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Pence and Indiana State Board of Education Power-Grab Seeks To Overturn Authority Voters Entrusted To Glenda Ritz

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There is no question. Two bills introduced in committee this week at the Indiana State General Assembly are meant to undo the will of voters. HB1486 authored by Rep. Jeff Thompson and SB1, authored by Senator Travis Holdman, are all about transferring authority of the Indiana Department of Education to the politically appointed body of the Indiana State Board of Education. These bills are about stripping away an elected officials duties and giving them to political appointees. Remember the Center for Education and Career Innovation? Governor Pence has pledged 5 million dollars to create a new shadow agency through the State Board of Education to do the work of Superintendent Ritz's agency. We do not need more bureaucracy nor do we need taxpayer dollars spent on school oversight functions the Department of Education is already doing at no cost to Indiana Taxpayers. Tell your state representatives to oppose HB 1486 and tell your State Senators to oppose SB1.
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What does high stakes testing do to children's desire to participate in democratic society?

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Since 1996, 47.9% (www.electproject.org) of eligible U.S. voters have participated in presidential and mid-term elections. That is an abysmally low number. We know that voter suppression and the violation of civil rights is a problem historically in the U.S. Still, there are other factors at work here. Why do young people of all classes in US society, not participate in voting? There is an x-factor at work here. It has everything to do with how children are educated in the U.S. What does that say about state and federal legislators capacity to implement legislation that promote the most important part of being a U.S. citizen? It says that legislators do not listen to educators who understand the affects of standardized testing are not benign to the well-being of children or to society. What does 16,000 hours of test-centric behavior modification do to a child during their formative years with respect to developing an outlook and attitude for participation in the social arrangement we c...
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How Does 16000 Hours of Behavior Modification Prepare Children For Participation In A Democratic Society?

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Why do young people not vote despite having the eligibility to do so? I think children deserve more than experiences extrapolated from behavior modification experiments designed by Ivan Pavlov, Edward Thorndike, John Watson and B.F. Skinner. When the state exerts pressure on educators with evaluations that place a high value on how well children do on standardized tests, teachers will continue teaching to the test and place more pressure on children with classroom experience that mimic test events.  One of my issues is when administrators believe high stakes testing is a benign process. Does your administrator wield banal slogans like, "All children can learn," or "We will do what's best for children," while pushing a narrow curriculum driven by Pavlovian behaviorism in order to extract standardized test scores? Curriculum is a mind altering instrument. You can reinforce and affect children's reactions to participate in high stakes tests with a narrow curric...
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