About 80 percent of Indiana’s incoming high school seniors aren’t meeting requirements for a state-funded scholarship. (James Martin/Flickr)
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — About 80 percent of Indiana’s incoming high school seniors aren’t meeting requirements for a state-funded scholarship program created for low income students. This is the first group of incoming seniors who are face tougher qualification requirements for the state’s 21st Century Scholars program.
The legislature created the new requirements in 2011. At the time, only about 10 percent of students who earned the scholarships were graduating college in four years.
Senate budget architect Luke Kenley helped craft the new requirements and says the state needs to ensure its scholars are as well-prepared as possible to finish college on-time.
“When you look at the requirements objectively, they don’t seem to be all that strenuous,” Kenley said. “And so I’m puzzled why the rates are kind of low – and I’m concerned, obviously.”
The new requirements include a graduation plan, a grade point average of at least 2.5, a career interest assessment and a visit to a college campus.
Sen. Kenley says reexamining the requirements might be in order during next year’s budget-writing session, but he adds that he doesn’t want to sacrifice their rigor.
On the last day of school, Gabe Hoffman told his third graders, the first class he ever had, that they’ll be the most memorable of his career.
“They’ll be a special group to me because they were the first group I had as a teacher,” he said. They also helped him execute a very important decision: proposing to his girlfriend.
But starting the year as a recent college graduate and ending it with a fiancé only covers some this years changes. Another change: the subject he was most confident teaching.
Like many rural districts across Indiana, dropping enrollment in Argos Community Schools means less money for the district. Argos’ 644 students all attend school in one building. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/Indiana Public Broadcasting)
ARGOS, Ind. — It’s the last day of school for Argos Community Schools and superintendent Michele Riise is busy — and running on only five hours of sleep.
“I don’t drink coffee, I drink Diet Coke,” Riise said, with a hearty laugh. “So I start with one every day in the morning. Right away.”
Today she set that caffeine to good use — she’s both superintendent and elementary school principal in Argos, a tiny district in the heart of rural Indiana.
Riise took on that dual role in September as a cost-saving measure.
“Most superintendents can’t say they know their kids and know them and their families,” Riise said. “I’ve had a lot of long hours and a lot of sweat and tears, but it’s been worth it.”
Now, with enrollment and funding dropping in rural districts across Indiana, Riise is left with another challenge: find money to school the students who remain.
The one-stoplight town an hour west of Ft. Wayne is surrounded by fields of corn, soybeans and other crops. Argos Community Schools employs about 80 staff. It’s the community’s largest employer, according to Riise.
There are only about 50 students in each grade, so everyone in the entire district attends school in the same building. The average Indiana district has about 2,700 students. Argos has 644.
And few students means fewer dollars to run the district. Continue Reading →
In the letter, Pence asks for more information about a preschool funding program through the federal government created under the new Every Student Succeeds Act. He asks to be notified when the application is open.
“I am committed to opening the doors of opportunity to the most vulnerable children in our state,” Pence wrote in the letter.
The move comes after Pence’s last-minute 2014 decision by not to pursue the $80 million from the federal Preschool Development Grants program.
Superintendent Glenda Ritz criticized Pence’s move, calling it “political showboating.”
“Sadly, we have been here before with the Governor,” said Ritz, in a statement. “Over two years ago when the Governor ‘expressed interest’ in seeking pre-K funding, the Department spent hundreds of hours applying for $80 million in federal funding only to have the Governor change his mind and cancel the application at the last minute. “
“Our children deserve better,” she added.
Indiana was one of 16 states eligible for that money in 2014. His reason back then for not applying was he wanted the state’s recently launched pre-k pilot program to succeed before expanding it.
Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics, says the letter could be a way to get positive press on this subject during an election year.
“What this does is help deblunt the fact that he turns down free money that is available to help fund programs in the state,” said Downs.
John Zody, Chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party, blasted the letter from Pence in a statement.
“Mike Pence’s letter is not just political showboating in an election year, but it’s an attempt to pull one over on Hoosiers,” Zody said, “hoping they’ll forget his negligent decision to leave thousands of Hoosier children without an early start to their education.”
Pence spokesperson Matt Lloyd calls this criticism of Pence’s stance an attempt to “score political points.”
“Expanding early childhood education for disadvantaged children should not be a partisan issue,” said Lloyd, in a statement.
Thea Bowman Leadership Academy\’s high school campus in Gary. (photo credit: Thea Bowman Leadership Academy)
Members of the Indiana board of education say leaders of Thea Bowman Academy followed all the state requirements to seek a new sponsor and were not “authorizer shopping” as they fought to stay open beyond this month.
