By Casey Smith
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — A school funding provision in the Senate-drafted state budget has drawn apprehension from some Hoosier education officials who say the change threatens students’ access to “essential” training programs.

In contention is a proposal to eliminate existing career and technical education grants that Indiana schools can receive on top of basic tuition support. That includes added funding for programs in fields like agriculture, construction, health sciences and manufacturing.

Senate Republicans want to see those grants go away, however. The caucus’ budget plan eliminates the separate awards altogether and instead redirects the dollars back into the school funding formula to be disturbed to public K-12 schools statewide.

Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Mishawaka, said the move is part of an effort to give schools “more flexibility” over spending. Schools can still use the funds for career and technical education costs, he said, but local districts would also have the ability to use the money for other educational needs.

Indiana school administrators aren’t all on board, though.

Superintendents from around the state caution that — without dedicated career and technical education funding — more than 225,000 Indiana students may lose guaranteed access to quality career and technical education.

Gail Zeheralis with the Indiana State Teachers Association additionally urged lawmakers to  keep career and technical education funding separate from other school funding to ensure “transparency.”

“The grants are supposed to be used for encouraging career and technical education,” Zeheralis said while testifying last week before lawmakers. “Folding it in, I get, provides some flexibility, but we just want to make sure that isn’t supplanting tuition support funding.”

The proposed grant elimination comes amid the push for a Republican-backed plan to “reinvent” Hoosier high school curriculum with an expanded emphasis on work-based learning opportunities.

Changes to the school funding formula

Current career and technical education funding for schools varies by course classification and is determined by the Department of Workforce Development and State Board of Education. The grants intend to encourage school corporations to offer courses in high-wage, high-demand fields.

Under the existing funding model, introductory courses qualify schools and career education centers for a $300 grant, while apprenticeships and high–demand training is reimbursed up to $1,020 per student.

For the 2021-22 school year, $168.1 million in state and federal dollars covered career and technical education training costs for roughly 223,000 students, according to the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet.

The number of students enrolled in state-funded career and technical education courses increased this year to more than 228,000 — representing about 65% of all Indiana high schoolers. Those enrollments translate into a new high of $179.4 million invested in career and technical education programs by the state.

The House version of the next two-year state budget included an increase in the current line for “high-value” career and technical education programs by 5% in both the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years.

Under the Senate-proposed budget, career and technical education dollars are rolled into foundational funding schools get, including via complexity grants — part of the state’s school funding formula that provides additional funding to school corporations to educate kids from low-income families.

Katrina Hall, representing Indiana Farm Bureau, said many leaders in the state’s rural communities are especially concerned about the grant elimination.

“In order to provide flexibility and the opportunity and reward for growth and innovation in vocational programs, I believe that having CTE as a categorical grant — as it’s been before — allows for that and makes that a tight fit,” she said last week at the Statehouse.

Denny Costerison, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials, said his group is primarily lobbying to see an overall increase in the foundational amounts schools get through the funding formula.

But he said career and technical education dollars should remain independent of that calculation. That’s what is currently done for extra spending on special education, for example.

“For career technical education, those programs often require a lot of equipment or machines or what have you to properly teach those courses. So, they’ve been given additional dollars,” Costerison told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “The biggest concern is without that (separate funding), CTE would lose that emphasis.”

Still, Costerison said he thinks CTE grant funding will “likely” be returned to the final budget draft as a result of the pushback from school officials.

Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, emphasized, too, that lawmakers are not committed to career and technical education grant elimination.

“Schools, obviously, will continue to do CTE funding. This just doesn’t set it out separately so they could use it for some other things, as the school would prioritize,” Bray said last week. “There are some conversations going on now. I know I’ve heard from some of my folks in my district about whether or not we pull that CTE specifically back out. It may — we may very well do that. We haven’t decided yet.”

Last-minute school funding talks

Career and technical education funding is sure to be part of state lawmakers’ deliberations as the Indiana General Assembly enters the final days of the 2023 legislative session.

Spending decisions have become more complicated, in a way, after better-than-expected tax collections gave budget writers an unexpected $1.5 billion to work with.

Education advocates say they’re hoping to see some of that extra money appropriated for K-12.

Those lobbying for public schools said they want to see a bigger tuition support increase in the next state budget, and for other expenses to be funded separately.

That’s especially true for textbooks.

The Senate included a separate, $160 million annual line item to eliminate K-12 student textbook fees. House budget writers, on the other hand, required schools to dip into their foundational funding to fully pay students’ curricular materials costs.

“Without having a specific line item for this new (textbook) expenditure, it just comes off the top (of base funding), and … there’s no flexibility — you have to have materials,” Zeheralis said.

But “school choice” supporters want a major voucher expansion returned to the budget.

The House GOP spending plan sought to allocate $1.1 billion in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 to expand eligibility for the Choice Scholarship program. Senate Republicans completely nixed that plan in their proposal.

“We’re 12 years into a new paradigm as it relates to private school choice and how funding occurs … and my hope is that we can all get beyond that more siloed focus — how do we work together to ensure that we have the best education program in the country, here in the state of Indiana?” John Elcesser, executive director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association, told lawmakers last week.

Legislators are expected to announce new changes to the budget in the coming days. The spending plan must be finalized by Saturday.

See the original story here.