WELL, WELL, WEDNESDAY - Who is Dr. Jennifer McCormick, Really?

Over the past several months Hoosier Voices correspondents have researched across the state to find out just who Dr. Jennifer McCormick really is.  We have found interesting comparisons between Tony Bennett and Dr. McCormick.  We shared a series of "He Said-She Said" memes produced by a group called Hoosiers Against Jennifer McCormick showcasing some of the similarities between the two.  The Latest of these memes just came out after McCormick stated her belief that the Superintendent of Public Instruction should be an appointed, not an elected position.

Click here to see the entire series of memes.

Guest blogger, Ben Yoder, wrote a post for us and included a letter he had penned a letter to Dr. McCormick.  We published his post back in June.  In his letter Mr. Yoder found he had many questions about her policies, her interaction with kids, and the buddies she was "rubbing elbows" with.  He concluded with one complimentary observation.  He told her, " I like those boots you wear with most of your outfits.  Classy, yet sassy. Bravo"

Click here to read the post Jennifer McCormick - Faux In Boots

Near the end of September, Jennifer McCormick finally released her education plan, which left some of us confused.  Is she just naive enough to think that after hundreds of thousands of dollars of school reform PAC contributions, her campaign donors will just change their ideological agenda, or is she just that downright deceptive to think she can lie to our faces and have us believe it?

After attempting to decipher the goals and intentions of her plan We posted a blog outlining some questions about the plan and discussed the struggles we had with the manner and location of its original "public" presentation - the headquarters of Hoosiers for Quality Education.  This drew concerns for many reasons.  We grew more concerned with her acceptance of campaign contributions from the "privatization", "school choice", and voucher expansion crowd who strongly supported Tony Bennett through his tenure 2008-2012 and his losing campaign in 2012.  These same contributors have poured large sums of money into campaigns of candidates across the state who are known to have legislative power and pull, who support the very goals of "privatization", "school choice", and voucher expansion.  This lead us to once again draw comparisons between the former Superintendent, Tony Bennett, and his protege, Jennifer McCormick.

Click to read "The McCormick Plan? - or is it  Bennett Plan 2.0

The sources of her campaign contributions brought us back to one of our posts from February 2015 where we asked, WHO ARE THESE "Hoosiers for Quality Education"?  From there we combed through campaign finance reports and found more interesting correlations.  We discovered that candidates from June 2015 to October 2016 who were receiving the majority of H4QE donations were definitely way below the money they were pouring into the McCormick campaign.  McCormick has received $60,000 from the Hoosiers for Quality Education Pack alone ($20,000 more since our most recent post went live yesterday). Their next highest recipients were Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma and Pete Miller who each received $17,500

Click here to view 3rd quarter finance report.

Looking through campaign finance reports from other former Bennett donors we were able to find that, in the past several months, McCormick won another large amount from Christel DeHaan, founder of the network of Christel House charter schools.  DeHaan, whose Christel House Academy was the school whose grade changing fiasco brought Tony Bennett down from his post in Florida, has given the McCormick campaign $125,000 others contributors with Tony Bennett ties include...

Fred Klipsch - CEO/Chairman/Founder Hoosiers for Quality Education $10,000

Betsy Wiley - Head of the Indiana Institute for Quality Education - $1,250

Kevin Brinegar - President of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce - $750

Robert Enlow - CEO of EdChoice - $1,000

Tosha Salyers - Former Bennett Staffer now at H4QE - $50.00

Dr. Jennifer McCormick wants to "distance herself" from comparisons to Tony Bennett by saying, "I am not Tony Bennett, I stand on my own proven leadership".  It's pretty interesting that Betsy Wiley said, "It's important for Jennifer to make it clear...that she is her own person."

