My day at the Indiana State House

[AwakeAtLast]

Today the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) met with senators and representatives to make our wishes known. Governor Daniels wants $300 million cut from the education budget and stopped paying school corps. as of Jan. 1st. Every school is now in a downward spiral of cuts to Media Specialists, Special Area teachers, nurses, RIFing classroom teachers, transportation, pay-to-play sports and calling for concessions in teacher salaries and benefits just to name a few.

ISTA's stance is that there are other ways to take care of the budget issue.

"The Indiana State Teachers Association has released its funding plan for public schools. It calls on the state to use public education reserve funds, reduce non-essential K-12 education spending and re-design public education funding to maximize dollars to the classroom. Part of the plan is a proposal to postpone ISTEP for the spring of 2009. The ISTA says Governor Mitch Daniels' initial budget proposal flatlines public education funding for the next two years. The association says that would result in hundreds of school employee layoffs."

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=33716#middle

ISTA members showed up in support of a bill to alleviate the cuts and to find other ways to get the budget in order. It passed today in the Democratically controlled House. It will face an uphill battle in the Senate (R controlled, of course).

I was glad I was able to go and meet with my representatives. I had a relatively easy job because they are all Dems. I will definitely feel more at ease the next time I go back, and I WILL be going back. I encourage any educator to do the same. Take friends with you. We can't hide in our classrooms for much longer!

[Catshrink]

1. We tried this in Arizona last spring.

The result was a severe backlash by the neoLibertian-Repub. Legislature. They voted to do away with tenure, disallow the use of experience and time in district to affect rehiring after a RIF, do away with the requirement for districts to let us know by March 15 if our contracts were not to be renewed, do away with the deadline for offering new contracts, and a few other tidbits. It was designed as retaliation for embarrassing them. AZ has severely cut all aspects of the budget except that for the Legislature's expenses and staffs. Why? They say they're cut to the bone already. Welcome to the club.

We took a pay reduction this year and are looking at a 10% for next year. My concern? We'll never get it back. It's the Wal-Martization of education -- they want us to improve improve improve but only want to pay us Wal-Mart wages.

On edit: Teachers are now afraid to speak up and make waves for fear of losing our jobs.

[AwakeAtLast]

2. Indiana is split right now

We are going to fight as hard as possible to keep from both houses going R.

We've got Daniels' number. We know what's at stake.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. We do it in Missouri every year

:shrug: