Glenda Ritz, state education board clash over waiver

Tensions and disagreements involving Indiana's superintendent of public instruction, the governor and members of the State Board of Education returned Monday.

During two consecutive meetings on critical education policy issues, Glenda Ritz was rebuffed by Gov. Mike Pence and faced strong criticism from board members.

The discontent comes a week before Ritz must file amendments with the U.S. Department of Education in a bid to maintain Indiana's waiver from some federal education requirements. Federal monitors have flagged numerous deficiencies in the state's education reforms and continue to question the state department's proposed fixes.

The meetings did shed light on how students and teachers will be affected by a revamped academic achievement exam.

Indiana's high-stakes standardized exam could be changing and expanding to more students in the next two years in an attempt to help lagging students and satisfy federal education officials.

A board led by Pence and Ritz recommended that a one-time update to the ISTEP exam be developed by current vendor CTB/McGraw-Hill and Indiana teachers for spring 2015. The state Education Department would then select a vendor to develop a future standardized test to be used in 2015-16.

Ritz, though, voted against the recommendation after her attempt to amend it failed. She wanted to require that reading assessments be part of the new test design.

Pence urged the board not to approve Ritz's motion.

The U.S Department of Education is requiring Indiana to begin new standardized tests next spring that would be based on the recently adopted K-12 academic standards that replaced Common Core. Failure to do so would jeopardize the state's federal waiver from meeting requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Also Monday, the state's Education Roundtable recommended expanding the ISTEP from Grades 3-8 to include Grades 9 and 10 for the 2015-16 academic year. This means ninth-graders would take a test not required now. The expansion is intended to help catch students who are falling behind before they near high school graduation.

"A diploma from our high schools should signal that our graduates are ready for careers or college," Pence said.

Currently, 10th-graders take assessments required for graduation. These assessments could be phased out and become part of ISTEP.

Pence said working with current vendors for the exam next spring would add consistency between the new test and the current version. The amount that CTB/McGraw-Hill would be paid is unknown.

CTB/McGraw-Hill administered ISTEP, also known as Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress, under a four-year, $95 million contract with the state Education Department. The contract ends this week but will be extended.

"We are asking a lot of our teachers over the next two years in regards to rollout of our new standards, (updating) ISTEP," Pence said. "Therefore, I think we should make every effort to maintain as much consistency as we can in redesigning ISTEP for the 2015 and 2016 academic years."

The State Board of Education will have final say on any ISTEP changes. The board did not vote on the issue during its meeting Monday, but members asked whether Ritz and the Department of Education were prepared to submit amendments by June 30 to extend Indiana's waiver from No Child Left Behind.

At the start of the meeting, member Brad Oliver told Ritz he and other board members were not provided all materials the state department prepared for the application. Oliver attempted to add a resolution to the agenda that would give the board more oversight of the waiver application, but Ritz rejected it.

Oliver said board rules allowed members to appeal Ritz's decision. Lawyers for the Department of Eduction and Center for Education and Career Innovation, Pence's education office that assists board members, disagreed on what the rules allowed.

"Brad, I am totally committed to this waiver. I live and breathe this waiver," Ritz said at one point. "You have all the info you need on this waiver."

Oliver disagreed.

"I am concerned," he said after the meeting, about the possibility Indiana could lose its waiver. "I'll be cautiously optimistic."

Indiana is one of 42 states with a waiver from No Child Left Behind and was one of the first states, in February 2012, to receive a waiver. States sought waivers to be released from stringent federal requirements of the 2001 law, such as passing scores for all students, including those with learning disabilities, and to have more control over how federal funds are spent in exchange for certain types of reforms.

Former state Superintendent Tony Bennett championed the reforms, such as adoption of teacher evaluations and Common Core academic standards, that were instrumental to the waiver approval.

Ritz has been left with much of the implementation of the reforms to satisfy the waiver. Bennett, a Republican, lost re-election in 2012 to Ritz, a Democrat.

Indiana is the only state with a condition placed on its waiver as a result of a monitoring inspection last fall.

Federal monitors found problems with the state Department of Education's ability to help failing schools, monitor compliance and provide technical assistance for teacher and principal evaluations, among other issues.

The department also must prove the recently adopted K-12 academic standards meet federal requirements for preparing students for college or careers.

Also during Monday's meetings, resource guides about the state's new math and English standards were approved. These online documents are intended to help teachers, families and community members understand the standards. The state Department of Education will release the guides by July 1.

Call Star reporter Eric Weddle at (317) 444-6222. Follow him on Twitter: @ericweddle.