Sixty-six education-related bills have been introduced in the state Legislature for the current short session.
While there are fundamentally worthy attempts to adapt public schools to changing fiscal, technological, and social environments, too many are clearly motivated by the politics of Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both chambers of Congress. .
Republican lawmakers appear intent on stripping local control from school administrators and teachers in order to instill a conservative culture in Indiana's schools.
Senate Bill 128, the Human Sexuality Act, would leave it up to school boards, rather than professional educators, to decide what “learning materials for teaching human sexuality” can be used in the classroom. .
Although Senate Bill 1 goes some way by establishing additional remedial requirements for students who fail the state's IREAD-3 test, it does so by imposing arbitrary mandates to keep such students in third grade. , would be more harmful.
As most elementary school educators will tell you, there are many factors to consider when deciding whether to move a student down a grade. Reading comprehension needs to be considered, but it's not the only thing.
The two education and culture bills represent the Republican majority's continued quest to ignore the principle of separation of church and state.
House Bill 1137 would require “a principal, after receiving written notification from the student's parent, to permit a student to participate in religious instruction conducted by a specified organization.”
Senate Bill 50 would allow public schools to employ priests, chaplains, and other religious leaders as school chaplains to “provide secular support to school students and staff.” .
Perhaps the most brazen education culture measure moving forward in Congress is Senate Bill 202. The bill is ostensibly aimed at protecting the free speech rights of conservative students attending Indiana's public universities.
The bill's design to base evaluations of professors on complaints about the expression of liberal ideas would stifle political discussion on campus and drive intellectuals out of Indiana.
But that is the position of the Republican-led General Assembly in 2024, more interested in promoting a conservative culture than improving the quality of education.
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