In Case You Missed It – April 22, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Does 3.0 represent a serious shift for the organization? Not really. The fundamental message of M4L has always been the same-- public schools are scary and terrible and good God-fearing people should either take them over or abandon them. Parental rights (but not student rights)! As Chris Rufo, hot young culture panic agitator, told a Hillsdale College audience, 'To get universal school choice, you really need to operate from a place of universal school distrust.'" -- From Peter Greene in Moms For Liberty 3.0

MOMS FOR LIBERTY VERSION 3

Moms For Liberty 3.0

Moms for Liberty - yet another group of right-wing warriors who hate public education.

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

First, there was Moms For Liberty Beta, called the Florida Coalition of School Board Members. Then came the actual Moms For Liberty launch, a group of ladies who were upset about masking and school building closures. That gave way pretty quickly to M4L 2.0, the group that was all about banning naughty books and clamping down on LGBTA ideology (whatever that is).

M4L 2.0 cruised along pretty well for a while. But as more people came to understand what they were up to, their thin skins, their desire to tell other moms what children should be allowed to read. their intolerance-- well, opposition started to swell. And their last election round wasn't very impressive (we'll never know exactly how unimpressive because, perhaps already sensing that their brand was tarnished, they backed away from endorsing so many candidates). And their beloved Ron DeSantis had to slink home in humiliation and defeat. And they went on 60 Minutes and couldn't really explain the terrible alleged indoctrination they were crusading against.

Make way for version 3.0.

CHARTER AUTHORIZER SHOPPING

Charter school goes shopping

Steve Hinnefeld at School Matters writes about what happens when failing charter schools go shopping for an authorizer after being dropped by a previous authorizer...or two.

From School Matters

Trine University came to the rescue eight years ago when Thea Bowman Leadership Academy was in danger of losing its charter and being shut down.

Now Trine has revoked the Gary, Indiana, school’s charter, citing academic and governance issues. But another private institution, Calumet College of St. Joseph, has stepped up.

“It’s funny how things have come full circle,” said Lindsay Omlor, executive director of Education One, Trine’s charter-school-authorizing office.

Today’s topic is authorizer shopping, what happens when charter schools jump from one authorizer to another to stay open or find a better deal. Thea Bowman looks to be taking the practice to a new level. It now has its third authorizer in less than a decade.

CASHING IN ON THE SCIENCE OF READING LAWS

Jobs’ Reading Scam

Retired teacher and blogger Tom Ultican, writes that the science behind “the Science of Reading” movement is not very scientific. Publishers and vendors are preparing to cash in on legislative mandates that force reading teachers to use only one method to teach reading despite the lack of evidence for its efficacy. Ultican zeroes in on the role of billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs as one of the key players in promoting SofR.

From Tultican

Laurene Powell Jobs controls Amplify, a kids-at-screens education enterprise. In 2011, she became one of the wealthiest women in the world when her husband, Steve, died. This former Silicon Valley housewife displays the arrogance of wealth, infecting all billionaires. She is now a “philanthropist”, in pursuit of both her concerns and biases. Her care for the environment and climate change are admirable but her anti-public school thinking is a threat to America. Her company, Amplify, sells the antithesis of good education.

I am on Amplify’s mailing list. April third’s new message said,

“What if I told you there’s a way for 95% of your students to read at or near grade level? Maybe you’ve heard the term Science of Reading before, and have wondered what it is and why it matters.”

Spokesperson, Susan Lambert, goes on to disingenuously explain how the Science of Reading (SoR) “refers to the abundance of research illustrating the best way students learn to read.”

This whopper is followed by a bigger one, stating:

“A shift to a Science of Reading-based curriculum can help give every teacher and student what they need and guarantee literacy success in your school. Tennessee school districts did just that and they are seeing an abundant amount of success from their efforts.”

A shift to SoR-based curriculum is as likely to cause harm as it is to bring literacy success. This was just a used-car salesman style claim. On the other hand, the “abundance of success” in Tennessee is an unadulterated lie. National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) tracks testing over time and is respected for education testing integrity. Tennessee’s NAEP data shows no success “from their efforts.” Their reading scores since 2013 have been down, not a lot but do not demonstrate an “abundance of success”.

EXHAUSTED SUPERHEROES

Too Much For Mere Mortals

Former classroom teacher Peter Greene knows that teachers are overworked. There are not enough hours in the day for them to meet all their obligations. What to do?

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

Being overworked is part of the gig, and some of us wear our ability to manage that workload as a badge of honor, like folks who are proud of surviving an initiation hazing and insist that the new recruits should suck it up and run the same gauntlet. On reflection, I must admit this may not be entirely healthy, especially considering the number of young teachers who blame themselves because they can't simply gut their way past having overloaded circuits.

There's also resistance because the "let's give teachers a break" argument is used by 1) vendors with "teacher-assisting" junk to sell and 2) folks who want to deprofessionalize teaching. That second group likes the notion of "teacher-proof" programs, curriculum in a box that can be delivered by any dope ("any dope" constitutes a large and therefor inexpensive labor pool).

We could lighten the teacher load, the argument goes, by reducing their agency and autonomy. Not in those exact words, of course. That would make it obvious why that approach isn't popular.

INDIANA TESTING: NEW ILEARN FORMAT

New ILEARN format will allow for more personalized learning for students

From The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

An estimated 1,200 Hoosier schools including those in the Fort Wayne Community and East Allen County districts will pilot a new ILEARN assessment format next school year. This adds three preparatory tests to be administered prior to the typical end-of-year exam.

