Dear Superintendent,

Thank you for your leadership during this exciting time for education in Indiana. The ability to deliver our young
people a quality education starts with strong school leadership. Your guidance and foresight are vitally important
to the students, parents, and communities you serve.

As you know, we have set lofty goals for education in our state. By taking a closer look at how we hold schools
accountable, how we can effectively evaluate, recognize, and retain our outstanding teachers and leaders, and by
giving schools the local control necessary to make changes that support student success, Indiana is on track to
be a national leader in preparing students for success in college and the workforce.

Throughout the last several months, IDOE staffers and I have traveled the state meeting with thousands of
educators, addressing their concerns, and receiving their feedback on key legislative initiatives. I believe to
ensure the best outcomes possible from this year’s legislative session, we must keep that dialogue going. Never
before in our state’s history has the discussion surrounding what is best for our students been so robust and
passionate. We have an opportunity to make some changes to our education system that will greatly impact
how our young people are prepared to be citizens of a global economy. There are many opinions as to what is
best for our children;and while we may not always agree on how to get there, somewhere in that healthy debate
lie the most innovate and productive solutions for improving education for all students. I sincerely hope you will
join me in encouraging the educators in your area to stay informed and engaged in the discussion.

I want to make our education agenda very clear for educators. To help with this, I am sending all Indiana
superintendents information they can review and share with their teachers and administrators. With so much
misinformation out there, it is vitally important for educators to hear directly from the IDOE regarding the
legislation we support on behalf of the education profession. Please take a few moments to review the enclosed
information. I hope you will email me at superintendent@doe.in.gov with any questions or concerns you may
have; and most importantly, I hope you will share this information with the staff, parents, and other community
members in your area.

Again, thank you for your continued leadership and dedication to providing the best possible educational
opportunities to Indiana’s students.

Sincerely,

Dr. Tony Bennett

Superintendent of Public Instruction

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Legislative Overview
p. 3

The Truth About IDOE’s Legislative Agenda

p. 5

Q&A: High Quality Options for Families:

Offer Equal Educational Opportunities to All Children. Give Parents a Voice.
p. 8

Q&A: Real Accountability and Flexibility:

Empower School Leaders. Bring Success to Failing Schools.
p. 10

Q&A: Identify and Reward Great Teachers and Principals:

Give School Leaders Flexibility to Promote Excellence.
p. 13

Teacher and Principal Evaluations and Indiana’s Growth Model

p. 16

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 Indiana’s 2011 Education Agenda: Putting Students First
Prominent national figures have called education the civil rights issue of our generation, but as our state and
nation continue a decades-long quest to achieve equal educational opportunities for all students, it’s clear
that education is the civil rights issue of every generation. This may be our best chance to make the kind of
systemic changes that will benefit our students, and therefore our state, for generations to come.

This legislative session, we will—first and foremost—have the debate on what is best for Hoosier children.
We must be willing to engage in difficult conversations about the long-standing practices that have favored
adults over children. And during these trying economic times, we must stop asking how to get more money
for education and begin pursuing the most education for our money.

Too often it’s not a lack of money or resources that keeps individuals, states and nations from achieving
their goals—it’s a lack of courage. This is the moment for Indiana to emerge as a national leader for
innovative and aggressive education initiatives that put student success first. We cannot afford to keep
doing what we’ve been doing. We must truly hold the best interest of students at heart, and we must not
fail to act now.

Indiana students deserve the best school options to meet their individual needs. Indiana students deserve
high-quality teachers in all their classrooms, and those teachers deserve to be rewarded for their success.
Indiana students deserve dramatic change to a system that sometimes allows geography to put them in
failing schools. And Indiana students deserve an education system focused on academic results and not
focused on complying with outdated and unnecessary laws and regulations.

The actions taken during this session of the Indiana General Assembly will foreshadow Indiana’s future
prosperity. Now is a time for change, a time for courage and a time for dramatic action. Anything less
would cheat Indiana’s schools and children.

