Jill Long Thompson unveils some of her ideas for improving Hoosier education
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 9/5/08 @ 7:30 am - Filed Under Featured, State Politics
Jill Long Thompson, the Democratic candidate for Indiana Governor, unveiled her plans for improving education in Indiana. Her plan revolves around three main ideas.
Per her Press Release her first idea involves: “As Governor, I will work to ensure that every child learns to read because reading is the fundamental key to education. We’re going to implement a statewide effort to provide every Hoosier child with one free book each month from the day he or she is born until the age of five.” The program will involve public-private partnerships of faith-based organizations, businesses, government and non-profit community groups coming together to tackle the literacy crisis. Modeled after the state of Tennessee’s partnership with Dolly Parton’s “Imagination Library,” the program will encourage children to read, and engage more parents in the learning process.
I am ok with this part of her plan as long as there is no cost to the taxpayers.
Per her press release the second part of her plan is: “The second key component of our plan is to ensure that no student ever drop out of high school,” said Long Thompson. “A more flexible high school experience will make the system work for more students, and it will graduate more students who are ready to either go onto college or into the workforce.” Long Thompson and Oxley are proposing a redesign of the high school years to give students more options to achieve their educational and career goals. Under their plan, students who may need more time to learn, or have personal situations which take them away from the classroom, would be offered a fifth year to earn a high school diploma. Students would also be given the opportunity to use their junior and senior years to earn college credits while still in high school or to learn a specific trade and graduate with a workforce certificate.
Per the News Sentinel Indiana’s four-year graduation rate is only 76% In other words 76% of students graduate in four years or less from the time they enter High School. Indiana’s five-year graduation rate is only 77%…
Jill Long Thompson seems to think we should simply let some students attend High School for another year and that will fix some of our problems. This is absolutely absurd for many reasons:
- Four years is plenty of time to complete a basic high school curriculum. Rather then add a year summers should be used as well as Saturdays.
- If four years is not enough then we should cut some of the extraneous curriculum from high school and focus on those items needed to graduate.
- The five-year graduation rate is only 1% higher than the four-year graduation rate. The people who drop out of high school largely drop out for their own reasons; not because they do not have enough time to complete the program.
- It costs about $10,000 tax payer dollars per year of high school.
I wonder if Jill Long Thompson’s idea came from a certain local school district? This part of her plan is 100% absurd. Indiana’s graduation rate is abysmal. It is abysmal fro many reasons, adding a fifth year of high school fixes none of the inherent problems.
The third part of her plan per her press release is: “The third major component of our education plan is to improve access to a higher education.” By improving the alignment of high school curriculum to college entrance requirements, by strengthening the articulation agreements between public post secondary institutions and by offering more college credits to high school students, the Long Thompson/Oxley administration will increase opportunities to attend college. To further advance this vision, as Governor, Long Thompson will expand the 21st Century Scholars Program to embrace a greater number of low and middle-income families. Families earning more than the current income cutoff who are ineligible for benefits now would be granted an amount equal to the costs (tuition and fees) of attending classes full-time at Ivy Tech under Long Thompson’s plan. Scholars would remain responsible for applying for all federal and state financial aid before accessing the benefits of the program. The expanded scholars program will be funded by a newly created Higher Education Fund, which would be managed as an aggressive non-profit entity devoted to raising private dollars for the scholarships.
Lets look at her specific ideas one by one:
- By improving the alignment of high school curriculum to college entrance requirements. I am in favor of this, it makes good sense.
- By strengthening the articulation agreements between public post secondary institutions. This has already been done recently; however, it may prove to be more beneficial to continue this process.
- By offering more college credits to high school students. This puzzles me somewhat. Jill Long Thompson wants to allow students to go to high school for an extra year; however, at the same time she wants more college credits in high school? I do not like this idea. I think we should modify our high school curriculums; however, we do not need to grant more college credits in high school.
- To further advance this vision, as Governor, Long Thompson will expand the 21st Century Scholars Program to embrace a greater number of low and middle-income families. Families earning more than the current income cutoff who are ineligible for benefits now would be granted an amount equal to the costs (tuition and fees) of attending classes full-time at Ivy Tech under Long Thompson’s plan. Scholars would remain responsible for applying for all federal and state financial aid before accessing the benefits of the program. The expanded scholars program will be funded by a newly created Higher Education Fund, which would be managed as an aggressive non-profit entity devoted to raising private dollars for the scholarships.This is very similar to a plan recently unveiled by Mitch Daniels. I posted about Mitch Daniels initiative and correctly called it a socialist idea. This part of Jill Long Thompsons plan is similar to Mitch Daniels plan; however, Jill Long Thompsons plan would be funded by private dollars rather then public dollars. So I like her plan better then his as far as the funding of this program is concerned. That being said; students should pay for higher education not the government.
In my opinion her plan is a mixed bag, part of it contains good ideas and other parts of it are absurd.
Mike Sylvester
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4 Responses to “Jill Long Thompson unveils some of her ideas for improving Hoosier education”
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IMHO - high school in general - in the State of Indiana - has lost its focus and primary purpose. Is it a place to remediate kids who didn’t get down the right fundamentals in the lower grades? Is it to teach kids a vocation? Is it to serve as a mini-college environment?
That needs to be figured out before we start throwing money at every new idea that folks have.
The four year think is a ridiculous issue. The “graduation rate” is only a statistic that measures the students who graduate in 8 consecutive semesters beginning with their first freshmen semester. If a student takes summer school to make up a credit or class they do not count as graduated even though they get the same diploma as their class mates. If a student does not finish in 8 semesters they are not “banned” from high school, but given what they need (if they are willing) to finish.
Additionally, we already have the ability for students in their JR and SR year to obtain college credit. Have had for years.
Also…understand this… The graduation rate has absolutely NOTHING to do with the drop out rate. The drop out rate of FWCS in 2004-5 was between 1 and 2%. It is calculated by the students who after their 7th grade year do not come back to school (pretty simple). Graduation rate is a convoluted calculation that, by its complexity can not really be used for anything.
The four year timeline is out of date. Many college students don’t complete degreee requirements in four years so the traditional four year college diploma is already obsolete. Eventually the same thing will happen with high schools. You choose a course of study with prescribed requirements and you graduate with a diploma when you meet those requirements.
Many of our high school graduates come out with the equivalent of an 8th grade education. But taxpayers are footing the bill to keep them in a traditional high school for another four years. Is that money well spent or should there be an alternative?
Submitted with Corrections.
Evert:
I STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH YOU….Many of FWCS’ students come out with a 5th grade education. Its quite sad to see students at Wayne H.S., North Side H.S. and Elmhurst who lack the basic math skills that are acquired in the upper elementary grades. I work now in four surrounding school districts, where teachers question me about my background with FWCS; primarily their first thought is “do the teachers actually educate” the students the district. Typically, FWCS’ students are 3 - 6 years behind their urban, rural and suburban counterparts. I know from personal experience as I tutored a little boy from a neighboring school district, and he was ahead of FWCS’ grade level peers by one two years at the end of first grade. The boy who is now in the second grade, could read, write and compute math facts at the purposed level; The FWCS’ students that I have worked with can not even count past 20, yet they were allowed to be pass through with no questions asked. Bottom line, if you have a child and live in the FWCS’ find a good ole’ Catholic School, Lutheran School or even homeschool, you can’t harm your children.