Summative assessments are intended to collect data on student performance, pinpoint problem areas and spur improved educational programs. But Indiana’s low proficiency rates on standardized tests have been used by proponents of the state’s school voucher system to claim public schools are failing Hoosiers.

The new setup, which will be adopted statewide for the 2025-26 school year, moves away from that played-out game. Instead, the preparation tests are diagnostic, helping teachers and parents learn where students between grades 3 and 8 are performing academically throughout the year and could better prepare them for the spring summative exam.

Approved by the State Board of Education last summer, the three preparatory tests will contain 20 to 25 questions focusing on four to six state education standards and a shortened summative exam in the spring. The new ILEARN setup will help educators implement remediation and intervention, such as additional tutoring for students who require it, ahead of the end-of-year exam, said Education Secretary Katie Jenner.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – April 15, 2024

Here are links to articles from the last two weeks^† receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"...a voucher by any other name still smells the same. It’s a payoff to parents so that they’ll exit public education, a false promise of education choice, a redirection of public taxpayer dollars into private pockets, an outsourcing of discrimination, a public subsidy for private religious choices, a means of defunding and dismantling public education as we understand it in this country, a transformation of a public good into a market-based commodity. Call it what you like. There isn’t enough air freshener in the world to make it smell like a rose." -- Peter Greene, quoted by Diane Ravitch in Peter Greene: A Voucher By Any Other Name Is Still a Voucher and a Hoax

VOUCHERS

Peter Greene: A Voucher By Any Other Name Is Still a Voucher and a Hoax

Voucher supporters won't use the word "vouchers."

From Diane Ravitch quoting Peter Greene

Voucher supporters have one major problem: school vouchers are unpopular.

The term doesn’t test well. Measure of public support is iffy– if you ask people if they would like every student to have the chance to ride to a great school on their own pony, people say yes, but if you ask a more reality-based framing (“should we spend education dollars on public schools or subsidies for some private schools”) the results look a bit different.

But one clear measure of public support for vouchers is this; despite all the insistence that the public just loves the idea, no voucher measure has ever been passed by the voters in a state. All voucher laws have been passed by legislators, not voted in by the public.

Voucher supporters have developed one clear strategy– call them something else.

Bad Governance with Education Vouchers

Public dollars should be accountable to public scrutiny.

From Tultican

February 26, a Maricopa County Grand Jury indicted six people, including three employees of Arizona’s education department, for forgery, fraud and money laundering. The forty counts charged were related to stealing from the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. Attorney General Kris Mayes claimed the fact that three department of education employees were involved indicates a lack of adequate fraud prevention but ESA advocates say new guardrails are not needed.

Before arriving into the 21st century, protecting against malfeasance with tax-generated dollars was considered fundamental to good governance. Arguably, voucher programs violate this basic tenet.

CHARTERS

Oklahoma Supreme Court Justices Appear to Question Constitutionality of Religious Charter School

Public funds should be for public schools, not religious schools.

From Jan Resseger

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the state of Oklahoma heard oral arguments in a case filed by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond versus the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board, which approved a religious charter school last June. The case challenges whether the establishment of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School can be legal under the provisions of the Oklahoma Constitution. If the school is permitted to open in August, it will be operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

The Oklahoman’s Murray Evans reports that during oral arguments on Tuesday, “Drummond told justices he sued the virtual-school board ‘to defend the separation of church and state’… Drummond said Article 2, Section 5 of the Oklahoma Constitution was at the heart of his case: ‘No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary or sectarian institution as such.'”

There are two issues being tested in two cases challenging the establishment of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School: (1) protecting children from a charter school’s imposition of religious practice in violation of the constitutional protection of religious liberty, and (2) ensuring that government is not sponsoring charter schools that can select students according to the school’s religious affiliation or discriminate against students whose LGBTQ status (or other characteristic) may violate church strictures.

Indianapolis charter school seeks to go private so it can accept vouchers

From Chalkbeat Indiana*

An Indianapolis charter school with a checkered track record wants to become a private school that accepts students who use state vouchers.

The Genius School, a K-6 school on the city’s east side, is petitioning the State Board of Education for accreditation as a non-public school. State law requires private schools that accept vouchers to be accredited by the State Board of Education or a recognized accreditation agency.

The board has the item on its agenda for a meeting on Wednesday.

Following a meeting of the school’s board of directors on Thursday, Genius School Head of School Shy-Quon Ely II confirmed that the school is exploring its options as a “non-public” school.

The move is the latest attempt by the school to stay open despite its rocky history. It would allow the school to operate without the oversight of a separate entity — its charter authorizer — tasked with holding the school accountable. The Genius School’s decision also comes as the number of students eligible for and using private school vouchers has grown dramatically in the state.

KEEP RELIGION OUT OF SCIENCE CLASSES

New Law Allowing Religion into Science Classrooms Is Dangerous for Everyone

Religion belongs in Sunday School...or private schools. Public schools must teach science, not religious dogma.

From Scientific American

I grew up a creationist in the rural southeastern U.S. I am now a scientist, educator, wife, mother and person of faith. Regardless of whether you practice religion, you should fight to prohibit the teaching of nonscientific alternative ideas in science classrooms and use your vote and your voice to prevent the inclusion of religious beliefs in public education. A recently signed law in West Virginia illustrates why.

