INDIANAPOLIS — Even though Gov. Mitch Daniels and the head of Indiana's largest teachers union sat down together to talk education reform last week, the two aren't likely to agree on major policy positions any time soon.
"The only agreement we had was that there would be some things we would disagree on," Nate Schnellenberger, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, said of the meeting.
After Daniels highlighted his education reform agenda in his State of the State address, the two sides of the debate have become clear. The question now is whether Schnellenberger and the governor's other opponents have any chance of affecting the outcome as this year's four-month legislative session progresses.
Given the new political dynamics at the Statehouse — Republicans control both chambers of the General Assembly and hold every statewide elected office — teachers unions now have to maneuver without their old power base in the Indiana House.
Though all of last year's campaign finance documents are not yet available online, the Indiana State Teachers Association's political action committee appears to have spent at least $1.5 million, mostly in support of Democratic Indiana House candidates.
Some of those candidates won, but in a year that Republicans turned a 52-48 minority into a 60-40 majority, most Democrats in swing districts — those who might have been close allies of the teachers unions that helped finance their campaigns — lost.
So Schnellenberger said his organization is meeting with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and particularly Republicans who will have their hands on education-related bills.
"What we requested of them is that they listen to our input and consider it, and the leaders in the House and the Senate have indicated to us that they would do that. I believe that they were sincere in that offer," Schnellenberger said.
The best chance teachers unions have of affecting the package of education reforms that lawmakers consider this year could come on a grassroots level, though, he said.
The strategy, Schnellenberger said, is to encourage teachers to "talk to all legislators, Republicans and Democrats, and have teachers and hopefully parents say to them, 'Whoa, this is overreaching. It's not reform, it's radical change.'"
"The thing that concerns us is in the past, there had to be negotiations between the House and the Senate because they were controlled by two different parties," Schnellenberger said. "They don't have to negotiate. I hope that they don't overreach, doing things that don't make sense to the people who understand those issues."
In his State of the State address, Daniels emphasized the importance of teacher quality, calling it dramatically more important than any other factor to a student's success.
That's the governor's argument behind his push for changes that would base teacher salaries in large part on the progress their students make from the beginning to the end of the year.
It's also behind his call for collective bargaining agreements between teachers unions and school corporations to be restricted to only salary and benefits, which would allow school corporations to decide which teachers to keep and which to fire based on more factors than degrees held and years of experience.
"Teacher quality has been found to be 20 times more important than any other factor, including poverty, in determining which kids succeed. Class size, by comparison, is virtually meaningless," Daniels said.
Schnellenberger said he was irked by the way Daniels delivered that message.
"What I'm going to tell you is that the governor has never taught in front of 40 students. I think you can ask any teacher who has classroom experience and I don't think they would agree," he said.
"Teacher quality is certainly important, but so are other factors like the home environment that the student comes from. There's a reason that the majority of students who are low-performing come from poverty."
Schnellenberger said he also objects to new restrictions on collective bargaining. He said the rules the governor is proposing would diminish teachers' ability to play leadership roles.
"It eliminates teachers from any role in the educational programming other than showing up and teaching. Their advice, their input, wouldn't necessarily be used. We think it de-professionalizes the profession," he said.
The area the two sides might be most likely to agree, Schnellenberger said, is on basing teacher evaluations on student performance.
The point of contention will be just to what degree that will happen. Daniels wants student performance to be the most important factor in teacher evaluations; Schnellenberger wants it to be one of several factors that are weighed equally.
Differences between the Daniels administration and Democrats were on display during a State Budget Committee meeting last week.
State Budget Director Adam Horst and Office of Management and Budget Director Chris Ruhl — two of the governor's top fiscal aides — told the committee that private school vouchers would actually cause the per-pupil funding that Indiana's public schools receive to increase.
That's because they're seeking vouchers, on a sliding scale that gives the most money to low-income families, for somewhere short of 100 percent of the funding that a public school would otherwise receive for each student — about $6,000.
That drew the ire of Democrats such as Rep. Bill Crawford of Indianapolis. Crawford said that if the state directs dollars away from public schools and into private schools, public schools will feel the pain.
Crawford wanted to know whether students who already attend private schools will become eligible for vouchers — a question that will be answered as education reform bills are considered in House and Senate committees.
Schnellenberger said if Indiana policymakers are going to pursue an educa-tion reform agenda, it should focus on early childhood education.
First, he said, the state should fund full-day kindergarten, and they should make it mandatory, as well. Next, Indiana should devote more resources to preschool education.
"There are three things that are shown to be immensely important in eliminating the achievement gap between students who are from poverty and students who don't come from poverty," he said.
On a philosophical basis, Daniels is not likely to disagree with Schnellenberger. The governor has pursued full-day kindergarten as an agenda item of his own in recent years. However, because the recession has caused state revenue to decline, he has said there is no way to fund it right now.
According to The Associated Press, Indiana is one of just eight states that spend no state dollars on preschool programs, and two-thirds of states require children to start school earlier than Indiana's standard age of 7.
"Of all the things you could do, preschool probably has the largest impact on school success," said Steve Barnett of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Daniels education aide Scott Jenkins said the governor supports full-day kindergarten and studying ways to expand access to preschool, but his immediate goal is making existing schools the best they can be.
"The direction of this administration is to work in the system we have," he said. "At a time of fiscal austerity, we try to protect resources going to the existing K-12 system. That's where our focus has been."
With state revenues down, leaders say Indiana cannot afford an early learning initiative now.
"I think we as a state must do it," said Tony Bennett, state superintendent of public instruction. "But it is going to be very challenging to have it become part of this legislative agenda on the basis of money."
The cost of an education program for children not old enough to attend first grade varies. The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency estimated in 2007 it would cost up to $94 million the first year to offer full-day kindergarten in all districts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.