The board voted Wednesday to approve an authorizer associated with a private university to be the new sponsor of the Gary school.
“We walked out with great joy,” tweeted Eve Gomez, a member of the the Drexel Foundation for Educational Excellence Inc., the body that holds Thea Bowman’s charter and oversees the two schools.
But until recently the future of Thea Bowman, one of the state’s oldest charter schools, seemed uncertain.
In January Ball State University declined to renew its sponsorship after 13 years because of ongoing failures by the school’s governing board, such as compliance issues with federal funding, disregarding open door law and creating a “climate of distrust and uncertainty” at the schools.
Ball State also raised concern with a slide in academics. In 2010 the two-school network was rated a C, in the past three years its been graded a D on the state’s A-F accountability scale. Around 1,300 students are enrolled in the elementary and high schools.
In the following months, all members of the Drexel Foundation board resigned and new members were appointed, including Gomez and former State Board of Education member Tony Walker.
The new board then sought a charter from the Indiana Charter School Board.
The board staff supported the application and recommended that the full board approve it. Instead, ICSB members voted 5-2 to deny the request, citing concerns over the new governing board’s capacity to oversee the schools.
Last month Trine University’s EducationOne approved a new charter for Thea Bowman. The authorizer oversees four schools, not including Thea Bowman. Three schools have been closed.
U.S. Congressman Todd Rokita’s legislation, the Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act, would restrict the number of schools able to provide free lunch to any and all students. (Tim Boyle/Getty Images)
NEW ALBANY, Ind. — U.S. Congressman Todd Rokita, R-Indiana, argued the government should cut back on free school lunch programswhen he attended Wednesday’s State Board of Education Meeting.
Rep. Rokita, former Indiana secretary of state, proposed federal legislation last month that would tighten eligibility for free school lunch programs across the country. He says funds saved from reducing the number of federal school-wide lunch programs could be used for breakfast or summer meal programs instead.
“I can do what I swore I would do … and that is not add to our national debt,” Rokita told board members.
A 2010 law allows a school to serve free lunches to all students if at least 40 percent of students participate in other government assistance programs, such as food stamps and medicaid. Supporters of the law say it cuts overhead costs, with the idea that it costs more to separately determine who qualifies for free- and reduced-lunch than it does to make lunch free for all students in these schools, regardless of income.
But Rokita says that means the program may be used by families who don’t need it.
“When did we get to a point in this country when families aren’t responsible for feeding their children?” Rokita said. “And instead the government is?”
Rokita’s legislation, the Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act, would restrict the number of schools able to provide free lunch to any and all students. It would move the qualification threshold from 40 percent in government assistance programs to 60 percent. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the measure could save taxpayers around one billion dollars over the course of ten years.
A testing advisory committee raised concerns about an assessment that tests students with severe cognitive disabilities. (Photo Credit: Robbie/Flickr)
A state testing committee recommended the State Board of Education not include test scores from an assessment for students with cognitive disabilities into school A-F grades. The advisory committee cited issues with that assessment’s validity.
The Indiana Standards Tools for Alternate Reporting, or ISTAR, is the assessment in question. It’s an alternative to ISTEP+ for students with significant cognitive abilities. This is the first year students took the test, and the state’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), a group that provides guidance on testing issues, says it might not be valid.
The ISTAR costs the state $2.5 million each year, and tests around 7,000 students in grades three through eights as well as tenth grade.
The way this assessment works: All students taking it take a version in the fall that places them on one of three tiers, levels one through three. Level one is the least challenging of the test versions and level three is the most challenging. Then, three times throughout the year, ISTAR students take the assessment at the level they tested into.
The problem occurs with the scoring of this assessment, because each level is scored the same way. So a student taking the more challenging level three version could score less than a student who took the level one, even though his or her test was harder.
The TAC found, after the test was implemented for the 2015-2016 school year, that this scoring system isn’t fair to all of the students.
At the State Board of Education’s work session Tuesday, members of the TAC told the board they would recommend not using these scores in 2016 A-F school scores.
ISTAR’s test vendor, Questar, tried to put the different levels of the test on the same plane by putting common questions in all the tests. But the number of these questions worries TAC member Karla Egan.
“There weren’t enough to feel secure,” said Egan.
Fellow TAC member and testing consultant Ed Roeber echoed the concerns, saying the score on ISTAR doesn’t give the state a good picture of how these students performed.
