Mark Miles of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership blogged about reading reform in Hoosier schools and the importance of curbing social promotion in elementary schools:

Unfortunately, some defenders of the current system would rather pay lip service to reading reform than accept the core responsibility of teaching our kids.  For example, John Ellis, executive director of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, recently penned an editorial in the Indianapolis Star that rejects the idea of retaining students who can’t read at the end of third grade.
 
The Indiana Department of Education and State Board of Education have made early reading education a top priority.  They’ve endorsed a policy framework that includes increased classroom time allocated to reading, intensive professional development for teachers on research-based reading instruction, and tools for assessing student reading proficiency on an ongoing basis in grades K-3, to catch problems early and devote more existing resources to struggling readers.
 
Under this model, retention is a last resort – a final opportunity to get students back on track with more intensive instruction on reading (not just holding back students in the same classroom with the same approach).
 
Mr. Ellis conveniently ignores this broader strategy and issues dire predictions of ‘mass retention.’  But if reading is the most important activity in our classrooms, and schools have 3,500+ hours of instruction from kindergarten to 3rd grade within which to teach kids to read, how little confidence must Ellis have in our public schools – his constituents – to fulfill their fundamental duties? 
 
He also attempts to undermine the progress made in Florida, which ended social promotion as part of an approach similar to what Indiana envisions.  Florida actually climbed from 31st to 21st in 4th grade public school reading scores from 2002-2007, cutting failure rates by a third.  (During the same time, Indiana slid from 15th to 27th in national reading scores.)  He implies that minority students were left behind by the Florida reforms – in fact, African-American, Latino, and low-income students all improved their reading performance in Florida from 2003-2007 while closing the ‘achievement gap’ with the general student population (Gauging the Gaps: A Deeper Look at Student Performance – The Education Sector).

Hat tip to Chamber VP of Education Derek Redelman for the info.

Not to pile onto the myriad reports of the decline of the American education system, but the New York Times relays one educational expert’s testimony that many nations, including our neighbor Canada, are surpassing America when it comes to educating youth: 

America’s education advantage, unrivaled in the years after World War II, is eroding quickly as a greater proportion of students in more and more countries graduate from high school and college and score higher on achievement tests than students in the United States, said Andreas Schleicher, a senior education official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, which helps coordinate policies for 30 of the world’s richest countries.

“Among O.E.C.D. countries, only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey and Mexico now have lower high school completion rates than the U.S.,” Mr. Schleicher said. About 7 in 10 American students get a high school diploma.

Mr. Schleicher’s comments came in testimony before the Senate education committee and in a statement he delivered. The panel plans to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the main law governing federal policy on public schools.

The committee also heard from Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union; John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, a group that represents corporate executives; and Charles Butt, chief executive of a supermarket chain in Texas, who said employers there faced increasing difficulties in hiring qualified young workers.

The blame for America’s sagging academic achievement does not lie solely with public schools, Mr. Butt said, but also with dysfunctional families and a culture that undervalues education. “Schools are inheriting an overentertained, distracted student,” he said.

For more on the state of education in the Hoosier State, peruse some of the articles in the latest edition of BizVoice.

Hat tip to the Chamber’s Derek Redelman for bringing the NYT article to our attention.

The Christian Science Monitor addressed why Americans are so angry in an article today. Perhaps I’m more aware of it now, or maybe it’s just the popularity of pundit-laden, agenda-driven cable news networks, but it certainly does seem like we Yankees are pretty fired up. At what? Well, take your pick: The government, other Americans who (gasp!) have opinions contrary to ours, or even our local nugget-less McDonald’s. Although, believe it or not, it does seem we were even angrier in the early 1990s, at least according to prior surveys:

So what does this all add up to? Are we "mad as hell," like TV anchor Howard Beale ranting to viewers in the 1976 Hollywood classic "Network"? Is today’s real-life incarnation, Glenn Beck of Fox News, whipping us into a frenzy of revolt against Washington?

Not necessarily. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 75 percent of Americans are "angry," but his question is framed solely around anger: "How angry are you at the current policies of the federal government?" Forty-five percent replied "very angry" and 30 percent said "somewhat angry."

But when Americans are given a choice of "angry," "dissatisfied," "satisfied," or "enthusiastic" about the way the federal government works, "dissatisfied" is the most popular choice at 48 percent, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. An additional 19 percent chose "angry."

This net negative of 67 percent doesn’t come close to the same poll’s finding in October 1992, during the last time of political turmoil over fiscal policy. Then, 25 percent of Americans were angry, and 56 percent were dissatisfied, per ABC. A month later, third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot won 19 percent of the vote and cost President George H.W. Bush a second term.

In 1992, unemployment had peaked at 7.8 percent – well below today’s level – and yet voters then were angrier than they are today. So it’s not just about unemployment. "Consider also the duration of the downturn, the tenure of the administration, the level of effort, the sense of empathy, and other atmospherics," says Gary Langer, director of polling for ABC News.

Obama emerged from his post-inaugural honeymoon long ago, but he’s still only 13 months in office. If the public remains unhappy with the economy and with his administration’s recovery efforts, anger could rise. As things stand today, the Democrats already could lose well more than 24 House seats this November, the post-World War II average loss for the president’s party in midterm elections.

For now, the angriest bloc of voters is conservatives, at 32 percent, according to ABC. Ten percent of liberals and 12 percent of moderates are angry. Higher levels of anger and declines in job approval for Obama could point to greater-than-average losses in November, potentially even the loss of Democratic control on Capitol Hill. Nonpartisan political handicapper Charlie Cook already predicts the Democrats will lose the House.