The following actions are necessary to create the vibrant, challenging and successful system of schools
Indiana’s children deserve:

Identify and Reward Great Teachers and Principals: Give Local Leaders
Flexibility to Promote Excellence.
School leaders must have the autonomy to make the improvements necessary to bolster student
achievement and should be held responsible for the performance of their school.
Promote excellence by identifying and rewarding great teachers and school principals based on their
performance rather than seniority or degrees held—two things research shows have little influence
on teacher effectiveness and student achievement.
Reliable, fair, accurate evaluations, which are informed by student achievement or growth data,
should be used each year to assess teachers and administrators, recognize our best educators and
identify those who need support for improvement.
Administrators must use these evaluations to inform decisions about hiring, firing, professional
development, compensation, placement, transfers and reductions in force.

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 Collective bargaining agreements between school corporations and teachers’ unions should focus
on salary and wage-related benefits and should be innovative in recognizing performance through
compensation.
Tenure should be awarded to teachers based on performance instead of seniority.

Real Accountability and Flexibility: Empower School Leaders. Bring Success

to Failing Schools.
Hold all schools accountable for achieving results for students.
We must demand swift and dramatic improvement from all chronically failing schools and provide
the state all the necessary tools to intervene when local leadership has failed to offer a quality
education to children.
Students in our failing schools need the best teachers and leaders to help them catch up to their
peers. We must free school leaders in our lowest-performing schools from restrictive collective
bargaining agreements between school corporations and teachers’ unions that prevent schools from
making staffing decisions in the best interest of students.
We must give all turnaround managers adequate time to demonstrate improvement, but we must
also set rigorous annual performance goals and replace ineffective managers as quickly as possible.
Once schools successfully improve student performance, we must act with care to be sure the
school community has the autonomy and freedom to maintain success. The State Board of
Education will appoint the first school board to successful turnaround schools and allow the
community to decide how best to operate the school once state control is relinquished.
Create a ―Parent Trigger‖ – if 51 percent of parents in a school sign a petition, the state can step
in early to turn around a failing school.

High Quality Options for Families: Offer Equal Educational Opportunities to

All Children. Give Parents a Voice.
Every student should have the opportunity to attend an excellent school.
Allow students to graduate early and offer them a college scholarship equal to the amount the state
would have spent on the last year of high school.
Ensure state education dollars follow the needs of students so parents can select the best possible
educational options for their children.
Create an Indiana Charter School Board to authorize new charters across the state.
Allow private higher education institutions to apply to the State Board of Education to authorize
new charters.
Increase accountability for all charter authorizers. Only let the best open, and close poor
performing charters.
Expand virtual charter schools to reach underserved students and to fill gaps in the traditional
system.
Eliminate caps on charters and help them access safe and appropriate public facilities.
Grant schools and communities more authority to convert failing schools to charters.

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 THE TRUTH ABOUT IDOE’S LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

Myth # 1: Indiana’s Education Agenda calls for the repeal of collective bargaining rights.

This statement is completely false. IDOE has not advocated for the repeal of collective bargaining rights,
and our legislative agenda will not include language that calls for the elimination of collective bargaining
rights.

To be clear, our agenda does aim to focus collective bargaining agreements between school corporations
and teachers unions on salaries and wage-related benefits – and we believe this will help ensure Indiana’s
great teachers are getting paid what they deserve to get paid. It will also help schools put students first by
eliminating provisions that require administrators to conduct blind draws, roll the dice or consider the sum
of the last four digits of a teacher’s Social Security Number to break a tie on seniority when making
reduction in force decisions.

Myth # 2: Indiana’s Education Agenda deducts money from teacher retirement funds to avoid
further cuts to Indiana schools.

There is no truth to this statement. No one at IDOE has advocated for this, and Dr. Bennett promises no
one will.