So, while McCormick tries to portray herself as "her own person" and convince PUBLIC school supporters that she is not a "clone" of Tony Bennett, doing the math and watching her supporters one must question what they all expect to get from her if she defeats Glenda Ritz.  Jennifer McCormick can rub elbows with Brian Bosma, wear her "sassy" boots, and call Glenda Ritz a "politician", but she cannot distance herself far enough away from the Tony Bennett reformers to comfort us here at Hoosier Voices.  She came out swinging in the Superintendent's debate, but her punches fell short to those of us who truly believe in our traditional PUBLIC schools, their teachers, the students they serve, and our ELECTED Superintendent of PUBLIC Instruction.  We need a leader like Glenda Ritz who will stand up to the legislators, fight for our children, and move obstacles to accomplish PUBLIC education goals for Hoosier children.  The position IS STILL ELECTED.  1.3Million voters put Glenda Ritz in office and have watched as a Governor and GOP controlled legislature attempted to stifle her at every move.  We have been watching and waiting for four years to re-elect Glenda Ritz and give her a Governor and Legislature that will work WITH her to stop the destructive reform policies and money draining vouchers that have plagued our schools too long.  Sorry, Jennifer, but you are much closer to being a Tony Bennett clone than being anywhere near the fighter for public school children that SUPERINTENDENT Ritz has been and WILL CONTINUE to be.

TUESDAY TATTLER : WHO ARE THESE "Hoosiers for Quality Education"? PART 2

Who are "Hoosiers for Quality Education"?  Hoosier Voices originally asked this question in February 2015 when we noticed them using "Hoosier Voices" as a section on their website.

They are NOT Hoosier Voices for PUBLIC Education and they most definitely are NOT true supporters of Indiana's children of traditional public education.  We all know too much about their Senior Advisor and Consultant, Tony Bennett.  One can only wonder what he is advising them to do.  However, we can assume that he is very much in support of all the legislative maneuvers to continue the destruction he left behind and the attacks on Superintendent Ritz.  Tony Bennett spent years attacking Indiana's teachers and putting undue pressures on Hoosier students.  He set out to destroy our PUBLIC schools in favor of privatization and the padding of the wallets of the rich cronies of the GOP.  For example, the CEO/Chairman and Founder of Hoosiers for Quality Education (and the Institute for Quality Education), Fred Klipsch.  Let's look at the campaign contributions of Mr. Klipsch and his PAC to see the control H4QE has over the writing and passage of legislative detrimental to Indiana's PUBLIC schools and their hopes to elect a Bennet puppett, Dr. Jennifer McCormick, to replace Glenda Ritz as Superintendent of PUBLIC Instruction.

Below you will find the current campaign finance reports for contributions from the Hoosiers For Quality Education PAC.  Here you will see some very familiar names (names of legislators who have lead attacks against PUBLIC education and Glenda Ritz).  Take a close look, compare this report of contributions to the lists of Roll Call votes on damaging legislation and make the correlation we have made.  H4QE supports charters, vouchers, privatization, and their wealthy stakeholders.  They do not support Hoosier Voices or the very PUBLIC school children we all seek to protect and serve.

Contributions from Hoosiers for Quality Education to Indiana Candidates from June, 2015 to October 15, 2016

Click here to go to the actual campaign finance report

When you do the breakdown of their contributions you can get an idea of their motives.  You can also get a good glimpse of which candidates they are certain will do their bidding if elected.  They hit heavy on contributions to Speaker of the House Brian Bosma, Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, Education committee chairs Behning and Kruse, Chair of House Ways and Means Committee Tim Brown, along with others favorable to their privatization agenda. As you can see they have also poured heftily into the McCormick campaign to unseat Glenda Ritz. Dr. McCormick tries very hard to convince educators, PUBLIC education advocates, and PUBLIC school families that she is not a clone of Tony Bennett and his ideals.  However, when you look at her supporters you can see pretty clearly who is lining her campaign coffers to get her to follow their plans. Take a look at the totals for the "BIG WINNERS" of the H4QE Campaign contribution race and see just where they plan to get their mission accomplished.

McCormick for State Superintendent - $40,000
Brian Bosma - $17,500
Pete Miller - $17,500
David Long - $15,000
Senate Majority Campaign Committee - $15,000
House Republican Campaign Committee - $12,500
Indiana Republican State Committee - $10,000
Eric Holcomb (for Governor) - $10,000
Blake Doriot - $6,500
Tim Brown - $2,000
Bob Behning - $2,000
Dennis Kruse - $1,500

Interesting amounts and recipients, don't you think?



As we pointed out in our original post through a quote from (Public School supporter, now Democratic Candidate for State Senate District 13) Justin Kuhnle,


"Hoosiers for Quality Education was formally known as a 501(c) group, Hoosiers for Economic Growth, who as of 2013, has contributed over $2.3 million dollars in 7 years to 99.4% of Republican candidates.  In that time frame, one lobbyist of interest emerges -- Lindsey Brown.  While your group claims in one point to have only spent $274k in the 2014 election, what's troubling, that according to filing, expenditures totaled $338k.  What's equally troubling that according to the filings with the Secretary of State's page in Indiana, your group is past due in it's Business Entity Reports.  Now, according to some filings, your chairman is Fred Klipsch, who entertains interesting ties to certain groups (Koch Bros. to name one specific.) Wait, isn't he also Pence's treasurer?  One particular agenda item of this group is "projects that explore how the principles of free enterprise and classical liberalism promote a more peaceful and prosperous society" and are issued for education grants.  What's lost on these groups, is free market, as an economic idea, is lost due to risk mitigation to be used at the expense of the taxpayers, with a potential ultimate goal of increasing standardized testing (with projections of 14 hours 30 minutes this year alone for 3rd graders -- thank you GOP mandated at the state level to let CTN/McGraw do their will unabridged) and when standardized tests don't completely destroy public education, privatization will.  So in the end, without releasing all your little secrets, Hoosiers for Quality Education, you are promoting this agenda under the guise of a new, "cheerier" name. "



In closing the original post we promised to call out those who claim one thing and then act contradictory to their statements and goals.  This post is a continuance of our mission to point out the discrepancies of this particular group and who they truly are.  Now we must continue to alert true "friends" and "supporters" of Indiana's PUBLIC schools as to who these characters are and what their ultimate purposes include.  We must stand up to, not only our legislators and Governor, but also to these "false support" groups and make sure our PUBLIC schools and our children are no longer harmed by their desire to make money for their friends and cronies across the country.


WE ARE HOOSIER VOICES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION. THERE IS NO OTHER!!

The McCormick Plan? - or is it Bennett Plan 2.0?

Jennifer McCormick finally rolled out her “Lesson Plan for Indiana” on September 21.  That plan gives little insight into actual practice, yet draws more comparisons to her GOP mentor, Tony Bennett’s failed and flawed policies and practices.  McCormick said she did back many of the initiatives put in place by Indiana’s Republican-led legislature over the past eight years, such as tougher requirements for teacher evaluations and her “Lesson Plan” seems to be following a political agenda that closely aligns with the former Republican Superintendent, who championed controversial reforms such as the adoption of the Common Core academic standards and state-takeover of chronically failing schools.  McCormick has also previously stated her support for school choice, charters and vouchers.

Dr. McCormick announced her “Lesson Plan for Indiana” at the headquarters of Hoosiers for Quality Education.  Remember, we did a post about H4QE in February of 2015. 

http://hoosiervoices.blogspot.com/2015/02/tuesday-tattler-who-are-these-hoosiers.html

Big Education players for H4QE are veterans of the Daniels and Bennett administrations with strong ties to the education reform movement.

Tony Bennett, Senior Advisor and Consultant

As recently as July 2014, H4QE told potential donors that Bennett was its senior policy advisor. At a February 2 Senate committee hearing, H4QE’s lobbyist testified that Bennett works as its consultant.

Fred Klipsch, Chairman

Klipsch, who after a long career in business and Republican Party politics, started his involvement in education reform with the Educational Choice Charitable Trust by granting scholarships for private schools. This evolved into forming School Choice Indiana, which according to Klipsch, “literally drafted the education reform laws in 2011”. Klipsch served on Gov. Pence’s transition team upon being elected governor and continues to serve as his campaign treasurer.

Tosha Salyers, Director of Communications

Salyers was the director of outreach in the Bennett administration and worked for the corporate education reform group StudentsFirst, before joining H4QE as their spokesperson. StudentsFirst pulled operations out of Indiana in the summer of 2014.

Jennifer McCormick appears to be rolling around in corporate education reform money, the same money that funded Tony Bennett’s campaigns.  A peek at McCormick’s most recent campaign finance report reveals that 90 percent of her campaign contributions have come from donors of former Superintendent Tony Bennett.  As of August, McCormick’s campaign raised $121,478, of which $109,400 came directly from donors to Bennett’s campaign.