I also thought this passage was quite noteworthy:

There’s also disaffection among moderates, frustrated by the high degree of political polarization that leaves little room for compromise on major policy matters. But efforts in the last decade to build a "radical middle" movement – a drive to marry the best ideas of the right and left – seem to have faded.

The stunning decision by Sen. Evan Bayh (D) of Indiana, one of the Senate’s few moderates, not to run for reelection cast the hollowing-out of the middle in sharp relief.

Communications firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas out of Chicago released an article warning employers to be wary of resume fudgers, especially with so many applicants these days. Here is an excerpt for your company to heed:

As millions of Americans struggle with long-term unemployment, the temptation to stretch the truth on one’s resume to gain a competitive advantage is becoming harder to resist. Some desperate job seekers are going so far as to establish fake references. However, the payoff may not be worth the risk, according to one employment authority.

“There is very little proof that any form of resume boosting directly results in a job interview, much less a job offer. In contrast, there are scores of examples of individuals who have been eliminated from candidacy or fired after a fraudulent resume was uncovered,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., the global outplacement consultancy which provides job-search training and counseling to individuals who have been laid off…

They also added this list:

Top Resume, Interview Fabrications

Education: Listing degree from a school never attended; inflating grade point average and graduate honors; citing degree from online, non-accredited "education" institution.

Job title: Making up a title or boosting actual title by one or more levels in hopes of obtaining better salary offers.

Compensation: Inflating current or previous salary and benefits to secure more money from prospective employer.

Reason for leaving: Saying it was a mass downsizing when the discharge was based on performance; asked to leave, but saying you quit; underplaying or completely hiding poor relationships with superiors.

Accomplishments: Overstating one’s contributions to a team project or company performance; claiming to have received special recognition; exaggerating level of participation in an important aspect of the business.

Indiana Chamber VP of Education & Workforce Development Derek Redelman discusses higher education developments in Richmond and Columbus. He explains that one key goal is to help students find an educational program that best suits them individually, and how new initiatives are impacting the state’s larger institutions. For a more detailed look at the issue, read the story in our latest edition of BizVoice magazine.

Chamber President Kevin Brinegar recently appeared on Inside INdiana Business discussing a potential delay in the unemployment insurance fund tax increase.

The President of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce is "cautiously optimistic" a deal will be reached to delay a tax increase on businesses to support the state’s bankrupt unemployment insurance fund. Kevin Brinegar believes a two-year delay in implementation is the most likely scenario. He says there are still some "differing views" that need to be worked out, including issues such as higher benefit levels, automatic benefit increases and paid family and medical leave…

Brinegar says the unemployment insurance system is not designed to fund family and medical leave.

He says a two year delay would provide time to see what Congress will do to deal with the issue because several states are dealing with dwindling unemployment insurance funds, which is part of a national program.

Brinegar also says the chamber is "very disappointed" a bill allowing employees to keep guns locked in their vehicles parked on company property has gone to the governor’s desk.

He says the chamber is also monitoring a tax proposal that would give companies more time to file amended personal property tax returns on their business machinery and equipment.

If you’re like me, you pretty much prefer watching Netflix films on your couch versus actually putting on pants and going to a movie theater. But when you go, there’s a certain expectation of customer service, especially considering the prices of tickets these days. So imagine the shock of one Minnesota woman who wrote a letter to theater ownership, and got a less-than-cordial response from a VP. The Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune reports:

The first problem, she said, was that the theater didn’t accept debit or credit cards. They had brought cash for popcorn and sodas, but not enough to buy tickets. The lobby’s ATM was out of cash, so their friends covered them by writing a check.

That was just the beginning.

"I would say within the first five or 10 minutes, a woman came into the theater and announced that eight people were in there who weren’t supposed to be in there," she said. For about 20 minutes, she said, staff members flashed their lights, checking ticket stubs and being a distraction. "Once I got back into the movie, it was great," Kohl-Leaf said, but the first part of the night out had been marred.

Once home, she decided to e-mail the theater management to complain. Her note went to Evergreen Entertainment LLC of New Brighton, owners of St. Croix Falls Cinema 8 and five movie complexes in Minnesota.

"I did not pay 18.00 to have a distracted experience," she wrote. " … I would rather drive to White Bear Lake, where they obviously know how to run a theater than have this experience again." The e-mailed response that greeted her the next morning left her stunned.

"Drive to White Bear Lake and also go [expletive] yourself," began the reply from Steve Payne, Evergreen’s vice president. "If you don’t have money for entertainment, get a better job, and don’t pay for everything on your credit or check card." It also included a couple more expletives before ending.

"I was surprised — I honestly didn’t think it was the vice president who sent it," said Kohl-Leaf. She showed it to her friend, "and we were just like, ‘What?’ … I’ve worked in retail, and I would never think to say something like that, or write it or anything."

Payne later sent a second, less-heated, message: "As vice president I should never have reacted that way, no matter how I felt about your e-mail."

Ya think? Trust me, when I worked as an editor of a community newspaper, I took several phone calls laden with vitriol, and in some cases that feeling was mutual. But dang. Let’s all let this serve as a reminder to take a breath before dealing with unhappy customers and clients. As with most things in life, firing back with emotion before thinking it through just creates more problems for yourself and your business.