Gage Skidmore
Red 4 Ed flag
Across the country, teachers are organizing for better classroom conditions.
The #RedforEd wave of teacher strikes and walkouts that have roiled school districts around the country since 2018 shows no sign of ending. So far this year, teachers in Chicago, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Arizona have either gone on strike or otherwise advocated for their rights, while educators in Little Rock, Arkansas staged a one-day strike—the first in thirty-two years—on November 14.
Now, we can add Indiana to this list.
On November 19, hundreds of teachers from across the state are expected to descend on the state capitol in Indianapolis for a #RedforEd rally. This is worth paying close attention to, for several reasons.
First, Indiana is a very red place, and not in the organized labor sense. The notoriously conservative, right-to-work state is home to Vice President Mike Pence, of course, and has proven to be fertile ground for market-based education reform policies. In 2017, the education news outlet Chalkbeat declared that, “Indiana education policy is shaping the nation.”
According to Chalkbeat reporters Shaina Cavazos and Dylan Peers McCoy, Indiana’s statewide willingness to experiment with vouchers, charter schools and other school choice schemes even caught the eye of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
“Devos has mentioned Indiana many times since her appointment to highlight examples of how Indiana’s version of school choice is helping her shape her current education agenda,” Cavazos and Peers McCoy wrote.
It should be noted that DeVos has a documented preference for school choice schemes that are driven by ideology rather than outcomes or accountability. In her home state of Michigan, DeVos has lavished financial and political support on charter schools, vouchers and the politicians who support them, with little to no concern for the well-being of the state’s most vulnerable students.
This is a perspective she has attempted to bring to federal education policy, as well, thanks in part to states like Indiana that have been willing partners.
In Indianapolis and beyond, however, the state’s open door policy for education reform has taken a definite toll on teachers. Indiana teachers have been applying increased pressure to lawmakers throughout 2019. In March, teachers rallied at the statehouse to demand more funding and more respect, although this garnered less attention because it happened on a Saturday and therefore didn’t require schools to be closed.
Further actions have included walk-ins and an afterschool meet-up during the 2019 legislative session. At issue are concerns over low starting salaries for Indiana’s teachers—sources say the state falls near the bottom for teacher pay in the United States—as well as the impact of top-down reform strategies, including tying students’ standardized test scores to teacher pay and performance evaluations.
Teachers have also pushed back against a new regulation mandating that educators spend fifteen hours in an outside, work-based setting before they can renew their teaching licenses. Advocates, including Democratic state representative and high school math teacher Tonya Pfaff, dismissed the requirement as nothing more than busywork.
The Indiana State Teachers Association website includes testimonials from teachers decrying the deep cuts to public education their schools have endured. One rural Indiana teacher reveals that her high school no longer offers band, language or art classes because there is just no money.
Some teachers allege they have to work two jobs just to get by—a common complaint from teachers in other states where #RedforEd actions have taken place.
The growing #RedforEd movement appears poised to expand just as the 2020 presidential election ramps up.
The Indiana statewide teachers union has also become more vocal about the impact school choice schemes—including charters, vouchers and scandal-ridden online programs—are having on traditional school districts. Earlier in 2019, legislators passed a funding bill that was intended to raise teacher salaries while also providing a bit more money for education.
But Democrats and education activists argued that the funding bill would steer less money to students living in poverty, and more money to “charter schools and private schools receiving publicly funded vouchers,” as noted in a Chalkbeat write-up.
Signs and video from the previous Indiana #RedforEd rally on March 9 offered a glimpse of continued points of contention between teachers and state policy makers. Dressed in bright union-red t-shirts, teachers dangled placards over a balcony in the Indiana state capitol declaring: “Poverty is the Enemy, Not Teachers.”
This puts Indiana squarely in line with the growing #RedforEd movement, which appears poised to expand just as the 2020 presidential election ramps up. The kind of pressure wrought by teachers unions has already served to change the Democratic party’s platform regarding public education.
Not too long ago, mainstream Democrats were rewarded for aligning themselves with DeVos-like education reform policies. This is no longer true, thanks to the advocacy of teachers in Indiana and around the country.