to me that almost no one knew that kindergarten is optional in Indiana. It was only a slightly smaller group that was aware the state didn't fully fund all-day classes for kindergartners.

Here's how my wife and I found out. After narrowing our options for our daughter's kindergarten year, we met with the Hay Primary Center principal. We wanted our daughter to be in a full-day class and asked him about the possibility.

He smiled a bit wistfully and said, "Any time I'm having a conversation like this with both a mother and father, I can be sure their child will not be in a full-day class." That's because full-day classes were either at magnet schools, which Hay was not, or were U.S. government-funded Title I programs. The principal had correctly assessed that our daughter was not a Title 1 student. Undaunted, we enrolled her there in afternoon-only kindergarten, and have not regretted it ever.

Thanks to the decision by the SBCSC board, principals won't have to say that anymore. But it should have been the state's responsibility to have made that happen. Other school systems unwilling or unable to do what SBCSC did still are still shortchanging their kindergartners.

The editors correctly point out that students can enter formal education as late as age 7 in Indiana. Our daughter turned 7 in March and was evaluated as having the reading skills of a beginning fifth-grader. She was one of four children in her 20-student first grade class judged to have achieved that level of competency. What's the likely outcome for kids just entering our school system at that age?

The National Institute of Early Education Research (of Rutgers University) exists to track what works and doesn't work in the effort to get our children off to good starts. Many states have had available state-sponsored preschool programs for quite some time — some over 10 years. NIEER's research shows that — particularly for children from challenging situations — early structure and nourishment of their innate curiosity pays big dividends.

Our child has many advantages. One of them was two years of private pre-school taught by professionals. Am I completely nuts to think that all kids should have access to resources like that?

Sadly, what I see from our state government is posturing and fingerpointing. In some ways this isn't new — I've seen little progress on this front in my 20 years as a resident. On the other hand, people who haven't done anything to improve conditions, yet who are imposing themselves as "the solution," strike me as throwing an anchor to a drowning person.

We have plenty of our own work to do locally. There's no doubt of that. Were we to have a real partner at the state level, they might realize the same holds true for them.

Make grades meaningful

The Editors
South Bend Tribune

Dislike for a plan to label schools with single letter grades should not be mistaken for dislike of clarity and accountability. We hope Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett realizes that.

Bennett is right to defend clarity and accountability. We join him in doing so. Where we disagree with the superintendent is in how he would report success and failure in schools.

For the purposes of this discussion, schools aren't buildings. They are people: children, teachers and administrators. All perform at different levels and with varying degrees of competency. Students are graded for their work. Bennett thinks teachers and administrators should be graded, too, and that their grade should take the form of a letter, A through F, that reflects the performance of their students. The letter would be applied to the school.

While we have no objection to grading educators, to label a school with a single symbol of success or failure is wrong. Simple though the idea is, it doesn't even merit points for clarity. That's because a single letter grade, based on student ISTEP scores, is too general to impart much useful information.

We hope the Indiana State Board of Education listened carefully to Mishawaka school board President Larry Stillson on June 16. He was one of two people representing the Indiana School Boards Association to the state board. Stillson was there not only to tell the trustees what's wrong with Bennett's plan, but to offer a better idea.

The school board president proposes that schools receive multiple grades in several areas, rather than be painted with a single broad ISTEP-based stroke. Not only would that impart useful information to anyone honestly trying to understand a school's strengths and weaknesses, but it would spare schools (and communities) glaring, hurtful and mostly meaningless labels.

If the state board is bent on finding a simple answer, it might not like Stillson's idea. To devise a plan for grading schools on a broad spectrum could be complicated. It would take some effort. But it would be effort well spent, not effort that would do more harm than good.

My comment:

Today's editorial is right on the mark. Tony Bennett's tenure has been characterized by shifting all responsibility away from his department and by making extremely complicated problems appear to have simple solutions.

I also appreciate the Tribune pointing out someone with a viable (in this case, better) alternative. We should all be prepared to do so when opposing a proposal or action. But it's good to notice when people actually do it. Hopefully, it will encourage them to continue doing so.