HOOSIER VOICES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION: BILLS TO WATCH

Keep an eye on this page to keep updated on the current legislative session. We will post proposed bills in both the senate and house, share information about the bills, and offer suggestions on how YOU might act in order to support or oppose them.

Click the picuture to see ALL bills in the Senate and House -

HOOSIER VOICES SUPPORTS THESE BILLS

Contact your legislators and/or the authors to express your support of these bills and ask that they be given passage for the benefit of our PUBLIC schools and Indiana's children.

SB416: Authors: Charbonneau, Yoder
School Evaluations; Reading Plans. Voids the administrative rule that establishes the A through F designations of school performance. Requires the state board of education (state board) to establish new designations of school improvement that: (1) are based on the measurement of student growth as compared against established standard criteria; and (2) are not based on the measurement of student growth compared against peers. Provides that before the state board may begin the rulemaking process to establish new categories or designations of school performance, the state board shall report to the general assembly the proposed new categories or designations. Provides that until new rules are adopted, the designations that were in effect on December 31, 2011, are in effect. Provides that a school's reading plan must include an emphasis on a growth measure at each grade level to determine and provide remedial acceleration for a student. Requires that a school's reading plan: (1) must include two or more assessments throughout the school year as well as a student's achievement or growth when determining appropriate remedial action; and (2) must emphasize a home and school reading initiative. Repeals a provision requiring a charter school's reading plan to include only a method for making determinant evaluations of reading skills by grade 3 and retention as a last resort for students who read below grade level. Provides that a charter school may request a waiver from reading plan requirements in the same manner that a school corporation may request a waiver.

SB469: Authors: Rogers, Tallian
Mandatory full-day kindergarten. Beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, requires a student to enroll in a full-day kindergarten program if the student is at least five years of age on August 1. Provides that a kindergarten pupil is counted as one pupil (rather than one-half pupil) for purposes of ADM and school funding.

HOOSIER VOICES OPPOSES THESE BILLS
Contact your legislators and/or the authors of these bills to express opposition to the negative impact these bills have on PUBLIC eduation and the will of 1.3 million voters.

HB 1309: Authors: BehningRequires the state board of education to elect a member to serve as vice chairperson, who: (1) presides over meetings in the absence of the state superintendent of public instruction; and (2) may call meetings, set and amend agendas, arrange for witnesses, and carry out other administrative functions related to the meetings of the state board. Provides that the commissioner for higher education serves as a third cochairperson of the education roundtable. (Under current law, the governor and state superintendent of public instruction serve as cochairpersons.) Provides that a majority of the cochairpersons acting together carry out the administrative functions related to the meetings of the roundtable. Adds the commission for higher education to the persons who receive the recommendations of the roundtable.
HOOSIER VOICES VIEW
This bill is the bill that will create an "Education Czar" and strip power from newly elected Superintendent of PUBLIC Instruction, Glenda Ritz. We must do all we can to call, write, and email representatives to STOP this bill and put an end to the madness they are utilizing to destroy our public education system.

HB 1337: Authors: Behning
School Accountability and Turnaround Academies Provides that academic growth is the primary measure of assessing school performance. Requires the state board of education (state board) to set specific goals for a turnaround academy, and allows the turnaround academy to be operated by a special management team. Provides that a turnaround academy that meets the goals set for it becomes an independent school. Sets forth provisions concerning the operation of a turnaround academy and an independent school. Requires the state board to have performed an annual analysis showing how school corporation spending correlates to student progress, and requires the department of education to include a copy of the annual analysis on the department's Internet web site. Sets forth consequences for schools and school corporations that are in the two lowest categories or designations of school performance, including placing a school corporation into academic receivership. Creates a designation of "high performing school corporation", and provides that certain statutes and rules may be waived for a high performing school corporation. Provides that a waiver of the requirements for graduation for a student must be approved by the state board. Repeals provisions concerning: (1) graduation standards in effect before July 1, 2010; (2) a parent's request to exempt a student from Core 40 requirement; (3) a student not passing at least three Core 40 courses; (4) a student scoring within the twenty-fifth percentile or lower on a graduation examination; and (5) a student whose parent does not attend a meeting with the student and a counselor. Makes conforming amendments.
HOOSIER VOICES VIEW
This bill is another attempt to take public tax dollars and utilize them for private gain by using flawed measurement systems to rate schools, then make them turnaround academies and hand them over to be operated by special management teams. Again, taking public school tax dollars and distributing them to private corpoarate management companies.

