Indiana Education Chief Fudged Evaluation to Favor GOP Donor’s Charter School

Last updated on 2013.08.02

We hear a lot from state officials about the need to impose accountability on our K-12 schools. The logic is that you all can't trust us teachers to do the job we're trained for and accurately assess and report your children's learning, so we need to grade your kids and teachers and schools on time-consuming, money-consuming state-mandated standardized tests.

But can you trust your state officials to do that job? Apparently not in Indiana in 2012, where then-state superintendent of education Tony Bennett fudged test scores to make a charter school run by a big Republican donor look better:

Emails obtained by The Associated Press show Bennett and his staff scrambled last fall to ensure influential donor Christel DeHaan's school received an "A," despite poor test scores in algebra that initially earned it a "C."

"They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work," Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence's chief lobbyist.

...the emails clearly show Bennett's staff was intensely focused on Christel House, whose founder has given more than $2.8 million to Republicans since 1998, including $130,000 to Bennett and thousands more to state legislative leaders [Tom LoBianco, "GOP Donor's School Grade Changed," AP via ABCNews.com, 2013.07.29].

Bennett, now Florida's education commissioner, says he committed no political monkey business. But his action in 2012 casts doubt on his integrity, the validity of state school assessments in Indiana and Florida, and the wisdom of letting state-level political hacks dictate standards, tests, and rankings for local schools. (And if you're trying to make a political case for charter schools, don't cite any recent evidence from Indiana.)

So whom will you trust to educate and evaluate your kids: the teacher who lives down the street from you, or a politician in Indianapolis or Pierre who has his eye on campaign donations?

Update 2013.08.02 07:58 CDT: Bennett has resigned from his position in Florida, saying that when the discussion turns from kids to adults, education is not being served. He might more accurately have said that no one benefits from cheating on tests.