5.2

http://beta.indystar.com/article/20101105/NEWS05/11050370/Gov-Daniels-is-on-a-legislative-mission

http://beta.indystar.com/article/20101105/NEWS05/11050370/Gov-Daniels-is-on-a-legislative-mission

Although this article is primarily focused on Governor Daniels, and not Dr. Bennett, the two leaders’ missions are intertwined. Daniels’s states that he’ll seek merit pay for the best teachers and the freedom to dump the worst; more options for parents to move their children out of failing schools; and the repeal of laws and regulations that tie the hands of school officials.

By applying Edelman’s lenses under the Construction and Uses of Social Problems, we find:

Damaging Conditions that do not become problems: By focusing on merit pay for the best teachers, we are not focusing on what factors are contributing to teachers being unsuccessful; that problem is left off of the agenda. By discussing giving parents more options to move their children out of failing schools, we are not discussing why those schools are failing!

Problems as Benefits: The current economic climate in Indiana politically benefits the new republican legislature as they will construct and define problems within a discourse that suggests that democratic ideologies caused the problems and that only the republican house can pull the state out of the current situation.

Problems as ambiguous claims: Although Daniels is not audacious enough to create a label for his reforms that rivals the “New Deal”, simply suggesting a “balanced budget” implies that previous legislatures were imbalanced, and the implication of school “reform” suggests that previous leaders created a troubling situation with schools that even requires reform.

Justify Solutions:  As a business conservative, Daniels opponents accuse him of wanting to privatize schools in Indiana, and those opponents could justify this viewpoint through Edelman’s “justify solutions” lens. In other words, Daniels wants to privatize schools and move to merit pay regardless of the current problem in the sake of the value of efficiency and the underlying value of business conservatism. By framing the school problem in the manner that he does, he’s able to justify these two solutions.

The following link is a public law 221 fact sheet. Public Law 221 was passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1999.

http://www.doe.in.gov/pl221/2008/PL221_Fact_Sheet.pdf


In 1999, the Indiana General Assembly passed Public Law 221, known as the “school accountability law,” to reflect the education-reform mandates in the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Both the state and federal law allow for states to intervene in failing schools, removing them from control of local school districts.
A chronically failing school is defined as one that has been placed on academic probation for six years in a row for failing to make progress on student test scores.
Proposed rules now in front of the Indiana State Board of Education detail procedures for the takeover of those failing schools.
Among the options:
◆ Closing the low-performing school.
◆ Merging it with a nearby higher-performing school.
◆ Turning it into a charter school and/or bringing in an outside manager to run the school.
An outside manager would not be required to bargain collectively with school employees. Less drastic measures could be taken as well, including developing a plan that would target specific teachers and administrators or changing school procedures.

The following link takes you a draft from the IDOE concerning possible initiation of a rule-making process to initiate the technical assistance and intervention provisions under IC-20-31-9 (Public Law 221).
www.doe.in.gov/super/2010/07-july/072310/documents/tat.pdf

The direct legislative link to IC-20-31-9:
http://www.in.gov/legislative/ic/code/title20/ar31/ch9.html

And the Indiana code on performance based accrediation:
http://www.ai.org/legislative/ic/code/title20/ar31/ch4.html

All of public law 221 works in conjunction with federal laws, No Child Left Behind:
http://find.ed.gov/search?client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&q=no+child+left+behind

3.2 Power Concept Map

The following link takes you to my current draft of the power-concept map with all the actors involved in the school grading issue.

https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/ckates/Chris%20Kates%20A560%20blog%20links/c%20kates%20power%20concept%20map.doc

2.3 Value Analysis

The section of the Stout article that connects to the issues of school grades is the concept of, “Who should decide issues of school direction and policy?” In the case of this issue, it’s clear that the state and Dr. Bennett feel that they should have control over assessing the overall quality of school performance. I’m inferring that teacher unions wouldn’t feel that their values aren’t equally reflected in the state’s policy.