There are many important discussions to be held during the upcoming legislative session. Everyone’s
opinion should be valued, and everyone deserves a seat at the table. But false statements meant to stir up
fear have no place in this discussion. IDOE hopes anyone who comes across this rumor, or one of a similar
nature, will have the courage to dispel this false statement and re-focus the discussion on the important
issues which will impact student achievement.

Myth # 3: Indiana’s Education Agenda mandates an evaluation system that will evaluate
teachers based solely on students’ ISTEP+ scores.

IDOE does not support evaluation tools that only take into account student performance on standardized
tests. IDOE continues to advocate for a teacher evaluation system that takes into account multiple
measures including student growth and student engagement. We have always said students’ academic
growth and performance should be part of a comprehensive evaluation system that examines multiple
factors.

Senate Bill 1 calls for locally developed teacher and principal evaluations that consider multiple factors.
Again, while one of those factors must be a data component, local leaders will determine what data should
be used (e.g. student growth data, data from teacher-developed assessments, other student performance
data, etc.) Besides the data component, local evaluations should consider students’ needs, teachers’ level of
responsibility and teachers’ experience. The legislation supports local schools as centers of innovation by
allowing them to craft the best evaluation tools for the students in their communities.

The bill also calls for locals to use these evaluations to offer meaningful feedback to all educators, develop
targeted professional development, inform promotion and placement decisions, and create salary scales
based on more than just seniority and degrees held. While IDOE will develop a model evaluation rubric,
tool and plan, as well as a model salary scale, THE STATE WILL NOT MANDATE THE USE OF ANY OF

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THESE MODELS. Depending on what is best for the individual school communities, school corporations
may develop their own or may adopt the models.

Myth # 4: Indiana’s Education Agenda mandates equal percentages of teachers be placed into
four performance categories during the evaluation process or places them into categories
using a bell curve.

This is absolutely false. The IDOE advocates creating four evaluation categories for teachers and principals
(highly effective, effective, improvement necessary, and ineffective). While teachers will be placed into
categories based on several performance indicators, there is no model that mandates 25% of teachers be
placed into each category. Such a model would be statistically invalid.

What we do know is that Indiana’s current teacher evaluation systems rates 99% of teachers as effective or
above. While we know many of our teachers are effective, no profession has a 99% effective rating. Our
current system is statistically invalid and must be refined to provide teachers with helpful feedback that
encourages improvement and rewards success.

Myth # 5: Indiana’s Education Agenda forces schools and school corporations to use a one-
size-fits-all evaluation tool.

Again, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Indiana’s Education Agenda aims to increase local control by
allowing school corporations to use evaluation tools that work best within their school communities. IDOE
will provide helpful guardrails that focus on educator qualities that drive student success. But there will not
be a one-size-fits-all tool or rubric.

For months, IDOE has been working with teachers, administrators, education policy groups, teachers’
union representatives, and higher education representatives to develop a model evaluation tool and
implementation plan which will be made available to all Indiana school districts. Each district will then have
the opportunity to adopt the state’s model or develop its own tool and plan using state guidelines. IDOE
also hopes to provide implementation support, particularly for struggling schools.

Myth #6: Indiana’s Education Agenda reduces teacher salaries.

IDOE’s legislative proposals do not reduce teacher salaries. Rather, the proposals seek to enable local
school corporations to set up systems to reward teachers for driving student growth and high-quality
performance as education professionals. School corporations should have the opportunity to reward their
best teachers, and the policies supported by IDOE will allow them to do so.

Myth #7: Indiana’s Education Agenda takes tenure away from teachers who already have it.

There is no plan to take away tenure from teachers who have earned it under the current system. IDOE
does, though, support a revamped tenure process for incoming teachers wherein job security and
protections are based on performance rather than just seniority. The proposal changes the current non-
permanent, semi-permanent and permanent status categories to probationary, professional, and established
statuses. The new titles are better linked to teachers’ performance and work in the classroom and less to
their seniority. All current teachers will be ―established‖ teachers.

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Myth #8: Indiana’s reforms to teacher due process will result in teachers being unfairly
dismissed from the classroom.

