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(11/29/12 4:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Those who want to help Monroe County schools can bid online for a variety of items, ranging in value from $30 to $4,000. The Foundation of Monroe County Community Schools is auctioning a free pet adoption at Bloomington Animal Shelter, a five-day vacation in Cancun and an opportunity for up to 10 people to play basketball with former IU men’s basketball players. Foundation representative Sara Neeley said she hopes such priceless experiences will attract more bids.“It’s all for the schools,” Neeley said. “Proceeds will go to grants, literacy projects and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).”Neeley said former IU basketball player Haris Mujezinovic, who played from 1995 to 1997, first agreed to play basketball with whoever bid the most for the opportunity.After Mujezinovic, nine other former IU players signed on, including Calbert Cheaney, Brian Evans and Matt Nover. The opening bid for the basketball game is $1,000, and bidders must be 18 years or older.Other items listed as “priceless” include a football signed by Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee, four tickets to the Big Ten tournament and a scholarship for a high school senior, named for the highest bidder.Nick’s English Hut also donated 16 pieces of “priceless” memorabilia, some of which cannot be purchased anywhere else.“I’ve got stuff people would like, pieces from the bar,” Nick’s owner Gregg Rago said.Rago said people who have spent a lot of time at Nick’s and IU will love the opportunity to own a piece of the community. Although Nick’s could sell the goods privately and make money, Rago said helping the foundation is a more worthy cause.“Some people are greedy,” Rago said. “But this is a great opportunity to support Bloomington.”Eligible participants can place bids online at biddingforgood.com/fmccs. The auction ends Dec. 10.
(11/28/12 2:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Opponents to Indiana’s Choice Scholarship voucher program presented oral arguments to the State Supreme Court on Nov. 21.Teachers and parents, along with Indiana State Teachers Association Vice President Teresa Meredith, filed suit in July 2011 and claimed the voucher program is unconstitutional because it pays state funds to private and religious schools.More than 9,000 Indiana students received state-issued vouchers in 2012. According to the Indiana Department of Education’s website, nearly all of the 289 private schools that admitted students using vouchers were religious.Although the state constitution prohibits state funds from supporting religious institutions, state lawyers who defended the program said the state isn’t directly funding religious schools because parents choose where to use their children’s vouchers.Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction-elect Glenda Ritz is a plaintiff but said she will break from the case when she takes office in January. — Gage Bentley
(11/27/12 5:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The world of language is violent and chaotic, a linguistics expert said Monday during a lecture.John Edwards, a professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, criticized the idea that while globalization flattens the world, languages nicely align with others as the individuals who speak them mingle.“The lion and calf may lie together, but the calf won’t get much sleep,” Edwards said.He said the lion for most of the world is the English language. Globalization has created the need for a common language with which the beneficiaries of the flattened Earth may communicate, he said.Every year, the number of English speakers in countries like India and Peru increases while the number of people who speak indigenous languages and dialects decreases. He said in a Darwinistic sense, the bigger languages are killing the smaller languages.In Peru, the most endangered language, Huanca Quechua, is dying as Spanish is being taught with earnest to each new generation, IU Education Professor Serafin Coronel-Molina said.He said governments must promote bilingualism to preserve smaller dialects while expanding more globally relevant languages.“The best way is to transmit from generation to generation,” Coronel-Molina said. “The schools can maintain bilingual education. People in the community need to be encouraged to keep their language alive.”That lesson is valuable to education students, education graduate student Lorin Estes said.“There’s something very unique in each language that’s valuable,” Estes said.Edwards said although he agreed bilingualism is the most sensible way to ensure smaller languages survive, he knows governments are resistant to bilingual education because they’re interested in maintaining national identity.He said U.S. politicians who are resisting the influx of the Spanish language and trying to establish English as the only official language is one example. He added that similar conflicts occur in Canada and elsewhere.“I think the notion of immigrant languages militating against national identities is unfounded,” Edwards said.He said compelling governments to foster bilingual education, and thereby linguistic diversity is a very difficult task.“Why can’t we have our linguistic cake and eat it, too?” he asked.