SB184: Authors: Eckerty, Walker, Yoder, Banks, Kruse, Schneider

Choice scholarship eligibility. Provides that a sibling of a student who is receiving a choice scholarship is eligible to receive a choice scholarship without first attending two semesters in a public school or receiving a scholarship from a scholarship granting organization.
HOOSIER VOICES VIEW
According to Vic Smith:
According to the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency fiscal note on SB 184, the first year of the voucher program moved $15.6 million from public school tuition to private school tuition and the second year diverted $35.9 million. Most of that taxpay...er money was going to pay for religious educations. Only 6 of the 289 private schools accepting vouchers are non-religious, non-sectarian schools.

Now with SB 184, a whole new element is proposed: Giving vouchers to students who have never been in public schools, ending the “vouchers save dollars” policy and adding a new fiscal cost to taxpayers. Some students would become eligible for a voucher who have been in private schools for years. It is one more step on the road to a universal voucher, the ultimate goal of voucher proponents, a goal that would eventually undermine and marginalize the non-partisan, non-sectarian public schools that for over a hundred years have brought people from all walks of life together in our communities and have undergirded our democracy with citizenship education and our economy with college and career readiness.

SB464: Authors: Kruse

Education funding for children in residential care. Provides that if a student is placed in a state licensed residential mental health facility under written orders of a licensed physician, the student receives educational services provided by the facility, and certain other conditions are satisfied, the school corporation of legal settlement that includes the student in its average daily membership shall pay the facility a per diem for the educational services provided by the facility to the student during the student's admission in the facility. Specifies that the amount such a school corporation shall pay to a facility is the amount, prorated according to the number of instructional days for which the student receives the educational services, equal to the student's proportionate share of state distributions paid to the school corporation. Specifies the minimum level educational services that must be provided to a student while the student is admitted to such a facility. Requires that the educational services at a facility must be provided by licensed teachers. Specifies that the amounts paid by a school corporation to a facility are in addition to any funds that are allocated or used under federal law to provide services to students receiving educational services at the facility.

HOOSIER VOICES VIEW

This bill is yet another effort to siphon off public dollars to private for profit entities. SB 464 is an attempt to MANDATE public schools to give private for profit facilities the money they receive from federal and state funds and they will then "educate" students without necessarily having to have the same mandates of a public school (ISTEP testing, meeting all IEP services, providing instruction in all subject areas for the same amount of instructional time) all while saying this is a "medical" -- not educational placement. Reading the vague language of this bill is confusing, but it does lead to this - for profit entities will get public school dollars to provide the instruction that IT deems appropriate. It appears this is an attempt to make up for financial shortfalls caused by DCS not paying as much for placing kids into private for profit facilities. We must ask ourselves, who is funding the push for this legislation? What for-profit agencies look to gain by siphoning money from public school children?

HB 1251: Authors: Huston

Removes the requirement that at least four members of the state board of education (board) be actively employed in schools in Indiana and hold a teaching license, and that not more than six members of the board may be members of the same political party. Provides that, beginning in 2017, the terms of members of the board appointed by the governor begin March 1. (Current law provides that the terms begin July 1.) Provides that the terms of appointed members of the board who hold office on January 1, 2014, expire February 28, 2014. Requires the governor to appoint members to the board for terms beginning March 1, 2014, and ending February 28, 2017.

