Bennett, T

<h1 class="print-title">Former Indiana Superintendent, Lauded by ALEC and Education Privatizers, Cheats on School Grading Formula for Top Donor  resigned
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      <span class="submitted">by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/35275/brendan-fischer" title="View user profile.">Brendan Fischer</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span> — July 30, 2013 - 10:26am</span>
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<div class="tags-2"><li class="vocabulary-2">Topics: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/education">Education</a> [2]</li></div> <div class="tags-9"><li class="vocabulary-9">Projects: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/projects/alec-exposed">ALEC Exposed</a> [3]</li></div> </div>

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New documents show that former Indiana Schools Superintendent Tony

Bennett -- who now heads Florida's schools -- overhauled Indiana's

much-heralded school grading system to guarantee that a charter run by a

major campaign donor would receive top marks. These revelations shine a

light on the big bucks behind the education privatization agenda, its

continued failure to meet the need of students, and provides another

instance of cheating to cover up poor educational outcomes.

Bennett had been applauded by education privatizers like the American

Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for enacting reforms like school

grading, vouchers, and anti-union measures. He was a <a href="http://www.alec.org/nearly-1000-state-legislators-business-leaders-and-public-policy-experts-discuss-free-market-solutions-to-creating-jobs-at-alecs-states-nation-policy-summit/" target="blank">keynote</a> [5] <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/at_arizona_gathering_alec_teac.html" target="blank">speaker</a> [6] at ALEC's December 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit, and the education reforms he pushed <a href="http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/indiana-education-reform-package/" target="blank">were adopted by ALEC</a> [7] <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/education_35-day_mailing%20-%20new%20orleans.pdf" target="blank">in August 2011</a> [8]

as a stand-alone bill called the "Indiana Education Reform Package" --

in no small part because they reflected ALEC model legislation.

<h2>"This will be a HUGE problem for us"</h2>

Christel DeHaan, a big Republican donor in Indiana and school

privatization supporter, gave Bennett an astounding $130,000 in campaign

contributions for his 2008 and 2012 elections. But when DeHaan's

Christel House charter school received a "C" last September under

Bennett's grading system, he and his staff scrambled to fix it,

according to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/tony-bennett-indiana_n_3672196.html?utm_hp_ref=tw" target="_blank">emails obtained by the Associated Press</a> [9].

"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.

Bennett had made the A to F grading system a signature item of his

2011 radical education reforms, which he spearheaded with the support of

then-Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2011/12/16/meet-the-influencers-the-american-legislative-exchange-council/" target="blank">ALEC legislators in the state</a> [10]. Bennett often cited Christel House as a model charter school as he secured support for his education overhaul, and <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/documents/ineds/ed2.pdf" target="blank">according to the emails</a> [11] had assured the Chamber of Commerce and legislative leaders that Christel was an "A" school.

"This will be a HUGE problem for us," Bennett wrote to Neal about the school's "C" grade.

Neal emailed back a few minutes later: "Oh, crap. We cannot release until this is resolved."

"Legislative leadership as well as critics of A-F are going to use

this against us to undo our accountability metrics through legislation,"

Bennett wrote in another email. "I hope we come to the meeting today

with solutions and not excuses and/or explanations for me to wiggle

myself out of the repeated lies I have told over the past six months."

According to the Associated Press, Bennett's staff scrambled to alter

the grading system over the next week, and Christel House's grade

jumped twice, eventually reaching an "A."

<h2>Indiana Has No Campaign Contribution Limits</h2>

In most states, a donor like DeHaan would be prohibited from directly

giving a candidate tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but

Indiana has no campaign contribution limits for superintendent.

Bennett, first elected in 2008, <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/08/02/interactive-map-whos-giving-money-in-the-campaign-for-state-superintendent/" target="_blank">raised an astounding amount of money</a> [12]

for his 2012 reelection campaign: DeHaan gave $75,000, and was one of

Bennett's top donors, behind Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton, another major

school privatization funder, who gave him $200,000. <a href="http://inschoolmatters.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/indiana-superintendent-campaign-finance-the-rich-vs-the-many/" target="_blank">Other donors</a> [13] included voucher proponent Eli Broad ($50,000) and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($40,000).

