State school board may not meet Nov. school grading deadine
INDIANAPOLIS | Personality and political conflicts on the State Board of Education make it increasingly likely the panel will fail to set new, effective criteria for rating school performance using A-F grades by Nov. 15, as required by law.
The Republican-appointed board clashed again last week with Glenda Ritz, the elected Democratic state superintendent of public instruction, when she refused -- under her authority as the board's chairwoman -- to rearrange the monthly meeting agenda so new board staff, independent of the Ritz-led Department of Education, could give a report.
Board members Tony Walker, of Gary, and Daniel Elsener, of Indianapolis, spent more than 30 minutes repeatedly demanding the board's rules be suspended so their staff could address the board earlier than scheduled.
Ritz stood her ground. She said the board owes it to Hoosiers attending meetings or watching online to stick to the agenda so the public knows what will be discussed, and when.
Tempers flared again during discussion of the current A-F system for rating Indiana schools that the board created in 2011-12 under Republican former Superintendent Tony Bennett.
Bennett altered the grading scheme without board permission last year and boosted the grades of 165 schools when he discovered a favored kindergarten-ninth grade charter school was set to
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