A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

As we’re mired in our day-to-day parochial concerns, it’s nice to be reminded that there are people still working on the big picture stuff. Jennifer Chu, writing in SciTech Daily, has an article about likely discovery of life on Venus. Scientists have discovered phosphine in a layer of Venus’ atmosphere that is the most likely to be hospitable to life. Venus has an atmosphere that is really, really inhospitable to life — extreme heat and acidic clouds, among other things. But, there is apparently a pocket between 48 and 60 kilometers above the surface, where temperatures range from 30 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. If Venus had life, that’s where it would be expected. And that’s where they’ve detected phosphine.

Phosphine is associated with biological processes, and scientists have ruled out the non-biological explanations they can think of. So, their conclusion is that this probably means there is life of some kind in the air of the (relatively) hospitable pocket of Venus.

Extra-terrestrial life seems like kind of a big find. Josh Claybourn, writing on Facebook, suggested that the two most likely scenarios for the origin of that life would be that something hitched a ride on the Soviet probes to Venus 50 years ago or that something ejected from earth (debris from a meteor strike) made its way to Venus.

Re-posting this because, with all that’s going on with our schools these days, it’s easy (and understandable) to slip into a sort of survival mode that makes us lose track of the longer term threads of what’s going on with education in Indiana. This was originally posted on November 13, 2019.

Read, Circulate, and Discuss

The recent $40 million failure of the ILEARN test has prompted the “Red for Ed” rally scheduled for November 19, 2019 at the State House when the General Assembly gathers for its annual organization day. Among other things, the movement is asking for schools and teachers to be “held harmless” from the consequences that the legislature has tied to such testing. That would include not penalizing schools for performance on this test, stopping the clock on the time given to “failing schools” to improve (since this testing year was essentially wasted), and not penalizing teachers based on data generated by this test.

It is also a good time to revisit our overall approach to education policy in Indiana. What we have now isn’t really a “system” per se in that its component parts don’t work well together. Rather than our current ideologically driven approach based on what policymakers think ought to work, we should evaluate the systems and curricula that actually are working in places like Singapore, Canada, Finland, and Japan and adapt their approaches as best we can to Indiana. Ultimately, a good educational system will have to be built on the quality of its teachers. That means attracting the best and the brightest high school students to the teaching colleges. It means preparing those incoming teachers to teach the curriculum which, in turn, requires a stable approach to education. And, once trained, it means retaining those teachers.

There has been some criticism of the Red for Ed rally and its goals by school privatization enthusiasts. But it has mostly been hand waving. Shane Phipps, writing at Inside Education does a pretty good job of addressing some of these criticisms.

At root, there is a lack of appreciation as to what a world-class educational system provides and possibly a lack of ambition by policymakers. Can we afford one? We can’t afford not to have one. Opportunity is slipping away from Hoosiers because we’re allowing our foundation to erode. The high stakes testing and privatization approach that have been in place for the better part of a generation have put us in a downward spiral. Teachers have been scapegoats and their salaries have remained mostly stagnant as their burdens have grown.

When it comes to education, we are too often shrewd with our pennies but foolish with our dollars. This is an investment. As Caleb Mills, the father of Indiana’s common school system observed in the 19th century, a good education system adds to the social, literary, and intellectual capital of the citizens and adds materially to the real and substantial happiness of everyone. Mills said that we must “convince the ignorant man that knowledge would increase his happiness and satisfy the prejudiced man that he has only misapprehended the best means of securing his own welfare.” In 1848, a referendum was put to the people of the State, asking “are you in favor of free schools?” The result was narrowly in favor, but it was significant that the opposition came chiefly from the areas with the highest level of illiteracy. The people with better educations recognized the tremendous opportunity provided by public education.

There is a charitable, moral argument for paying to educate your neighbors. But, even on the level of simple self-interest, we have an interest in the proper education of all who are socially and politically connected to us. Better schools lead to (as Mills pointed out) “more valuable real estate, productive capital, lightened public burdens, increased social enjoyments, and security of possession.” Investment in education pays further dividends in reduced expenses from crime and costs of punishment. What’s more, for most areas, the school serves as the nucleus of the social fabric. It’s an important part of what turns a collection of individuals into a community.

Mills again: “There is but one way to secure good schools, and that is to pay for them.” How much should we pay for them? As much as they are worth. Taxes are absolutely part of the equation. This will require some courage from legislators as taxes inevitably cause initial dissatisfaction. Per Mills, “a legislature that would wait for a harmony of views before action would never affect anything great and noble.” As with any investment, benefits come later. Politicians who crow about surplus funds and low taxes while we are unable to attract and retain teachers should receive the same reception as a homeowner who brags about a shiny new car and a healthy bank account while the foundations of his home are crumbling. The State has taken over the business of funding schools. Locals lack the power to move the needle very much. If we want good schools, we will have to persuade the legislators we have or get new ones. Because the State made the decision to swallow the elephant of public education, it now represents about half of the state budget. As such, there is a strong argument to be made that education should be a central focus of every legislator and that the General Assembly should be judged based on the resulting quality of Indiana schools. In 2021, as the Governor takes total control of the State’s education system (by virtue of the Superintendent of Public Instruction becoming an appointed position), a gubernatorial candidate’s education bona fides should be one of the electorate’s primary concerns.

