Trajan
conscientia mille testes
Indiana's Great Education Leap
The Hoosier State passes vouchers and dissolves teacher tenure.
* MAY 6, 2011
School choice is gaining new momentum, and one of the biggest political breakthroughs came this week in Indiana. Governor Mitch Daniels signed legislation Thursday that includes far-reaching reforms in teacher assessment and tenure, as well the most ambitious voucher program in memory.
Under the new law, the state will provide 7,500 publicly financed scholarships of up to $4,500 a year to Hoosier elementary school kids who have been in public schools for the last two semesters and then want to attend another school, public or private. That scholarship number rises to 15,000 in the second year, with no cap in the third year and beyond. High school students can also qualify for a voucher of up to 90% of the state public school support, which varies by school district.
snip-
There's also a major expansion of charter school opportunities. The law allows a state commission and the state's universities to authorize new charters, which now number only 63 statewide. It also reduces one of the main disadvantages that charters have compared to traditional schools by giving them access to unused school buildings, and it gives parents new rights to petition to turn a persistently failing school into a charter.
The reform also makes major gains on teacher accountability, ending the last-in, first-out layoff policy that caused the firing of the state's teacher of the year. School districts will be able to introduce pay for performance, using a new evaluation system based on student progress, not teacher tenure. The angel will have to come in the details of these evaluations, which the union will try to game, but this at least gives reformers a fighting chance to break up a status quo that now makes it nearly impossible to fire bad teachers.
more at-
Review & Outlook: Indiana's Great Education Leap - WSJ.com
The Hoosier State passes vouchers and dissolves teacher tenure.
* MAY 6, 2011
School choice is gaining new momentum, and one of the biggest political breakthroughs came this week in Indiana. Governor Mitch Daniels signed legislation Thursday that includes far-reaching reforms in teacher assessment and tenure, as well the most ambitious voucher program in memory.
Under the new law, the state will provide 7,500 publicly financed scholarships of up to $4,500 a year to Hoosier elementary school kids who have been in public schools for the last two semesters and then want to attend another school, public or private. That scholarship number rises to 15,000 in the second year, with no cap in the third year and beyond. High school students can also qualify for a voucher of up to 90% of the state public school support, which varies by school district.
snip-
There's also a major expansion of charter school opportunities. The law allows a state commission and the state's universities to authorize new charters, which now number only 63 statewide. It also reduces one of the main disadvantages that charters have compared to traditional schools by giving them access to unused school buildings, and it gives parents new rights to petition to turn a persistently failing school into a charter.
The reform also makes major gains on teacher accountability, ending the last-in, first-out layoff policy that caused the firing of the state's teacher of the year. School districts will be able to introduce pay for performance, using a new evaluation system based on student progress, not teacher tenure. The angel will have to come in the details of these evaluations, which the union will try to game, but this at least gives reformers a fighting chance to break up a status quo that now makes it nearly impossible to fire bad teachers.
more at-
Review & Outlook: Indiana's Great Education Leap - WSJ.com