Indiana’s board of education declined last week to change the grades for a handful of schools following a review of changes former state schools Superintendent Tony Bennett made to the grading formula last year. The controversial formula change raised the grade of a political donor’s charter school.
The board decided that three high schools should keep the A’s they received, while four other schools should keep their F’s.
Three high schools saw their grades lifted slightly, but four saw their grades drop from D’s to F’s after Mr. Bennett decided to drop high school grades for certain “combined” schools in Indiana’s scoring model. Mr. Bennett resigned from his new job as Florida’s schools chief in August, a few days after the Associated Press published emails uncovering his changes to the formula. He has maintained he did nothing wrong.
Indiana’s inspector general has confirmed that Mr. Bennett is the subject of an ongoing investigation, but has declined to say specifically what is being reviewed.
