It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Fall semester starts this week and I may be getting a little too excited. I have to remember to have a little compassion for my new students, especially those in my 8:00 a.m. class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For the rest of their lives, they will immediately think of me when they hear the term “morning person.”
Although my professional life revolved around legislation in the Statehouse, I had little to do with education policy. Over the years, I followed these things purely as a citizen. My sons went to a Catholic school, so I felt a little distanced from the annual squabbles over what the next steps of the Indiana General Assembly and the Indiana Department of Education would be.
But the two biggest moves in recent times seem to have a common theme: pursuing lower goals.
Last year, Senate Bill 202 made headlines and caused a stir among people in higher education. Conservative lawmakers were trying to address the reality that college professors are more ideologically liberal or progressive than they’d like. You see, leftists like me are “indoctrinating” young people instead of teaching them. That’s an eye-roll-worthy “problem.”
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From the perspective of a public university lecturer, the bill made little practical difference to me. It never seemed to impact what or how I teach. I already make room for differing ideological viewpoints when appropriate, and frankly, it rarely matters. The “problem” the legislature is trying to solve here is incredibly exaggerated, and its solution is not really a solution. And more importantly, that non-solution is expensive.
As the new law begins to be implemented, I can now see how much money is being invested to comply with it. The legislature should be pleased with how seriously the new law is being taken, no matter how poorly it was written. But when the administration is done with it, it will have cost a fortune and accomplished practically nothing. I have the Estimated fiscal impact the bill when it was audited, and that too gives a ridiculous indication of what it is sure to cost.
Changes at the high school
Last year’s legislature also decided to revise Indiana’s high school graduation standards. This was even less interesting to this college professor whose adult children are already out of school. But as the new high school diplomas that IDOE was supposed to develop come into focus, it’s clear once again that academic rigor and the college attendance rate of Indiana residents are not the priority.
The first attempt to implement the new diplomas sparked objections from the state’s universities, saying the new standards would further limit Indiana students’ chances of even being admitted to college after graduating high school. Our college attendance rate has dropped from 65% in 2008 to 53% now, although this downward trend appears to be leveling off in recent years. In 2012, the authorities set a target of increasing this share to 60% by 2025. There’s no way Indiana will make it.
Instead, priorities are being reordered to focus on preparing our young people for the job opportunities that lawmakers believe are available to them. Apprenticeships and vocational training that do not require a bachelor’s degree in economics or English are the new silver bullet. This is another mistake.
The second diploma design creates a “seal of readiness” This gives students the freedom to choose a path that suits them. I wonder if I would have taken physics or trigonometry if my school hadn’t believed those subjects were important at the time. I know that those courses helped me learn to think, and that’s why I’m still glad I took them, forty years later.
Lower targets
Last week, as I was preparing my classes for the semester, I realized something other than my excitement. My already challenging classes are going to be even harder this year. I teach communications at a nationally competitive business school, which means none of my students came here to take my speaking and writing classes. Most learned of these requirements only after they chose Indiana as their college.
I plan to keep pushing her until I recognize her limits and my own.
There’s nothing special about that. It’s really intuitive for me and my colleagues. And after we get started this week, most of us will be stuck in our tunnel vision until the end of the semester in December. Then we’ll evaluate how things went and ask ourselves how we can do better in the spring. There will be a time when I ask too much of my students, and when that day comes, I’ll adjust.
But in Indiana, that day is definitely not today.
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