By Lesley Weidenbener
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – A new report finds school counselors in Indiana are focusing an increasing amount of time on work that’s not associated with their primary roles as advisors and less time helping kids deal with life issues or college and job preparation.

The survey by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce Foundation reports that counselors last year spent nearly 40 percent of their time administering tests, covering the cafeteria or classes, creating schedules and on other duties.
That number has increased from roughly 18 percent two years before.

Indiana Chamber Vice President Derek Redelman said the issue is one of counseling, “not a problem with counselors.” He said the study shows the professionals want to spend more one-on-one time with students.

Chamber officials want them to spend that time preparing students for the workplace, college, or post-secondary education.

However, they also acknowledged Tuesday that some of the changes they’ve advocated in recent years may be distracting counselors and schools from achieving that goal. And chamber officials said the study did not indicate that schools need more money to help free up counselors to focus on advising.

“The things we’re focused on are trying to maybe redirect resources,” Redelman said. That could mean getting businesses involved in helping to tell more students about college and career options.

“A common approach in the Statehouse is that when you see a problem, you try to direct some money to it,” he said. But “we also recognize resources are limited and so we need to be focused on things we can do with current resources.”

The chamber survey showed that counselors spend 15 percent of their time on actual counseling, which includes dealing with social, personal or family problems, and about 21 percent on guidance, which includes academic and career development and preparation.

About 32 percent of their time is spent on programs and behind the scenes activities that can include communicating with parents, working on school improvement teams, and developing plans to help all students achieve.

And 40 percent is spent on duties considered unrelated to counseling, which could be administrative or secretarial work, test administration, state reporting, fundraising or other activities.

Amy Marsh, director of college andAmy Marsh, director of college and career readiness initiatives for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that some duties undertaken by school counselors could be moved to secretarial or administrative staff. That would free counselors to work more with students on college and career readiness, she said. Photo by Lesley Weidenbener, TheStatehouseFile.com career readiness initiatives for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that some duties undertaken by school counselors could be moved to secretarial or administrative staff. That would free counselors to work more with students on college and career readiness, she said. Photo by Lesley Weidenbener, TheStatehouseFile.com
Amy Marsh, director of college andAmy Marsh, director of college and career readiness initiatives for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that some duties undertaken by school counselors could be moved to secretarial or administrative staff. That would free counselors to work more with students on college and career readiness, she said. Photo by Lesley Weidenbener, TheStatehouseFile.com
The report is meant to build on a study done 20 years ago by the Lilly Endowment and the Indiana Youth Institute, which found disparities in the way counselors provide college and career advice to students.

“The current research has found that not much has changed,” said Amy Marsh, the chamber’s director of college and career readiness issues.

The chamber sent surveys to every school counselor in the state and received responses from 426 of them, about one-fifth of the total number. About 73 percent of the respondents worked in high schools.

Roughly 90 percent of counselors reported that they spent half or less than half of their time on college and career readiness activities. And 81 percent said they’d like to spend more time on those issues.

“This challenge is pervasive,” Redelman said.

The report also found that when counselors do give advice about post-secondary education options, they tend to focus on four-year schools, at the expense of community college and technical options.

Redelman said that appears to be because the state’s grading system for high schools focuses so much on four-year college measures, including success on the SAT exam and advanced placement tests.

“We acknowledge our school accountability system is a challenge to this,” Redelman said. “Testing administration and other kinds of issues related to accountability are a challenge. At the same time we do not want to back off our advocacy for accountability for schools. We remain a strong advocate of that.”

Still, he said, the current system may be a “disincentive” to advising students about non-baccalaureate options.

Testing issues came up repeatedly in the comments counselors made on the survey. Some said they are busy administering tests while others say the students and teachers are too busy with them to make kids available for counseling.

“With all the standards the teachers need to cover, testing and reading block, I cannot get in the classroom as often,” one counselor said.

“Lots of instructional time with testing, testing, testing has made teachers very protecting of class time, leaving less and less opportunity to target college and career readiness activities,” another said.

Other counselors said they’re too busy dealing with student problems to put more effort into college and career prep.

“With the change in bullying laws this year, the majority of time is dealing with bullying/meanness follow-up,” one said.

Another said that he needs more time with students who are ready for college and careers: “I feel we spend so much time with kids who are failing classes that we don’t have much time to spend on more positive things such as career and college planning.”

Many counselors talked about their overwhelming caseloads. But Redelman said that’s not a sign that schools need more money to hire additional counselors.

“If we have more counselors still doing non-career counseling activities…still coming to us with little training that arena, we’re not necessarily going to address the issue in our schools,” he said.

And Marsh said that many of the secretarial duties now done by counselors should be pushed off onto administrative staff instead.

But some counselors said in the survey that the reason their workloads had changed was because the school had cut staff elsewhere. “Our department has been reduced so there is no longer a secretary or registrar,” one counselor said. “I function in those capacities as well as being the counselor.”

Lesley Weidenbener is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

By Andi TenBarge
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – The Bolloré Group and Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard unveiled the 100 percent electric vehicles that soon be on city streets as part of a new car sharing service called BlueIndy.

