Governor-elect Mike Pence said he believes Indiana voters upheld the campaign on education reform when they elected to keep Republicans in the majority in the General Assembly — something contradicted by the results of the state superintendent race.
“I believe in servant leadership, I believe you listen and then lead,” Pence said in a press conference Wednesday. “And I want to hear out the concerns that educators have, but I bring a heavy bias that there isn’t anything that ails education that can’t be fixed by giving parents more choices and teachers the freedom to teach.
“But I want to be clear that I support the policies and progress that we’ve made on education. We will support that in the next four years, and we will seek to build on it in a way that will keep kids first and keep Indiana at the forefront of education reform.”
When polls showed that Glenda Ritz would take the title of state superintendent of public instruction from Tony Bennett, many Ball State educations majors heaved a sigh of relief.
For Hannah Meacham, a senior elementary education major, and others like her, Ritz’s election could mean the end of RISE — a system used to evaluate teachers.
RISE was part of an education reform plan spearheaded by Bennett and Gov. Mitch Daniels.
Meacham said RISE is a system of indicators that provide expectations for teachers that evaluates their effectiveness based on observations and students’ standardized test scores.
“We can get back to the basic fundamentals of education: teaching our students what they need to know,” Meacham said of the change that Ritz promises to bring. “[Teachers] shouldn’t be evaluated solely on how our students do on state standardized tests, but should rather be tested on how they are doing in the classroom as a student.”
Ritz is a graduate of Ball State’s elementary education and special education departments.
According to her website, Ritz hopes to “work with parents, teachers and students to make instruction in the classroom a priority, reducing the emphasis on simply ‘teaching to the test’.” She also plans to “build partnerships, not denigrate those in the teaching profession.”
John Jacobson, dean of Teachers College, said he is looking to the future and the opportunity to work with Ritz.
“It’s critical that universities work with our schools in Indiana to ensure that we are meeting the needs of Hoosier children and their families,” he said.
With the election of Ritz, teachers across Indiana hope attention will return to the students.
“A lot of our professors in education are teaching future teachers how to teach to a test,” Dakota Crabtree, a junior elementary education major, said. “I think with Glenda Ritz being the new state superintendent, there’s a little bit of creativity allowed. Where as it’s been a little more streamlined and test structured. I think she gives a little bit of hope.”