Our legislative agenda DOES NOT CALL FOR THE ELIMINATION OF DUE PROCESS FOR TEACHERS.
Instead, IDOE aims to streamline current due process, align it with the current principal due process, and
make it more focused on demonstrated teacher effectiveness based on locally developed, multi-faceted
evaluations. An administrator must be able to prove a teacher’s incompetence with documented ineffective
evaluation ratings in multiple years despite serious attempts to improve through professional development.
The higher a teacher’s licensing status, the more ineffective ratings it takes to remove a teacher from the
classroom. IDOE supports legislation requiring corporations to notify teachers of non-renewal in advance
and then gives teachers the right to a conference with the local superintendent and the school board to
present their case with representation.

Myth #9: Indiana’s reforms will allow the State Superintendent to terminate any teacher’s
contract at any time.

IDOE has not been made aware of language of this nature in any bill, and if it did exist, Dr. Bennett and
IDOE would wholeheartedly oppose it. Personnel decisions of this nature should be made at the local level.

Myth #10: The Superintendent of Public Instruction will determine the state funding formula.

This is completely false. The Superintendent has no such authority. Members of Indiana’s General Assembly
develop the funding formula. More specifically, more than 40 members assigned to pertinent committees
will have a say in developing the formula that dictates how state dollars are spent on education. Before it
can be enacted, all 150 members of the state legislature vote on the proposed formula.

Myth #11: The state will be able to force a school corporation to modify a collective
bargaining agreement that it “does not like” and withhold funds if the corporation does not
comply.

This idea is not proposed or supported in any legislative proposals that are part of our education agenda.

Myth #12: That state will require school corporations to publish summaries of teacher’s
evaluations in the local media.

IDOE has not advocated for the sharing of personally identifiable information. The Department does
support school corporations submitting annual reports to IDOE identifying the number of educators placed
in each performance category (Again, the report should not include names or personally identifiable
information). IDOE would then publish the results.

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 High Quality Options for Families: Offer Equal Educational
Opportunities to All Children. Give Parents a Voice.
Questions and Answers

Early Graduation Option

What is the early high school graduation initiative?
This proposal provides students an accelerated graduation option to offer additional flexibility along
their educational pathways. Open to all high school students, accelerated graduation will allow
students to continue their education via a state-supported scholarship while expanding their college
and career options.

Why would a student choose to graduate early?

This is a good option for students who are ready academically and developmentally to move to
post-secondary work.

Is there any demand for early graduation?

A 2010 survey conducted by Learn More Indiana showed that nearly three-fourths of high school
students would consider taking advantage of an accelerated graduation option if it were provided to
them.
While very few students may take advantage of this option, the students who are ready to move on
to college or career programs will benefit from this opportunity to do more with their last year of
high school.

Charter Schools
What are charter schools?
Charter schools are public schools that offer additional options for families who are not completely
satisfied by the traditional public schools in their community.

Why do we need more charter schools?

More charter schools mean more high-quality options for parents, which is particularly helpful to
our poorest, at-risk students and communities. Currently, only around 2 percent of students are
enrolled in charter schools, and it is extremely difficult for many students to gain admittance due to
long waiting lists and a crowded lottery process.
We don’t just need more charter schools; we need more high-quality charter schools, which is why
enforcing rigorous accountability on charter authorizers is so important.

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How are charter schools funded?
Charter schools are funded with state monies, as are traditional public schools.
Under the proposal, a charter school would be provided favorable lease or purchase options for
unused or underutilized public school buildings in a corporation.
o Currently, charters often are forced to scrape for appropriate facilities for students.

How are students selected to attend charter schools?

Charter schools must let in as many students as they can teach—without selectively choosing which
students they will enroll based on student performance or any other factor.
When charter schools lack the capacity to serve the amount of students who apply, which is often
the case, the schools hold lotteries to randomly select students for enrollment.

Will poor-performing charter schools be closed?

