OPINION: Call truce in education battle

More than a million Indiana students are in public school classrooms today.

Keep that in mind when considering the toxic atmosphere of the state’s public education environment. Whatever battles are waging among the adults, teaching and learning continues, supported by a state administration meeting its financial obligation to the schools.

That’s the bottom line, but also a starting point for a compromise and improvements for Indiana schools.

To explain the rancor, some background is in order. At the federal level, the No Child Left Behind Act began applying pressure to schools shortly after it became law, in 2002. Teachers and administrators in poor, urban schools felt the first effects because the law’s accountability provisions were tied to federal Title I dollars for services to students from low-income families.