A Disastrous Anti-Education Bill in Indiana
At least 5 public school districts would shut down and be taken over by state politicians
When passing a debilitating voucher scheme like those in other states won’t work or isn’t quite enough to retain political power, what’s the next step to privatize public education? Indiana legislators have hit on it: develop a threshold which public school enrollment must reach or else have those districts be taken over, gutted, and remolded by the state government.
Representative Jake Teshka authored House Bill 1136, the first of its kind in the nation. Rather than steal public tax money and funnel that via vouchers for families to send their students to private schools (the state already has a limited voucher program), HB 1136 permits the state to take control of all of the tax money given to a particular school district if more than 50% of students who could be enrolled in those districts are instead enrolled elsewhere in charter, private, or home schools. Those failing districts would be taken over by the state, which would transition them into charter schools and revoke the rights of taxpayers to have a say in their operation.
On one hand, it sounds better than a broadband voucher scheme, which is creating budget nightmares in Arizona and will do the same in Iowa. If fewer than half of those entitled to a public district are choosing to go elsewhere, then that’s a lot of students not benefitting from what local tax dollars offer. Alternately stated–and, of course, the real reasoning behind the bill–is that that’s a lot of taxpayers contributing to a public good that fewer than half of those who can take advantage of are.
When you read between the lines for even a second, it becomes crystal clear that this is another way to cater to the state's wealthiest and most privileged while ensuring long-term partisan power over public goods. What happens to the 50% of students whose families cannot afford to homeschool or send their children elsewhere for an education? What happens when the public school district is the only viable educational choice for those students? Choice exists only those with privilege–and choice does not extend to families actively choosing to support their public schools in districts where other parents make different choices.
This is legislation to revoke choice, period.
In a state that is in the midst of restructuring its mandated curriculum to make it easier to graduate but harder to attain higher education or careers outside the state, this is one more step in the intentional destruction of one of the few equitable democratic institutions offered in the state. “Equitable” here refers to the fact it is an option for every single student within the boundaries of a district and not that the educational opportunities are remotely the same for every single individual in a school. But in 2025, we would never see something as radically equitable as access to public education happen on a nationwide level.* That’s why we are seeing it so beleaguered and spun not as a democratic right to learning but instead “socialist” “government schools” “grooming” via “marxism” while peddling “anti-American” values.
HB 1136 curtails “equitable” in both senses here even further. It would strip local control away from districts as well–a move that flies in the face of every person who has been brazen enough to show up to school board meetings in Indiana and beyond, claiming that book bans and trans bathroom bans are simply about “local control” and “the local community.” HB 1136 gives the state control of public education and its partisan whims. Indiana charter schools are overseen not by the local community, and the local voice does not matter. Charters are overseen and operated by the state.
As of writing, five districts in the state of Indiana would be dissolved were HB 1136 passed. Those include the Indianapolis Public Schools, the largest district in the state, as well as the struggling Gary Public Schools, Tri-Township Consolidated Schools (LaPorte County), Union Schools (south of Muncie), and Cannelton City Schools in far-southern Indiana’s Perry County. All of these districts would need to convert to charter schools, per the language of the bill, by July 2028 if the bill passes this legislative session.
Each district’s school board be disbanded. In place of those boards, which were elected in local elections by residents of those district communities, new boards would be appointed by the state governor, local leaders in the district, and the director of the Indiana Character School Board. There would no longer be a community voice in who represents them in the new charter schools. Boards would be owned by those with partisan interests in the new character schools.
Again: this is removal of “local control” and shifting of that power to a few handpicked individuals in the state.
Indianapolis Public Schools have seen its graduation rates soar over the last 10 years. The district, responding to the news of the proposed HB 1136, issued a statement noting that they have an 87% graduation rate, whereas prior to 2015, that number was 60%. If in the state’s largest district those with the most power and privilege to choose schools outside the district actually allowed the district’s graduation rate to grow so much, that’s noteworthy in an of itself. The district also retained nearly 90% of its staff over the previous three years.
The loss of students in Gary Schools demands attention as well. Just over a year ago, the state let go of its takeover of the district, which lasted for seven years. Parents sent students elsewhere in that interim, meaning that the district regaining local control has not even had the opportunity to win students or families back. In other words, the state takeover–which is precisely what HB 1136 proposes as a possibility in every public district–was the reason for the enrollment drop, not the district’s own self-management. This bill would punish Gary Schools before Gary Schools were ever given the opportunity to rebuild at the hands of its own community.
As WFYI points out, it’s not just an urban school issue. Two of the districts which could be disbanded are rural. Students not attending in those districts, the story notes, are most frequently attending schools in nearby districts. Why? Well, that’s not explained but one straightforward explanation is that there are simply more educational opportunities afforded to them in larger nearby districts. . . and it’s a privileged position to be in if you’re able to attend those other schools. Those students are likely not walking across county lines but relying on private transportation and the time and money of family who can make their attendance elsewhere possible.
In yet another year where public institutions like schools and libraries will be hit again and again in feverishly red states like Indiana, it is crucial that those who live in these states and those who live beyond them not only pay attention but speak up and understand what’s at stake here. Whether or not you live in Indiana, you should care enough about the rights of students to have a solid public education and care enough about the local community making decisions about that public education to call this what it is.
Bills like this are yet another step toward Christian nationalism and Christofascism. We know what the composition of those new character school boards will look like from years of practice in Indiana and elsewhere. Bills like this are also another step toward stealing the futures of the next generation, who will be saddled with conspiracy and political ideologies paraded as education and knowledge. Critical thinking skills will continue to wither, further priming and fueling the pumps of paternalism and fascism. The inability to decipher fact from mis- and dis- information–recall that lessons on these topics may not only be outlawed by be punished through revocation of the right to vote–requires dependence on daddy government.**
If you’re in Indiana, write your representatives, then write them again. Show up to your local board meetings in support of your educators and in support of a public system that is part of the landscape of “choice.”
If you’re outside the state, you can’t sit this one out, either. Just because you don’t live in a “bad” “red” state like Indiana doesn’t mean you won’t feel the effects of bills like this now or in the future. I for one wish every single person had the ability to learn and to learn to think, regardless of whatever someone believes their future job prospects may be. The person serving you fries at McDonalds is no less deserving of that than any other person in any other job, regardless of what patronizing messaging politicians deliver.
Public education is in crisis.
We are the only ones who can do something about it.
Notes:
*Your required reading on this topic is The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual by Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider.
**Recall that people voted for Trump because they want to be able to afford the price of eggs that they drive home in their oversized, gas guzzling pickup trucks and they say so without but a moment of thinking about whether or not that is even something a politician can do or whether or not there might be some other reasons for the price of goods like eggs to keep increasing.