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Opening Arguments

School daze

I hate to come back with collectivism in education so soon, but it's making inroads in Indiana:

Project-based learning is as important as high-tech equipment in making New Tech schools different from traditional schools.
At the beginning of every project, student groups draw up a contract outlining what's expected of each member. If a member fails to live up to the contract's terms, the other group members can fire that student.
A fired student has to complete a modified assignment; repeated firings can hurt the student's final grade.
"It's a whole different culture. When students work in teams, they don't want to let their peers down," Schilling said.
Individual effort and achievment? Forget that. It's the group, the group, the group. (Via Kenn Gividen, who properly lets his skepticism morph into cynicism.)
In the meantime, the legislature may kill Ball State's innovative attempt at virtual charter schooling before it even gets off the ground.

Critics fear a huge shift of home-schoolers to tax-supported public charters, consuming more state money. Others question how well Indiana Connections Academy and Indiana Virtual Charter School can monitor what children are doing.

"This is such a new concept. Legislators don't have experience with it, and I don't think people understand how it works," said Ball State's charters director Larry Gabbert. "This is a very sound education process. We're hopeful -- nothing's law until the governor signs."

Yep. It's NEW. Can't have that. But, by all means, let's just give every school district the same increase, without worrying about adjusting for declining enrollments and increasing enrollments or anything like that. Not a great year for education so far.

Posted in: Hoosier lore
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