Education
1. Increase funding for counselors in public schools.
2. Support for programs dealing with anger management and peaceful conflict resolution should be increased in public schools.
3. Supplement ISTEP with other forms of assessment.
4. ISTEP should not be used to threaten funding decreases or cutoffs or the shut-down of local schools.
5. Neither ISTEP nor any other form of testing should be used to threaten the graduation prospects of any individual student or group of students.
6. Funding of public education should be increased at the state and federal levels.
7. Funding of public schools should be gradually removed from dependence on local property taxes.
8. Funding for public education should be equal for all school districts, on a per-student basis, and regardless of the economic condition of the community.
9. Education reform measures:
• IGP calls for an end to corporate propaganda in the schools by declaring public schools to be “corporate advertising-free zones.”
• IGP opposes junk food in schools.
• IGP calls for smaller class sizes.
• IGP calls for increased funding for teachers’ aides.
• IGP opposes the presence of military recruiters in schools and opposes providing information to recruiters about children in schools.
• IGP supports funding of education in music and the arts.
• IGP supports sex education in the schools.
• IGP supports increased funding for professional development and continuing education for teachers.
• IGP supports the right of teachers to organize unions and collectively bargain.
• IGP supports separation of church and state especially in public schools.
• IGP is opposed to prayer in public schools.
• IGP is opposed to mandatory reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
10. Democratic and Alternative Education
• Expand and/or duplicate current magnet and learning options that have a waiting list. Also, create new learning alternatives of choice to meet the needs of a variety of families and learners.
• Have the Indiana legislature continually review and make appropriate recent state graduation and dropout rate formulas.
• Encourage democratic education.
• IGP believes that democratic classrooms and schools offer the best hope for the development of civic-minded citizens and support of our public schools.
• Review current special education and alternative education policies. Critique the over-representation of Black males in special education and the viability of current discipline alternative schools.
• Assure that all students can read at grade level by the end of the third grade.
• Abandon the “one-size-fits-all” approach and the bell curve mentality by providing an outcome-based school climate that promotes a high level of learning for all students.
• Customize learning and democratize intelligence.
• Abandon the limited definition of parental/guardian school involvement.
• Turn parent/guardians from clients to partners in all school decisions.
• Abandon the deficit model of so-called low performing students – a model that assumes the problem for school failure is located in and limited to a lack in the culture, abilities, motivation, or coping skills of the children and their families.
• Art as the “fourth R.” – To reach all students, promote media literacy: The understanding and use of all types of media (performing, writing, and graphic arts) in teaching, learning, and assessment.
• Understand that technology is youth culture. Encourage educators to reflect on ways:
1. Technology influences the Information Generation
2. what they need to know about its impact on teaching learning and assessment.
• Support the current breaking-up of Indianapolis high schools into small learning communities where relationships and trust can be built.
• Reinvent the concept of special education.
• Encourage districts to move from alternative education to educational alternatives for everyone all the time.
• Provide alternative learning environments as alternatives to medications for students with ADHD.
• Along with traditional objective classroom exams and high-stakes ISTEP/GQE assessments, provide a variety of non-traditional assessments that measure how a student thinks about and applies acquired knowledge and skills over and above the ability to recall facts.
• Involve parents/guardians in personnel, budgetary, curriculum, scheduling, discipline, and all other important school decisions. If parents are not qualified to make these decisions, train them to do so.
• Create and promote an inter-disciplinary environmental curriculum. Infuse all subject areas with discussion, research, and action on environmental awareness and issues.