I often hear lamentations about the removal of God from public schools. These sentiments are based on a misinterpretation of the principle of the separation of church and state. In the U.S., religious beliefs and practices are protected and situated in their rightful place within people’s homes and communities so that individuals can choose what to teach their children regarding religion. Kids can still pray whenever they wish, gather with their peers, create faith-based groups or even nondisruptively practice their faith in school. Separating state and church means young people cannot be compelled to engage in religious actions by someone in a position of power, such as a teacher, administrator or lawmaker. Separation of church and state is as critical to people of faith as it is to those who do not practice faith traditions. The protection of personal religious freedoms was a vital component of the foundation of our nation.

On March 22 West Virginia governor Jim Justice signed a bill that purports to protect the ability of the state’s public school educators to teach scientific theories. There is no actual problem that the new law would solve, however; none of its supporters produced a teacher who plausibly claimed to have been oppressed. But the legislative history of the bill, known as Senate Bill 280, makes it clear that its real aim is to encourage educators to teach religiously motivated “alternatives” to evolution. As introduced, SB 280 would have expressly allowed the teaching of “intelligent design” in West Virginia’s public schools.

FWCS--TEACHER JOB FAIR

Fort Wayne Community Schools seeks teachers at job fair

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Aspiring Fort Wayne Community Schools educators could get an interview with a principal this month just by showing up at North Side High School.

The district will host a teacher job fair from 3:30 to 6 p.m. April 16 at the school, 475 E. State Blvd., as it seeks to fill about 100 vacancies for next academic year.

The number of openings isn’t unusual, said Kody Tinnel, human resources manager of strategic projects. Compared to this time last year, he said Wednesday, “the need is about the same.”

FWCS employs more than 4,000 people, including nearly 2,000 teachers, according to its website.

Special education and English language-learner positions are the areas of highest need, Tinnel said, but openings include “a little bit of everything.”

*Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – April 1, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

NOTE: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It will not be published next week. Our bloggers will be traveling to experience the total solar eclipse passing through the United States and Indiana on April 8.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Will professors of science be allowed to teach about climate change or evolution without giving equal time to “the other side?”

Will professors of American history be allowed to teach about the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow and institutional racism without introducing the Confederate point of view?" -- Diane Ravitch in Indiana: New Law Requires Professors to Teach “Diverse” Views or Face Firing

ACADEMIC FREEDOM UNDER ATTACK IN INDIANA

Indiana: New Law Requires Professors to Teach “Diverse” Views or Face Firing

Will Indiana's college teachers be forced to teach right-wing propaganda?

From Diane Ravitch

Republicans have grown frustrated by their inability to get their views represented on college campuses, so they have grown more assertive in passing laws to ban ideas they don’t like (such as “critical race theory” or gender studies or diversity/equity/inclusion or “divisive concepts).

Indiana is imposing a different approach. Instead of banning what it does not like, the Legislature is requiring professors to teach different points of view.

The New York Times reports:

A new law in Indiana requires professors in public universities to foster a culture of “intellectual diversity” or face disciplinary actions, including termination for even those with tenure, the latest in an effort by Republicans to assert more control over what is taught in classrooms.

The law connects the job status of faculty members, regardless of whether they are tenured, to whether, in the eyes of a university’s board of trustees, they promote “free inquiry” and “free expression.” State Senator Spencer Deery, who sponsored the bill, made clear in a statement that this would entail the inclusion of more conservative viewpoints on campus.

The backlash to the legislation, which Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, signed March 13, has been substantial. Hundreds wrote letters or testified at hearings, and faculty senates at multiple institutions had urged the legislature to reject the bill, condemning it as government overreach and a blow to academic free speech.

TAX-FUNDED RELIGIOUS CHARTERS ARE COMING

Religious Charter Schools are Coming. Be Worried.

Public funds are being diverted from public schools to private religious schools. The anti-public school forces are expanding to include religious charter schools.

From Have You Heard Podcast

Last year Oklahoma approved the nation’s first tax-payer funded religious charter school. It won’t be the last, warns Rachel Laser of Americans United for Church and State. We’re joined by Laser and two plaintiffs in a legal effort to keep the school from opening. As our guests explain, the school is part of a larger project to roll back the clock on civil rights, disability rights and labor protections. Now for the good news: tearing down the separation between church and state turns out to be really unpopular.

VOUCHER EXPANSION IN OHIO THREATENS TO REACH INDIANA LEVELS

Will Untenable Voucher Expansion Threaten Public School Funding in Ohio?

In Indiana, a family with an income not more than 400% of the amount to qualify for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program can get a school voucher. That amount is more than $200,000 for a family of four.

Ohio residents beware. It won't stop...the dollars will continue to be diverted from public schools to religious schools.

From Jan Resseger

The Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s Laura Hancock reports this week that the enormous expansion of EdChoice vouchers in Ohio will bring the state’s investment in its five private school tuition voucher programs to at least a billion dollars by the end of Fiscal Year 2024 on October 1. In Ohio, a total of 152,118 students, according to Hancock’s data, now attend private schools using tax funded vouchers.

Ohio began offering private school vouchers to students in a relatively small program in Cleveland in 1996. Ohio now has five school voucher programs, one program for children with autism, another for students with disabilities, the original Cleveland program, and two statewide school voucher programs, including EdChoice Expansion by which any student can now qualify to carry public tax dollars to pay private school tuition.

