With the release of ISTEP+ scores last week, our attention is focused on education.
As it should be. We spend more of our state and local tax dollars on education than anything else.
For the next four years, a new leader will guide education policy in Indiana. Two weeks ago, Hoosiers elected Jennifer McCormick, a Republican, as the next superintendent of public instruction.
So who is McCormick? She’s been the superintendent of Yorktown Community Schools, near Muncie, since 2010. She began her career in the classroom, then became an elementary school principal and assistant superintendent on her way up.
McCormick led a school district that produced a 97 percent graduation rate, strong ISTEP+ scores and a reputation for strong college preparation. It was among the state’s first to provide tablets and computers to every student.
She doesn’t claim to have all the answers to replacing the unpopular ISTEP+ test, but points to her strengths in solving problems and working with people.
McCormick does say the results of ISTEP+ or any other “high-stakes” test should not be the main factor in evaluating teachers, schools or school districts.
On her campaign website, McCormick criticizes Indiana’s simple A-F grades for schools and districts.
“One grade does not tell all about a school district. Indiana students receive a multi-faceted report card; schools and districts should as well,” she wrote.
McCormick sounds likely to be a friend of teachers. The Chalkbeat education news website quotes her as saying, “As a state, we’ve done a pretty nice job of beating up on the (teaching) profession.” It added, “The criticism of teachers, she said, has gone too far.”
Chalkbeat says McCormick favors a return to considering experience and advanced degrees in determining teacher pay and less reliance on merit bonuses.
“Performance pay, as distributed and dispersed in Indiana, is not making a difference in attracting and/or retaining quality educators,” McCormick says on her own website, adding, “Educator pay matters!”
Chalkbeat says McCormick supports Indiana’s voucher system that helps parents pay for private schools, but she worries about how vouchers affect funding for public schools.
In its endorsement of her, the Times of Northwest Indiana said, “We’re impressed that many of McCormick’s core policy ideas don’t always favor the popular line of her own party.”
McCormick does match Gov.-elect Eric Holcomb’s cautious approach to expanding pre-kindergarten education. She calls state-funded pre-K for everyone “a great, long-term goal,” but adds, “Indiana must make sure that expanding pre-K will not take away from K-12 funding.”
So far, we like what we hear from McCormick. But we hope she sometimes will make the governor and legislators a little uncomfortable.
Indiana’s leaders need to hear someone speak truth about education. Now that it’s coming from someone in their own political party, we hope they’ll listen carefully.