Public education in lawmakers’ crosshairs

The legislature is on pace to completely alter public education on the misguided and false belief that our schools are failing. Their actions affirm their allegiance to the Mitch Daniels/Tony Bennett reforms aggressively advanced by the private sector, even in the face of Bennett’s overwhelming defeat in November. They have arrogantly chosen to ignore this reality by pushing their reform agenda with their supermajority. You should be alarmed.

In effect, the legislature is complicit in creating a dual-education system. Our constitution calls for a common school, free and open to all, not a hybrid private/public system wherein tax dollars are sent to predominantly religious-based schools and, now more frequently and insidiously, to for-profit entities.

Is your school failing? Do you think your child’s teachers, coaches and administrators are failing? Is there massive failure in other Hoosier schools? Then why would your legislators be buying into this in spite of all the data showing the consistent rise in graduation rates, attendance, ISTEP-SAT-ACT scores, the highest NAEP test scores in their history, and the percentage of high school graduates going to college?

We must champion our public schools. If we don’t, we risk their being diminished and weakened by short-sighted and ill-considered legislation.

MIKE WALSH Bloomington