Democratic governor candidate Jennifer McCormick unveils five-pillar education plan

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick shared her education plan for the state on Thursday. The plan emphasizes five pillars including early child care and universal pre-K, school accountability, transferable skills, teacher pay and local autonomy.

McCormick said first, Indiana needs to shift its view of education expenses to be able to make necessary changes.

“Too often in Indiana, we talk about the expense because we are incredibly expensive, but we don’t talk about it as an investment,” she said.

McCormick served as Indiana’s last state superintendent of public instruction until 2020. She was a special education and language arts teacher for a decade before becoming Yorktown Community Schools’ superintendent in 2007.

One of the main pillars of the plan is accountability. McCormick said any schools that take public dollars — including private schools that receive vouchers — should be transparent and accountable to the state.

“Once you take public dollars, you have become a public school. And so, you know, admission policies should be very, very transparent,” she said. “They should be held accountable to take anyone who applies.”

McCormick said Indiana should ensure all public schools are meeting academic and fiscal accountability standards.

The plan also prioritizes raising teacher salaries to $60,000 and increasing accessibility to early child care and universal pre-K.

McCormick said the state could reprioritize funding to cover some of the cost of increasing teacher pay.

“It wasn’t too long ago, Indiana was giving money back to citizens,” she said. “And so, it’s things like that, that don’t make a whole lot of sense when we have teachers that are really struggling. It’s about prioritization of what we already have and making sure we’re holding people accountable.”

McCormick said the Indiana General Assembly could shift its focus and funding from the voucher program to teacher salaries.

“Where the money’s going also plays into this,” she said. “So many of the folks who are using vouchers have never stepped foot in a public school and never intended to. And I know there’s going to be different opinions on that, but public dollars should go to public schools.”

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McCormick is also advocating to give school districts more autonomy to innovate based on their resources and location.

Right now, schools must get permission from the Indiana State Board of Education to deviate from certain state requirements. McCormick said Indiana must shift from a one-size-fits-all model of education to a system that allows schools to have more flexibility.

“That doesn’t mean we’re bringing the rigor down,” she said. “It means that that prioritization and emphasis may look different based upon different areas of the state.”

Terry Goodin, McCormick’s pick for lieutenant governor and former superintendent at Crothersville Community Schools, gave an example of what that flexibility could look like.

“Up to 25 percent of our kids graduated with an associate’s degree before they got their high school diploma. That’s the flexibility that Dr. McCormick is talking about,” he said. “We didn’t water down our curriculum. We made it tougher. And then, on the other side of that, those kids who went the vocational route or didn’t want to go to college, we allowed them to get certifications.”

The final pillar of the plan involves making sure students have transferable skills that meet high standards by the time they leave high school. McCormick said that will give them choices and prepare them for whichever path they choose after graduation.

“We need to have an educated and healthy workforce, and educated and healthy consumers. And we will all be better for it,” she said. “But again, it’s looking at it differently as an investment versus just constantly hammering it. It’s a huge expense.”

Kirsten is our education reporter. Contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @kirsten_adair.