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John Hurley's Statement to the Indiana State Board of Education on CTE Funding Recommendations |
27 December 2019
Today the Indiana State Board of Education voted 9-0 to approve the Indiana Workforce Development Career and Technical Education Program Categorizations and Funding Recommendations. This move officially reallocated funding away from Foundational Courses in the Family and Consumer Science area to Advanced Courses. The following is my statement as made to the Board today:
"Thank you to the Board for allowing this meeting. I especially wanted to thank Dr. McCormick for informing the general public of the action that may take place today. She has elevated people above political party, a feat all public servants should strive to attain.
I am John Hurley and I am a Career and Technical Educator in Spencer County. I am asking you to maintain the funding for foundational courses. Our job as educators is to meet students where they are – state funding for foundational courses helps that happen. Our Family and Consumer Science program will be directly impacted by this reallocation of funds. Currently, our FACS instructor covers nearly one third of her own salary from the funding that would be moved to other areas. This is a major factor in maintaining Career and Technical Education programs in districts that received little or no new money from the state budget. Moving these funds would likely give cause to many small school districts to eliminate needed programs. This appears to be yet another effort by the appointed members of the Board to defund smaller school districts thereby forcing them into difficult program and personnel decisions.
For those willing to listen, I ask 'What is next? What other program will lose its support from the state level? Will Technology or Agriculture Education suffer the same fate? Will my community lose essential educational opportunities because of the decisions of this Board and the Statehouse?'"
John Hurley
Candidate for State Representative
District 75
Full video of the meeting available below:
"Thank you to the Board for allowing this meeting. I especially wanted to thank Dr. McCormick for informing the general public of the action that may take place today. She has elevated people above political party, a feat all public servants should strive to attain.
I am John Hurley and I am a Career and Technical Educator in Spencer County. I am asking you to maintain the funding for foundational courses. Our job as educators is to meet students where they are – state funding for foundational courses helps that happen. Our Family and Consumer Science program will be directly impacted by this reallocation of funds. Currently, our FACS instructor covers nearly one third of her own salary from the funding that would be moved to other areas. This is a major factor in maintaining Career and Technical Education programs in districts that received little or no new money from the state budget. Moving these funds would likely give cause to many small school districts to eliminate needed programs. This appears to be yet another effort by the appointed members of the Board to defund smaller school districts thereby forcing them into difficult program and personnel decisions.
For those willing to listen, I ask 'What is next? What other program will lose its support from the state level? Will Technology or Agriculture Education suffer the same fate? Will my community lose essential educational opportunities because of the decisions of this Board and the Statehouse?'"
John Hurley
Candidate for State Representative
District 75
Full video of the meeting available below:
