Letter: Education facts matter when you vote
Recently, several public comments were made questioning my sources and the accuracy of dollar amounts used in social media ads about the amount of funds lost to school vouchers from local school budgets. Local schools have been denied state tuition support for years, but I posted the most recent amounts of that loss from 2019. My source is the Indiana State Department of Education. Each budget year, the Legislature appropriates an amount of money for tuition support that goes to the Education General Fund. That fund has Private School vouchers money taken from the top, leaving the balance to be divided among each Public School. This results in every Public-School corporation getting reduced funds because state legislators decided years ago that all of us should pay for private schools in other parts of the state with our tax dollars at the expense of our own local schools. The majority of these vouchers are used in large metropolitan areas, but mostly in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Lake County; and these schools generally have a yearly tuition of over $25,000. The maximum voucher the state hands out is around $10,000. If a parent can pay the remaining $15,000 for a grade school or high school, they should not have to get any help from our tax dollars.
This loss of money cannot be equated to parent choice in Education as an argument for the vouchers. Indiana has always allowed parents to choose homeschooling or private schools as an alternative to sending their children to a public school. Around 2009 Charter schools, Magnet Schools, and Virtual Schools were added into the mix, as well as eliminating the out-of-district tuition, so parents have plenty of choices. The issue is who pays for the choice of families that can attend one of the great public schools we have in District 63. In fact, the Indiana State Constitution states in Article 8 Section 1: Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the duty of the General Assembly . . . . . . to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all. The full text can be found here: http://iga.in.gov/legislative/laws/const/
I have been a public-school teacher for over 32 years. My students’ quality of life and my livelihood depended on me knowing and understanding how our school funding formula worked. I can tell you that it is stressed, we are paying too much for schools outside of our constitutionally mandated public system, we waste hundreds of millions of dollars on useless standardized tests and our teachers are seriously underpaid, risking a teacher shortage of the likes we have never had to experience in Indiana. We need to have people in the Legislature that will do what is best for our children, your family and our communities. The largest expenditure of state revenue is for Education, and it is important to know the facts about how that money is spent. Please consider these facts when you vote.
Teresa Kendall, Jasper Candidate for Indiana State Representative District 63
Ms. Kendall, if Indiana were truly a free public school state, then the parents of the students would pay nothing at all to send their children to school. As a former resident of California, public education was as the law states, “Free”. When the public school systems are failing to adequately educate our children, I am of the opinion that I should be able to use those tax dollars allotted for my children’s education in a public or private setting. I believe the state assembly has addressed your argument through approved legislation. So to that end, your point is moot.
To be honest this sounds like the mantra from the NEA, which want to control public education choices, the students, and the parents. This is not about our choice as free citizens or parents, but solely the teachers and faculty’s well-being.
I consider my children, my state, and my fellow citizens rights to choose where they want to be educated. Note educated and not indoctrinated. This is where the public school system is failing the citizens of Indiana and why we should always have the choice to choose where we send our children for their education. After all wouldn’t you want to have the best doctor, surgeon, or other professional to care for your health and well-being? Ms. Kendall that is what the parents, like myself will do for our children and their future and not the NEA or any other educational institution.
Bill Lawrence
Huntingburg, Indiana
The NEA has absolutely nothing to do with the facts I shared in this opinion piece. As stated, choice has always been available in Indiana, and in 2009 additional choices were added in the form of charters, private school vouchers and no tuition fees for out of district students. The problem of vouchers and charter schools is the tax dollars that pay for a parent’s choice to go outside of the Public school system. The state is only mandated to offer and provide funding for a public school system. Indiana does not fund our school adequately and that forces communities to raise taxes. The current legislators in office now are not allowing enough money to go into the public school system by diverting a sizeable amount to private schools. A Parent can choose how they want to educate their child, but the state is obligated to pay for only one of those choices by the constitution.
Those public schools do not have the expense of teaching that child either. Thus a savings to the district.
It turns out, for example, that 64 percent of graduates from all private high schools and 81 percent of graduates from Catholic high schools go on to a four-year college. The same is true for 40 percent of graduates from traditional public schools and 37 percent of graduates from public charter schools.
Just come out and admit it. You don’t like private education. You’re only for school choice if, it is on the list of your choosing. If you can’t agree on letting parents choose the schooling of their choice for their children, then your not for “People Over Politics”
Bill your right, it is about controlling tax dollars. Ms. Kendall thinks that each week your paycheck is the Democrats and they get to decide how much you keep of it.
It isn’t just Democrats. The Indiana GOP has become the tax and spend party. Don’t forget the nearly 50 times Eric Holcomb and the Indiana GOP raised taxes and fees, including the largest tax increase in Indiana history in 2017 which was the gas tax, the gift that keeps on giving – to Holcomb and INGOP.
Because the state legislature has passed legislation does not mean it is necessarily right. If a parent wants to send their children to a private school, fine, but the parent should foot the bill out of pocket, plus the dollar amount of the tax dollars actually collected from the from the parent, not a huge voucher supplied by the state. Maybe there should be legislation passed that the private schools become tuition based public schools, with state vouchers. Best of both worlds. You stated we have a choice. That is true. You make the choice, you pay. simple. Get privately funded scholarships, loans, fundraisers, etc.,……… not tax dollars for your child’s education at an “elite” school.
If a parent that does not send their child to public is no longer responsible to fund public school, then why should someone without children have to fund public schools?
And why stop there? why should I have to pay for roads I don’t travel and sidewalks I don’t walk and libraries I don’t visit and wars I don’t like and the loss of property taxes for churches where I don’t worship.
Why can’t I take my tax money and spend it on what I want?!!?!?
Oh yea, I live in a civil society.
Eric Holcomb, that lying sack of offal, keeps bragging about how he and his INGOP pals are giving more money to education and supporting raises for teachers.
However, an April 2019 Forbes article shows that Indiana is dead last in the nation on raises for teachers. (1)
As Central Indiana political pundit Abdul Hakim-Shabazz has stated more than once, you’re entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.
Where is the money going? To administrators who do not need it, the rest wasted, and a few leftover crumbs tossed at teachers? I do not believe that simply throwing more money at school corporations is the answer. Instead, I do feel that a certain amount of money needs to be earmarked strictly for raises for our teachers. Teachers should not have to buy supplies for their students out of their own pockets.
(1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/04/02/the-evolution-of-u-s-teacher-salaries-in-the-21st-century-infographic/#5bfd24e377f0