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Movies by mail. Streaming content on your phone. Original shows that are more popular than what’s on network television.
Thirty years ago, all of that seemed not just impossible, but unimaginable.
Enter American entrepreneur Reed Hastings, who co-founded Netflix and permanently disrupted the way we’re entertained.
“Don’t be afraid to change the model,” Hastings once said.
Yet with all our forward momentum in technology and commerce, one area has been noticeably less open to opening new doors and doing new things over the past half-century: K-12 schooling.
As a nation, we’ve struggled to align the way we educate our students with today’s economy and workforce needs, and we’ve denied families the options they deserve to find schooling that meets their kids’ needs and sets them up for a lifetime of success.
I’m proud that Indiana has led the pack in breaking down those barriers and building up educational opportunity, and I want to commend our elected officials for actions in the most recent legislative session that will position our state for success for decades to come.
This year, we expanded our highly successful school choice program to include almost every Hoosier family that wants to opt into a private-school education, knocking down hurdles that might previously have prevented students from entering the program. We also expanded eligibility for the state’s education savings account program for students with special learning needs.
To ensure fair funding for public-school students, lawmakers increased resources for charter schools to access quality facilities and serve their growing student populations. They also increased teacher pay, eliminated textbook fees that have created a burden for families and schools, and opened more pathways for educators to enter the classroom.
Those were all much-needed improvements designed to advance equity within our existing educational ecosystem.
Indiana Speaker Todd Huston took opportunity to the next level with his Career Scholarship Accounts program, which will provide $5,000 accounts for high school students to spend on work-based learning, apprenticeships and postsecondary acceleration.
The scholarship accounts will enhance Indiana’s strong commitment to career and technical education by providing funding directly to students to pursue training and real-world experiences that will prepare them to enter the workforce.
This is a game changer for Indiana’s economy, and I can’t wait to see the results.
Empowering families with opportunity and equipping our kids with the skills they need to succeed are shared goals every Hoosier can support.
The education-reform policies enacted in Indiana this session represent a major investment in our students that will position our state to compete nationally and globally for decades.
I’m proud of the innovative work our elected officials have done to modernize our K-12 system over the past decade and especially this year. I can’t wait to see what’s next as we keep improving the model.•
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Hubbard is co-founder and chair of E&A Industries, former director of the National Economic Council, a member of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and serves on the ExcelinEd board of directors.
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