This year, after the legislature expanded eligibility for EdChoice vouchers in the state budget—by raising the income qualification to include students with family income up to $135,000 and offering partial vouchers to students in families with income above $135,000—the number of students and the diversion of state tax dollars skyrocketed. Hancock explains: “As of March 18, state spending on all five scholarship programs was $980.4 million, with several months yet to go in the state’s fiscal year. ”

PROFITING ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

The Atlantic: Private Equity Eyes Child-Care Industry as Profit Center

As the research has built up on the value of early childhood education, more states are directing money toward expanding access. Wherever money flows, the private equity industry turns its gaze and seeks to do what it does best: privatize and profit. In this age, private equity figures out how to maximize profit from services that used to be public.

From Diane Ravitch

Private equity’s interest in child care has been growing in recent years. “While there has been corporate for-profit child care since the 1970s, private equity only got in starting in the early 2000s,” Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow who studies early childhood education at the nonpartisan think tank Capita, told me. Now four of the top five for-profit child-care chains—KinderCare, Learning Care Group, the Goddard School, and Primrose Schools—are controlled by private-equity funds, and private-equity-backed centers represent 10 to 12 percent of the market.

Private investors are intrigued by child care for the same reasons they became interested in nursing homes and other health-care services: intense demand, government money, and relatively low start-up costs. “Their goal is not long-term sustainability; their goal is to try to turn a profit,” Haspel said.

Private equity’s foray into child care could go a number of ways, but its introduction has largely not worked out well for other sectors—and certainly not for many people who rely on those sectors’ services. In his book, Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America, Brendan Ballou, who investigated private-equity firms at the Department of Justice, posits that the private-equity business model has three basic problems. First, these firms buy a business with the intention of flipping it for a profit, not long-term sustainability, meaning that they are trying to maximize value in the short term and are less likely to invest in staff or facilities. Second, they tend to load businesses up with debt and extract a lot of fees, such as charging child-care providers for the privilege of being managed by the firm. And perhaps most important, their business structure insulates firms from liability.

AI LESSON PLANS?

How About AI Lesson Plans?

Peter Greene warns teachers not to fall for the cheap and lazy artificial intelligence (AI) that designs lesson plans.

From Curmudgucation on Substack

Some Brooklyn schools are piloting an AI assistant that will create lesson plans for them.

Superintendent Janice Ross explains it this way. “Teachers spend hours creating lesson plans. They should not be doing that anymore.”

The product is YourWai (get it?) courtesy of The Learning Innovation Catalyst (LINC), a company that specializes in "learning for educators that works/inspires/motivates/empowers." They're the kind of company that says things like "shift to impactful professional learning focused on targeted outcomes" unironically. Their LinkedIn profile says "Shaping the Future of Learning: LINC supports the development of equitable, student-centered learning by helping educators successfully shift to blended, project-based, and other innovative learning models." You get the idea.

LINC was co-founded by Tiffany Wycoff, who logged a couple of decades in the private school world before writing a book, launching a speaking career, and co-founding LINC in 2017. Co-founder Jaime Pales used to work for Redbird Advanced Learning as executive director for Puerto Rico and Latin America and before that "developed next-generation learning programs" at some company.

FLEXIBLE DIPLOMAS

Indiana officials propose new ‘streamlined’ high school diplomas for Hoosier students

If approved, there will be two main diploma paths. Each will have “flexible” options for “personalization” in grades 11 and 12.

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

A proposal to streamline Indiana’s high school diplomas and reduce options to just two primary graduation paths was announced by state education officials on Wednesday.

The plan is part of an ongoing statewide effort to “reinvent” the high school experience and better prepare Hoosiers for their lives post-graduation — whether they want to pursue college or other skills training, or choose to directly enter the workforce.

The new options will take effect beginning with the Class of 2029 — for students that are currently in seventh grade. Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said some Hoosier schools will likely roll out the revamped graduation requirements sooner, though.

“How do we make the four years of high school as valuable as possible for students? What does that look like in a country where high school education has not changed, for most, in over 100 years? And yet the world around us, technology, is advancing — the world around us is changing,” Jenner said, noting that Indiana’s diploma has not been “significantly updated” since the late 1980s.

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

Southwest Allen County Schools plans pre-K program

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Southwest Allen County Schools is preparing to launch a pre-K class in August for 24 children living within the boundaries of its largest elementary school.

Startup costs are budgeted for $234,000 to $260,000 and include about $80,000 for equipment. The district hopes to offset expenses with partnerships, donations and grants, Superintendent Park Ginder said.

He brought the item to the school board for discussion last week. The administration wants the elected leaders to participate in the decision-making process because of the costs involved.

“We know that other districts run this program at a very big loss,” Ginder said after the March 19 meeting. “We also know there are other districts that have very, very large donors – six-figure donors, in some cases – that help pay for these opportunities.”

Ginder told the board he recommends launching the Covington Elementary School class – which would have one teacher and two aides – next academic year regardless of the outside funding secured.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – March 25, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"How do you build a world-class human? Well, you give him or her the benefits of a broad, humane, liberal arts education that confers judgment, wisdom, vision, and generosity. Greene shows us, from her own classes over three decades, exactly how that happens.

And she shows us how, under the “standards”-and-testing occupation, all that is being lost." -- Bob Shepherd, quoted in Bob Shepherd: Gayle Green on How to Make a Human by Diane Ravitch.

THE CASE FOR NOT TAKING A WRECKING BALL TO WHAT HAS WORKED

Bob Shepherd: Gayle Green on How to Make a Human

The so-called "education reform" movement to privatize education has been decimating schools for more than two decades. Has it worked to improve student outcomes?

