Funds should go to public schools

To the editor:

Jay Classroom Teachers Association and Jay School Board of Trustees are writing to express sincere concern for the direction our state leaders appear to be taking during the current legislative session.

Specifically, we are concerned about funding for schools across the state and the expansion of private school vouchers. Current legislation being considered continues the damaging trend of underfunding our schools while allocating dollars away from public schools, which serve the vast majority of Hoosier students.

While the state biennium budget bill recently passed by the Indiana House of Representatives (House Bill 1001) does provide a modest funding increase, it also unnecessarily expands private school voucher programs and offers less funding to traditional public schools than our governor has proposed.

Gov. Eric Holcomb’s Next Level Teacher Compensation Report points out that inflation-adjusted school funding remains substantially lower than levels seen in Indiana just over a decade ago.

Per-student state funding is more than 7% lower than 2010 levels when adjusting for inflation.

This represents a shortfall of about $580 million from 2010 funding.

Locally, we have made sacrifices and necessary changes for the long-term good of our students and schools. We have increased our fiscal reserves, improved efficiency, maintained important programs and did our part to advance wages each of the last four years for our teachers and support staff.

We work hard to be accountable with tax dollars.

In contrast, the expansion of private-school vouchers and education savings accounts now being proposed in the legislature will actually divert even more needed money away from Jay County and not hold the recipients accountable.

Rather than addressing school funding and teacher compensation, the legislature appears to be prioritizing the expansion of private school vouchers that lack public oversight and fiscal accountability.

As precious as our education dollars are, every effort should be made to ensure that they are used wisely and with good results.

House Bill 1005 does not provide this for Indiana’s taxpayers.

Our sincere hope is that the legislature will rise to the moment and appropriately fund our public schools. Indiana cannot continue to fall further behind the rest of the country.

Legislators should vote no on House Bill 1005, Senate Bill 412 and Senate Bill 413, which vastly expand unaccountable voucher experiments that favor private schools at the expense of the public schools.

We encourage our fellow citizens to contact our state elected officials — Sen. Travis Holdman at [email protected] or (317) 232-9400 and Rep. J.D. Prescott at [email protected] or (317) 234-3827 — and express their views on these important issues.

Sincerely,

Paul Szymczak and Jay Classroom Teachers Association

Phil Ford and Jay School Board of Trustees