(11/16/12 4:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Ivy Tech Community College’s Bloomington campus was named a military-friendly school for the second year in a row by G.I. Jobs magazine. G.I. Jobs chooses schools that offer the best and most adaptable services. Veteran students may also vote for schools they believe are military friendly, according to a press release.Though IU was also on the list, some veteran students prefer Ivy Tech because of low costs and veterans-only classes, Ivy Tech Bloomington student Pat Rincon said.“I want to take more classes that are veterans-only,” Rincon said.He said his U.S. history class is taught by a veteran and that the all-veteran students value such familiarity.Ivy Tech Bloomington will offer three veterans-only courses in the spring, said Laura Vest, Ivy Tech veterans benefits coordinator.“The classes allow veterans to share like experiences,” Vest said. “They’re more comfortable sharing with people who have had similar challenges.”Rincon said he’s stalling his transfer to IU because he doesn’t know of any veterans-only classes at IU and because Ivy Tech classes are less expensive.Student Service Assistant Sarah Gibson works with IU’s Veteran Support Services and said IU actually has one such class.Education 206: “Orientation to College Life” is a veterans-only course specifically designed to support the transition of veterans to higher education and to utilize their experiences to aid their academic careers, according to the IU registrar’s website.Gibson said IU doesn’t offer more veterans-only classes because interest isn’t shown very often.“We might consider more if our student veterans expressed that’s something of interest,” Gibson said.Veteran students, like other students, encounter many challenges, but remain different because those challenges vary greatly between individuals, she said.“We have to adapt our services to individuals’ needs,” Gibson said.
(11/08/12 4:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Gov.-elect Mike Pence said Indiana education reform made in the past four years will be affirmed and built upon when he spoke Wednesday alongside Gov. Mitch Daniels at his office.Pence said he hopes newly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, a democrat, will participate in that endeavor.Ritz stole a surprise victory from current Superintendent Tony Bennett in Tuesday’s election. Though Bennett achieved several reforms during his term working with a Republican general assembly, many Indiana voters expressed their concerns that his policies relied too heavily upon faulty standardized tests. Ritz campaigned with promises of repairing what she identified as damage done by Bennett’s policies.During the press conference, Daniels countered that any divergent policy would be struck down, though.“Not one word of those laws is going to change,” Daniels said. “Unless it’s extending further in the direction of reform.”Ritz has criticized Bennett for establishing a culture of blaming teachers and said she intends to change that. Pence joined Daniels’ assertion, both making clear that the “direction” mentioned will be the same direction as the past four years.“I want to hear out the concerns that educators have,” Pence said. “But I bring in a heavy bias that there’s nothing that ails education that can’t be fixed by giving parents more choices and teachers more freedom to teach.”Pence said because his wife is a teacher, he has educators’ interests in mind, but they are not foremost.“We’re going to focus on the kids,” Pence said.— Gage Bentley
(11/02/12 2:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>An expert on teacher-evaluation methods said during a lecture Thursday that they are biased and do not account for all relevant factors.Cassandra Guarino, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy, said value-added models are data-driven and objective methods of teacher evaluations that improve the status quo. However, she said the models are biased, error-laden and might be based on faulty tests.Race to the Top, a federal program through which states compete for millions of dollars in funding by improving education, has triggered the implementation of value-added models. Currently, teachers in Indiana are evaluated by a growth model, which ranks teachers according to a median of students’ standardized-test scores. The growth model is a version of value-added models Guarino said is less desirable.“We’re not actually estimating the magnitude of a teacher’s effectiveness,” Guarino said.She said the growth model doesn’t provide for parent responses to which teacher a student is assigned, like when a parent hires a tutor because their child’s teacher underperforms.Guarino said the model is one-dimensional. Evaluations are a function of students’ test scores.“One number can’t represent all the important skills students learn each year,” education professorBarry Bull said.Guarino said one skill not accounted for in standardized-tests is noncognitive skills, behavior conducive to success.Others expressed concern at the bias created by nonrandom assignment of students to teachers, Guarino said. Although criticisms were the focus of Guarino’s presentation, the audience responded positively when she asked them if they thought the models were better than the status quo. They agreed when she said value-added evaluation is better than no evaluation.Joyce Alexander, executive associate dean of the School of Education, said there’s still work to be done.“We should use real student outcomes,” Alexander said. “I’m not sure we should use only one metric.”