From Diane Ravitch

Bob Shepherd, author, editor, assessment developer, story-teller, and teacher, read a book that he loved. He hopes—and I hope—that you will love it too.

He writes:

Like much of Europe between 1939 and 1945, education in the United States, at every level, is now under occupation. The occupation is led by Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation and abetted by countless collaborators like those paid by Gates to create the puerile and failed Common Core (which was not core—that is, central, key, or foundational—and was common only in the sense of being vulgar. The bean counting under the occupation via its demonstrably invalid, pseudoscientific testing regime has made of schooling in the U.S. a diminished thing, with debased and devolved test preppy curricula (teaching materials) and pedagogy (teaching methods).

In the midst of this, Gayle Greene, a renowned Shakespeare scholar and Professor Emerita at Scripps University, has engaged in some delightful bomb throwing for the Resistance. Her weapon? A new book called Immeasurable Outcomes: Teaching Shakespeare in the Age of the Algorithm.

SCHOOLS NEED COUNSELORS, NOT CHAPLAINS

Hindu “Statesman” Will Move to Florida if DeSantis Signs the Bill to Let Him Guide Students

The founders chose to keep church and state separate. Using chaplains instead of counselors flies in the face of that basic American concept. States should fully fund schools so that qualified counselors can be hired.

A similar bill failed to pass in this year's Indiana General Assembly, but our guess is that it's not gone forever.

From Diane Ravitch

The Miami Herald reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to sign a bill that would allow chaplains to offer counseling in public schools, but one colorful religious figure says he is already eager to volunteer.

He’s a self-described “Hindu statesman” from Nevada who says he would like to bring “the wisdom of ancient Sanskrit scriptures” to students — perhaps not exactly what Florida lawmakers had in mind when they approved a bill that supporters tout as a way to make up for a shortage of mental health counselors in many schools.

The offer from Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, may amount to just his latest effort to raise his organization’s profile, but it also underlines concerns from critics. Mainly, that the bill’s vague definition of “counseling” will invite religious groups — whether they are Hindu, Christian or otherwise — to use it as a door to teaching their beliefs in secular school systems.

IT'S STILL POVERTY

Will the U.S. Senate Waste this Year’s Opportunity to Reduce Child Poverty?

Child poverty is the number one cause of low student achievement in the US (and worldwide). No amount of scripted lessons, overuse, and misuse of testing, or insulting and demeaning educators will improve student outcomes. We've known this for years.

"...we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

As you read this post, you will see that there is one political party in the US that is more interested in providing tax breaks for businesses than helping poor children. Remember in November.

From Jan Resseger

One of three huge structural injustices for American children and their public schools—along with inadequate and unequally distributed school funding across the states and persistent economic and racial segregation—is our society’s outrageous level of child poverty. Right now Congress may squander a real opportunity to begin helping our society’s poorest children.

Although, on January 31, the U.S. House passed by a large margin a bipartisan compromise bill that would modestly increase the Child Tax Credit along with some business tax breaks that are a Republican priority, the bill has never been brought to the floor of the U.S. Senate for a vote.

Last week, the NY Times‘ Kayla Guo described the impasse and some of the politics: “A bipartisan bill to expand the Child Tax Credit and reinstate a set of business tax breaks has stalled in the Senate after winning overwhelming approval in the House, as Republicans balk at legislation they regard as too generous to low-income families. The delay of the $78 billion tax package has imperiled the measure’s chances and reflects the challenges of passing any major legislation in an election year. Enacting a new tax law would give President Biden and Democrats an achievement to campaign on, something that Republicans may prefer to avoid.”

The new bill to expand the Child Tax Credit is inferior to what was incorporated in the 2021, COVID relief, American Rescue Plan, which helped America’s poorest families by making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable to families without income or with such meager income that they don’t pay enough federal income taxes to cover the amount of the full Child Tax Credit. When Congress let that expansion of the Child Tax Credit expire at the end of 2021, U.S. child poverty increased by 41 percent.

SCHOOLS CAN BREAK UP ILEARN THROUGHOUT THE SCHOOL YEAR

Indiana schools get legislative green light to break up ILEARN testing throughout school year

The Indiana General Assembly offers some flexibility for schools.

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

An option for schools to divvy up portions of Indiana’s ILEARN exams was approved by state lawmakers at the end of the 2024 legislative session and will change how thousands of Hoosier students are tested.

The provision was included in House Enrolled Act 1243, an omnibus education bill filled with action items supported by the Indiana Department of Education.

The assessment plan includes what state education officials call “flexible checkpoints” for schools to administer ILEARN preparation tests in language arts and math before the typical end-of-year summative tests. A dozen other states already have similar models.

Based on a plan approved by the Indiana’s State Board of Education last summer, the “checkpoints” will consist of 20 to 25 questions and hone in on four to six state standards. The exams are designed to be administered to students about every three months, but local schools and districts can speed up testing if they wish.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – March 18, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Believing the pandemic brought harmful policy shifts, causing school quality to decline, [Hanushek] sees abandoning standardized test accountability as number one on his pantheon of bad moves. Teachers unions pushing for their preferred education policies seems wrong to Hanushek. After all, what do teachers know about good education? They are not trained MIT economists, like he is!

"...Learning-loss is not the big danger facing America’s students. The real danger is the likes of McKinsey, NWEA, CREDO and research leaders like Eric Hanushek." -- Tom Ultican in Subterfuge and Learning Loss Baloney.