The Bolloré Group unveiled new Blue Indy cars that will be part of a new car sharing service later this year in Indianapolis. Photo by Andi TenBarge, TheStatehouseFile.com
The Bolloré Group unveiled new Blue Indy cars that will be part of a new car sharing service later this year in Indianapolis. Photo by Andi TenBarge, TheStatehouseFile.com
The Bolloré Group is to invest $35 million in the project, which will make Indianapolis the largest electric car sharing service in the country. Within eight months, the BlueIndy service will provide 500 electric vehicles and 200 service locations fitted with 1,000 charging stations to Indianapolis.

“From now on, residents and visitors of Indianapolis will be able to drive around without owning a car and without emitting greenhouse gases or particulate matter,” Ballard said.

For the first time, the Bolloré Group will export outside of France its end-to-end electric car sharing solution. The service is based on the successful Autolib’ in Paris, Bluely in Lyon and Bluecub in Bordeaux, which complement public transportation offerings and improve French citizens’ mobility.

“It gets the brand name of Indianapolis out there. I want Indianapolis to be seen as cutting edge and Bolloré Group has had this service that has been wildly successful,” Ballard said. “They are extremely committed to making this work because they want to take this to other places in America.”

On Tuesday, the House voted to approve the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), a fiscally responsible bill that improves our nation’s water transportation infrastructure, cuts government red tape, and helps create much needed jobs.

After passing the House in October by a bipartisan vote 417-3, the House and Senate moved to a conference committee to iron out the final details. Dr. Bucshon was appointed as a conferee to help negotiate a fiscally responsible deal that benefits Indiana’s ports and waterways and creates jobs all without a single earmark, a first for the bill.

“I’m proud to have worked with my colleagues on both sides the aisle on a bill to meet the needs of our water transportation infrastructure,” said Dr. Bucshon. “The WRRDA bill helps the private sector create jobs and grow our economy by cutting red tape and expediting the environmental review process. We also invest in maintenance and funding for ports, like our very own Mt. Vernon Port, that are often underfunded to ensure safety and maintain competitiveness. At the same time the bill is fiscally responsible, does not include any earmarks, and deauthorizes $18 billion in old, inactive projects. WRRDA will undoubtedly help Indiana and I look forward to a Senate vote and the President’s signature.”

Bucshon’s work was also praised by Committee Chairman, Bill Shuster.

“We set out to draft a fiscally responsible bill to ensure our country has an efficient and effective water transportation system and we accomplished that goal with WRRDA,” said Rep. Bill Shuster, Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Dr. Bucshon has been a valuable member of our committee and I thank him for his hard work to negotiate the final details of this bill.”

Senate approval is expected by the end of the week. WRRDA will then move to President Obama’s desk for his signature.

BACKGROUND:

The Mt. Vernon Port in Southwestern Indiana handles between 3 and 5 million tons annually, and is ranked as the 6th largest inland port in the US by ton-miles.

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, released a comparison of the 2007 water resources bill and today’s demonstrating that the bill has gone from “an Earmark Haven to a Jobs Bill.”
WRRDA 2014 Highlights (Courtesy the Transportation Committee):

The Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 is one of the most policy and reform focused measures of its kind in the last two decades. WRRDA streamlines the project delivery process, promotes fiscal responsibility, and strengthens our water transportation networks to promote competitiveness, prosperity, and economic growth. WRRDA contains no earmarks and makes major reforms to increase transparency, accountability, and Congressional oversight in reviewing and prioritizing future water resources development activities.

Reforms Bureaucracy, Accelerates Project Delivery, and Streamlines Environmental Reviews

· Sets hard deadlines on the time and cost of studies
· Consolidates or eliminates duplicative or unnecessary studies and requires concurrent reviews
· Streamlines environmental reviews and improves coordination
Fiscally Responsible

· Deauthorizes $18 billion of old, inactive projects that were authorized prior to WRDA 2007
· More than fully offsets authorizations with deauthorizations
· Sunsets new authorizations to prevent future project backlogs
· Reduces the inventory of properties that are not needed for the missions of the Corps
Strengthens Oversight, Transparency, and Accountability

· NO earmarks
· Establishes a new, transparent process for future bills to review and prioritize water resources development activities with strong Congressional oversight
Increases Flexibility for Non-Federal Interests and Leverages Private Sector Investments to Multiply the Effect of Federal Funding

· Maximizes the ability of non-federal interests to contribute their own funds to move studies and projects forward
· Expands the ability of non-federal interests to contribute funds to expedite the evaluation and processing of permits
· Establishes a Water Infrastructure Public Private Partnership Program and new options to expand the local role in project implementation
· Creates innovative methods to invest in and finance water resources infrastructure and municipal drinking water and wastewater needs
Enhances Safety and Protects Communities

· Strengthens dam and levee safety
· Improves Army Corps of Engineers responses to extreme weather events
· Encourages resilient construction techniques and the use of durable, sustainable, and innovative materials
Improves Competitiveness, Creates Jobs, and Strengthens Water Resources Infrastructure

· Authorizes needed investment in America’s ports, strengthens ports that move the majority of the Nation’s commerce, and ensures equity for those ports that contribute the most to the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund
· Supports underserved, emerging ports
· Reforms and preserves the Inland Waterways Trust Fund
· Authorizes priority water resources infrastructure improvements recommended to Congress by the Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers to improve navigation and commerce and address flood risk management, hurricane and storm damage risk reduction, and environmental restoration needs