The Hoosiers for Quality Education PAC’s total to McCormick, so far, is at $30,000.

Fred Klipsch, donated $10,000 to McCormick at the end of May.

McCormick has also received $75,000 recently from the Tony Bennett grade changing  scandal charter school’s Christel DeHaan.

David Harris, from the Mind Trust, gave McCormick $250

Deborah Daniels, Mitch’s sister, also gave $250

Former  Indiana State Board of Education member Daniel Elsener has given $1,000 so far.

Charter honcho John Bryan has donated $2,500 so far.

These are only a few prominent reformer contributions.  More from other corporate school reform folks have come in throughout the campaign.

“We preach no bullying to the students and I will practice that,” McCormick said in her January campaign announcement. “I will not run a negative campaign.”

However, appearing negative enough to Superintendent Glenda Ritz’s supporters, McCormick announced her run at the Indiana Statehouse surrounded by representatives of interest groups that supported Ritz’s predecessor, Tony Bennett, or who have been critical of Ritz: Stand For Children, the Institute for Quality Education and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

Also on hand, in the crowd were several former staff members from Bennett’s education department team.  McCormick may not have mentioned Bennett, but  McCormick and Bennett share more than just donors who support corporate education “reform", however. The two have been linked since Bennett was state superintendent. Then Superintendent, Bennett cited McCormick's work in Yorktown in his final “state of education” address, given just months before he was defeated by Ritz in the 2012 election.

“Yorktown Schools, led by Superintendent Jennifer McCormick and a host of ambitious principals and teachers, have revamped their entire K-12 model based on providing every student a head start on college with a rich selection of Advanced Placement courses,” Bennett said in that speech. “In grade 3, Yorktown students begin an advanced curriculum designed to prepare them for college-level coursework as early as middle school. Yorktown has become one of Indiana’s AP leaders, and their model for college preparation has become an example for forward thinking districts around the state.”

It appears as though voters will ultimately be deciding whether to return to the Tony Bennett era of failed and flawed reforms or give Glenda Ritz another term, with a new Governor, this November.

"TWITTER STORM" SUPPORTING PUBLIC EDUCATION

Its time for a PUBLIC ED support "Twitter Storm" in light of the Institute for Quality Education's upcoming Quality Education Celebration, celebrating National School Choice Week by celebrating school choice options in Indiana, being held in the Indiana Statehouse Atrium on Monday, January 25.

The "Storm" will run from 4:00pm Sunday, January 24 until 5:00pm Monday, January 25.  During this storm we ask that PUBLIC ED advocates post tweets that include links to great public schools data, the effects of vouchers on public schools, and any highlights of positives of Indiana's PUBLIC schools.

Recently The Institute for Quality Education took a quote from a Chalkbeat article and published it on their twitter account claiming that ISTA President Teresa Meredith "supports" vouchers.  

Here is the actual full quote from the article.

"Clearly the public is unhappy with direction our state has gone and wants to get back to common sense support for students and public schools,” said Indiana State Teachers Association President Teresa Meredith in a statement. “Students’ chances for success should not depend on winning a charter lottery or living in the right zip code.”

Hoosier Voices For Public Education founder, Philip D. Arnold, states that he believes the intention of the quote was to say Public Schools are being robbed by the use of vouchers and "scholarships" being handed out based on geography or affluent status. 

When asked about the quote, President Meredith told Mr. Arnold, "Our government is selling off Public schools with vouchers and 'scholarships'.  No kid should have to have a voucher to get a good education"

Philip Arnold points out information from reviews critical of the Friedman research cited in the Chalkbeat article. An article posted by The National Education Policy Center states, " A recent report from the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice purports .... But a new review of that report finds it is based on weak underlying research and that it misrepresents findings."  Read full article.

To show our continued support and advocacy for our PUBLIC SCHOOLS, let's flood twitter feeds with our PRO-PUBLIC ED information leading up to, and during, the big I4QED "choice" celebration.  When you tweet or post pro-public education please use #INpublicED along with any other of your "hashtags" and please tweet @i4qed @h4qed and @HoosierVoices along with others you wish to tweet to.  