THE STUPIDITY OF RANKING SCHOOLS BY TEST SCORES

School Ratings and Rankings Cause Educational Redlining and Resegregation

Children, teachers, and schools are more than just the sum of their test scores.

From Jan Resseger

Having attended school in a small Montana town, where we all went to the same middle school and high school, and having parented two children who attended our neighborhood elementary and middle school and came together at our community’s only high school here in a Cleveland, Ohio inner suburb, I prefer the old and more radical solution to the whole problem of school choice driven by metrics published in the newspaper or school report cards. In fact, for the majority of families in the United States, neighborhood schools are still the norm. A system of neighborhood schools embodies the idea that parents’ responsibility is to help their children embrace the opportunities at the school where they are assigned.

As parents when my children were in elementary school, we used the PTA meetings as places to strategize about how we could better support innovations and special programs to make school more fun and challenging for all the students. A district-wide school support agency in our community provides a tutoring program for students who need extra help, and there is a community supported, district-wide music camp for a week in June when the high school orchestra director and his staff, along with a raft of graduates from the high school music program, help students from across the middle schools to prepare for joining the high school band and orchestra. People from across the school district turn out for the concert that culminates the summer music camp.

This kind of community involvement connects parents with the community’s public schools in a qualitative way. When people engage personally with a school, the teachers and the students, parents can learn so much more about a school than any metric can expose.

LEARNING LOSS BALONEY

Subterfuge and Learning Loss Baloney

There is a widespread panic over "learning loss" from the COVID-19 pandemic. Tom Ultican talks us off the ledge...

From Tultican

Crazy pants Eric Hanushek claims COVID “learning-loss” could cost American students $31 trillion in future earnings. He burst onto the education world’s consciousness with his 1981 paper, claiming “there is no relationship between expenditures and the achievement of students and that such traditional remedies as reducing class sizes or hiring better trained teachers are unlikely to improve matters.” This played well with billionaires from the Walton family but had no relationship with reality. Likewise, his January 2024 “learning-loss” claims were straight up baloney.

Learning-Loss Reality

In the summer and fall of 2020, NWEA, McKinsey, CREDO and others produced unfounded analysis of looming learning-loss disaster caused by school closures. Since there was no data, summer learning-loss was used as a proxy, a bad one. In 2019, Paul von Hippel’s investigation threw great doubt on the 1982 Baltimore study that powerfully supported summer learning-loss belief. He showed using modern testing analysis, learning-loss was doubtful and in some cases, students gained during the summer. This data, used to trumpet a national education crisis, had no validity.

Unfortunately, billionaire-financed organizations, out to undermine public schools, do not care.

CLOSING SCHOOLS DOES NOT FIX THEM

John Thompson: The Failure of “Fixing” Schools by Closing Them

Did school closures help students learn?

From Diane Ravitch

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, explains what happened when “reformers,” led by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, advocated for school closures.

He writes:

When non-educators watch Abbott Elementary, the television comedy, they are likely to find it hilarious, but I suspect it takes a teacher to fully understand the accuracy of its portrayal of the weird corporate reforms imposed on Philadelphia schools. But, recent research helps explain why many of even the most fervent advocates for test-driven, competition-driven school turnarounds now acknowledge their failures (even though they don’t apologize for them.).

The third-year premiere of Abbott gave a shout out to the respected journal, Chalkbeat. And, Chalkbeat is again reporting on failed turnarounds in Philadelphia, Tennessee, and elsewhere, as well as why former supporters of school takeovers are repudiating the reward-and-punish method for rapid, transformative change.

Chalkbeat analyzed the Philadelphia mandate, the 2010 Renaissance Initiative. It “strove to turn around about 10% of Philadelphia’s low-performing district schools by ceding them to charter organizations that promised to do better.” By 2023, however, “the Renaissance charter schools as a group mostly performed worse in standardized tests for elementary and middle schoolers than the district averages.”

Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First explained, “The goal was to prove that charters would work with any kid, not just about parents who were highly motivated to enter a lottery, and to show that a neighborhood school turned over to a charter organization would do better than if run by the school district.” But, “As far as I can tell, the data didn’t result in that.”

KENTUCKY GOP PUSHES VOUCHERS

Kentucky: GOP Passes Bill to Nullify Parts of State Constitution to Allow Vouchers

From Diane Ravitch

State Senator Tina Bojanowski, teacher and legislator (@TinaforKentucky), tweeted:

KY House passes HB2, a bill to change our Constitution to allow vouchers and charters by creating an amendment that allows future legislation to disregard SEVEN sections of our Constitution. @kyhousedems

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

Fort Wayne Community Schools takes 'giant step forward' with planned early childhood center

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools’ quest to build an early childhood center on the city’s southeast side marked a milestone this week that should fuel the district’s fundraising efforts for the $14.7 million project.

The school board on Monday approved options to purchase two adjacent parcels totaling 3.5 acres at the northeast intersection of Queen Street and Werling Drive near McMillen Park from the city of Fort Wayne Department of Redevelopment and Village Premier LP.

The 26,700-square-foot facility will be part of Village Premier, a multiphase mixed-use project that broke ground last year, said Joe Giant, the city’s redevelopment administrator. He told the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission on Monday afternoon that the early childhood center will help combat the lack of child care in the city’s southeast quadrant.

Fort Wayne Community Schools prepares weapons detection expansion

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Fort Wayne Community Schools board agreed Monday to spend $1.4 million on weapons detection systems, but the district likely won’t expand its security screenings to every middle and high school until next academic year.

