INDIANAPOLIS — Chants demanding more funding for Indiana public schools echoed throughout the Circle City Tuesday as about 16,000 teachers and public education supporters surrounded the Statehouse to speak to state lawmakers on the Indiana Legislature’s organization day.
Wearing red shirts with ironed-on phrases reading, “Where’s The Funding?” and, “My children deserve more,” thousands of teachers, parents, children and public education allies gathered on the Statehouse lawn and rallied for education reform.
Among the estimated 16,000 faces at Tuesday’s Red for Ed Action Day were more than 200 educators from Bartholomew County, including teachers representing all schools in Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. and Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp.
The action day, organized by the Indiana State Teachers Association, took place on the one day lawmakers returned to the Statehouse to gear up for the 2020 legislative session.
More than 100 school districts across the state, including BCSC, closed to allow school employees and the community to attend the union-organized Statehouse rally to lobby for legislation.
Teachers said they want legislators to hold instructors harmless from low I-LEARN scores, and are asking that the state’s budget surplus be used to increase teacher pay. They also want a repeal of new requirements for teachers to complete an externship in order to renew their teaching license.
“Our kids matter. The education of Indiana students is way more important to me than any other focus they might have for this session,” said Crystal Stewart, a seventh-grade literature teacher at Columbus’ Northside Middle School. “We’re losing good teachers, teachers are coming into this profession, staying for a couple years and realizing they can’t make a living on what they’re making. Those of us that have been in it for a while, it’s getting harder and harder for us to stay in at the same time.”
‘Not just about the money’
Stewart is among a group of several Northside Middle School teachers who attended the Red for Ed rally. When she started her teaching career 21 years ago, she said she brought home more money then than she does now.
Money aside, Stewart said she came to advocate for her students more than anything.
“A lot of people have the misconception that it’s just because of the money,” Stewart said. “It’s not just about the money. It’s for other reasons as well. To know our superintendent Dr. (Jim) Roberts supports us and is allowing us to be here today means a lot.”
Indiana is the third state that Columbus’ Central Middle School social studies teacher and CEA member Alan Birkemeier has taught in. He said he’s witnessing the same issues he saw as a teacher in Arizona and Kentucky, and he’s hoping Tuesday’s rally was a wake up call to state legislators.
“I had to leave Arizona because they didn’t give teachers a raise. I never got a raise the whole time I was out there,” Birkemeier said. “I saw lots of really good teachers leave there, and I had to leave myself. I see the same thing here in Indiana — the level of pay, the level of funding is driving away good teachers and good people from Indiana.”
Sheila Blake admits she didn’t become a teacher for the money. The Central Middle School science teacher, now in her third career, said she entered the field five years ago for the kids.
Blake said she can recall several times when someone has tried to argue that she knew the salary of a teacher when she started.
“I don’t think I know one single teacher who gets into it for the salary, absolutely not,” Blake said. “We get into it because we love our kids and we want to see that next generation of kids succeed. Without retaining that intelligence and that drive to teach, we’re going to lose a whole generation of Hoosiers. That’s all there is to it.”
Beyond the issue of teacher pay, ISTA and other public education supporters are urging lawmakers to repeal new rules passed last year that require teachers to log 15 hours of professional development through an externship before they can renew their teaching license, a step that must be done every five years in Indiana.
Dakota Hudelson, a seventh-grade writing and literacy teacher at Northside Middle School and secretary of the Columbus Educators Association, said the externship requirement is an insult to public school teachers.
“The implication is that we don’t know what’s going on out there in the world,” said Hudelson, now in his fifth year as a teacher. “We know what’s going on in the world. We know what’s going on in the workforce. I don’t like the implication as well that our public schools are here to prop up the private market and that our whole purpose here is to train up little worker bees and get them ready for jobs.”
Lawmakers are also being asked to hold teachers and local schools harmless from the new I-LEARN test. Students took the new standardized test, a replacement of the former ISTEP+ test, for the first time this spring, and scores plummeted statewide. The scores are typically used in state-issued letter grades.
Legislators have hinted that they will pass legislation to hold districts harmless if their letter grades put them in danger of state intervention.
“Looking at testing in general, we know that testing is not good for our students,” Hudelson said. “It creates a very negative environment in our school and we have to strip the classroom down, cover the walls, clam up as teachers. We can’t communicate with them as clearly as we’d like to. It puts a strain on our environment.”
An unprecedented move
Hudelson has attended several rallies at the Statehouse over the last few years, but he said nothing has compared to the turnout he witnessed at Tuesday’s Red for Ed Action Day.
Hudelson and other CEA officers met with Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, to discuss Lauer’s legislative agenda and what Columbus teachers want heading into the 2020 legislative session. The legislative session begins Jan. 6.
During the meeting, Hudelson said Lauer was interested in hearing the CEA’s perspective on its recent collective bargaining agreement reached with BCSC, which included an average 2.5% salary increase for about 730 certified teachers, coupled with an average $748 increase in health premium costs.
“He said one of his missions is to bring respect back to the teaching profession that he feels has been lost,” Hudelson said. “He really feels like that needs to be restored again.”
CEA officers told him that many teachers felt disrespected when lawmakers enacted the externship requirement for licensure renewal. Lauer told the group he will be pushing to hold districts harmless from I-LEARN scores.
“I will say this was a good start. We have not had conversations with our legislators before,” Hudelson said. “We’ve sent emails and sometimes gotten responses from legislative assistants. This was a great positive step that he was willing to meet with us and actually talk to us and hear firsthand from those of us that represent hundreds of teachers in Bartholomew County.”
A part of something big
Three members of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra traveled to Indianapolis together to participate in Tuesday’s rally. With their instruments in hand, former Hauser Jr./Sr. High School band director Josh Goodman, Hope Elementary music teacher Lucille Berk and Catelyn Mitchell, an iGrad coach at Columbus North High School, played familiar tunes including Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and Europe’s “The Final Countdown.”
The Indiana Bandmasters Association and Indiana Music Educators Association organized a band of music teachers, band directors and other allies to play at the rally. Goodman saw the invitation on Facebook and asked Berk and Mitchell to join.
Goodman, now a band director at Beech Grove High School, said he wanted to support public educators and fight for students across Indiana.
“We’re teaching the future of our state and they want a career-ready workforce, and you can only do that with the best teachers,” Goodman said. “If we have few students in our college programs and teachers leaving the profession, it’s hard to have a career-ready workforce here in the state.”
Berk said music programs already face a fight for funding, but the Red for Ed Action Day was a way to bring educators of all fields together for an even bigger fight.
“It’s nice to be united in the full band, fighting for more funding, showing people we exist and are a part of the cause,” Berk said. “It’s overwhelming. The circumstances aren’t the best, but it’s amazing to see everyone in one place. We know they’re there, but to see everyone in one place is just unbelievable.”
