Tell legislators to oppose bills which replaces locally controlled public schools
02/01/2015
ACTION: Contact members of the House Education Committee, as well as your representative, and tell them to oppose HB 1638 and HB 1009. Parents, taxpayers, teachers and students have been subjected to an agenda that is clearly biased against the notion of public schools being managed by locally-elected residents of the community who are directly accountable to the real stakeholders in a community.
This week several bills are in legislative committees that affect public schools and public school employees. Two bills in the House Education Committee would grow yet more charter or charter-like schools despite the disappointing data on their performance. Someone once said, "Innovation is not change in and of itself. If the change does not produce better results, then it is experimentation, not innovation."
HB 1638, a bill pushed by the State Board of Education (SBOE) and authored by Rep. Bob Behning, accelerates school takeover by granting the SBOE control over schools receiving Ds and Fs. The bill gives the SBOE power to intervene after four years on both classes of schools. Currently, only F schools are subject to this draconian intervention and only after the sixth year.
Under the bill, up to 79 additional schools statewide would become eligible for SBOE takeover. For a point of reference, five schools are under the SBOE's control and therefore under the management of private companies through contracts. The track record for these takeovers is clear. All five schools received Fs for multiple years and now, well into the fourth year of takeover, the most recent data show that a single school of the five managed to raise its grade to a D last year--with the rest still at F.
The bill also creates transformation zones, which would allow the school district to establish either a district plan or give the SBOE power to bring in an outside management company or special management team (similar to HEA 1321 in IPS from last session). The transformation zones begin with failing schools, but can bring in "feeder schools" from the district that are not failing, potentially opening up the door to entire districts run by outside companies. The track record on a statewide basis, is nearly six of 10 charter schools received a D or F compared to just one in 10 community-based public schools.
These management companies specifically would receive their funding directly from the state and are given access to a building, all its contents, equipment, facilities and all student records. This comes at a time when cases of charter fraud, mismanagement and closures are on the rise nationally, including Indiana.
There is no research to suggest that these takeover companies achieve any significant gains in student learning. Indiana experience already confirms this. The default position on employee representation is that educators within these schools (and possibly entire districts) become at-will employees and forfeit the right to organize and collectively bargain unless they affirmatively voluntarily recognize an exclusive representative. We know from past experience when charter employees investigate organizing, they come in fear of their jobs.
Schools run by outside management companies pursued more lenient teacher licensure requirements under law---and they got it. That speaks for itself with regard to the companies, the employees and the consequences for children.
A similar bill, authored by Rep. Behning, House Education Committee chair, creates Gov. Pence's “freedom to teach” schools. HB 1009 enables a minimum of two educators, administrators or individuals to establish a “freedom to teach” school, zone or entire district, again, operated by an outside entity. In this one, school employees are prohibited from collectively bargaining and being subject to due process rights. Only a single public hearing is required to create one of these schools in a district or among districts. This "fast-track" process makes a mockery of transparent government and local taxpayer and parent buy-in.
The governor's budget calls for $2 million to establish a fund for the creation of these schools, zones, districts.
