Editorial Roundup:
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. January 17, 2020
Time for action
Gov. Eric Holcomb has a good grasp of Indiana's strengths and challenges. His fourth annual message to citizens and lawmakers Tuesday night contained a string of proposals that could make Indiana a better place to live and do business.
But good intentions will not be enough. All of those ideas must be embraced by a legislature that, left to its own devices, is willfully blind to the needs of ordinary Hoosiers and has shown little compunction about ignoring the governor's suggestions.
In the the hectic weeks of the short session now underway, Holcomb should use the bully pulpit of his office as he's never used it before. Legislators seemed more than happy to wait for a gubernatorial commission that could take a year to resolve the question of whether public school teachers deserve competitive salaries. Something '“ could it have been 15,000 determined educators marching on the Statehouse? '“ persuaded Holcomb he should come up with an interim answer. Now the governor must ensure that his suggestion to free some funds from the state's $2.3 billion surplus gets carried out.
If Holcomb pushes legislators to step up, he will be working from a position of strength. Tuesday, he rightly touted Indiana's progress on economic development '“ more high-paying jobs, more capital investment, big infrastructure projects finally nearing completion, more people moving into the state than moving out.
Yes, the governor could have mentioned the need to do more to help working Hoosiers whose low-paying jobs barely allow them to survive. But things are better in the state than they were at the beginning of Holcomb's term, and it's important to recognize that.
Legislators happy with the status quo may take such stats as further excuse to sit on their laurels. But Holcomb's emphasis on better education and training for Hoosiers show the governor is looking ahead at coming changes in manufacturing, trucking and other key industries in the state. His mentions of a visit with India's president and the coming Indiana Global Economic Summit show an appreciation of the power of globalization '“ a concept that eludes some of his party's national leaders.
Holcomb also spoke to the needs of sometimes-forgotten groups, including veterans, convicts preparing to reenter society and '“ most of all '“ children. He celebrated progress at the Department of Child Services, while acknowledging there is more to be done. He called for faster processing of adoptions and reminded listeners of his call last year to drastically reduce Indiana's shameful infant-mortality rates.
He called for raising the age at which Hoosiers can buy tobacco to 21 and pledged to enforce it. His no-cost, commonsense proposal to ban cellphone use while driving drew no response from legislators who view the idea as an affront to 'œfreedom'ť instead of an attempt to save lives.
Summing up his agenda, Holcomb suggested Indiana become known as 'œA State that Works for All'ť ... 'œwhere every citizen '“ no matter their background or age or who they love or whether they grew up here or arrived last week '“ has equal access and opportunity to go as far as they wish and are willing to work to get there.'ť
Coming from an Indiana governor, those words were noteworthy and refreshing. But now Holcomb must take on the daunting task of selling his inclusive and forward-looking vision to the Indiana legislature.
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South Bend Tribune. January 16, 2020
Clock is ticking for redistricting reform in Indiana
Facing a ticking clock for changing how Indiana draws its congressional and legislative districts, activists recently turned out at the Statehouse to advocate for redistricting reform.
But will their message be heard by Republican lawmakers enjoying a supermajority that the status quo has helped them maintain?
Not likely. Over the years legislators (of both parties) have been loathe to change a system that gives them an advantage. Under the current system, the legislature is responsible for drawing its own legislative and congressional districts. This has resulted in maps that make it easy for incumbents to get re-elected and nearly impossible for challengers to be competitive.
During last year's legislative session, Indiana lawmakers passed on another opportunity to establish an independent redistricting commission. Six bills addressing redistricting reform were filed; one narrowly passed the Indiana Senate but was never called for a hearing in the House.
Critics of how Hoosier lawmakers carve up congressional and legislative districts know they are running out of time for changing that process with the once-a-decade U.S. census less than three months away. It was after the 2010 census, when Republicans gained complete control over redrawing the legislative and congressional maps, that they achieved full-supermajority command of the legislature.
At the recent Statehouse visit by activists, about a dozen legislators, most of them Democrats, signed a pledge from Common Cause Indiana supporting politically impartial redistricting standards. Republican Sen. John Ruckelshaus of Indianapolis, who also signed, announced a bill he's sponsoring to create a state website where the public can draw suggested maps and submit comments before the legislature votes on new districts in 2021.
