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Glenda Ritz, state education
board clash over waiver
by Eric Weddle, Indy Star
June 24, 2014

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
Tensions and disagreements involving Indiana's
superintendent of public instruction, the governor
and members of the State Board of Education
returned Monday. During two consecutive
meetings on critical education policy issues,
Glenda Ritz was rebuffed by Gov. Mike Pence
and faced strong criticism from board members.
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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
The discontent comes a week before Ritz must
file amendments with the U.S. Department of
Education in a bid to maintain Indiana's waiver
from some federal education requirements.
Federal monitors have flagged numerous
deficiencies in the state's education reforms and
continue to question the state department's
proposed fixes.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
The meetings did shed light on how students and
teachers will be affected by a revamped academic
achievement exam.
Indiana's high-stakes standardized exam could be
changing and expanding to more students in the
next two years in an attempt to help lagging
students and satisfy federal education officials.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
A board led by Pence and Ritz recommended that
a one-time update to the ISTEP exam be
developed by current vendor CTB/McGraw-Hill
and Indiana teachers for spring 2015. The state
Education Department would then select a vendor
to develop a future standardized test to be used in
2015-16.
Ritz, though, voted against the recommendation
after her attempt to amend it failed. She wanted to
require that reading assessments be part of the
new test design.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
Pence urged the board not to approve Ritz's
motion.
The U.S Department of Education is requiring
Indiana to begin new standardized tests next
spring that would be based on the recently
adopted K-12 academic standards that replaced
Common Core. Failure to do so would jeopardize
the state's federal waiver from meeting
requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
Pence said working with current vendors for the
exam next spring would add consistency between
the new test and the current version. The amount
that CTB/McGraw-Hill would be paid is unknown.
CTB/McGraw-Hill administered ISTEP, also
known as Indiana Statewide Testing for
Educational Progress, under a four-year, $95
million contract with the state Education
Department. The contract ends this week but will
be extended.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
"A diploma from our high schools should signal
that our graduates are ready for careers or
college," Pence said.
Currently, 10th-graders take assessments
required for graduation. These assessments could
be phased out and become part of ISTEP.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waive
"We are asking a lot of our teachers over the next
two years in regards to rollout of our new
standards, (updating) ISTEP," Pence said.
"Therefore, I think we should make every effort to
maintain as much consistency as we can in
redesigning ISTEP for the 2015 and 2016
academic years."

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waive
The State Board of Education will have final say
on any ISTEP changes. The board did not vote on
the issue during its meeting Monday, but
members asked whether Ritz and the Department
of Education were prepared to submit
amendments by June 30 to extend Indiana's
waiver from No Child Left Behind.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waive
At the start of the meeting, member Brad Oliver
told Ritz he and other board members were not
provided all materials the state department
prepared for the application. Oliver attempted to
add a resolution to the agenda that would give the
board more oversight of the waiver application,
but Ritz rejected it.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
Oliver said board rules allowed members to
appeal Ritz's decision. Lawyers for the
Department of Eduction and Center for Education
and Career Innovation, Pence's education office
that assists board members, disagreed on what
the rules allowed.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
"Brad, I am totally committed to this waiver. I live
and breathe this waiver," Ritz said at one point.
"You have all the info you need on this waiver."
Oliver disagreed.
"I am concerned," he said after the meeting, about
the possibility Indiana could lose its waiver. "I'll be
cautiously optimistic."

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
Indiana is one of 42 states with a waiver from No
Child Left Behind and was one of the first states,
in February 2012, to receive a waiver. States
sought waivers to be released from stringent
federal requirements of the 2001 law, such as
passing scores for all students, including those
with learning disabilities, and to have more control
over how federal funds are spent in exchange for
certain types of reforms.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
Former state Superintendent Tony Bennett
championed the reforms, such as adoption of
teacher evaluations and Common Core academic
standards, that were instrumental to the waiver
approval.
Ritz has been left with much of the
implementation of the reforms to satisfy the
waiver. Bennett, a Republican, lost re-election in
2012 to Ritz, a Democrat.

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Glenda Ritz, State Education Board clash over waiver
Indiana is the only state with a condition placed
on its waiver as a result of a monitoring inspection
last fall.
Federal monitors found problems with the state
Department of Education's ability to help failing
schools, monitor compliance and provide
technical assistance for teacher and principal
evaluations, among other issues.

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The department also must prove the recently
adopted K-12 academic standards meet federal
requirements for preparing students for college or
careers.
Also during Monday's meetings, resource guides
about the state's new math and English standards
were approved. These online documents are
intended to help teachers, families and community
members understand the standards. The state
Department of Education will release the guides
by July 1.