HB 1338: Authors: Behning

Makes numerous changes to Indiana’s charter school laws, including requiring the state budget agency (under the governor’s administration) to carry out the program to identify all federal funds available for charter schools, requires the budget agency to pursue any matching federal funds for charter schools, provides that the state board of education must approve the department’s report to the budget committee pertaining to virtual charter schools, requires the budget agency to administer new charter school start up grants, and requires the budget agency to administer the charter school facilities assistance program. These functions now assigned to the budget agency and state board of education have been, to date, accomplished by the DOE.

February 5, 2013 - HB1338 passes House Ed Cmte 9-3. Bill gives Mayor Ballard broader powers and adds more charter accountability.

HOOSIER VOICES VIEW
This bill provides that “teachers” in a charter don’t even have to have a degree in the content area in which they are “teaching.” Was scheduled to be heard 1-31-13 but moved to 2-5-13.

HB 1342: Authours: Behning

Creates an entirely new Office of Accountability and Innovation under the Governor’s administrative scope. The bill authorizes this new office to be staffed and overseen by a board. The board of the OAI would consist of the state superintendent (state-wide elected official), the “executive director” of the commission for higher education (NOTE: There is no executive director of the Commission for Higher Education. There is a Commissioner who is a governor’s appointee) and the Commissioner of Workforce Development (Governor’s appointee). The governor would select the chairman of this new Board. This entirely new layer of government would take over much of what the DOE had been responsible for relative to data gathering and, coincidentally, relative to the administration and oversight of the state’s private school voucher program.

HB 1427: Authours: Rhoads, Behning

Various education matters. Removes a requirement that a school corporation must publish an annual financial report. Eliminates references to the "buddy system project" in provisions relating to an income tax credit for computer equipment donations. Changes the registration deadline for school bus owners that are not school corporations from July 29 to September 28. Amends the definition of "educational service center". Repeals provisions relating to the establishment and administration of educational service centers by the Indiana state board of education (state board) and provides instead that the state board shall adopt rules regarding administration of educational service centers. Replaces the definition of "textbook" with a definition of "curricular materials". Provides that the Indiana department of education (department) shall determine the process for evaluating the curricular materials' alignment to academic standards and the appropriateness of the reading level of the curricular materials. Requires the department to describe the method used to evaluate curricular materials. Makes changes to the type of curricular subject matter that the department must review to show that the curricular material is aligned to academic standards. Repeals the requirement that a superintendent of a school corporation forward a list of the curricular materials selected by the superintendent. Abolishes the following programs and entities concerning various education matters: (1) Technology apprenticeship grant program. (2) Education consultant for health and physical education. (3) Corporation for educational technology. (4) Principal leadership academy. (5) School grant writing and fund raising assistance program. (6) School intervention and career counseling development program advisory board. (7) Technology Preparation Task Force. (8) Research and development program concerning various studies and evaluations. (9) Department of education review of professional development programs. (10) Readiness testing. (11) Student services programs. (12) Teacher quality and professional improvement program. (13) Projects on Innovative Education. (14) Committee on educational attitudes, motivation, and parental involvement. (15) ISTEP program citizens' review committee. (16) Twenty-first century schools pilot program. (17) Anti-gang counseling pilot program and fund. Requires the state board to provide for reviews to ensure the validity and reliability of the ISTEP program. Replaces the ambassador for education program with provisions that allow a teacher of the year to serve one year of professional leave with the department of education or a postsecondary educational institution. Requires school bus inspectors to attach to the bus a certificate of inspection and document the certification in the school bus inspection data base. Repeals a provision that requires a school corporation to compile class size data for kindergarten through grade 3 and report the data to the department for purposes of maintaining the primetime program. Repeals the innovative testing methods pilot program. Makes conforming changes. Makes technical corrections.

HOOSIER VOICES VIEW
A huge bill that is largely “clean up.” It’s not all clean up, but because it eliminates a position at the DOE for a consultant for health and physical education, there was some misunderstanding that PE and health were being eliminated. Not the case. The position is not filled and has not been for a long time. It does NOT eliminate PE or health from the mandatory curriculum. It does delete Principals Leadership Academy (Supt. Ritz was hoping to get funding to start this again). Also being held for committee vote.

LIST OF ALL BILLS DEALING WITH EDUCATION