Veritas Rex

The Scary Thing about School Funding...Ghosting

The Scary Thing about School Funding...Ghosting
 
By: Wes Culver (R-Goshen)
 
Unless they work in education or state government, not many people know or understand the complicated formula that determines how much funding each school corporation receives each year.
 
Each school corporation receives a specific dollar amount per student. So, two schools with the same number of students will receive a different dollar amount because the amount per student is different. 

The amount per student can be immense. The lowest amount received by a school corporation in 2008 was $5,414 per student in Northwest Allen School Corp. The school corporation with the highest rate per-student was Gary School Corp., receiving $9,010 per student.

Speaker Bauer Turns A Deaf Ear To Iowa Warning

Below is the press release Rep. Eric Turner, the IN House author of the Marriage Amendment, put out regarding Iowa's Supreme Court decision redefining marriage. 

Rep. Turner is right on the money when he says:

"Speaker Bauer has said many times Indiana's statute is sufficient to protect the sanctity of marriage," Rep. Turner said. "If he believes in that sanctity, he needs to take the Defense of Marriage Amendment seriously."

There is overwhelming support for the Marriage Amendment within the Indiana House of Representatives.  There are many within Speaker Bauer's own caucus who support the Marriage Amendment, including co-author Rep. Dave Cheatham.  It's a shame that one man is holding back so many pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-life, pro-education, pro-limited government, pro-tax reform, etc. measures this year.

STATEHOUSE (April 3, 2009) - What happened in Iowa today is a perfect example of why Indiana needs the Defense of Marriage Amendment in the state constitution, Rep. Eric Turner (R-Marion) said.

The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling today finding that the state's same-sex-marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of homosexual couples. Iowa now joins Massachusetts and Connecticut in permitting same-sex marriage.

"Indiana has a statute prohibiting same-sex marriage, but as we can see from Iowa's example, it is not safe," Rep. Turner said. "This decision comes from the Midwest, the country's heartland. It didn't come from one of the liberal coasts. The assault on family values is moving inland."

The Expendable Child

This article was written by a friend, Phillip Stutts.  I quote it here in its entirety because it's just that good.

Eight years ago, I had a life-changing moment. So great was this moment that it became the foundation of my personal and professional life. I rarely discuss it with others and I am very hesitant to write about it publicly. But I feel that my story may help shed a different light on a terrible situation occurring in Washington, D.C. right now.
 
Since 2001, I have served as a “Big Brother” in Washington, D.C. and Maryland. My two “littles” come from rough backgrounds. They’ve never had a relationship with their biological parents. Their parents chose alcohol, prostitution, drugs and jail over love, nurturing and responsibility. It’s heartbreaking.
 
My youngest, Tre’von, lives in Maryland, and was adopted by his foster mom—a wonderful woman who does her best for Tre’von and two other adopted children, but life is a struggle for this family.
 
Tre and I have a special relationship. I’m the only male in his life and I love him like a son. I’ve preached to him to fight for a better future—one that breaks the vicious cycle of children growing up without parents. We talk about it every week.

Historian and Author David Barton to Speak in Cicero

The American Family Association of Indiana, led by Veritas Rex contributor Micah Clark, announced that David Barton of Wallbuilders will be speaking at a free event for AFA-IN on Monday, April 20th at 6PM.    David is set to speak at Harbour Shores Church on the North side of Noblesville, (8011 E. 216th Street, Cicero).  Mark your calendars and make plans to join us for this rare chance to hear David live and in person in Central Indiana. 

Educational Incompetence

    The recent, and ongoing, debate over the future of the Washington D.C. school voucher program has served as a high profile reminder that efforts must continue to be made to improve the quality of education provided by public schools.  Here in Indiana, the House has passed a bill that has the potential to lower the quality of education in this state and increase the administrative workload facing school districts.  The bill deals with creating "cultural competency" standards and protocols for schools around the state and has been sponsored by Rep. Greg Porter (D-Indianapolis).

    Cultural competency is often defined as understanding the differences in action, behavior, and communication that span across various cultural and social groups.  If one is able to take this understanding and act in ways that are consistent with an increased awareness of these differences, they can be considered culturally competent.  To bring it to the practical level, if one is to be culturally competent they must be willing to adjust their actions based on the culture they are dealing with and, by extension, they emphasize the fact that differences between the two groups exist.

    Cultural competency is good for diplomats.  It is not good for Indiana's teachers and students.  By requiring school districts to develop programs to train teachers in cultural differences, set benchmarks for culturally competent behavior, and implement a system that monitors the cultural competency of teachers, we are shifting our focus away from the proper goal of classroom instruction: educating students in a way that stretches them academically and prepares them to become successful individuals and good citizens.  We should not turn the focus of classroom instruction into understanding the varying degrees of differences that we have with one another. 

    Teachers do need to be aware of the different socio-economic backgrounds that their students come from.  Yet this understanding should not be translated into a mandate that classroom education be reduced to a number of different individual standards with each student being held to his or her own level of accountability.  Our teachers should have the freedom to hold all students accountable for their actions and demand that each student do their very best in class.  Not all students will be at the top of the class, but by excusing lack of effort, inattention to instruction, or other behavioral issues by ascribing them to the cultural background of the student, we are sending the message that because of one's background they will not be expected-or encouraged-to achieve great things.

