2011 was the watershed mark for public education in Indiana. We had all been suffering through No Child Left Behind with all its onerous requirements. Then Governor Mitch Daniels (now President of Purdue University) with his sidekick, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, worked diligently with the Republican supermajority in the legislature and the Republican-leaning State Board of Education, to make things as difficult for public education and public educators as they could. Subsequent Governors Pence and Holcomb have continued down the same path. Governor Pence, especially, was blatant in his support for private schools over public (see For Further Reading at the end of this post).
Here are a few things that the Daniels-, Pence-, and Holcomb-led supermajority has done to public schools and public school teachers in Indiana
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
The collective bargaining process has been gutted. Just like other anti-union Republicans, the legislature has passed legislation to restrict collective bargaining to only money and benefits. No longer is it required that school boards negotiate work-related conditions such as class size, preparation time and hours of work. For years, politicians said that all teachers were interested in was "their wallets." The new collective bargaining law prohibits teachers from negotiating anything else.
CONTINUING EDUCATION
When I started teaching in 1975, Indiana teachers were required to have or work towards a master's degree. Once the advanced degree was achieved teachers were moved to a higher salary schedule which recognized and rewarded advanced education. Teachers are no longer required to get an advanced degree but are still required to participate in "continuing education" in order to keep their license current. However, an advanced degree or hours above the bachelor's degree are no longer automatically rewarded; the salary schedules are gone. The educational experience of teachers apparently no longer matters. Testing counts, of course, so Indiana still "rewards" teachers whose students achieve high test scores. Years of experience and advanced education? Not so much.
REPA III
Politicians and pundits will often talk about how we only want the best-qualified teachers in our classrooms. So it's easy to be confused about the rules that allow untrained educators to walk into a high school classroom on the first day of school. If you have a degree in a high school subject, biology for example, and you have worked in the field for a minimum number of years, say as a sales rep for a laboratory, you can walk into a high school class on the first day of the school year and "teach" biology. Education/pedagogical training is required, but not right away. You can start with no experience or understanding of child/adolescent development, classroom management, or understanding of the learning process. So much for the best qualified.
DUE PROCESS
For years teachers were protected from arbitrary dismissals by the requirement that the administration prove incompetence or other reasons for dismissal through due process. An impartial arbitrator would listen to both sides and make a judgment. A principal who didn't like a teacher couldn't just fire a teacher without just cause. That's no longer the case. The only recourse a teacher has now for an unfair firing is to request a meeting with the Superintendent or the local school board, neither of which would be considered impartial.
FUNDING
Public school funding was cut by $300 million during the Daniels Administration. This money has never been replaced.
Vouchers, which began in 2011, have siphoned more than $800 million from public education. Charter schools, including virtual charters, have also taken money once designated for the public good and put it into private pockets.
CURRENTLY
The bills and amendments discussed below have not yet passed the legislature. They still give an indication of the way in which Indiana public educators are disrespected.
School Safety
School safety has been an important issue especially with the frequency of school shootings and the number of children killed by gun violence every day. Many schools have initiated "active school shooter" training so that the staff would be prepared for an emergency.
Indiana made the national news in March when a local school district allowed the Sheriff's department in their community to shoot plastic pellets at teachers in order to make the training "more realistic." Teachers, some of whom sustained injuries, were told to keep the training procedure a secret.
A current amendment to a bill (HB1253) allows this to continue.
Do teachers need to be shot in order to understand the need for school safety? Are teachers unaware of the dangers of gun violence? One teacher who was shot with pellets commented,
“It hurt really bad,” said the woman, who said she was left with bruises, welts and bleeding cuts that took almost two weeks to heal. “You don’t know who you are shooting and what types of experience those individuals had in the past, whether they had PTSD or anything else. And we didn’t know what we were going into.”Great. So let's pass a bill which allows people to do that again.
She described the training as frightening, painful and insulting.
“What makes it more outrageous is they thought we would need to have that experience of being shot to take this seriously,” she said. “When I thought about it that way, I really started to get angry. Like we are not professionals. It felt belittling.”
Teacher Pay
Governor Holcomb has called for an increase in teacher pay this year.
Because of a constitutional cap on property taxes, the state legislature is charged with the responsibility of making sure schools have enough funds to operate. So much for "local control."
Indiana teachers' real wages have dropped by 15% since 1999. We are well behind the increases in pay given to teachers in surrounding states. The legislature, in order to increase teacher pay, has proposed to increase funding for education by 2.1%. Last year's inflation rate was 1.9%. The proposed 2.1% will also be used to pay for increases in support of vouchers and charter schools. How much will be left for public school teacher raises?
The legislature, trying to act like a state school board, suggested that school systems be required to use 85% of their state money for teacher salaries. So much for "local control."
Collective Bargaining
There's an amendment to a bill (SB390) which will require that a maximum of three collective bargaining meetings between school boards and local teachers associations be private. All the rest of the meetings must be held publicly.
The only reason I can see for this amendment is to make things more difficult for the teachers union. There's no research to support the idea that schools with open negotiations meetings save more money than schools which negotiate in private. There's no research to support the idea that this will help teachers teach better, or improve student performance. There is no reason to do this other than to make things more difficult for teachers.
Where is the corresponding legislation to require the same public meeting policy for administrators' salaries? legislature staff salaries? state department of health workers salaries?
UPDATE April 11, 7 PM ET: This afternoon the Indiana House of Representatives passed this bill into law. My state representative voted for it.
INDIANA HATES ITS PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS
This year, just like in the past, the state of Indiana, ruled by one party with a supermajority in the legislature, has worked to disrespect public schools and public school teachers. The only way to fight this, aside from the daily grind of contacting legislators about every single damaging piece of legislation, is to elect people who don't hate public schools and public school teachers.
One would think we'd be able to get the teachers, themselves, on board with this...
For Further Reading:
More about the damage done to public education in Indiana
A telling story of school 'reform' in Mike Pence's home state, Indiana
What Did Mike Pence Do For Indiana Schools As Governor? Here's A Look
Curmudgucation: Posts about Indiana
The basics of everything: Your guide to education issues in Indiana
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