(11/01/12 4:27am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Five urban education experts said though reforming urban schools is difficult, plans for Indianapolis Public Schools are gaining ground.Almost 50 people filled the Georgian Room of the Indiana Memorial Union to hear the panel discuss the distinct problems urban schools face in the U.S.IPS and proposed district reforms were used as a microcosm of the national issue.IPS Superintendent Eugene White and David Harris, founder and CEO of the Mind Trust, offered analyses of the specific problems affecting IPS, and which reforms would solve those problems. The Mind Trust is an education reform driven non-profit organization, and the discussion mostly involved its plan for IPS. Harris said it centers around shipping resources and authority from the administration level to the school level.“The system is broken,” Harris said. “I want to be very clear. We don’t think the people are the problem. We think the structure itself needs to change.”IPS’s structure should provide more autonomy for schools, sensible funding and choices to families, he said.One problem with granting more autonomy to school principals, though, is that they’ll be expected to do too much, White said.“You’re going to have to have some support,” he said. “One support would be a committee.”Harris said changes to how schools are funded would provide the money necessary to develop support for school officials.Both Harris and White agreed changes to funding, or extra state funding, are necessary for preschool education. The two said deficiencies in early education inflate the achievement gap.“We need a program called early education, or preschool, to try to get them ready for kindergarten,” White said. “Why? Because, quite frankly, a few years ago when we had half-day kindergarten, we were getting 45 or 50 percent of our kids ready for first grade. Once we went to full-day kindergarten — this is the sixth year for the kindergarten — we’re getting 68 percent of our kids ready for first grade.”He said if students attend preschool prior to enrolling in kindergarten, they could extend that number to 90.“We completely agree with everything Dr. White said about the importance of preschool or early education,” Harris said. “Indiana is in the dark ages on that front. I hope that I am wrong, but I do not see the likelihood of universal preschool being funded in the near future. We need to make that a priority.”Indianapolis Deputy Mayor of Education Jason Kloth also said preschool is crucial to closing the achievement gap, which he said is creating a lack of confidence that is damaging the city’s economy.“We’ve lost about 200,000 residents,” Kloth said. “Families with school-age children are leaving.”He said the city lost $57 million in tax revenue in 2010 because those people left.Improving IPS restores confidence and helps the community, said Tammie Barney, vice president of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. She said healthier schools result in more job and wealth creation.“Now is the time for reform,” Barney said.
(10/19/12 3:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A candidate running for Indiana’s top education spot said the state’s education department should release the A-F grades assigned to public schools when she spoke to a small group of supporters in Bloomington on Thursday.The education department hasn’t released the grades because incumbent Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett knows the results won’t be positive, said Democrat Glenda Ritz, Bennett’s opponent.“They should show what he predicted they would show,” Ritz said. “We should see half of our schools have C’s, D’s and F’s.”The grades will be released Oct. 31, said Alex Damron, Indiana State Department of Education spokesman.“This year, we’ve extended to review windows for local schools,” Damron said. “This decision was based on feedback we’ve received from school leaders who wanted more time to review the data they submitted to the department and familiarize themselves with new metrics process.”The State Board of Education approved the grading system in February after the state was waived from the No Child Left Behind Law. Last year, under the old system, grades were released in August.Ritz said the A-F grading system is based on faulty measurements of student growth. Measurements, she said, would support Bennett’s privatization of public education.“Having many schools in the D and F category allows privatization to happen at a much quicker rate,” Ritz said.Ritz said she didn’t know how schools with D and F grades expedite privatization. Indiana law does not allow the state to take over schools based on the grade they receive.However, several of the people in attendance said they were concerned the grading system would lead to takeovers, which in turn would lead to privatization.“I think it isn’t possible for a letter grade to represent a school’s needs, strengths and challenges,” said Melissa Keller, clinical professor at the School of Education.
