Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has unveiled his education agenda for 2014.
Northeast Indiana residents, a vast majority of whom voted for the governor, might be asking: “What’s in it for us?”
The governor is proposing an expansion of private-school vouchers to preschool-age children. That could bring some benefit for northeast Indiana, because churches and other private organizations operate most preschool programs in this area.
For older students, the governor’s attention seems to focus on charter schools. The Associated Press reports his proposals “would make it easier for charters to obtain vacant public school buildings … would shorten the timeline for ‘F’ public schools to be taken over by charter operators and … would subsidize teachers who move to charter schools serving low-income students.”
It’s likely that a majority of voters in northeast Indiana support the ideas of charter schools and vouchers that help students attend private schools.
In actual practice, we have no charter schools in our area, and so far, we’ve made little use of vouchers.
State statistics show approximately 25,000 students attend public schools in the four counties of northeast Indiana. Approximately 1,000 children go to private schools. That means more than 96 percent of our students are enrolled in public schools.
Indiana expanded vouchers for the 2012-2013 school year, but enrollment in northeast Indiana’s private schools increased by only 28 students, affecting only a handful of families. Statistics for this fall are not available yet.
While Republicans enjoy strong support in rural Indiana, the party’s education strategy seems to focus on urban areas. Charter schools operate chiefly in larger cities, and private schools provide an alternative to city schools that are struggling with low performance and disciplinary issues.
In response to the problems of city schools, the charter-voucher strategy encourages parents and students to abandon ship. The idea seems to be that public schools will straighten up in response to losing their best students and the income that each student represents. Whether that proves to be true is an interesting drama to watch, but makes little difference to our area.
In northeast Indiana, public schools enjoy a good reputation with the vast majority of parents. For the most part, they are not broken and don’t need fixing, but they do deserve some attention and encouragement from Indianapolis. Something in the state’s education policy should help the schools that serve 25 out of every 26 local students.