“If you can’t compare the performance on tier one, two or three items, you may have a situation where fewer students are passing the third tier,” Roeber said. “You might conclude they didn’t do as well on the assessment.”
Roeber suggested the TAC should be involved in test development from the earliest stages, rather than reviewing it once it’s created.
Many board members raised concerns about this process, saying this issue should have been caught earlier.
“I’m just curious,” asked board member Vince Bertram. “At what point are those type of issues discussed, rather than administering the test and coming to this conclusion.”
But Michelle Walker, Director of Assessment for the Department of Education, says it was challenging to develop the test in only six months. This is because the previous test used for these students was part of a national consortium, which the state had to pull out of after the legislature said Indiana couldn’t be part of testing consortiums.
The TAC is meeting Thursday, and the test vendor, Questar, will present possible solutions to address this issue.
Officials in a small northern Indiana school district say the battle to fund their struggling school system isn’t over.
Argos Community School officials say they plan to present a ballot referendum in a May 2017 special election. Ballot referenda directly ask voters to choose whether to support a particular proposal — in this case, higher taxes to fund schools.
It will be the district’s second attempt to convince residents to give money directly to the district.
“You could either do the referendum again or continue to make cuts every time your revenue dropped,” said Michele Riise, Argos Community Schools superintendent. “That’s nothing we want to do.”
This past May’s referendum on the primary ballot asked for an increase of up to 61 cents on each $100 of assessed property value. For a home valued at $100,000 that would have been about $200 extra each year.
That referendum failed. Fifty-nine percent of voters said no.
Don Thompson is one of the residents who voted no. He is a former school board member and farmland owner. He says farmers already pay high property taxes and responsibility lies with the state, since the state funds public schools. Continue Reading →
Over the last few years, Muncie Community Schools has struggled to maintain its budget after property tax caps and a new funding formula went into place. They will end transportation services in 2018 and get rid of 37 positions this summer. (photo credit: Kyle Stokes / StateImpact Indiana)
Muncie Community Schools will reduce their staff by 37 positions by next school year, through retirements, resignations and a few layoffs. The reduction comes after years of financial struggles for the district.
Superintendent Steven Baule said the district lost around $29 million after property tax caps and the new school funding formula.
Last year, the school board voted to end bus transportation by 2018 because of a protected tax law that diverted the district’s funds away from transportation.
The latest budget issues will affect staff, including teachers. Bale said he hopes to lay off fewer than 10 teachers, after they find out who is retiring and resigning – positions he will not replace.
Baule said the district can save money by replacing interventionists, staff who pull kids out of class to work on specific skills, with people who aren’t certified teachers. He said these employees are supplementing the child’s education so they don’t need to be certified, even though they would prefer it.
“That’s no different in what you see in healthcare today,” Baule said. “You don’t see the doctor all the time, you might see a physician’s assistant or you might see a nurse practitioner, it’s the exact same concept.”
Baule blames recent policy changes on the financial situation in his district, but some legislators don’t agree.
“Property tax caps should have had little impact on that funding stream,” said Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis.
Behring said the legislature took measures to protect schools, when they put the property tax caps in place in 2008, through the state’s school funding formula.
This formula, updated during the 2015 legislative session, allocates money to students, not districts. So districts that draw more students, get more money. But districts like Muncie, which are seeing declining enrollment numbers, do not have that protection.
Behning said that is only fair since a district that is losing kids doesn’t need the same amount of resources to educate fewer students. And he said districts can also levy tax referenda to increase property taxes.
But Baule said the state should be able to help out more.
“If the state doesn’t change how it funds education, it’s really making a statement that they don’t feel public education has value,” Baule said.
Frankfort teacher Anne Lanum works with English learner students. Photo by Claire McInerny
The English learner population is growing across the Midwest, as more immigrants settle in smaller towns, and Indiana is currently seeing an increase of students needing to learn English at a higher rate than the rest of the country.
While most schools struggle to meet the needs of students who don’t speak English, this challenge is especially obvious in rural school districts, where enrollment is decreasing and resources are tight.
Madeline Mavrogordato, an assistant professor in the College of Education at Michigan State University, conducts research on English learners. She said rural districts do struggle, but they can also adapt more quickly than large districts.
Melissa Griggs, on parent involvement
“So I think one of the things that’s amazing about working in a school district like that, is they tend to be smaller to begin with. So the power you have to actually impact change in a district like that is incredible,” Mavrogordato said.
In Indiana, the rural district Community Schools of Frankfort is also the district with the highest percentage of English learners in the state. Its need for English learner resources is also one of the highest in the state, and it is an example of how many schools are struggling to keep up with the growth of English learners.