Ultimately, we need to produce the best teachers at our institutes of higher learning and pay teachers commensurate to their training and value. We are entrusting them to instill in our children the capacity to be productive citizens. What’s that worth? To attract and retain teachers of the highest caliber, we need to recognize what society gains by attracting the best and the brightest to the profession. Mills describes the situation in the 1840s: “What inducement had a youth of commanding talents, noble and generous aspirations, to spend years of time and hundreds of dollars [19th century money] to fit himself for an employment that would not command a higher compensation than was given for services requiring no intellectual training or moral culture?” The young men you would have wanted as teachers chose instead to become preachers and lawyers. History may not repeat, but it certainly seems to rhyme.

The privatization fad isn’t working. Voucher and charter schools do not produce better results than traditional public schools and there is some evidence that they produce worse outcomes. A fractured approach to education cannot produce consistent results. If we’re looking to be responsible with our money, we can’t afford to have education dollars sucked up by self-dealing charter management companies with opaque accounting or vouchers sent to private institutions with books closed to the public. We can’t spend tens of millions of dollars on tests with arbitrary faulty metrics. The reason we’re having so much trouble with the tests and vouchers and charters is because the arguments for them were always pretexts. The tests weren’t designed to provide feedback to improve education — they are designed as cudgels for proclaiming that public schools are failing (and to redirect public money to testing companies.) Vouchers weren’t designed to give poor children attending public schools a way out — they were designed to subsidize religious education and give “good families” a way to keep their kids away from undesirables. If we were serious about our approach to charter schools, we’d consider the rigorous accountability process used in Massachusetts. But, we’re not, so we get charters authorized by tiny Daleville and overseen by apparently nobody.

If the concern was truly that Indiana’s traditional public schools were not performing as well as they should, the rational approach would be to look to those school systems in our country and around the world that are producing the desired outcomes. That’s not what we did because those systems would not have provided a rationale for subsidizing private, religious education; reducing the influence of teacher’s unions; or redirecting public education money to friends and well-wishers of privatization enthusiasts. So, they had to come up with this cobbled together mess of half-measures and contradictions they could market to the public with rhetoric about “choice,” “accountability,” “empowerment,” and “the market.” When the results fail to materialize they either ignore the results or just say we have to do it harder. Privatization can’t fail, it can only be failed.

We have been some place like this before. Prior to creation of common schools, Indiana’s commitment to public education was more aspirational than real. The qualifications of teachers were left to local trustees. The quality of education was wildly uneven. There was a powerful disincentive for educated Hoosiers to become teachers. At a time other institutions were becoming well organized and efficient, the schools were struggling with unequal lengths of term, incapable teachers, dishonest trustees, diversity of textbooks, lax enforcement of school laws and school discipline, neighborhood quarrels over school sites, narrow views of education, and a lack of wise leadership. (Worley at p.6) This description reminded me powerfully of our recent charter school debacle at the Indiana Virtual School.

We pulled ourselves off the educational floor once. So did Finland and Singapore and Ontario and any number of places that now surpass us in educational outcomes. We can do it again. But we have to look to examples that work and craft a system with pieces that fit together, one enhancing the other. A Hobbesian war of all-against-all, even if marketed under the banner of “choice,” will inevitably result in a cacophony of cross-purposes. We need to rethink our policies.

—One of the People

 

Two hundred and forty-six years ago:

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The New York Times has a remarkable front page commemorating the 100,000 who have died over the last 3 months during our struggle with COVID-19. It has the names of 1,000 of them (1% of the total) with a brief description of something personal about them — lest they be simply dismissed as a statistic. This milestone coming during Memorial Day Weekend, I observed that COVID-19 was on pace to be more lethal than any of our wars. Apparently not appreciating the significance of the phrase “on pace,” someone objected that World War II cost us 400,000 American lives.

But the second objection was more interesting. He complained that it wasn’t fair to compare COVID-19 deaths to “lives lost fighting for freedoms.” Memorial Day is to honor the men and women who died while in the military service. We don’t limit our respect to just those men and women whose lives were lost fighting for freedom. They did not get to pick and choose which wars or missions they were assigned to. We don’t honor the World War II death because he was fighting against Hitler while ignoring the casualties of the North Russia Intervention or Private Harry Eagan who died in the Sheepeater Indian War.

So should we minimize COVID-19 deaths as compared to military deaths? As I recall, we put 9/11 deaths way up on a pedestal with rhetoric comparable to how we’ve traditionally spoken of military deaths. The coronavirus is an enemy that has curtailed our freedom, damaged our economy, and generally threatened the citizens of the United States far more seriously than Iraq, North Vietnam, or North Korea ever could have. It’s implacable, insidious, and everywhere. Currently we’re losing a 9/11 worth of Americans every 2 or 3 days.

Is there a principled reason for valuing military deaths (including those  who died during missions that did not protect freedom in any appreciable way) over COVID-19 deaths? Valuing 9/11 deaths over COVID-19 deaths? Or is it more of a reflexive cultural habit?