Phil's blog

Came across this in Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk.

"The only thing any of us can do completely on our own is to have the start of a good idea." -Kathy Sullivan

It takes a network or team to build something great. A leader has to let their vision adjust to that of the group.

Recently there have been a lot of stories and opinion pieces written about the Indiana voucher program and school funding. There appears to be a misconception about how the voucher program works as well as its impact on public schools.

“Applying simple solutions to complex problems creates more complex problems." -Ronald Heifetz

Recently Indiana released the A-F grades for its schools. Each year there is a chance any given school’s ISTEP+ scores and A-F grades may go up or down. This is because ISTEP+ fits statistical models and “regression to the mean” is a real thing.

Learn from the people 
Plan with the people 
Begin with what they have 
Build on what they know 
Of the best leaders 
When the task is accomplished 
The people will remark 
We have done it ourselves.
― Lao Tzu

For 16 years since the passage of No Child Left Behind, Indiana has been following the lead of the United States Department of Education, educational testing companies, and standardized testing experts. In those 16 years, the focus of your child’s education has been narrowed by this “Testing Industrial Complex” to a single annual test: a “summative” test these experts promised would measure students, identify poor teachers, rank schools and communities, fix bad schools, catapult the US to the top of the international rankings, and close the achievement gap.