Lawmakers draw close on limited voucher-expansion plan
Legislators are hammering out a modest expansion of the state’s school voucher program following a meeting of House and Senate lawmakers.
Legislators are hammering out a modest expansion of the state’s school voucher program following a meeting of House and Senate lawmakers.
The Indiana House on Thursday pulled a proposal to have the state's public schools consider having employees, including teachers and principals, carry guns during school hours.
A plan to make vouchers more widely available to families has met a roadblock: So despite the momentum, lawmakers say they want more time to look at the voucher program approved two years ago.
Indiana's A-F grading system for individual schools would be scrapped and implementation suspended on a national set of reading and math education standards under a bill the state Senate approved Wednesday.
A proposal to no longer require Indiana's local school superintendents to hold a state superintendent's or teacher's license passed the state Senate after Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann cast her first tie-breaking vote.
The Senate proposal would allow siblings of students already receiving vouchers to qualify for the program, raise the value of each voucher by $200 and eliminate a one-year waiting period in public schools for students who attend "failing" schools.
The chairman of the House committee currently considering the bill said he expected changes would be made before it advances, while the bill's main House sponsor signaled he wouldn't fight to keep the mandate, which was added last week.to violent attacks.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence says he believes local school officials should make decisions about security rather than being required to have an employee armed with a loaded gun during school hours.
A proposal to no longer require Indiana's local school superintendents to hold a state superintendent's or teacher's license is advancing in the Legislature.
An Indiana House committee has approved a proposal that would require all public and charter schools in the state to have an employee with a loaded gun present during school hours.
In a 5-0 vote, the justices rejected claims that the law primarily benefited religious institutions that run private schools. The decision paves the way for a possible expansion of the program.
The fate of a proposal to expand Indiana's private school voucher program by making kindergartners and some other students immediately eligible could come down to something that no one seems to know — how much it will cost.
A study by Chicago-based IFF found that 49 percent of K-12 students in Marion County are in schools that earned an A or B last year from the Indiana Department of Education.
Supporters of Indiana's charter schools and private school vouchers packed a Statehouse corridor with hundreds of children from those schools for a rally Monday as they backed expansion of those programs.
The interim superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools is taking steps to shore up the struggling district, but says she faces a "complex job" that won't bring miracles during her tenure.
Attorney General Greg Zoeller said Thursday he supports a bill in the General Assembly that would provide matching state grants to help schools create or expand school resource officer programs.
An advocacy group that supports Indiana's charter schools program said Tuesday that it's starting an advertising campaign to fight efforts to end the state's use of national reading and math standards.
A bill that would have eliminated Indiana’s A-F grading scale for individual schools has been withdrawn by its sponsor in the Indiana Senate.
The Indianapolis Public Schools board will vote Tuesday night to hire Peggy Hinckley, former superintendent of Warren Township schools, as interim superintendent to replace Eugene White.
Concerned that a shortage of high-quality schools is fueling a loss of population in Marion County, Mayor Greg Ballard’s administration and a series of community groups have drawn up a preliminary plan to help replicate the city’s most successful schools.