The Indiana State Teachers Association, which represents nearly 40,000 educators, say teachers deserve the right to bargain over working conditions, such as hours, prep time and class sizes.
It’s not every day that the state’s teachers union, Republican leaders and education advocacy groups find themselves working toward the same goal.
Those in the trenches say structural barriers—the most significant seems to be teacher training and quality—must be solved before basic classes that explain how computers work and more advanced coding and web-development courses can flourish throughout Indiana’s secondary schools.
Indianapolis Public Schools and union leaders disagree about how it happened, but the impact is clear. The school principal will be able to fire teachers more easily—and pay them thousands of dollars more than teachers at other IPS schools.
Indiana lawmakers are considering a measure that requires state officials to publicize the percentage of teachers who are union members and, in some cases, inform them that they can get rid of or change that representation.
The plan would be offered to teachers as an alternative to the current pension-style plan. Some fear the state eventually could try to phase out the latter.
Indiana State Teachers Association Executive Director Brenda Pike plans to resign after six years at the job to take the same position at the troubled Alabama Education Association.
One proposal that would give school districts authority to negotiate higher pay with individual teachers faces an uncertain fate after the Republican Senate leader pronounced it dead Thursday. Another measure is still alive in the House.
Many school district administrators and Indiana's teachers unions are arguing against a legislative proposal that would give districts the authority to negotiate higher pay with individual teachers.
A bill that would create a path for teachers to try to negotiate extra pay and manage their own pension funds passed the Indiana House on Wednesday despite passionate opposition from Democrats and others.
A key state lawmaker says he plans to sponsor a bill in the next legislative session that would allow new teachers to choose a retirement program similar to a 401(k) plan instead of the traditional pension system.
A legislative study committee recommended a series of steps Monday that would whittle away at the authority of teacher unions while attempting to address Indiana's shrinking number of new teachers.
The agreement would end a four-year legal battle with Indiana's largest teachers union. But the Indiana State Teachers Association accused a Republican official of playing politics as she heads into an election year.
Indiana school districts which invested in a failed union health insurance plan could get back roughly half of the money they lost, if they approve the settlement.
Teresa Meredith, an elementary teacher from Shelbyville, has been elected president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, replacing long-time leader Nate Schnellenberger.
David Karandos, a broker who advised the Indiana State Teachers Association Insurance Trust before it collapsed in 2009, has reached a settlement. Karandos agreed to a 75-day suspension from working in the securities industry and may pay up to $50,000 in restitution.
A Marion Superior Court judge affirmed Indiana’s school voucher law on Friday, rejecting opponents’ arguments that the largest such program in the nation unconstitutionally uses public money to support religion.
String of controversial reforms draw campaign contributions, ire of opponents.
Indiana’s nearly 300 school superintendents are receiving more compensation than reported in their contracts, with extra payments for benefits such as health insurance counting toward their overall salaries for pension purposes, a newspaper’s investigation has found.
The dispute, which includes schools in Noblesville, stems from changes passed by the Legislature earlier this year limiting collective bargaining agreements between local districts and teachers’ unions.
