Indiana students, parents and teachers deserve so much better.
As a senior at a public high school, I’ve now had nearly 12 years of experience in this state’s education system. So believe me when I say I am deeply concerned not only about changes already implemented to our education, but also the potent threats that lay imminent on the horizon. It is not a partisan issue. It is an education issue. The same politicians who promote the foundational and valued ideas of of small governance and leaving choices to less centralized authorities are, perhaps unintentionally, taking autonomy from individual school boards, teachers and yes, parents and students. The list of recent and proposed changes to Indiana’s education system is lengthy and alarming. New mandates intended to promote statewide test scores have led all student transcripts to have SAT scores, effectively eliminating student’s freedom of applying “Test-Optional,” which potentially keeps students from college. The ambiguous “phone ban bill” takes freedom away from teachers on how to run their own classroom. Upcoming approved changes to diploma types, while meaning well for technical work, not only risk gutting essential programs in arts and humanities, but also potentially diminishing Indiana’s value in college admissions.
Mike Braun’s gubernatorial promise to ban “discussion of sexual orientation” and other topics in schools risks restricting free speech and pushes for regulation (such as Senate Bill 128) that could burden already struggling school districts while putting teachers at renewed risk of termination in a job already seeing shortages around the state. This is all part of a concerning trend where state politicians across the aisle, while usually meaning well, have forgotten the true meaning of education. It is not about memorizing historical dates and the periodic table. It is about learning pertinent life skills such as civic discourse, proper work ethic and how to communicate with peers all in a healthy and free growth environment. Educators know this. Students know it. Parents know it. And it’s time we remind the Indiana General Assembly of it too. For an Indiana where what topics you can and cannot discuss in school are regulated by the state, where teachers lose autonomy of their own classrooms in favor of state regulation, where students are taught to be nothing more than repositories of memorization, where school music and art programs are diminished, where Hoosier families are at a disadvantage for college admission, where educators don’t feel welcome in their desperately needed profession … is not one that families, teachers or even most state politicians truly want to have. Across the political spectrum, we can all agree that Indiana deserves so much better.
Most voters have not been in K-12 education for many years, so it can be easy to concern themselves with gas and grocery prices rather than with the true consequences of education policy. But as we enter perhaps the most formative election in our nation’s and state’s modern history, this state is faced with a crossroads of paramount importance. Do we let ourselves continue on a path of devaluing public education, pushing extreme and bureaucratic educational regulations that have wide-spanning implications from declining teacher support, worsening statewide brain drain and, most importantly, diminishing the preparedness of the next generation to become leaders of our society?
Or do we demand, in a bipartisan way, that our leaders value and uphold the principles of freedom and prosperity in our state’s education, making the job easier for teachers, more valued by employers and universities, and building the next generation to become the leaders and architects of the future that we all know we need them to become?
I do not have a vote in this election, nor do most of my peers. But I hope that all voters, from all backgrounds, take a moment to consider the true implications of this great choice before us, and be vocal in building the educational environment we need for the success of our students and communities, our great state and our nation.
Matthew Deahl is a student at Penn High School. He is a member of the South Bend Common Council Youth Board.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Changes to Indiana’s education system are alarming.
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