By Wendy McNamara
School is the first step in a person’s journey, where they can explore new interests, learn skills that will last a lifetime and build their foundation for success.
To help Hoosier students, our new biennial state budget allocated the most money to K-12 schools in Indiana’s history. We also supported and passed several measures to ensure Indiana’s continued educational success by directing more funding to teachers and classrooms and refocusing on core educational skills like reading and math.
One of the new laws I supported, Senate Enrolled Act 146, raises the minimum teacher salary and directs a larger percentage of state tuition support to teacher compensation. This helps support our Hoosier educators who are working daily to educate and shape our next generation. It also helps Indiana attract and retain high-quality educators.
I also supported HEA 1002, reducing unnecessary regulations and giving more control to local schools to free up time for them to focus on educating rather than complying with burdensome mandates.
Another measure passed this year helps students achieve critical math and STEM competencies. House Enrolled Act 1634 requires Indiana schools to provide early intervention for students falling behind in important math skills and ensures greater opportunity for students who are excelling to be challenged further. This is a comprehensive effort that gives educators the tools to meet students where they are and boost their success.
We are also taking more steps toward tracking our state’s education progress by bringing back letter grades for schools. HEA 1498 restores and modernizes the A-F grade system by requiring the State Board of Education to develop new evaluation benchmarks that prioritize student growth, skill proficiency and graduation readiness. By restoring simple-to-understand letter grades, we’re giving parents and families a better idea of how Indiana’s schools are performing.
As an educator and administrator, I am thrilled to see our students excelling and achieving record results in the classroom. Indiana now ranks 6thin the nation for both 4th and 8th grade reading and our recent IREAD results demonstrated the largest increase we have seen for 3rd grade students in a decade.
I’m grateful to our passionate and dedicated educators and leaders, committed parents and everyone who is working together to help our students succeed.
These are just a few of the steps the legislature took this past session to build up Indiana’s educational system and continue this progress. To learn more about these and other laws, visit iga.in.gov.
