The tone of the 2021 budget session of the Indiana General Assembly has been quite different from the last budget session in 2019 when K-12 public education leaders stood with legislative leaders to announce a state budget that devoted $763 million in new funding for K-12 public education.
Fast forward to this session, and it has been one consumed with a contentious debate on the proposed expansion of school choice programs that devote significant funds to private education. Indiana already ranks fifth for spending of state tax dollars on private school programs, but now ranks just 39th in the nation for per-pupil expenditures for public schools and the more than 1 million students we serve â down from 22nd among states in 2004. Why this shift in legislative priority has occurred is befuddling, given that the facts neither support the need nor benefit of state funding for private schools.