(10/19/12 3:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Thirty percent of children who entered kindergarten in Monroe County this year did not have necessary literacy skills, according to Monroe County United Way’s website. MCUW and the Salvation Army worked together at the Literacy Party on Wednesday to teach parents with children 5 years old and younger ways they can ensure their children will be ready for kindergarten.Exposure to books is the first step, said Jason Anderson, education coordinator at the Salvation Army Child Care Center. He said even children who are too young to read can learn simple but important skills when handling books. He also said exposure to the alphabet, other adults and other children helps young children develop literacy and communication skills.“Exposure makes them more confident,” Anderson said.While children played a game involving paper plates with letters painted on them to help with letter recognition, MCUW representative Ashley Schoolman taught parents education skills.The most important among them was dialogic reading, Schoolman said, a method establishing a discourse between the parent and child.Dialogic reading involves not only reading to the child, but also asking questions that pertain to the book’s content and later referencing the book. Schoolman told parents this develops critical thinking skills and imagination.The book used during the event was “B is for Bloomington.” It featured pictures of landmarks and people around Bloomington and Monroe County.Jeremy Kiger, a Bloomington resident who attended the event with his 7-month-old daughter, Vanceletta, said he learned a lot.“I didn’t know about dialogic reading,” Kiger said. “I’m going to try that.”Brittany Branam, mother of 2-year-old Grant, agreed with Kiger.“I really like learning about establishing dialogues,” Branam said.Only five children and their families were in attendance. Anderson said that was a good turnout, though, and MCUW and the Salvation Army will likely sponsor another Literacy Party.Anderson said the Salvation Army is one of few child care facilities in Bloomington accessible to families with low socioeconomic status. He also said its mission is to have children ready for kindergarten.“We consider ourselves a preschool,” he said. “We’re not a day care.”
(10/16/12 5:03am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>More than 10,000 students attending public colleges in Indiana require remediation for mathematics and English, according to Indiana’s Education Roundtable. Only one in four of those students will graduate in six years.Now, Indiana universities will receive $36,000 from the “Core to College” grant, funds intended to establish relationships between higher and K-12 education.Students take remediation courses when they are not ready for college-level, credit-bearing coursework. Stephanie Sample, communications director for the Indiana Department of Education, said part of the reason some students aren’t ready is because K-12 schools and post-secondary schools don’t have a shared definition of readiness.“One of the main missions is to bring them to the table,” Sample said. “It’s to unite them in that definition.”The participating Indiana colleges, including Indiana State University, IU-Purdue University Columbus and Purdue University Calumet, will cooperate with community colleges and local schools. Once a shared definition has been achieved, new tests for readiness will be developed and implemented.Alice Anderson, dean of the school of education at Purdue University Calumet, said a test designed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers might be a possible solution.“If we can measure what we need to measure, the PARCC assessment will be able to determine if students are ready,” she said.Sample said the assessment would track a student’s progress through K-12, something the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress assessment (ISTEP) doesn’t do.Currently, Indiana public universities require freshmen students to take readiness assessments that are developed by their respective faculty. Anderson said a test like the PARCC assessment might be administered in high school. She said that way students who are ready for college could avoid redundant testing, and those who are not ready could avoid remediation.Sample said the DOE might have students take remediation coursework in high school before they graduate.Public universities in Indiana like IU-Bloomington and Purdue University in West Lafayette don’t offer remediation. Anderson said most students take those non-credit-bearing courses at community colleges like Ivy Tech Community College.Remediation costs students, taxpayers and institutions about $35 million each year, according to a 2012 report by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.Sample said extra time is the enemy of completion.Establishing relationships between K-12 and post-secondary schools is critical in aligning policies, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said in a press release.“In Indiana, we are committed to forming more productive and coordinated K-12/higher education partnerships like these that support students’ success throughout their lives,” Bennett said.
