Comments on Advance Indiana™: Have People Forgotten The Purpose Of A Bonus?

If I remember correctly ISTEP is set for a 50% pas...

2009-07-07T23:13:16.174-05:00

If I remember correctly ISTEP is set for a 50% pass rate. Adding a year to a superintendent's contract is a normal procedure in Indiana. Dollars to donuts that 200k is base salary, by the time your add purchasing years experience in TERF, car allowance, an annuity provision, clothing allowance, 250k term life etc. his final total contract will be well north of 250k. Last year the Star published the Marion County superintendent contracts maybe they need to do so again.

Standardized testing is a bad thing in and of itse...

2009-07-07T10:10:16.493-05:00

Standardized testing is a bad thing in and of itself, because instead of teaching an education, teachers teach the test.

Besides, statistically 20% of the students would pass the test even if they all guessed on every question. (5 answer multiple choice), and if you start putting things like literature and essays into it, then every student is opened up to the particular bias of their particular teacher.

Tell me what you think justifies ISTEP or why it makes an acceptable benchmark.

Russell, I suspect that the teachers in the classr...

2009-07-07T09:52:28.234-05:00

Russell, I suspect that the teachers in the classroom had something to do with the improvement in test scores. They haven't had a raise in 2 years and they did not get a $5000 increase in their clothing allowance [they receive no clothing allowance and dont want one] and they are not able to hire their family in made up jobs..and they are not paid to travel the world on taxpayers' money. Your thoughts are appreciated but you need to do some serious research.

The facts are all relative. 50% isn't impress...

2009-07-07T09:15:28.163-05:00

The facts are all relative. 50% isn't impressive for a pass rate, but it is if it was significantly lower and under his leadership the pass rate rose. Improvement comes in increments, and if they are awarding him for incremental increases then let's go for it! $7,000 is a small price to pay for increasing test scores.

Now, I don't know the background and what the original pass/fail rates were, I am just saying that under what I said above I think it's reasonable and also needs to be put into persepctive. Just my two cents.

This is positive proof that the school board is cl...

2009-07-07T07:18:24.493-05:00

This is positive proof that the school board is clueless. This man should be fired instead of given a bonus. They should get rid of Prudence Bridgewaters who makes a mess out of everything she tries to do. The fact that the board tried to sneak these bonuses in without it being an agenda item tells us we need to elect a new school board starting with Mary Bush.

This is sick the biggest part of the deal is that ...

2009-07-07T06:53:34.957-05:00

This is sick the biggest part of the deal is that he received an additional year of salary on this contract. His contract does not expire until June 30, 2013. That means if IPS fired or asked him to signed, they owe him over $800K. IPS has lost an average of 1500 students per year under Gene White leadership and the city has not respect for him or the district. Why give him a raise????

I'm not a statistician, but isn't 50% the ...

2009-07-07T06:48:14.978-05:00

I'm not a statistician, but isn't 50% the predicted outcome for a pass/fail experiment that has no outside influence affecting the experiment?