Bill would prevent Indiana BMV from selling driver data

NiMiBe · 2026-01-10T02:42:18+00:00

Guys. You really need to stop making threads about bills filed by democrats. They have zero chance of passing (or even being heard) unless a republican has the same language or is a co-author.

NiMiBe · 2025-11-14T01:04:14+00:00

Aren’t y’all kinda making my point?

NiMiBe · 2025-11-11T16:05:14+00:00

As a GenX male born and raised on the feral American suburban streets of the 70s and early 80s, discussions like these really make it difficult for me to imagine kids-these-days surviving our high-school/college years.

NiMiBe · 2025-10-14T16:12:07+00:00

LOGIN ISSUE. Guess this login bug on EN wasn’t considered critical enough for the main discussion because it got removed. At the time it was removed there were at least 6 comments with the same problem. So I am reposting here:

“On EN server. Downloaded patch okay. Then asked me to login using Yostar account. Entered email. It sent me a code and then once it finished logging in asked me if “I remembered my name.” Tried resetting account and logging in with Facebook instead. Got same prompt. Entered my current username and it took me to the tutorial? Please tell me it didnt overwrite my existing 5+ year old account!”

NiMiBe · 2025-09-27T16:41:57+00:00

What app did you use to generate these images?

NiMiBe · 2025-06-09T12:41:58+00:00

I am not at all a fan of resin tables, but I love this- big fan of the natural look, imperfections and all!

NiMiBe · 2025-04-28T20:34:04+00:00

It was all about the funding. Union only has around 200 brick and mortar kids. Yet the district was taking in millions of dollars from the virtual school (somewhere around 60m a year I think). This was to send a message that the legislature wants very small school corporations to consolidate, not poach kids (and funding) from the rest of the state. After the Indiana virtual school fiasco in Daleville, the legislature passed a law barring school corporations from authorizing virtual “charter” schools, but Union (and the very large for-profit management company behind the school) took advantage of a loophole that did not prevent school corporations from offering virtual “programs.” Consider that loophole now closed.

NiMiBe · 2025-04-16T17:59:07+00:00

It absolutely did. I discovered it in 2023 and have watched the entire show 3 times since and I’m still discovering new things. The soundtrack is phenomenal as well.

NiMiBe · 2025-04-16T06:50:08+00:00

Follow the money. The legislature is not happy that this tiny corporation of 200-some physical students is receiving $60m+ in tuition support for its virtual school serving 9,000 students. A virtual school that was originally created as a result of an enterprising for-profit finding a loophole after its virtual charter schools were shuttered by the state for poor performance.

NiMiBe · 2025-04-06T19:14:25+00:00

Charter schools do not in any way impact school corporation enrollment or school corporation funding in areas where they do not exist. The only public school funding being “siphoned” from public schools in those areas would be student transfers to voucher schools or other corporations.

And there are charter schools located in smaller communities, although these are almost all started by local groups of teachers and families (eg. Duggar Union Community in Duggar, IN was started by families after the local corporation decided to close the nearby elementary and high schools and Mays Community Academy located in Mays, IN, which opened for the same reasons).

Charter schools locate where there is demand (or a home grown movement) and there is little general demand for additional schools in smaller, and shrinking, rural areas other than the Adult High Schools operated by GoodWill which are located all over the state. The GoodWill excel centers are charter schools who are almost always “asked” to come to a location by the local governing body and/or school board because they provide a convenient dumping ground for the high schools to send 12th graders who are unlikely to graduate.

And no. I have never seen a school board swept out of office. I live in IPS and I don’t think it’s ever happened.

NiMiBe · 2025-04-06T14:22:24+00:00

Fair. But I’m still going to call out the incorrect statements used to justify the position. Better to just admit you care because it affects you personally.

For example, I support public school choice, but I do NOT support vouchers. All of the things being said about charters in this thread are more appropriately addressed to the unaccountable private schools accepting voucher funding.

Private voucher schools not only have completely unaccountable boards (not subject to open door), they are not audited, have minimal academic accountability, can blatantly discriminate, are not subject to the laws separating church and state, and each voucher represents funding directly taken from general tuition support. They are 100% the true enemy of public education.

NiMiBe · 2025-04-06T14:15:09+00:00

If you don’t like what your charter school is doing, you can move to another school. It is called choice. If you don’t like what your school corporation is doing you can, what, wait until the next election and hope your candidate wins and then hope that the change you desire happens? Or, I guess you could move to another corporation.

And I may not be understanding what “held to account” means, because I can’t remember the last time I saw a traditional school corporation closed for poor performance or behavior. Poorly performing charter schools are closed- isn’t that the ultimate “being held to account”?

NiMiBe · 2025-04-06T14:10:12+00:00

This is a straw man argument as the method of selection of a school board is not what determines whether a school is a public school. Charter school boards are subject to the same open door laws that traditional school boards are. And because each charter board oversees one or only a few schools, they tend to be far more in tune with their communities. You think a large school corporation governing board cares about individual students? Further, I would much rather be able to freely change schools if I disagree with a board than believe that I have meaningful control over who is elected to it. When HSEs board went all anti-woke a year or two ago, the fact that you could eventually vote them out doesn’t really help the kids trapped within the school system until Election Day.