(10/03/12 2:39am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>More students today are defaulting on student loans within two years than at any time in the past decade, according to new numbers released by the U.S. Department of Education. Student debt is rising as college tuition continues to skyrocket.With this in mind, a new legislative proposal is in the works that would help middle and high school students better learn about and manage their finances now and in the future.Indiana Sen. Brent Waltz, R-Greenwood, and the Indiana State Teachers Association recently announced a proposal that would establish financial literacy curricula throughout the state.“Our goal is to provide Hoosier students with the best education possible and give them the tools needed to be responsible members of society,” Waltz said in a press release. “Equipping future generations with financial knowledge will help them make informed decisions.”Waltz, a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce and Economic Development, will author the bill to be introduced when the 2013 legislative session begins in January. He will work with state banking leaders to determine which financial skills students seem to lack. It will seek to implement financial literacy coursework in grades six through 12 with goals of understanding credit, debt, saving, investing and planning. The bill would also outline means of financing and developing such additional coursework.IU announced a financial literacy initiative during the summer with the aim of giving students the knowledge they need to leave college without excessive debt.Phil Schuman, director of financial literacy at IU, said the initiative was spurred by many factors, including the recession, increased tuition and increased social costs in college.“It’s gotten to the point that we’re learning that students don’t have a very solid financial foundation,” Schuman said. He said IU efforts should start this fall and will include a website, workshops and seminars on campus to help students learn how to manage their money. “It’s not getting students to stop spending money, but making students more aware of how they spend their money,” Schuman said.The IU program targets students who most likely have already taken on a financial burden. Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the School of Education, said he thinks the topic isn’t valued enough, particularly at the pre-college level.“Just like planning for college really begins in middle school and certainly high school, I think that, in the same way, financial planning and understanding the financial dimension of college should begin before students go to college,” Gonzalez said.Schuman said a yearly reinforcement of financial responsibility would help Hoosier students do better later in life.“That’s a good lesson to learn early on in life, but it should be reinforced every year in life,” Schuman said.Gonzalez supports the idea, but given the current curriculum restraints in the state, he said he hopes the legislative proposal would not mandate the addition of a new class.“I think a financial literacy aspect can be dealt with in the subject areas that are already taught in the high school curriculum,” Gonzalez said.With decreased state funding for public universities a continuing trend, costs will be passed to families, necessitating these financial literacy skills.“As more and more of that responsibility falls on the students, the more they know about how to mange that process and the finances as to not get over their heads, it’s only going to help,” he said.
(09/10/12 4:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In an effort to increase college completion and student success, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education challenges local leaders from all 92 Indiana counties to form a College Success Coalition.Up to 20 Indiana counties will be accepted into the coalition each year on a competitive basis until each county has an active, sustainable local coalition, according to a press release by the ICHE.Leadership teams from participating counties will receive a $1,000 startup award, ongoing training and technical assistance. A $5,000 performance bonus will be awarded once key requirements are met.Indiana currently ranks 40th nationally in the number of residents with college degrees, according to the release. About a third of Hoosier adults have completed education beyond high school.“College completion has a significant impact on the quality of life and future earnings for Hoosiers,” Teresa Lubbers, Indiana commissioner for higher education, said in the release. “Rallying local communities around the common goal of college success is critical to meeting the needs of our students and our state.”Workforce experts project that for Indiana to remain economically competitive, 60 percent of the state’s population will need to receive a college education by 2025.During the last two years, according to the release, the state has supported the development of college success coalitions in 35 counties. These county coalitions have recruited nearly 1,000 organizations and implemented more than 1,000 targeted activities designed to increase college access and completion. To learn more about the project, visit LearnMoreIndiana.org/Coalitions.— Mark Keierleber