In recent days Indiana's Public Education Advocates have pushed for positive moves in the current legislative session.  We need to continue our push of support and continue to show that our PUBLIC schools are worth the fight as we take on the volatile and poisonous "reform" minded legislators and the benefactors of their legislative agenda (benefactors like Institute for Quality Education, The Mind Trust, Hoosiers for Quality Education, Charter school operators , Private School financial officers, ALEC, Koch brothers, Friedman Foundation)

TUESDAY TATTLER : WHO ARE THESE "Hoosiers for Quality Education"?

Formerly known as Hoosiers for Economic Growth, this Fred Klipsch group appears to be a false front for Quality Education in favor of stripping true PUBLIC schools of much needed funding in support of vouchers and private corporation profits through their "false advertisement" of being supportive of Indiana's school children.  Hoosiers for Quaility Education sits in the front line of attacks against State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz.  They endorse most all of the attempts of the House and Senate leaders, and Governor Pence, to strip Superintendent Ritz of her powers as an elected official and to siphon more financial support from Indiana's PUBLIC schools into the pockets of private and charter school leaders.  

The Institute for Quality Education, a partner with Hoosiers for Quality Education, has gone so far as to "steal" the Hoosier-Voices title for a section of their website. Both of these groups list Fred Klipsch as their CEO/Chairperson and Founder.  This move blatantly confuses true supporters of Indiana's traditional PUBLIC schools, by leading them to believe Hoosier Voices agrees with these bills and the support of the GOP agenda to further destroy our educational system by over testing, under funding, and stripping the ELECTED Superintendent of the duties and powers 1.3 million plus voters put her in office to see through.

Looking further into this group you find that none other than Tony Bennett, the man who lost to Glenda Ritz, acting as a "consultant" to them on matters of quality education.  Hoosier voters, both Republican and Democrat, saw through his inabilities and together voted him out.  Why would any group claiming to support quality education and the children of Indiana choose this man as a consultant in any manner.

Onto other matters with this group, their name and economic status, there are major questions and issues bordering on legality.  Public School supporter Justin Kuhnle points out...

"Hoosiers for Quality Education was formally known as a 501(c) group, Hoosiers for Economic Growth, who as of 2013, has contributed over $2.3 million dollars in 7 years to 99.4% of Republican candidates.  In that time frame, one lobbyist of interest emerges -- Lindsey Brown.  While your group claims in one point to have only spent $274k in the 2014 election, what's troubling, that according to filing, expenditures totaled $338k.  What's equally troubling that according to the filings with the Secretary of State's page in Indiana, your group is past due in it's Business Entity Reports.  Now, according to some filings, your chairman is Fred Klipsch, who entertains interesting ties to certain groups (Koch Bros. to name one specific.) Wait, isn't he also Pence's treasurer?  One particular agenda item of this group is "projects that explore how the principles of free enterprise and classical liberalism promote a more peaceful and prosperous society" and are issued for education grants.  What's lost on these groups, is free market, as an economic idea, is lost due to risk mitigation to be used at the expense of the taxpayers, with a potential ultimate goal of increasing standardized testing (with projections of 14 hours 30 minutes this year alone for 3rd graders -- thank you GOP mandated at the state level to let CTN/McGraw do their will unabridged) and when standardized tests don't completely destroy public education, privatization will.  So in the end, without releasing all your little secrets, Hoosiers for Quality Education, you are promoting this agenda under the guise of a new, "cheerier" name. "

This is the beginning of a series of posts to call out those who claim one thing and then act contradictory to their statements and goals.  This is part one of our mission to point out the discrepancies of this particular group and who they truly are.  There is so much more information to point out there needed to be a starting point.  Now we must continue to alert true "friends" and "supporters" of Indiana's PUBLIC schools as to who these characters are and what their ultimate purposes include.  We must stand up to, not only our legislators and Governor, but also to these "false support" groups and make sure our PUBLIC schools and our children are no longer harmed by their desire to make money for their friends and cronies across the country.


WE ARE HOOSIER VOICES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION. THERE IS NO OTHER!!

#WeAreHoosierVoices