2022-2023 Indiana Education and Voucher Funding Summary

While the overall Indiana General Fund Budget has grown faster than inflation, growth in Indiana’s budget for public school personnel has not. As of October of 2022, the current budget for the majority of the personnel in public, charter, and voucher-receiving schools is $590M behind the 2009-10 budget when inflation is taken into account. The current budget, at the time it passed, significantly made up the difference on a year to year basis; however, recent spikes in inflation have eaten those gains.

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My Speech at the Statehouse to the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

Submitted by Phil on Tue, 02/18/2020 – 14:48

Good afternoon, it is a profound honor to speak to you today, thank you. I am Phil Downs. I am a social studies teacher currently on assignment as the superintendent of Southwest Allen County Schools, and I was asked to speak for five minutes today on the research I have done into Indiana’s budget and its Voucher program. 

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Address to the 2019 Indiana School Board Association Conference

Submitted by Phil on Sat, 10/05/2019 – 10:34

In 1949, my parents were 10 years old, Harry Truman was president, the Mann Gulch fire revolutionized the study of forest fires, the Berlin Blockade ended, Mao Tse Tung became the premiere of the People’s Republic of China, the Geneva Convention was signed, Lucky Lady II performed the first non-stop circumnavigation flight of the planet, 1984 was published, NATO was established, Newfoundland joined Canada, the world’s first commercially available computer, The Ferranti Mark 1, was released, and the first ISBA/IAPSS conference was held. It is my profound honor to be addressing the 70th ISBA/IAPSS conference. Congratulations everyone.

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Indiana Education Spending

Submitted by Phil on Sat, 04/20/2019 – 07:51

Indiana Education Spending

Here is a fact: from 2009 to 2018 the Tuition Support budget used to pay Indiana’s public and charter school teachers has grown by 13% while inflation has grown by 17%, and the total Indiana General Fund Budget grew by 21%. There is money in the General Fund to bring Education funding up to inflation. Our elected officials made a choice to move money away from public and charter educators and are failing to live up to the responsibility to fund public education they took on in 2009. 

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Indiana’s Schools Deserve Better

Submitted by Phil on Mon, 10/16/2017 – 05:45

“Applying simple solutions to complex problems creates more complex problems.” -Ronald Heifetz

Recently Indiana released the A-F grades for its schools. Each year there is a chance any given school’s ISTEP+ scores and A-F grades may go up or down. This is because ISTEP+ fits statistical models and “regression to the mean” is a real thing. 

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