09/25/12State Superintendent Praises School Accountability System
Indiana Public Media (09/25/2012) Smith, BrandonDuring his State of Education address, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett praised the new teacher evaluation models and said he hoped to expand the state's accountability system to all districts. All school districts are using new teacher evaluations this year based on the state's general framework, and Bennett indicated that the feedback from the evaluations will help identify the best teacher preparation programs. "This new level of transparency will push our institutions of higher education to build teacher preparation programs that are more challenging and more student focused," he said. In terms of the changes in the state's school system, including the A-to-F school grading system, Bennett said, "These are important conversations that we must start having now so that, just as we did with teacher evaluations, we can build a strong, student-focused accountability system for districts that's informed by input from many stakeholders." The accountability system is working, he noted, with the number of chronically failing schools falling to one in 2012 from 24 in 2009.
