2024 - Education Policy
A wise boss I had many years ago put words to a philosophy for education that I still believe to this day. You don’t get an education to learn how to do this or that. You get an education to solve problems through critical thinking.
When I first ran in 2022, the General Assembly attacked education with HB 1134, and the Republican SUPERMAJORITY has continued its assault on public education. Parts of HB1134 have been pieced out in various other bills since then. In the 2024 session, SB 202 allowed for Indiana State Universities to remove tenure and set up review councils which are unfunded. The new law also allows for tenure to be removed if the professor teaches something the student doesn’t agree with and complains about it (such as science courses which teach concluding on observed evidence rather than religious belief or interpreting historical events against what evidence shows.) As said above, critical thinking and problem solving are key to education. Ignoring knowledge and facts hinders this outcome. If these laws continue, scientific method will not be taught, historical facts would be ignored, literature that stimulates minds and thinking will be banned. This type of miseducation disarms our teens from having an education about human reproduction which will decrease our instances of child abuse and unwanted pregnancy. All in all, the policies coming out of this Republican SUPERMAJORITY have terrible effects on Hoosier education.
The move of school funding from public schools to the voucher system and charter schools is devastating. Every dollar removed from the public schools takes funding from kids in rural schools who badly need the resources to give them the best education possible to compete in the world. The charter schools are too often scamming for funding by estimating school size, getting the funds for that level of enrollment, and then closing before school starts, meaning the kids have to go back to public schools while the defunct charter schools keep the money, just to come back and do it all over again next year.
The effects of this assault on education has been devastating to Indiana. Indiana ranks 43rd in the US of the percentage of the population with bachelor’s degrees and 34th in the US of the percentage of population who have not attained a high school diploma or GED. The diploma standards for graduating high school are now below state college minimum admittance requirements. We are creating an undereducated population that is not and will not be able to compete economically in the world. These numbers have contributed to Indiana’s inability to attract businesses locating here because of an undereducated workforce.
The profession of teaching has been under attack for decades. Teachers are not paid enough to stay in the profession. They have purchased their own teaching supplies for decades from their own funds rather than expensed funds. They are expected to meet standards to meet test scores rather than focus on teaching the skills to students needed in life.
To simply state things, these unproductive policies need to be stopped and funding needs to be restored to our public schools so that we can produce an educated population needed to attract businesses to our rural areas again.