Values and Ideology:

At this point I’m making multiple connections with the intention of later honing in on one:

• Individualism: I question whether state mandated grades can coexist with teacher autonomy?
• Freedom: How will this policy affect the range of choices open to parents and students? Dr. Bennett has made it clear that one of the major reasons for the school grading system is to create transparency and clarify for parents, who will then use this information to make choices about school attendance. However, this also calls into question how the policy will affect the autonomy of a faculty- my inference being that the stronger the state mandate the less autonomy teachers will feel they have in their classrooms.
• Fraternity: Will competition not result? And if/when it does, won’t it cause a lack of fraternity among schools and even teachers? In contrast, the union opposition obviously represents strong fraternal bonds.
• Efficiency: Does this policy include close monitoring of “output” such as student achievement? Yes!
• I view the school report card as one element of a larger initiative by the state to create  “more market mechanisms into public education in order to increase efficiency.” (121 Values and Ideology). In addition, there is a clear connection between the discussion of business conservatives (page 125) and Bennett’s proposals and what the author calls the “Agenda of the Right” (page 129).

While it’s easier to pin down the values underlying Bennett’s proposals, I’m stuck on connecting the oppositions underlying values. Is it individualism via autonomy that the Unions want to protect? Do the unions simply have a different definition of quality and a different idea of efficiency?

1.7 Who are the stakeholders?

The most obvious stakeholders are the two major Indiana Teacher's Unions. The Indiana State Teacher's Association link is http://www.ista-in.org/ . The ISTA's president Nathan Schnellenberger has vigorously opposed many of Dr. Bennett's proposals. In addition, Rick Muir, the president of the Indiana Federation of Teachers, has publically oppossed many of Dr. Bennett's measures (http://in.aft.org/). Under 1.5 the link to the Indiana Business Journal highlights the friction between the stakeholders. The article is general and  I'm currently researching for comments specific to my issue.

1.5 Links to my Issue

The following link (which I hope works, not sure if I did this right!) goes to a May 5th indystar article on the topic of school grading. The ensuing blog is quite interesting.
http://iphone.indystar.com/posts/22936

As far as I know, and I need to do a lot more research, the school grading system was initially part of Dr. Bennett's attempt to meet federal criteria for Race to the Top. This article, from the Indianapoli Business Journal, highlights the rift between the teachers unions, primarily ISTA, and Dr. Bennett.

http://www.ibj.com/article?articleId=19326


This is the link to the entire Inagural State of Education Address, which I was fortunate to be able to actually attend.
http://www.wfyi.org/liveVideo/DOEVideo.asp

It's becoming apparent to me that Dr. Bennett is at least partially modeling this system after the current system in Florida. This link directs you to the Florida Department of Ed. web-site.
http://schoolgrades.fldoe.org/

1.5 Issue Link - Issue Summary Kates

Module 1.5 Issue Description

Issue: One of Dr. Bennett's (Indiana Superintendent of Instruction) many proposals is the implementation of an A through F report card system for assessing school achievement.


Currently school performance under Public Law 221 works like this:

Public Law 221 (P.L. 221) is Indiana's comprehensive accountability system for K-12 education. Passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1999 – prior to the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the law aimed to establish major educational reform and accountability statewide. To measure progress, P.L. 221 places Indiana schools into one of five categories based upon student pass rates on state ISTEP+ tests: Exemplary Progress, Commendable Progress, Academic Progress, Academic Watch or Academic Probation.

The following links take you directly to the IDOE school accountability page.

http://www.doe.in.gov/pl221/

For more info. on PL221 and No Child Left Behind: http://www.doe.in.gov/communications/schoolaccountability.html

In the inagural state of education address at Creston Middle School, Dr. Bennett said, "Everyone knows what letter grades mean, so parents and other concerned citizens will be able to both celebrate school success and hold schools accountable."

So what is the conflict here: In summary, many school leaders, teachers, and community members feel that the grading system's transparency will unfairly penalize marginalized schools and districts. On the other hand, proponents of the school grades feel that they will serve as a needed accountability measure that the community can comprehend.