The State Board of Education (SBE) will establish a timeline and consequences for charter
authorizers that fail to meet the SBE’s standards. Consequences could include a moratorium on a
particular authorizer starting new charters or the revocation of an authorizer’s power to continue
overseeing charters. In that case, the SBE would make sure all existing high-quality charters are
transferred to other authorizers.

Who will be able to authorize charter schools?

Currently, several bodies may authorize (or sponsor) charter schools:
o The Mayor of Indianapolis
o Public universities offering four-year degrees (only Ball State University has chosen to
become an authorizer)
o Public school corporations (only two have ever authorized any schools)
Under this proposal, the following bodies would also be able to authorize charter schools:
o A newly-created statewide chartering board called the Indiana Public Charter School Board
o Private, four-year universities and colleges that are approved to authorize by the SBE
o Mayors of Indiana’s second class cities

Virtual Charters
What is a virtual charter school?
Virtual charters highlight the innovation that is possible in charter schools. Virtual schools use
computers and technology to provide a high-quality education to students who cannot be served or
are not well served in the traditional school setting.
Indiana began piloting these virtual charters in the 2009-2010 school year.

What will happen to the virtual pilot schools?

This proposal wraps up the pilot phase and keeps the two current virtual pilot schools as virtual
charter schools. The proposal also allows new virtual schools to become authorized the same way
any charter would.

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 Real Accountability and Flexibility: Offer Equal Educational
Opportunities to All Children. Bring Success to Failing Schools.
Questions and Answers

Accountability
How does Indiana hold schools accountable for educating students?
Public Law 221, commonly referred to as PL 221, is Indiana’s comprehensive accountability system
for K-12 education. Passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1999 – prior to the federal No Child
Left Behind Act of 2001 – the law aimed to establish statewide accountability for schools.
PL 221 places Indiana schools in categories that indicate how well a school is doing. Schools
achieving the lowest category placement for five consecutive years are subject to state intervention
to make sure they improve.

How can PL 221 be improved?

The current categories are ―Exemplary Progress,‖ ―Commendable Progress,‖ ―Academic Progress,‖
―Academic Watch‖ and ―Academic Probation.‖ These labels don’t clearly express a school’s status
to the general public, and they don’t create a sense of urgency for the school to improve.

What are the new school accountability categories?

Starting next year, PL 221 will measure progress and place Indiana schools into one of five
categories based upon 2010 – 2011 student performance and improvement data. The current
categories will be replaced with category names that mirror the way we grade students and are
easier for the public to understand: ―A,‖ ―B,‖ ―C,‖ ―D,‖ and ―F.‖

What factors are used to determine category placement?

Beginning in 2011, category placement will be based on the following:
o Performance of all students, based on the following:
 Percent passing English and math portions of the ISTEP+ exam in Grades 3 through 8
 For high schools, percent passing English 10 and Algebra I end-of-course assessments,
graduation rate, and college and career attainment measures
o Improvement, based on student growth in ISTEP+ English and math for elementary and middle
schools

What are the consequences for schools that fall in the lowest two categories?
Schools in the lowest two PL 221 categories (―Academic Probation‖ or ―Academic Watch‖ this
year and ―D‖ or ―F‖ starting next year) face a series of interventions designed to improve
performance and outcomes for students. These consequences become more extensive the longer
schools remain in the bottom categories, but schools that remain under the control of the school
corporation do not lose funding under PL 221.

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Are charter schools and non-public schools given category placements?
Yes, charter schools and accredited non-public schools are placed into categories. Although state
law does not make these schools subject to state intervention, they are expected to be held
accountable for academic performance.

Making Failing Schools Successful

What is a state turnaround academy?
A turnaround academy is a school subject to state intervention.

What is an outside management organization?

An outside management organization is an entity the State Board of Education (SBE) hires to
operate any part or all of a state turnaround academy.

How long may a school be in turnaround status?

State turnaround academies will be given five years to demonstrate measurable results in school
culture and achievement. Thus, the SBE will develop a five-year plan that carefully tracks and
monitors both leading and lagging indicators for each state turnaround academy.

