A Surprise Upset? Indiana Teachers Weren't Surprised

As Tom Petty says " She grew up in an Indiana town..."

It has been such an interesting week reading so much about Indiana and "big upset" of the winner of  Education Reform Idol, Dr. Tony Bennett,  to teacher Glenda Ritz.  

No one I know who teaches in Indiana considered this an upset. They have been living for the day when they could vote Dr. Bennett out of office. Not because they disagree with EVERYTHING he has done, but mostly because they disagree with HOW the changes were done and that they felt that teacher's voices not only went unheard but were dis-regarded as irrelevant.

It has been like living with a foot in two different worlds for me, I talk often to educators outside of Indiana, but I talk daily to teachers and parents inside of Indiana. Outside of Indiana many say Bennett is progressive, a leader, ,a fearless change agent. Inside of Indiana he is a bully, an ego maniac, an arrogant fame hungry man willing to sacrifice public education for the brand of Tony Bennett. Of course, none of those descriptors are completely true.

Certainly some good things have happened during Dr. Bennett's tenure . When I worked as a Technology Director, the environment in the state technology department became one where innovation was embraced & encouraged, technology integration was in the forefront. The office in downtown Indy became a place to go for grants, answers, inspiration and support instead of one of mandates, hoops to jump through and forms to fill out. (Thank you Dr. John Keller & Office of eLearning team!)

As we embarked on changing the face of education in our community, Dr. Bennett (and Governor Daniels) were more than supportive. We were able to get waivers necessary to move forward with innovative schedules, class offerings and hard to find teachers, we  had opportunities for grants and were publicly lauded for being in the forefront of re-imagining our public schools.

But, at some point, as the national conversation turned to vilify teachers (and their unions) as the scapegoat for the poor economy, Indiana teachers felt thrown under the bus by their Superintendent of PUBLIC Instruction. The more they heard that for profit charter schools were the answer, the more de-valued they felt. The message heard wasn't one of support from their "leader" it was one of blame.
   
Still, it wasn't Bennett's embracing of charter schools, grading schools A-F, new teacher evaluations, or his for-profit, anti-union stance that I saw posted all over social media by the teachers who work every day in the classrooms of Indiana.

The messages I saw imploring friends and family to vote for Glenda Ritz were about standardized testing, specifically the all or nothing highstakes iRead test. In fact, it was this pass/fail testing of 3rd graders that spurred Ritz to throw her hat in the ring. 

Status posts like these were all over my FB news feed:

• "Please support your teachers by voting for Glenda Ritz on Tuesday for State Superintendent of Schools. We need change. Tony Bennett has done nothing to benefit our kids' education. He has only made our jobs harder. I love love love my job and my students. I want each and everyone of my kids to succeed and Tony is just over testing them and making things harder for everyone."            

                                                

• "... with the significant emphasis being placed on standardized testing he has assured the people of Indiana that their students will be prepared for exactly one thing. Those students will be able to take a test!"                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                             

• "If you believe children are more than their standardized test scores, please PLEASE vote Glenda Ritz for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Even if you usually vote a straight Republican ticket, please cross over for this race."

This post from @ScottElliott's column "Get on The Bus" in the Indianapolis Star explores many of the theories being floated for the upset, I agree with his conclusion that it really was a teacher-led movement. 

It will be interesting to see what happens going forward, Ritz, who garnered more votes than incoming Governor Mike Pence, is entering an environment that is already being portrayed in the media as hostile. We can only hope that what Pence says at the end of this article is true.

"We are going to focus on kids"

A Little Less Talk & A Lot More Action

Last week I followed and tweeted during the NY Times Schools for Tomorrow  #NYTedtech conference, I spent my Sunday afternoon tweeting and listening to the conversation happening at Education Nations’ Teacher Town Hall.. While I am very happy that these conversations are happening on national platforms with large audiences, I crave as Elvis Presley once crooned "A little less conversation and a little more action, please".  

To get a little more action, I traveled to Columbus, Indiana to Columbus Signature Academy, a New Tech Network school, and spent two days at this school with a model that Jay Mathews called "A Wild Idea for an Ideal School" that has been cultivating a culture of trust, respect and responsibility for going on 5 years.

I could write pages about the school culture led by empowered students and teachers. The autonomy with which the students worked, the work spaces clearly designed for collaboration for both students and teachers or any number of ways the students and staff were engaged in the business of learning.  I will try to describe my two days in about 500 words, give or take a few.

Originally, I was invited to be in Jose Martinez and Katie Ferguson's Social Justice course (an integrated course of Eng10 and Current Problems, Issues and Events)  to sit on a panel and give feedback to students who were presenting videos they had created for a project around Censorship, the 1st Amendment and Fahrenheit 451.  Through Twitter, another facilitator (aka teacher) learned I was coming to campus and promptly requested a workshop with his students on utilizing Twitter to find experts as resources.  We set this up for first thing in the morning. The students were engaged and inquisitive as to how to create their own PLN via Twitter, which is unblocked for both teachers and students. 

During a conversation with the Director of Columbus Signature Academy, Mike Reed, we began discussing Social Media and the role it plays for schools. I suggested that the right person to manage the school's Facebook page might just be the students.  Mr. Reed nodded thoughtfully, looked at his watch and said Publications is at 11:00, does that fit your schedule?

Just before eleven I arrived in the work space for Publications, had a seat and pulled out my laptop.  Students arrived and began work on their tasks, not waiting in rows for a bell to ring or a teacher to call the class to order, they were engaged and busy as they walked in the door.  A few students recognized me from the morning workshop or their Social Justice presentations, sat at my table and inquired my purpose in this class.  I asked if they were interested in discussing how Social Media might fit into Publications and immediately a group of about 7 moved to my table to get started.  Clearly taking an idea from a thought to an action is a process this group knew well.  One young lady popped up her laptop, stating "I'll start a Google doc".  Then for about an hour we discussed knows, need to knows, challenges, possible solutions, veered off topic when an exciting idea came up (careers in social media, like mine), were brought back to topic by someone in the group and finally with about 10 minutes to go, someone piped up, "What are our next steps, what do we need to do to make this happen".  With every student chiming in the next steps were listed, and contact information exchanged.

All of the ideas I found interesting in the conversations happening at NYT Schools for Tomorrow and during the chats around Education Nation were alive and happening at Columbus Signature Academy. Here is a school with a culture that empowers, teaching that engages and technology that enables. 

So, while the conversation is good, let's model what the students at CSA did, what are our next steps so we can have a little more action!