College republican praises state legislature’s leadership

During this summer’s special legislative session of the Indiana General Assembly, much ado was made over the educational funding formula.

Lobbyists from all interests groups – from those supporting school vouchers and charter schools to the avid advocates of public education – framed an interesting debate dynamic through which the legislature worked.

Despite this tumultuous climate of hostile debate between competing interests, the Republicans in both houses of the legislature, under the strong leadership of Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, successfully argued that changes in school funding should correspond to changes in school enrollment.

This argument amounted to a declaration of war for many public school systems around the state whose enrollment figures continue on a downward spiral.
Many districts were outraged by the thought that the funding formula should have any responsiveness to changes in student population.

For example, the Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Eugene White decried and vilified the legislature’s choice to limit funding for his district, even though the Indiana Accountability System for Academic Progress (a subsidiary program of the non-partisan Indiana Department of Education) projected a loss of about 1,715 students (5.3 percent of total enrollment) district-wide over the next three years.
Economically speaking, with falling enrollment, schools face a decreasing demand for their product – a public education.

Logically, the supply of resources necessary to meet that demand decreases simultaneously.

Fewer teachers and textbooks are required to teach fewer students. Fewer free-or-reduced school lunches are required to feed fewer students.

So costs should fall – period.

Many public school districts around the state are facing population explosions in their communities.

In Hamilton County, the state’s fastest-growing county and the 23rd fastest-growing county in the nation, districts like Carmel-Clay, Hamilton Southeastern, Westfield and Noblesville are forced to educate many more students with scarcer resources.
According to Derek Redelman, an educational expert at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Carmel’s school district is allocated about $5,623 per student in educational funding, compared to IPS’s $8,580 per child enrolled.

How do special interest groups explain this obvious disparity in resources? Is this not the definition of unfairness?

However, the opponents of the enrollment accountability approach still clawed for more funding for increasingly small school districts.

As an IU College Republican, I applaud the steadfast efforts of the Republican members of the Indiana House of Representatives and the State Senate.
These men and women resisted an intense amount of political pressure to buckle to the interests of the Indiana State Teachers Association and related groups.

Also, proving what real conservative leadership is, Daniels led our fight valiantly, resisting glaring criticism from House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, and others in the state legislature.

The two-year budget that passed in June was only the first step to reforming Indiana’s educational funding formula.

However, it was one of gigantic value to our state’s school districts.

After the bill’s passage, I was proud to be a Republican. Realizing the full implications of this reform, I’m now even prouder to be a Hoosier.