That’s because the Ceia Opengate weapons detection systems likely won’t be ready until late this academic year, said Matt Schiebel, executive director of safety and community partnerships.

Implementation is also dependent on having student advocates in place, because the devices require additional personnel, he said, referring to a new staff position funded by the Safer FWCS referendum.

FWCS piloted the weapons screening device at South Side High School, where no guns have been found this year, Schiebel said.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – March 11, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"...unanswered questions point us at the nuance missing in the Moms for Liberty outrage and panic factory, the nuance that recognizes that reasonable intelligent people can disagree about the value of certain books. In the real world, there's a huge difference between showing six year olds graphic depictions of the ways one can use a penis and a non-graphic depiction of LGBTQ persons. There's a vast gulf between grooming some small child for sexual abuse and simply acknowledging there are some LGBTQ persons in the world (and possibly in the classroom or the homes of class members). There's a planet-seized difference between saying 'LGBTQ persons are not extraordinary or unnatural' and saying 'You should become an LGBTQ person.' And yet, in the Moms for Liberty universe, there is no difference between any of those things." -- by Peter Greene, 60 Minutes Asked Moms for Liberty The Right Questions

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST M4L

60 Minutes Asked Moms for Liberty The Right Questions

Peter Greene uses his pro-public education voice. This post takes down the misnamed "Moms for Liberty" who want to censor books.

From Peter Greene, Curmudgucation on Substack

Reporter Scott Pelley gets right to the heart of several issues. The difference between giving parents the tools to control what their own children can read (something the district also provides in spades) and trying to control what other parents can let their children read. The outrage-enhancing technique of treating isolated mistakes as proof of some widespread conspiracy.

In the midst of it all, the Moms for Liberty, with Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich finally seen in the footage from an interview they sat for way back in October of 2023.

The piece is tough on them. The parents that are set up to represent the district are Republican, conservative, combat veterans. Pelley in repeated voice overs points out that the Moms are evasive and avoid answering question but instead retreating to their talking points (he does not point out that they are seasoned political coms professionals, but he doesn't portray them as cookie-baking domestics, either). Some of the talking points were so six months ago. "We don't co-parent with the government," said the women whose demands include forcing the government to help them with the part of parenting that involves keeping an eye on what your children read and watch.

Florida District Alters Illustrations in Classic Children’s Books to Appease Moms for Liberty

Diane Ravitch joins the chorus of voices against "Moms for Liberty."

From Diane Ravitch

The local leader of Moms for Liberty was outraged! There was a book in the elementary school library that depicted a naked child! Another showed the naked butt of a goblin! What depravity!

Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information have the story, which actually happened in Indian River County, Florida, when Jennifer Pippen of Moms for Liberty complained about Maurice Sendak’s classic In the Night Kitchen.

Pippen said the book was “pornographic” because it showed a naked little boy in a bathtub; if you peered closely, you could see that the little boy had a penis. Shocking!

INDIANA NEWS

Vic’s Statehouse Notes #384 – A new and negative precedent

The Indiana Coalition for Public Education provides timely information about what's happening in the State General Assembly.

From Indiana Coalition for Public Education

This morning the Senate Appropriations Committee approved HB 1001 which gives state money to parents of general education students who are siblings of special education students currently getting Education Scholarship Accounts (ESA’s) to run unaccountable homeschools.

The committee’s final vote was 11-3, with Senators Qaddoura, Randolph and Yoder dissenting. Before the final vote, Senator Qaddoura, who strongly supports public education, offered an amendment to delete the entire section giving ESA accounts to siblings. His amendment failed on a party line vote, 4-10.

Senator Mishler, chair of the Appropriations Committee, has killed ESA proposals more than once in previous sessions. He did not kill this one. He said he was voting yes because the program would fit within the $10 million appropriation already in place for next year.

This is a sad milestone. It is the first time that general education students, the siblings, have been approved for ESA’s in Indiana.

MSD of Steuben County may cut elementary school with highest test scores, cites lack of expected growth

From WANE.com

Residents in small Pleasant Lake, Indiana are up in arms to save one of the town’s oldest residents: Pleasant Lake Elementary.

In the middle of a Feb. 20 board meeting for the Metropolitan School District (MSD) of Steuben County, the district shared some disconcerting enrollment stats.

“Given what you do have out there (in Pleasant Lake), household size and people moving in, you’re going to be bouncing between 80 and 100 (students),” said Jerome McKibbon with the McKibbon Group, a demographic research firm. “Just not enough population housing is out there to warrant it.”

The inability to grow.

A death sentence for a school building that dates back to 1915, although McKibbon said that’s all the more reason for the district to move on.

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

SACS outgoing superintendent to lead Grow Allen

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Park Ginder’s involvement in local education will continue after he retires as the Southwest Allen County Schools superintendent in June.

The longtime public educator will be the inaugural executive director of Grow Allen, the organization announced Thursday.

The Fort Wayne-based group, which celebrated its launch last fall, is leading an initiative to improve student career development and boost northeast Indiana’s economic vitality.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – March 4, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I wonder how many Indiana legislators who have voted to add more testing for Hoosier kids spent hours in their elementary being tested and then evaluated by those standardized tests. Judging by the age of many if not most of them, I would guess very few. I am sure these people must have children/grandchildren in Indiana schools. How is it that they ignore data and expertise that clearly shows testing does not produce good educational results and in that ignorance continue to vote for more tests?" -- NEIFPE member Terry Springer on FaceBook.

