Education issues, public comment dominate first Legislative Update session

Monday, January 18, 2016
Following 90 minutes of discussion between area legislators and local residents, District 37 State Sen. Rodric Bray (left) shares a little more time Saturday morning, listening to a concern from Greencastle constituent Bernard Batto at the Legislative Update session at the Farm Bureau office. (Banner Graphic/ERIC BERNSEE)

Teachers wanted to talk about education issues. Marian Harvey wanted to debate animal issues. And Ann Newton swung the discussion to human problems.

Overall, public comment rather than legislator's reports dominated the 90-minute first Legislative Update program of the 2016 Indiana General Assembly session Saturday morning at the Farm Bureau office in Greencastle.

And that seemed perfectly fine with the trio of legislators who represent Putnam County at the statehouse -- District 44 State Rep. Jim Baird (R-Greencastle), District 24 State Sen. Pete Miller (R-Brownsburg) and District 37 Sen. Rodric Bray R-Martinsville.

Educational items drew the most interest with a number of current and former teachers and school administrators in the audience.

Sen. Miller, a majority member of the Education and Career Development Committee, predicted that the "hold harmless" bill (HB 1003) for the much cussed and discussed ISTEP testing scores will be one of the first two bills the current Legislature will pass.

Rep. Baird noted that discussion now is about "uncoupling ISTEP scores from teacher performance."

The legislation will provide a one-year moratorium on the use of ISTEP scores for performance-based school and teacher evaluations, Miller noted.

"It's more than just your score," Miller conceded as he was essentially preaching to the choir.

However, the other two education issues he spoke about drew some fire from the audience.

Miller did make some news in regard to Senate Bill 379, however.

It is the controversial bill he has authored that would not only allow teachers to individually bargain their own salaries but address a state teacher shortage by establishing a beginning teacher residency program. It provides that an educator who teaches or is licensed to teach science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) or special education may voluntarily enter into an employment contract with a school corporation that contains terms that differ from those set forth in the collective bargaining agreement.

SB 379 is currently in the hands of the Education and Career Development Committee, chaired by Sen. Dennis Kruse.

"It's my bill, and it's not going to happen this year," Miller assured the group Saturday, telling the Legislative Update crowd it will effectively die this session because it will not get a committee hearing.

While that was good news to educators who called it "simply bad legislation" that pits teacher against teacher for raises, Miller still defended the idea.

"We're not allowing the market to work," he said. "Just because we pay someone more doesn't mean they are more important or have a more important position.

"Do we value someone more because we pay them more?" Miller asked.

The audience answered with a resounding "Yes, in this society it does."

Educators also took exception to HB 1325, which changes the "Rule of 85" to 95. Those figures represent the numbers of years worked as a teacher or administrator plus the person's age for retirement eligibility. For instance, a person age 55 with 30 years of teaching currently can retire with full benefits.

HB 1325 would raise that total to 95, and several educators said "it takes away our retirement" or at least delays it, even though many of them have planned their financial futures around the set of numbers currently in place for many years.

"It's a bad bill," noted former teacher Kim Fidler, a UniServ director for the Indiana State Teachers Association the past 10 years after 16 years teaching Spanish at South Putnam.

Fidler, who has filed as a District 44 candidate on the Democrat ballot, also announced her candidacy to the group.

The Republican who holds that District 44 seat, Rep. Baird, said the Legislature is looking at alternative programs to end the teacher shortage.

He spoke about ways that might provide incentives for young people to go into teaching.

One bill up for consideration would provide a $7,500-a-year grant for four years to new teachers as an incentive for getting into the profession and accepting an Indiana position.

"It's just in discussion," Baird cautioned, "but it's one of the options."

Meanwhile, self-described "local pacifist" Marian Harvey, offering lengthy comment about animal rights and intertwined agriculture issues, told the legislators, "We need more regulation, not less."

Longtime social worker Ann Newton, however, suggested that "human problems need attention, too."

She noted that Child Protective Services investigations have revealed a major connection between child abuse and parental drug use and asked the legislators for their help in getting something done about it.

A number of local children are injured each year by parents who are using drugs, she said.

Sen. Bray, who chairs the Senate Civil Law Committee, agreed there is an issue, noting that "children are far and away the biggest victims of drugs in our society."

"People don't stop having kids when they do drugs," Bray said, "but they do stop parenting, and that can come with tragic results."

The next scheduled Legislative Update session, sponsored by the Putnam County Farm Bureau, is scheduled for 8 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 20 at the Farm Bureau office on North Jackson Street in Greencastle.

Comments
View 3 comments
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. Please note that those who post comments on this website may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
  • These legislators simply do not get it. They want more young people to get into teaching, but then make retirement harder to obtain. There are so many teachers out there that didn't realize teaching was their calling until they graduated with a bachelor's in a particular field and came to understand that the only way to continue to study the subject and tell others about it was to become a teacher. They had to return to school for their license. This doesn't happen overnight, so by they time they receive that license and can teach they may be 30. They've then received a Master's degree to be paid peanuts and work 60-90 hours a week just to get yelled at by ungrateful parents and treated disgracefully by entitled children. But they come back everyday because they know there are kids they are reaching. And those kids are worth it. On top of it, our legislature continues to blame them for all our educational woes and piles more and more on them, and then tells them "hey that retirement you thought you had coming in a couple years - forget about it".

    We should be treating our teachers like the angels they are. Paying them like doctors, training them like doctors, and giving them all the assistance they request and need. Instead all our schools are on life support and our government officials are scratching their heads (and other body parts). Why will they not listen to education experts???

    -- Posted by Javabeans on Tue, Jan 19, 2016, at 10:52 AM
  • Surprised so many teachers could participate Saturday with their 90 hour work week and all...

    -- Posted by taylortwp on Tue, Jan 19, 2016, at 11:05 AM
  • honeyroastedpeanuts,

    A few comments on what appears to be you lack of understanding on these new laws:

    1) There is a teacher shortage in Indiana, the way you fix that is by bringing in more new (younger) teachers and retaining the ones you have. Making it harder for teachers to retire will help the shortage

    2) One of the laws proposed is to make it EASIER for teachers with a bachelors degree in STEM fields to start teaching w/out a masters in education so the don't have to wait until they're 30 to start.

    3) For the rule of 95 vs 85 lets just run some numbers. If you start at 30 yrs old under the rule of 85 you could retire at 58 and under rule 95 you could retire at 63. If you start right out of college (22 yrs old) you could retire at 54 (rule of 85) or 59 (rule of 95). Pretty sure that this deal is significantly better than the private sector. The worst case of 63 retirement is still 4-5 years earlier than social security.

    4) 90 hour work weeks? you do realize that this is 13 hours / 7 days a week right? While I don't doubt that they sometimes put in this i do doubt that any of them are consistently working 90 hours every week. Also do i need to mention the hole 3 months off in summer, 2 wk spring / fall / winter breaks.

    5) As for pay, I do agree that we should be paying our teachers more. I think your analogy to paying / training like doctors is way off though. Doctors have to go through ~3X the amount of formal education at a much higher cost than teachers and then have to deal with malpractice insurance and the same entitled parents / patients as teachers.

    6) "why not leave it to the education experts?" No other company would leave it to their workers to determine their compensation / retirement because it would bankrupt them.

    In conclusion, i agree that teachers should be slightly better compensated and that they have to deal with to many entitled / arrogant students and parents. However, your solutions will do absolutely nothing to fix the education system. At least these legislators are attempting to come up with ideas to fix it. I would like to hear your solutions (other than do nothing and pay more).

    -- Posted by hometownboy on Fri, Jan 22, 2016, at 7:40 AM
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: