Education deregulation

Last week the Indiana State Board of Education instituted a large agenda of deregulation that allows individual school districts to have much more freedom in how they award credits. To those of us who have gone through four treacherous years of high school, the announced proposals might come off as a bit surprising.
Requirements for student-teacher ratios, administrators and counselors were removed.

The deregulation gives a lot of trust to the decisions of schools, as it will allow them to have more freedom in deciding how credits are awarded to their students.
While some examples make sense – the exemption of a high school swimmer already in the pool for four hours a day from physical education classes – there is a lot of potential for misuse that would only allow even more struggling students to fall through the cracks.

A distinction must be made between core and elective classes. Gym class was a waste of time, but students should not be allowed to skip Algebra II in favor of an art class. Paint by numbers does not count as math.

When in-state students come to IU and take Accounting 100, they might be shocked to find that their high school adequately didn’t prepare them.

The students who are most likely to benefit are those already enrolled in an advanced curriculum, as they will find more room in their schedules to take classes for college credit or perhaps come up with a solution to our energy crisis.

These new policies are a hallmark of the policies of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennet, who claimed he will “uncuff the hands of our very talented administrators and our very caring school boards.”

The American public school system is in desperate need of an overhaul, so we are glad Bennet is trying new things. For those of us who came from schools with poor administration and lack of funding, we wonder if giving these same people more power is necessarily a good idea.

It is now more important than ever for parents, administrators and students to take a personal investment in the curriculum and make sure we’re getting a quality source of education.