Indianapolis Business Journal. April XX, 2024.
Editorial: Voting is crucial to democracy and your way to influence policy
On the one hand, it’s hard to understand why so many people don’t vote.
Voting is an opportunity to influence the government decisions that affect your life.
Think about your day. From the moment you get up and turn on the water to brush your teeth and put on clothes you purchased and get in the car to drive to work, every single thing you do is impacted by government. The quality of that water, the tax you paid on your suit, the quality of the roads on your commute (and whether you’re slowed down by no-turn-on-red signs).
Voting is one of the primary ways residents of a town, county, state and the country can impact those decisions.
The effect is indirect, of course, and voting is a collective endeavor. Even if you vote for people who support your point of view, there is no guarantee enough others will agree to put those people into office. You can vote in every election and still not be governed by the people you support, but failing to vote means you’ve given up one of the primary tools you have as a U.S. citizen and a resident of Indiana to affect change.
On the other hand, it’s also not hard to understand why people get turned off from voting. Just look at Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, where some of the candidates running in the Republican primary are attacking one another with such ferocity that it’s uncomfortable to watch.
The battle between the top two contenders—incumbent Rep. Victoria Spartz and state Rep. Chuck Goodrich—is just vicious. There are accusations related to bullying, harassment, alcohol and just general “bad behavior,” the latter phrase hurled by each side against the other.
Democrats must be relishing this contest. By the time the primary is over, the Republican left standing will be bruised and battered. In a district that has consistently produced the GOP lawmakers, the Republican nominee will still be favored to win. But will the people who live in the district feel especially good about the person representing them?
Accusations are flying in the governor’s race, too, although they are not nearly so brutal. Still, ads paid for by campaign committees and outside groups have accused candidates of lying, taking radical stands and being a RINO (a Republican in name only), one of the harshest criticisms one Republican can lob against another these days.
These kinds of attacks are exhausting and do nothing to elevate the crucial debates candidates and voters need to be having about key issues related to jobs, the economy, education, immigration and more.
We’re not suggesting that campaigns can’t be aggressive and comparative. It’s helpful when candidates point out the ways they would vote or act differently than their opponents. But it’s not helpful when those efforts are convoluted or misleading. That turns off voters, which we believe is at least one reason voter turnout isn’t higher.
In these last weeks before the primary, we urge the candidates to tone down the rancor and turn up the talk about issues—not just for the sake of voters but for what it will mean generally for democracy.
___
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. April 20, 2024.
Editorial: New ILEARN format will allow for more personalized learning for students
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.
“This is wildly popular amongst our educators, amongst our parents, because what this does is it gives not just end-of-year, one-point-in-time data, but it allows three checkpoints throughout the year on that student that are not punitive, that are totally, ‘Has the child mastered it or not?’ ” Jenner said earlier in the year.
The new format to ILEARN — Indiana’s Learning Evaluation and Assessment Readiness Network — is an opportunity for communication with parents that goes beyond letter grades, said Courtney Lumbley, director of curriculum, assessment and instruction at FWCS.
“This is a great data point to sit down with a parent and show at this grade level how we’re performing,” she told The Journal Gazette Thursday. “The school can take that data and respond intentionally, but we can also share with parents that this is the expectation at the end of the year, this is where your student is, and here are the standards that we’re going to continue to work on before the end-of-year benchmark test.”
Advantages to the new ILEARN don’t end with the possibility of personalized plans of action for each student.
The three preparation tests could reduce students’ test anxiety over the high-intensity spring assessment, and will make the end-of-year exam shorter and take less time to administer.
“There’s the criticism of a summative that a student has to sit down, and they’re measured on testing stamina as much as what their numeracy or literacy skills are,” Lumbley said. “The public has cried out. Educators have asked, ‘Could we have these bite-sized (tests) so that we’re measuring students’ skills in real time, but also in shorter testing increments?’ ”
The checkpoint exams also will increase students’ familiarity with the testing platform and types of questions asked. Joe Brown, assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction and assessment at FWCS, told The Journal Gazette’s Ashley Sloboda such test exposure benefited second-graders taking the IREAD-3 third-grade reading assessment.
Teachers and students have had a fraught relationship with ILEARN since it replaced ISTEP-plus in 2019. On the 2018 ISTEP, 50.7% of students passed the English/language arts and math portions of the test. Just 37.1% of students passed both portions of the 2019 ILEARN.
Last year, the combined rate for English/language arts and math on ILEARN was worse than in 2019, with 30.6% of students scoring at or above proficiency.
Under the new ILEARN format, the high-stakes assessment at the end of the school year will remain. But by adding three preparatory assessments for schools to better track the academic progress of students, Indiana has given teachers and parents a tool that could result in more personalized learning for students that hasn’t been possible since the state started standardized testing in 1987.
___
Anderson Herald Bulletin. April 18, 2024.
Editorial: State candidates should focus on state issues
As Indiana’s gubernatorial election falls on a presidential election year, it should come as no surprise that Republican primary candidates have latched onto national GOP talking points in their campaigns.
It may be an effective campaign strategy, but it isn’t good for voters.
Immigration, protecting law enforcement and combating China may be central planks for the Republican National Committee, but here at home, we need to know our gubernatorial candidates’ plans for state leadership if elected.
For example, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch is pushing for eliminating the state income tax in her “Ax the Tax” campaign, and Brad Chambers has used TV ads to highlight his plan to protect kids from online threats. Eric Doden has campaigned on implementing zero-cost adoptions and investing in rural parts of the state.
It’s no mystery that national politics are heavily polarized, but our gubernatorial candidates needn’t campaign on divisiveness.
To our GOP gubernatorial candidates, we implore you to leave the national politics to the national candidates. Let them be the ones to argue about “wokeness,” foreign policy, immigration reform, etc.
Seek to inform rather than incite outrage.
Seek to unify, rather than divide.
Leave the national politics to national leaders.
Give us a chance to vote on issues impacting day-to-day lives of Hoosiers.
Above all, assure us that you intend to work for the good of ALL of your constituents. The Hoosier State is counting on you.
END