ELKHART — According to Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, Indiana educators must adopt a sense of “fierce urgency” if the state is ever to improve its educational system.
Bennet served as keynote speaker during a meeting of the Elkhart County Retired Teachers Association Thursday at the Matterhorn Banquet Center in Elkhart. He spoke on the current state of the Indiana educational system, as well as where that system is headed in the future.
During his speech, Bennett equated Indiana’s current educational philosophy to a game of chess — a game he says we are dangerously close to losing.
“We are playing not to lose,” Bennett said. “Our global competitors are playing to win.”
Bennett said one of the primary reasons the state’s educational system is falling behind is the fact that many of today’s educators are lacking that sense of urgency and drive needed to ensure all students have a chance at a quality education.
“If we don’t develop a sense of fierce urgency,” Bennett said, “they are going to beat us.”
Bennett said he has spent the past 15 months trying to instill that sense of urgency in the state’s educational leaders, though he noted such a goal is not always the most comfortable topic to broach.
Even so, Bennett said such change has to happen, regardless of whether or not it comes easily.
“We must become uncomfortable,” Bennett said. “We must change ourselves so that our children have a chance. And that’s been our quest. It’s been our quest since we got here, and that will be our quest until we leave.”
In order to facilitate such change, Bennett laid out three key goals he would like to see implemented by every school system in the state.
“We have to be there to change the things that need to be changed,” Bennett said. “We need to be resolute in keeping the things that need to be kept. And we need to be open enough to have the discussions that allow us to discern the difference.”
Bennett noted that one of the most uncomfortable offshoots of such goals involves determining which teachers in the state are not performing to state standards, and removing them from the classroom.
“We must make sure that those people who are not teaching our children are not with our children,” Bennett said, “and that’s a difficult discussion.”
Another big change Bennett is pushing for is a switch to using student growth as a determining factor for success, rather than student achievement.
“One of the big, big issues is this whole issue of growth,” Bennett said, adding that the state is already in the process of working this change into the way tests such as ISTEP+ will be evaluated in the future.
Bennett also noted that he would like to see an invigorated push toward literacy for all Indiana students, as he sees literacy as perhaps the most important building block of any child’s educational career. The same holds true for basic math skills, he said.
“If children don’t learn their basic concepts,” Bennett said, “their education becomes a house of cards.”
Bennett noted that Indiana students must also have access to the most up-to-date instructional materials and technology in order to ensure they receive the best possible educational experience.
“Our kids need the opportunity to have the most up-to-date instructional materials possible,” Bennett said.
With regard to technology, Bennett said that schools must do all they can to ensure all students have equal access to the latest technology, such as laptops, in order to ensure that an achievement gap does not occur between those students who can afford technology, and those that cannot.
“If we don’t help our students understand how to access technology, there will be an achievement gap for the haves and the have-nots — the students who can access information vs. the students who cannot,” Bennett said.
While Bennett is a staunch Republican, he noted that he is in favor of the direction the current Democratic leadership is taking this country’s educational system.
“We have shown today that the leadership in our nation in my opinion is getting education right,” Bennett said. “I say that as a very proud Republican.”
Bennett said that despite party rivalries and differing philosophies, education is universal, and should be treated as such.
“I believe that on the worst day education should be a bipartisan issue,” Bennett said, “and on the best day it should be non-partisan.”
While he admitted that the road to education reform in the state has not always been an easy or congenial one, Bennett reminded those in attendance that no matter what side of the isle they sit on, the final goals should be the same.
“As we talk, remember, we can disagree, we can argue, we can air out the details,” Bennett said, “but at the end of the day our job is to change the things that need to be changed, hold fast to those great educational traditions that are circular, and be courageous enough to have the discussion to know the difference.”
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