Indiana sorely needs an independent commission to move redistricting out of the legislature, away from the political party in power. Other states have gone this route - including Michigan, which in 2018, passed Proposal 18-2, amending the state constitution and creating a citizen commission that will redraw the congressional district lines every 10 years.
Hoosiers don't have the option of taking such initiatives to the ballot, which is the route Michigan took.
The current legislative session is the last chance to reform redistricting before new maps for Congress and state legislature are drawn in 2021. It will likely be another missed opportunity to create a more open process that is fair to all Hoosiers.
Facing a ticking clock for changing how Indiana draws its congressional and legislative districts, activists recently turned out at the Statehouse to advocate for redistricting reform.
But will their message be heard by Republican lawmakers enjoying a supermajority that the status quo has helped them maintain?
Not likely. Over the years legislators (of both parties) have been loathe to change a system that gives them an advantage. Under the current system, the legislature is responsible for drawing its own legislative and congressional districts. This has resulted in maps that make it easy for incumbents to get re-elected and nearly impossible for challengers to be competitive.
During last year's legislative session, Indiana lawmakers passed on another opportunity to establish an independent redistricting commission. Six bills addressing redistricting reform were filed; one narrowly passed the Indiana Senate but was never called for a hearing in the House.
Critics of how Hoosier lawmakers carve up congressional and legislative districts know they are running out of time for changing that process with the once-a-decade U.S. census less than three months away. It was after the 2010 census, when Republicans gained complete control over redrawing the legislative and congressional maps, that they achieved full-supermajority command of the legislature.
At the recent Statehouse visit by activists, about a dozen legislators, most of them Democrats, signed a pledge from Common Cause Indiana supporting politically impartial redistricting standards. Republican Sen. John Ruckelshaus of Indianapolis, who also signed, announced a bill he's sponsoring to create a state website where the public can draw suggested maps and submit comments before the legislature votes on new districts in 2021.
Indiana sorely needs an independent commission to move redistricting out of the legislature, away from the political party in power. Other states have gone this route - including Michigan, which in 2018, passed Proposal 18-2, amending the state constitution and creating a citizen commission that will redraw the congressional district lines every 10 years.
Hoosiers don't have the option of taking such initiatives to the ballot, which is the route Michigan took.
The current legislative session is the last chance to reform redistricting before new maps for Congress and state legislature are drawn in 2021. It will likely be another missed opportunity to create a more open process that is fair to all Hoosiers.
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Kokomo Tribune. January 15, 2020
To codify cursive
For the older folks among us, a memo from state education officials in the spring of 2011 that cursive writing would no longer be a part of the required curriculum came as a bit of a shock.
We remember making entire rows of letters and being judged on whether we made the loops in precisely the right way. Learning the proper way to make a capital 'œA'ť and a small 'œt'ť were simply a part of growing up.
How could schools suddenly stop offering that instruction? What would become of a future generation of adults unable to sign their own names? Lawmakers continue to ask those same questions.
Since 2011, Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, has carried a bill to reverse the decision that jettisoned penmanship in favor of keyboarding skills for elementary school students in Indiana. Her fellow senators have passed that bill each of the last eight years, and the House Education Committee has killed it.
Leising again has co-authored a bill this session with Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn. Senate Bill 57 would require every school district, charter school and nonpublic elementary to include cursive writing in its curriculum.
Her bill last session included data.
According to WXIN-TV Indianapolis, the state Department of Education surveyed Hoosier educators from Aug. 4, 2017, through Oct. 1, 2017. Of 3,878 respondents, 70% said they favored mandatory cursive writing instruction.
Fortunately for the traditionalists among us, Kokomo area school administrators told us in 2011 they have no plans to abandon the lessons in cursive writing.
John Bevan, former superintendent of Southeastern School Corp. in nearby Walton, said a decision to stop teaching cursive would extend beyond the ability of students to sign their names. If students don't learn cursive, he said, they won't be able to read historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.
'œWe can't do everything on computers and smartphones,'ť he said. 'œI'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way.'ť
And so, for now anyway, students in Kokomo area schools will continue to learn how to make the proper loop on a capital 'œL.'ť
School officials in other districts likely have similar opinions on handwriting.
Of course, now that such instruction is no longer part of the required curriculum, we can guess that the time spent on it will continue to decline.
But yet another law dictating what teachers should teach is not needed.
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