Indiana – Page 2 – Dr. Phil Downs

January 5, 2023January 7, 2023

Indiana Education Spending

Submitted by Phil on Sat, 04/20/2019 – 07:51

Indiana Education Spending

Here is a fact: from 2009 to 2018 the Tuition Support budget used to pay Indiana’s public and charter school teachers has grown by 13% while inflation has grown by 17%, and the total Indiana General Fund Budget grew by 21%. There is money in the General Fund to bring Education funding up to inflation. Our elected officials made a choice to move money away from public and charter educators and are failing to live up to the responsibility to fund public education they took on in 2009.

January 5, 2023January 7, 2023

Don’t Worry, This Won’t Effect You

Submitted by Phil on Mon, 04/23/2018 – 11:52

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.

January 5, 2023January 7, 2023

Indiana’s Schools Deserve Better

Submitted by Phil on Mon, 10/16/2017 – 05:45

“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.

January 5, 2023January 7, 2023

Unique not Special

Submitted by Phil on Mon, 05/01/2017 – 15:52

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. To help accomplish this, they offered schools the chance to buy their “teacher-proof” textbooks and take their standardized “formative” tests, too.

January 5, 2023January 7, 2023

Simplicity vs Simplistic

Submitted by Phil on Mon, 05/01/2017 – 15:50

The major problem of the current model of assessing students and schools is not tests; it is the misuse of tests.

January 5, 2023January 7, 2023

What Indiana Can Learn from Finland

Submitted by Phil on Mon, 05/01/2017 – 15:33

Since I have returned, I have been asked whether I think we could match Finland’s success in Indiana. There are conditions contributing to Finland’s success that Indiana will probably never be able to duplicate (its homogeneous society and universal early child care). That being said, the Finns would love to have our talent for creativity and innovation, which is born of our diversity. I did come away with three concrete ideas that are applicable to Indiana.