Education At The Statehouse: School Intervention

Gov. Mike Pence has called on the Indiana General Assembly to make education a major focus of this year’s current session. To help explain the legislative issues, 90.1 WFYI’s Eric Weddle and Christopher Ayers will discuss a related topic Fridays during "Morning Edition" the next several weeks.

This week Eric and Chris discuss House Bill 1638 -- proposed legislation that would give the State Board of Education greater oversight when it comes to school intervention. It would reduce the amount of time it takes for a failing school to require intervention from six consecutive Fs under the states A-F acountability system, to four consecutive failing years. 

House Bill 1638 would also allow the state board to create transformation zones within a school corporation -- such as a failing middle school and the elementary schools that feed into it -- and assign an outside group to help the district improve the schools.

As part of the discussion State Superintedent Glenda Ritz voices her opposition of the bill, school board member Daniel Elsner explains the need to speed up intervention, and Indianapolis Schools Superintedent Lewis Ferebee explains why the legislation has pros and cons.

For more information:

• Rep. Bob Behning's SB 1638 would change the current state intervention model
• IPS' Lewis Ferebee Makes Case For Transformation Zones

Listen to last week's discussion about proposed legislation to change the State Board of Education's governance here.

Contact WFYI reporter Eric Weddle at eweddle@wfyi.org or call (317) 614-0470. Follow on Twitter: @ericweddle.