What happens to a state turnaround academy if the management organization cannot improve student
achievement?
Proposed language requires the SBE to set and monitor annual performance goals with each
operating entity. It would allow the SBE to cut short the five-year contract for failure to meet
rigorous, specified targets for improvement. The proposal also provides the SBE latitude to extend
the contract if the school makes sufficient gains and is moving forward in the best interest of the
students.

Is a school still considered part of the corporation if it is in turnaround status?

No. If a state turnaround academy attains its goals within the contract period, it becomes an
independent school, and the SBE will appoint a school board to govern it. This board will have the
flexibility to remain independent, contract with a manager or another school, apply for charter
status, join other independent schools, or turn over control to the original or another school
corporation. Furthermore, if the state or an outside management organization cannot improve
student achievement in a five-year span, the school may be returned to the corporation.

How will state turnaround academies be funded?

State turnaround academies will continue to receive federal and state dollars through the Indiana
Department of Education. They will also have access to construction and technology loans from the
Common School Fund as well as to transportation and capital projects funds from local tax
revenue. State turnaround academies may also contract with corporations for additional services
(e.g. transportation, food service), but corporations will be prohibited from charging state
turnaround academies higher rates for these services.

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What happens to collective bargaining agreements between school corporations and teachers’ unions if the
state takes over a school?
Teachers’ collective bargaining contracts will remain in place within all schools in the corporation
except a turnaround academy. This means teachers teaching at a school when it becomes a state
turnaround academy maintain the rights and benefits outlined in the collective bargaining contract
within the school corporation.
In other words, the outside management organization and turnaround academy leaders will have
the freedom and flexibility to make all staffing decisions for the state turnaround academy.

What benchmarks does a school have to meet to leave turnaround status?

Goals and indicators will be established on a case-by-case basis, based on each school’s unique
circumstances. The benchmarks will be outlined in the SBE’s five-year timeline for each individual
school and will likely focus upon school culture and academic outcomes.

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 Identify and Reward Great Teachers and Principals:
Give School Leaders Flexibility to Promote Excellence.
Questions and Answers

Teacher and Principal Evaluations

Why do we need to change the way Indiana schools evaluate teachers and principals?
In too many schools, evaluations do not reflect real differences in teacher and principal
effectiveness. They often fail to identify our best educators and neglect to highlight specific areas of
improvement for struggling educators who could benefit from guidance and remediation. In fact,
many teachers go years between receiving any meaningful feedback on their performance. As a
result, the majority of teachers and principals do not get the support and development they need to
improve as professionals and better serve Indiana’s school children.

What will ensure the fairness of evaluation?

Multiple measures will be used to evaluate teachers fairly. These measures may include growth
and/or achievement data on assessments (ISTEP+ and end-of-course assessments), classroom
observations, professional responsibilities, professional leadership, and other evidence of student
learning.

How will teacher evaluations be used?

Evaluations will be used to provide valuable feedback to teachers and to guide professional
development.
Evaluations should be used to inform decisions regarding hiring, recognizing, rewarding, remediating,
and even removing teachers and should also be used in decisions about transfers and reductions in
force at the district and school level.

Who will evaluate teachers and principals?

Administrators or other well-trained evaluators will evaluate teachers. Superintendents will evaluate
principals. Thorough training will be required to ensure that evaluations are fair, rigorous and
accurate and that feedback is useful.

How will teachers be categorized in the new evaluation system?

Evaluators will place each teacher into one of four categories: highly effective, effective,
improvement necessary, and ineffective. Schools will be required to report annually to the Indiana
Department of Education (IDOE) the number of teachers in each category.

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Will principals be similarly evaluated with multiple measures?
Yes. Student performance data must also significantly inform principal evaluations. Notably, in
addition to being accountable for school-wide academic performance, principals will be held
accountable for their ability to increase the effectiveness of teachers as well as their ability to
dismiss ineffective teachers.