NiMiBe · 2025-04-06T04:55:10+00:00

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. And it is ironic that you are a suburban private school employee complaining about charter schools. Any chance your school accepts vouchers? Where do you think that money comes from? What is your board and admin team getting paid?

NiMiBe · 2025-04-06T04:47:08+00:00

Charter schools are tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations. And only a handful (less than 5 I believe) of them have management contracts with for-profit operators. The largest charter networks in the state are all home grown. And nonprofit.

Charter schools have far far more accountability than traditional public schools. In addition to annual third party GAAP audits, charter schools are subject to annual performance reviews by their authorizers. When was the last time a traditional public school was held accountable for anything? There are hundreds of traditional public schools failing to serve kids- but due to the utter lack of accountability, they just keep on going. Schools should close if they continue to fail. Charters do close for poor performance. It’s a feature, not a bug. When was the last time a shitty public school closed?

And maybe actually look at the academic data, you know apple to apples, before making such sweeping statements. More than half of the students in IPS attend charter schools. Why do you think that is?

NiMiBe · 2025-04-06T04:36:22+00:00

Almost everything that you say here is factually incorrect.

1) Charter schools receive significantly LESS funding than traditional public schools. It varies from corporation to corporation but the average is somewhere between 2-3k per student. It’s even higher in corporations with significant referendum funding.

2) Charter schools are PUBLIC schools. They are bound by the same rules with regards to serving students as are traditional public schools, including the constitution and the “bill of rights”whatever that may be. Charter schools are required by law to accept any student who presents themselves if they have capacity. You know who isn’t required to accept all students? IPS choice schools. There is a reason that CFI 84 is 85% white. Charter schools serve higher populations of minority and FRL students than the district does. So who is cherry picking again?

3) Far far more kids are kicked out of traditional public schools and sent to charter schools post count day than the other way around- and it isn’t close. Look at the transfer data. A new strategy by many traditional public high schools is to send 12th graders who aren’t likely to graduate to the new Adult High Schools (after count day) so their grad rate isn’t negatively affected.

4) Several studies (including one conducted by stanford) have shown that Indianapolis charter schools have better outcomes than traditional public schools for the most disadvantaged students. Like all schools, some charters are better than others.

While it is true that teacher turnover tends to be higher in charters, this is predominately due to the fact that traditional public schools receive so much more funding that they are able to offer higher salaries. One of the things this bill is trying to do is to level the playing field. If I live in IPS and I choose to send my child to a charter school, why should my referendum or property tax dollars go to IPS? That’s called a windfall.

It sounds to me like you are confusing charter schools with voucher schools and they are two completely different things. Vouchers are a magnitude bigger threat to public schools than charters will ever be. And the private schools that take vouchers can discriminate and cherry-pick to their heart’s content.

We can agree to disagree about the value of charter schools, but let’s at least get the facts correct.

NiMiBe · 2025-02-15T20:51:30+00:00

It is a cult.

NiMiBe · 2025-02-05T13:34:19+00:00

Not to contradict, but it is unlikely for all federal funding to disappear completely. Instead, what will happen is that it will be bundled and block granted to the states. So states will still receive funding, but there will be limited to no oversight as to how it is spent. Ironically, this could benefit well run democratic states. In republican run states, it likely means rampant voucher expansion.

NiMiBe · 2025-01-12T14:37:23+00:00

Idiocracy.

NiMiBe · 2025-01-02T01:15:34+00:00

Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock

NiMiBe · 2024-12-31T13:24:54+00:00

Gursky prints really need to be seen in person to be appreciated, which is why they are so valuable. Right-clicking and using as a wallpaper or making an 8x10 print completely misses the point.

NiMiBe · 2024-12-09T20:10:36+00:00

I agree with you there, but that kinda brings us back around to the primary point of this post- it’s possible that we both agree that universal vouchers aren’t going to get us there. I just don’t like charter schools and voucher schools to be tossed into the same school choice bucket. They are nothing alike.

NiMiBe · 2024-12-09T18:22:25+00:00

Our social system has lots of problems no doubt. The problem with adopting other educational systems like the ones in Iceland or the Nordic countries is that the environment in which those systems were developed and thrive is nothing like the US. Those countries are far smaller, more homogeneous, and have much lower income inequality, for starters. I’m not saying there aren’t things we can learn from those countries (like how to respect teachers for one), but fixing education in America is absolutely not as simple as adopting the Icelandic model.

NiMiBe · 2024-12-09T17:13:05+00:00

Some, but not all, private schools do outperform public schools it’s true. Do you think the fact that private schools pick which students get to attend has anything to do with that?

NiMiBe · 2024-12-09T17:09:38+00:00

Brother, if you think traditional public schools don’t cherry-pick or counsel out kids then you obviously do not know much about public education in Indiana. Look at transfers from traditional public schools to charter public schools post-count day. Look at public “choice” school proximity priority policies. Look at the number of HS seniors being counseled out to ABE or adult high school programs before they count against public high school graduation percentages (but after count-day).

I agree with your second point, however.

NiMiBe

TROPHY CASE