Faith and Family Matter to Children

 

Children from intact families who frequently attend worship are least likely to repeat a grade in school.  More details on this research are available at the Family Research Council. 

Whether we quote chapter and verse of God's Word or take a look at examples from his creation through social science research, we find that faith, marriage between a man and a woman, and the family that marriage spawns is enormously important to social outcomes. 

The World As It Is

On January 22 I was invited to a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley to present to a group of men at a program led by Senior Pastor of The Ranch Church, Rick Soto on the topic "The World As It Is."  For two and a half hours I waxed eloquent and answered questions about the world as it is and as it should be.  Here's my opening monologue.

"I want to talk today about the world as it is--about the world as it is now--and I will say that in many respects, the world is in a fragile state.  I do not think that this comes as a surprise to many of you, in fact, I think you all have a sense for just how shaky things are on so many fronts.  And what makes this situation even more precarious is the utter lack of true leadership in Washington. 

 

Certainly not in my lifetime has there been a greater lack of leadership in Washington than there is today.  A total lack of leadership on both sides of the isle.  And against this backdrop strides the cult of personality.  More on our President later in this talk, but I am sure that many of you, irrespective of politics, have an uneasy feeling about the aura around this man.

But how did we get here?  How did things get so bad in Washington?  And putting Washington aside for a moment, how did we become the people that we’ve become?

Did Gary Dick inadvertently take a shot at Indiana’s gambling industry?

Republicans and Democrats alike have lamented the American public’s financial illiteracy over the past few months as the economy nosed dived; what were those sub-prime lenders and borrowers thinking? According to Gary Dick of Inside Indiana Business, we may be seeing the latest installment of financial illiteracy in the form of Hoosiers wary about the looming taxpayer bailout of GM, Ford and Chrysler.

“Not well educated…”

Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight and Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold have convened a summit in Indianapolis

next week to ostensibly study the impact of letting one or more of the Big Three fail. In an interview with Mayor Goodnight at Inside Indiana Business, Gary Dick wrote,

“Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight says he doesn't think Hoosiers are well-educated about the consequences of the Big Three U.S. automakers not receiving a bailout.”

Just how much does financial illiteracy cost

Indiana?

I think I just heard, “so many Hoosiers are financially illiterate that it is becoming politically difficult to rally the public in favor of an auto bailout.” For now, I’ll pass on whether improved financial literacy would make a case for or against a bailout. But the overarching issue is our sad state of financial illiteracy, which is well documented, and seems to fuel the things that keep burning. To whit:

• Financial illiteracy helps Hoosiers spend $5+ per day on cigarettes and $zillions for somebody’s future oncology practice;
• Financial illiteracy helps Hoosiers drop out of high school for a rich (“rich”) factory job instead of getting a diploma and higher degree;
• Financial illiteracy helps Hoosiers—especially poor Hoosiers—buy flashy sparkly Powerball and Hoosier Lottery tickets with statistically zero chance of an Return On Investment instead of a bank certificate of deposit with a guaranteed profit (I know, I know…don’t get difficult with me).

2 out of 3 ain’t bad, but isn’t 3 a charm?

Thankfully, Governor Mitch Daniels and the Micky Mauer-like economic development champions of Indiana have focused like lasers on the first two items, and groups like the Indiana Economic Development Corporation have done a first class job of bringing new opportunity to the state.

But, why are we tolerating that third item?

 

For better or worse, Mayors Goodnight and Seybold indeed have a challenge before them next Monday.

 

Christopher Mann is a publicist in Fort Wayne

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Public School Tyranny

Government protects rights that aren't there...a right to sodomy, gay marriage, pornography and abortion to name a few and tramples on the rights guaranteed in the constitution...the example here is not only the freedom of speech, but the sort of speech that the Founding Fathers wanted to protect the most, political speech. 

And liberals wonder why Christian parents are taking their children out of the public schools more and more.  I agree that the message on the shirt that "Obama is a terrorist's best friend" is inappropriate, but so is promotion of homosexuality.  The fact of the matter is that free speech must be protected in the public school unless it hurts the school's ability to keep order.  As much as I oppose gay activists bringing their message into the schools through the students, it must be allowed unless it disrupts the learning environment to the point that order cannot be kept.  Neither the "day of silence" shirts that I have seen, nor this shirt rises to that level.  However, you see this young man punished and the gay rights activist are unopposed.  Tragic.

The difficulties of school reform

David Kirkpatrick of The Buckeye Institute has written an excellent article on the difficulties of public school reform.

Study after study over the past 25 years, beginning with A Nation at Risk in 1983, have examined the system and found it not only wanting but, to a large degree, horrendous.  And there were studies long before 1983 that were hardly complimentary either.  One summary says that, beginning with one in Chicago in the 1890s, no study has ever found that the public system satisfactorily educated a majority of the students.  One almost self-evident proof of this conclusion is that it wasn't until 1950 that half of the students in 5th grade seven years before were still in school.

What the system has seen over the century and three quarters since its inception is more students, more teachers, more schools, more money, more this and more that of quantitative things but not more and more - and arguably less and less - of qualitative things such as academic achievement.

It should be obvious by now, as more than one person has concluded, that the public school system cannot be reformed.  At the very least it might be recognized that logic has nothing to do with the way it is organized.  If the process by which students are educated was based on logic, the public school system would not exist. 

Head over to their website to view the whole article.