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“Should school board elections in Indiana be partisan?”
This is the third session in four years that the Indiana General Assembly has proposed legislation to move to partisan school board elections.
Currently, Indiana is one of 42 states that elect school board candidates on a nonpartisan ballot. During hours of public testimony, policymakers have heard from dozens of school board members urging them not to inject partisan politics into the boardroom. School board members have consistently shared that they are effectively building consensus to focus on putting children first. Nonpartisan elections help ensure elected candidates focus on educational issues such as curriculum, student achievement and school safety, rather than national political debates or party agendas.
The Indiana School Boards Association advises its members to leave their political beliefs at the boardroom door and focus on what is best for children. Contrary to claims, most boards do not operate on a political basis.
Injecting partisan politics into the boardroom will lead to fragmentation, divisiveness and polarization. In 2017, the Legislature voted to end the partisan election of the state superintendent of public instruction, citing the need to remove politics from education.
Many of the 1,700 school board members representing 290 school corporations whom I regularly engage with view this public service as “volunteer work” to support their school community, not as an opportunity to engage in politics.
While this issue has been debated for the last four years, our Hoosier students have significantly improved educational achievement outcomes since emerging from the pandemic, as highlighted by Gov. Braun in his State of the State Address. Overall, our fourth- and eighth-grade students rank well above national averages in reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. As Braun said, we have good schools. This raises the question: Why is a change in our candidate selection process needed?
A significant concern held by ISBA is the potential narrowing of the candidate pool. In 2024, for the 815 school board seats on the ballot, there were only 1,100 candidates. Additionally, dozens of school board members who are federal civil servants or employees of Indiana’s court system would be barred from ever running due to the restrictions of the federal Hatch Act and Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct.
Senate Bill 287 would add a costly primary and trigger the “two primaries” rule. Keep in mind that 81% of Hoosier voters have not voted in consecutive party primary elections. Who will be left to run for school board service?
Additionally, this could lead to political patronage when hiring the superintendent and other school administrators. Indiana moved away from this type of patronage system decades ago, for good reason!
School boards should focus on student achievement, not partisan politics. Candidates should continue to be chosen based on their qualifications, merits, experience and platform. SB 287 does not serve the best interests of Indiana’s students, families or communities.•
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Spradlin is executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association. Send comments to [email protected].
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The push to maintain nonpartisan school board elections in Indiana, as outlined by Terry Spradlin, overlooks a critical issue: voters often do not know enough about the candidates to make an informed decision. Identifying party affiliation would provide voters with a clear indicator of where a candidate stands on key educational policies and values, ensuring transparency in school governance.
School boards make significant decisions that shape the educational environment for children, including curriculum choices, library content, and administrative policies. Recent controversies, such as the inclusion of explicit materials in school libraries and a focus on progressive social agendas over fundamental academic skills, highlight the necessity of understanding a candidate’s ideological stance. Parents deserve to know whether a candidate supports policies that align with their own views on education.
Opponents argue that school boards should be free from politics, yet the reality is that political ideologies already influence many educational policies. Whether it is decisions on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or policies on parental rights, school boards are making inherently political choices. Transparency through party identification would help ensure voters can hold candidates accountable for their positions.
Furthermore, concerns about narrowing the candidate pool due to partisan elections are overstated. Many positions currently have limited candidates because the public is disengaged from the process. Providing clear political affiliation could encourage more engagement and interest from voters who would otherwise struggle to differentiate among candidates.
Education is one of the most vital issues facing our communities and ensuring that school board elections are transparent is essential to maintaining accountability. Hoosier voters deserve to make fully informed decisions, and identifying party affiliation is a practical step toward achieving that goal. Maybe Judges should also be included?
So what you are saying is you want schools to not focus on “progressive social agendas” but instead on conservative social agendas. Neither outcome focuses on academics.
The conservative agenda is academics.