Changing Attitudes To Effectively Teach
Frankfort is a small town in central Indiana with a little more than 16,000 people. Over the last few decades, as more factory jobs became available, more Latino families moved there.
Anne Lanum started as a elementary school teacher in the Frankfort school district, 16 years ago. Over that time, the number of her students with English learning needs grew from 20 to 90 percent. In the beginning of this boom, Lanum says negative attitudes about the population change in the community reached the schools.
Olivia Rothenberger, on attitudes from administrators
“At that time they weren’t really accepted, people didn’t want them at the other schools,” Lanum said.
She said the community is more comfortable now. But she and other teachers said other challenges are harder to overcome, including the student to teacher ratio.
Frankfort has the largest percentage of English learning students in the state, 800 students in a small district. But it only has eight teachers, and that team said they’re always trying to catch up.
After seeing the negative attitudes toward Latino students, Lanum decided two years ago to get her English learner certification and switch jobs. She’s now one of those eight teachers split among the hundreds of kids needing her specified instruction.
She said it’s been a tough transition, because these students are not the district’s top priority. For example, Lanum meets with more than 200 kids at one elementary school, but she doesn’t have her own classroom.
“If there’s a room that has to go, it’s my room and I just have to find a space,” she said. “I have to find a breezeway or a corner to teach kids.”
Anne Lanum, on resources
Other teachers said they get pulled away from working with English learning students to proctor ISTEP+ exams or do lunch duty. And they all said the schools need more dedicated, certified EL teachers. But Frankfort’s Director of English Learning, Lori North, says that’s a tough ask right now.
“We had teacher cuts this year so it’s really hard for me to go and say ‘I need more EL teachers’ when they’re cutting general education teachers,” North said.
They all said the attitudes have gotten better in the community and in the schools toward these students. Principals and other administrators are starting to understand why English learning classes are important for these students to succeed in the rest of their classes.
“Everyone’s an English learner teacher”
The situation for the Frankfort schools is typical for most schools with high English learner populations.
Right now in Frankfort, there is typically one EL teacher per school that has hundreds of students needing their services. This one teacher spends the days helping classroom teachers co-teach, a combination of pull out sessions with small groups and large class sessions.
Teachers in Frankfort said this is not ideal because students aren’t getting enough uninterrupted, individual instruction.
Karie Cloe, on language barriers
Mavrogordato said that’s a common problem everywhere, and if schools that aren’t able to hire more English learner teachers want to better serve the kids there is a more plausible solution.
“If you’re lucky kids are going to get pulled out of class maybe two days, three days a week to receive services,” Mavrogordato said. “But the other six hours of the day across five days a week, they’re with general education teachers. So if the general education teachers have not received training or professional development to help them address the linguistic and cultural needs of English language learners, it’s going to be an uphill battle.”
The teachers in Frankfort are trying to employ this tactic in their schools. Melissa Griggs is one the English learner teachers and also coaches classroom teachers on tactics to use in the classroom.
“So much is suffering because they’re not learning grade level content if they’re not learning the language,” Griggs said. “But I think that’s also where we do a great job of informing the teachers and giving them strategies on how to help too.”
And Griggs said, in a district where up to 50 percent of the class could not understand what the teacher is saying, every teacher becomes an English learning teacher.
“They Just Need Language”
For North, the most frustrating part of not having enough staff and training to help students learn English is that she knows that these students are smart.
Lori North, on stigma
The Community Schools of Frankfort received Ds on the state’s A-F system the last three years. English learners must take the ISTEP+, but they cannot have it translated. This means most English learners fail the test, and with a third of students in the district learning the language, ISTEP+ scores are often low.
North said the district doesn’t put pressure on her team to perform better, but the teachers are disappointed by this situation.
“I think we feel pressure in our own buildings because we feel tired of failing,” North said. “We’re tired of working so hard, but we don’t get the numbers.”
But once the English learners master the language, most are strong academically.
“They just need language,” North said. “Once they have language, in many ways, they outperform the general population.”
Because the school district is tight on money for everything, North said she can’t ask for too much for the English learners. She has grant money that she wants to use to get classroom teachers EL certified. She says if more teachers know how to help the kids, the better it is off everyone.
“They just deserve every opportunity they can give them,” North said. “I know my EL teachers work really hard to do that, but it never feels like enough. I think that’s what we feel like, we’re eight strong. Like we’re doing our best, we’re doing the very best we can but is that enough?”
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