FORT WAYNE – There was no mistaking the air of skepticism at Waynedale Elementary on Wednesday afternoon.

The area teachers, principals and administrators who gathered to hear Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent of public instruction, were largely apprehensive of his proposed education overhauls.

And he knew it.

“Many of you came into the gymnasium today thinking, ‘I’m going to see the guy who works in public education and wants to destroy it,’ ” he told the crowd. “Why would I want to leave a legacy of destroying a system that will educate 1 million children after I’m gone?”

Bennett spent more than an hour Wednesday talking about his latest initiatives, including developing a “growth model” that uses test scores to measure student improvement and his push to tie teacher evaluations to student growth as demonstrated on tests.

He also addressed how schools and districts might be measured under the state’s letter-grade system, which will be implemented next year.

He hopes to make “student growth” a part of the state’s accountability system but is still deciding how much growth will be a factor in letter grades.

Bennett called for a “respectful debate” after his presentation. And that’s what he got.

During a tense question-and-answer period, teachers expressed reservations about tying teacher evaluation to student test scores.

Some voiced concerns about being judged on the performance of students who never came to class or who refused to learn. Others questioned Bennett’s support for charter schools and wondered whether he understood the challenges facing educators on the “front lines” of public education.

During the presentation, Dayle Chu, a member of Bennett’s team, called for a “fundamental culture shift” in regard to teacher evaluations. He called most current teacher evaluation processes “infrequent, unfocused, undifferentiated, unhelpful and inconsequential” and urged districts to give annual evaluations of “significance.”

Throughout the talk, Chu and Bennett emphasized that student performance should be only “one measure” of teacher evaluations.

But when teachers pressed on what those other measures would be, they were told Bennett’s team was still investigating.

Addressing concerns that charter schools are not held to the same standards as public schools, Bennett told the audience that charters would be given letter grades as well. Ultimately, however, only the charter authorizer can determine when a charter closes.

“There are charter schools that are not performing well in this state,” Bennett said, adding that all bad schools, including charters, should close if they don’t begin to improve.

Bennett held his meeting at Fort Wayne Community Schools’ Waynedale Elementary, a school that showed significant improvement last year according to Bennett’s growth model.

The model measures improvement in mathematics and English/language arts for students in grades 3 through 8. It works by using a student’s ISTEP+ score for one year and creating an “academic peer group” for comparison over time.

Those figures can then be used to measure growth at the school and district levels.

While no such growth model exists at the high school level, Bennett hopes to have one in place for the 2014-15 school year.

Political traction

Bennett’s ideas are likely to gain more traction now that Republicans have complete control of state government. Gov. Mitch Daniels has said he favors the expansion of charter schools and supports evaluating teachers based on student learning so that the best teachers are paid more.

After the meeting, educators waited in a long line to give Bennett their suggestions and criticisms.

“He’s no longer the boogeyman,” said Marybeth Siemens, a teacher at Miami Middle School. “I understand we need to change. I just don’t want to see teachers get hurt because they have students who are actively resistant to learning.”

dhaynie@jg.net