LOCAL FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

Local stories dominated our social media this week, covering all four of our local school districts, and highlighting the importance of strong local news sources. Please support Fort Wayne area news sources.

This week's articles target elections, early childhood, and retirements. Subscribe to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette** and read the full articles online.

"Across the country...fewer eyeballs are probing into whether local and state governments are spending our tax dollars wisely. Fewer feature stories are being written about local people innovatively serving their towns. Fewer editorialists are helping shape a city or state’s agenda." -- William McKenzie, Senior Editorial Advisor at the Bush Institute in Strong Local Newspapers Are a Key to Strengthening Our Democracy

Residents push back on Northwest Allen County Schools election discussions

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Early discussion about Northwest Allen County Schools potentially adjusting board elections received pushback this week from residents, but the member instigating the topic said his efforts will continue.

“At some point, I will put together some sort of plan for this board to look at and decide what makes sense,” Darren Vogt said during Monday’s board meeting. “It will be listening to those folks in the audience and those folks that aren’t here that have talked to me about it as well. This is a community decision. Any plan that I present will be debated and discussed.”

The five-member school board has two at-large members and three members elected from residency districts – Eel River, Lake and Perry townships. All voters within NACS may vote for all five seats, regardless of their address.

Vogt, who was elected as an at-large member in 2022, said last month it’s time to revisit the residency districts because the townships vary in population.

Southwest Allen County Schools superintendent announces retirement

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

After an education career of 38 years, the Southwest Allen County Schools superintendent announced his retirement in a letter to parents Friday.

Park Ginder said he will retire at the end of the school year.

“I feel fortunate and privileged to collaborate with some of the brightest, most compassionate and dedicated faculty and staff, consistently making extraordinary contributions to the lives of our students and each other,” he said in the letter.

Ginder became the district’s superintendent in June 2021 after working as the principal at Homestead High School since 2013. He has also worked as principal at DeKalb High School, assistant principal at Carroll High School and department head and art teacher at Northrop High School and Shawnee Middle School.

East Allen County Schools considers early childhood agreement with Fort Wayne Community Schools

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The East Allen County Schools board could approve an agreement next week with Fort Wayne Community Schools about a proposed early childhood learning center serving the districts’ teen parents.

The proposed memorandum of understanding indicates the facility is anticipated to be within EACS’ boundaries at Queen Street and Werling Drive in southeast Fort Wayne.

FWCS would be responsible for costs associated with constructing, equipping and operating the center because the districts anticipate “significantly more” FWCS students would have children attending the facility’s programs, the memorandum states.

The document further indicates that EACS would pay mutually agreed fees, if any.

FWCS announced in late 2022 that it planned to open a child care and early learning center to support teens balancing parenthood and high school.

Indiana Tech guarantees admission, tuition for eligible Fort Wayne Community Schools grads

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

All Fort Wayne Community Schools students who graduate with a minimum 2.0 GPA will be guaranteed admission to Indiana Tech under a new program announced Monday.

Promise IT will also cover full tuition and fees for FWCS students who are eligible for full federal Pell Grant and state college aid, Indiana Tech said in a news release. Students who aren’t Pell eligible will have access to other scholarship opportunities at the university to increase affordability.

The program begins with the next academic year.

Fort Wayne Community Schools to part with transportation site

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools will soon seek buyers for property related to the recently shuttered South Transportation Center.

The school board on Monday approved a resolution authorizing the disposal of the 8.53-acre site, 6006 Ardmore Ave. The transportation center closed less than a year ago because of consolidation with the north location along Cook Road.

The district hired Steffen Group to handle the marketing and sale of the property.

Online personal property and real estate auctions are scheduled for April with board approval expected May 13, Chief Financial Officer Rosie Shipman said after the meeting.

Combining the two transportation centers has led to savings in areas including utilities and maintenance costs, said Renee Dawson, transportation director.

RETENTION IMPACTS ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

How the reading retention bill moving through Indiana Statehouse impacts English learners

Once again...does retention even help? Most research says no.

Also note that schools still face a penalty for low test scores...but are constrained by the legislature's micromanagement of schools and curriculum. Do legislators have more expertise than educators in curriculum and teaching methods?

From Chalkbeat* via WISHTV.com

...The bill includes “good cause” exemptions to retention for several groups of students, including English learners who have received services for less than two years and whose teachers and parents agree that promotion is appropriate.

But advocates for English learners say that the exemption for this population doesn’t align with what research says about how long it takes for students to learn a new language.

With a growing population of 93,000 English learners in Indiana, and a history of shortages of educators licensed to teach language learners, advocates worry that English learners will be denied an appropriate education if they’re retained. The state also has an increasing number of immigrant students, some of whom will need language services.

Advocates also say the provision conflicts with the state’s implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gives students six years to demonstrate proficiency in English before their schools face a penalty. Federal law also states that English learners should not be retained solely on the basis of their English language proficiency and that they are entitled to age-appropriate curriculum and participation in school programs.

CURMUDGUCATION WEEKLY READING LISTS

ICYMI: In Like A Weasel Edition (3/3)

Like NEIFPE, Peter Greene at Curmudgucation, releases a weekly list of important education-related articles. Check it out.

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

Welcome to the GOP's new education agenda: Loot our public schools for private vouchers

Governor Roy Cooper and Governor Andy Bashear team up in this USA Today op-ed and they mince no words. If you'd like to see an elected official actually stand up for public education, you'll want to read this.

*Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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