EDITORIAL: Race to the Top - or fall behind

The Journal Gazette

Indiana's public school teachers must step up to share the economic burden their fellow Hoosiers have experienced for more than a year now. They can begin by supporting the bold demands placed on the competition for federal Race to the Top funds.

Changes demanded by the U.S. Department of Education in exchange for a share of the $4.35 billion are unsettling, to be sure. But taxpayer-supported schools have been largely untouched by the recession to this point, and Indiana's revenue forecast makes it clear that must change. There will be jobs lost or moved to other schools. Evaluations will be tied to student performance, and teachers might find themselves relearning classroom methods they thought they had mastered.

It will happen because there is no other choice. The $300 million in K-12 spending cuts that Gov. Mitch Daniels called for last week are likely just the first. Larry DeBoer, a local government finance expert from Purdue University, has predicted the state will need to cut $700 million more from the budget by July 2011.