How will special education teachers and teachers without growth data be evaluated?
Special education teachers and teachers without growth data will also be evaluated on multiple
factors, including student performance. The SBE will set guidelines for corporations to identify
and/or develop appropriate measures for these teachers. The IDOE will recommend the SBE adopt
a menu of options that local school districts will be encouraged to use when determining the best
way to measure student performance in non-tested subjects.

What options will corporations have for evaluation tools?

IDOE will make available a model evaluation tool and implementation plan which will include ways
to incorporate student results. Each district will then have the opportunity to adopt the state’s
model or develop its own tool and plan using state guidelines. IDOE also will provide
implementation support, particularly for struggling schools.

How did IDOE develop its model evaluation tool?

IDOE developed its model evaluation tool with input and guidance from teachers, administrators,
education policy groups, teachers’ union representatives, and higher education representatives—
supported by extensive research on best evaluation practices.

How will teacher evaluation systems be supported?

IDOE will develop a model evaluation plan with support tools and information on how to
implement this plan. It will also provide additional supports including training modules and targeted
assistance for schools and districts.

When will this legislation take effect?

Most of the proposed changes will be effective July 1, 2011; there will be a coordinated series of
rollout dates to make the transition to full evaluation as smooth as possible.

Flexibility and Local Control

Why do we need to provide more flexibility and autonomy for local schools?
To hold schools accountable for student outcomes, leaders need the authority and flexibility to do
what is best for the students in their buildings.

Will tenure be eliminated?

Technically, Indiana does not have tenure for teachers. We have a seniority-based indefinite
contract system whereby teachers can receive ―permanent status‖ based solely on the number of
years spent in the classroom. This proposal moves us to a performance-based system. In other
words, it rewards great teachers by providing them job security.

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What are the factors used in reduction in force (RIF) decisions?
Under the current system, RIFs are based solely on seniority. Under this proposal, RIF decisions
could not be based on seniority alone; effectiveness must be a significant factor. Seniority can serve
as a tiebreaker if two teachers receive the same rating.

How will teachers be hired and placed?

Under this proposal, principals have the authority to make staffing decisions to suit the needs of
their students. Currently, in some cases, hiring and placement is determined at the corporation
level.
Likewise, teachers will be able to interview at schools where they are interested in teaching—
creating a mutually beneficial situation for educators and school leaders to ultimately benefit the
children in a school building.

What is the role of collective bargaining in the new system?

Collective bargaining agreements between school corporations and teachers unions will make salary
and wage-related benefit determinations.
Teachers will be afforded the same due process rights as school administrators.

What factors will be considered in salary schedules and increases?

This legislation allows locally-developed salary schedules to be based on the following:
o Experience (years in system)
o Performance (based on evaluation system)
o Instructional leadership (e.g. additional responsibilities, leadership within the school)
o Academic needs (e.g., high-need subject areas)

Will the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board (IEERB) be eliminated?

No. IEERB will be absorbed by IDOE, as its functions are inherently in IDOE’s area of expertise.

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 Teacher and Principal Evaluations and Indiana’s Growth Model

Policy Update: Educator Evaluations

Educator evaluations are a priority for IDOE during the 2011 legislative session. IDOE believes evaluations
should focus on identifying and rewarding Indiana's best educators while also offering meaningful feedback
to help further develop all teachers and principals.

To view a presentation by Mindy Schlegel, Senior Advisor for Teacher Quality, please visit
http://media.doe.in.gov/growthmodel/2011-01-18-MindyGrowthModel.html.

An Introduction to the Indiana Growth Model

The Indiana Growth Model provides information that greatly enhances the conversation on student
performance. It is a key component of various aspects of the Indiana Department of Education's 2011 legislative
agenda and will help us put students first as we make important decisions regarding classroom instruction.

To view a presentation by Will Krebs, Senior Advisor for Policy and School Leadership, please visit
http://media.doe.in.gov/growthmodel/2011-01-18-WillGrowthModel.html.

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