He also got <a href="http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/08/02/interactive-map-whos-giving-money-in-the-campaign-for-state-superintendent/" target="_blank">$45,000</a> [12]

from Hoosiers for Education Reform, a group bankrolled by the DeVos

family's American Federation for Children, which itself has run into

some campaign finance problems. <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/05/12101/issue-ad-charade-american-federation-children-uncovered-wisconsin" target="_blank">As CMD has documented</a> [14],

AFC boasted to funders in 2012 that it spent $2.4 million in Wisconsin

helping elect nine Wisconsin state legislators, but told the state's

Government Accountability Board that it spent only $345,000 that year.

But despite significantly outraising his opponent, voters rejected

Bennett and his education reform agenda, in what the head of the

teacher's union called the biggest upset in Indiana history.

Money may not have bought that election, but given these latest email

revelations, it sure did seem to buy some special treatment.

<h2>How Common is Cheating?</h2>

For years, educational reformers have promoted the notion that

schools need to be run more like a business, with "competition" from

for-profit entities and increased "accountability" through testing

regimes. But the promised improvements in educational outcomes have not

followed, apparently leading some to cook the books.

Perhaps the best-known cheating scandal came from former Washington,

D.C., school Chancellor Michelle Rhee, whose controversial reforms had

been credited with improving test scores in the District's schools -- an

accomplishment that has been cast into doubt by evidence of widespread

cheating, where teachers or school officials appeared to change

students' incorrect test answers to improve results. Investigations have

found extremely high erasure rates that were statistically anomalous,

and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/surprise-dc-admits-school-test-tampering-at-meridian-public-charter/2013/04/25/818ccb2e-ad66-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_blog.html" target="_blank">some charter schools have been cited</a> [15].

Despite these scandals, both Rhee and Bennett have moved on to

greener pastures. After resigning from her position in 2010, Rhee went

on to found the 501(c)(4) StudentsFirst, and after Bennett's election

loss in Indiana, he was appointed by Florida Governor Rick Scott to head

that state's school system.

Update August 1: Bennett <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/01/3535902/amid-grading-controversy-florida.html" target="_blank">has resigned from his post in Florida</a> [16], citing the Indiana cheating scandal.

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The emails, which also show Bennett

discussed with staff the legality of changing just DeHaan's grade, raise

unsettling questions about the validity of a grading system that has

broad implications.Indiana

uses the A-F grades to determine which schools get taken over by the

state and whether students seeking state-funded vouchers to attend

private school need to first spend a year in public school.
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Christel DeHaan has given more than $2.8 million to Republicans since 1998, including $130,000 to Bennett </div>

They also help determine how much state funding schools receive.
A low grade also can detract from a neighborhood and drive homebuyers elsewhere.
Bennett,

who now is reworking Florida's grading system as that state's education

commissioner, reviewed the emails Monday morning and denied that

DeHaan's school received special treatment.He

said discovering that the charter would receive a low grade raised

broader concerns with grades for other 'combined' schools - those that

included multiple grade levels - across the state.
'There was not a secret about this,' he said.
'This wasn't just to give Christel House an A. It was to make sure the system was right to make sure the system was face valid.'
However,

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.
Other schools saw their grades change, but the emails show DeHaan's charter was the catalyst for any changes.
Bennett

rocketed to prominence with the help of former Indiana Gov. Mitch

Daniels, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and a national network of

Republican leaders and donors, such as DeHaan.
Bennett

is a co-founder of Bush's Chiefs for Change, a group consisting mostly

of Republican state school superintendents pushing school vouchers,

teacher merit pay and many other policies enacted by Bennett in Indiana.
Though

Indiana had had a school ranking system since 1999, Bennett switched to

the A-F system and made it a signature item of his education agenda,

raising the stakes for schools statewide.
Bennett

consistently cited Christel House as a top-performing school as he

secured support for the measure from business groups and lawmakers,

including House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President Pro Tem David

Long.
But

trouble loomed when Indiana's then-grading director, Jon Gubera, first

alerted Bennett on Sept. 12 that the Christel House Academy had scored

less than an A.
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