Referendums to add money to shrinking public school budgets, such as those held Tuesday in Lake and Porter counties, will be the wave of the future as long as the Indiana General Assembly controls funding.
That was among the messages brought by Glenda Ritz, Indiana's newly elected superintendent of public instruction, during whistle-stop appearances Wednesday in the region.
Ritz talked with future, current and retired educators during stops at the Hammond Area Career Center; Theo’s Restaurant in Highland with the Hammond Teachers Federation’s retirees chapter; the Porter County Career & Technical Center in Valparaiso; and Valparaiso University. It was part of her Imagining the Possibilities. Making Them Happen tour of the state.
Although state funding for education now follows the child from one district to another, the funding formula for Indiana public schools is “all really about privatization (of schools),” Ritz said bluntly at the lunch meeting at Theo’s Restaurant.
The per-student reimbursement from the state is a set base amount, Ritz said. More money is added to that base for students on free- and reduced-lunch programs.
“The only way to increase the funding is to change the composition of the state legislature,” she said at the luncheon.
During her talk at the Hammond Area Career Center, Ritz told the administrators and teachers that “you need to continue having referendums. You have to spend money to get money.”
“I’d run that referendum again,” Ritz said about the effort in Hebron that failed to pass by just four votes. “They need to run it like a real campaign.”
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