INDIANAPOLIS — It's no secret that relations between teachers and the people who make education policy in Indiana are pretty sour. When aggressive drives for reform come at the same time as $300 million in funding cuts, that sort of thing happens.
So teachers might have yawned when Gov. Mitch Daniels' administration released a report Friday showing that the state still spends a lower percentage of its education dollars "in the classroom" — that is, on teacher salaries, textbooks and more — than the national average.
State Superintendent Tony Bennett's insistence that those figures must improve was probably treated by teachers with a reaction somewhere along the lines of, "that stinks, but what are we supposed to do about it?"
Especially when, in the policy realm, "teachers" means the Indiana State Teachers Association, the two sides are not inclined to help each other much these days. Here, though, is a case where they might be able to work together, if for no other reason than their goals share some obstacles.
In a recent interview, Daniels — no doubt the state's top education policymaker, along with Bennett — said he is not sure if the federal stimulus package, which injected more than $600 million into Indiana schools, was necessary to save teaching jobs.
That, he said, is because there is no way to know whether schools need more money until they are at least meeting the national average on the percentage of education dollars that are spent in the classroom instead of on outside expenses such as debt, food, janitorial services, transportation and administration.
The governor's perspective seems to be that the pain that comes with a couple of years of recession-forced cutbacks might be the only way schools will learn the long-term lesson that it's a bad idea to do things such as take on the debt that comes with expensive buildings and sports facilities, hire bloated administrations to run schools and more.
Meanwhile, national Democrats have been maneuvering to see if they can inject some extra cash into schools so that as many as 150,000 teachers are not laid off. They are recognizing, in effect, that it's not the teachers who are to blame for any of this.
In this case, at least to some extent, both Daniels and the Democrats — and the teachers who are backing them — are right, and they both want to direct more dollars into classrooms.
So it seems as though there must be room here for the teachers and the state's education policymakers to work together in a way that gives teachers individual cover and leverage to challenge their administrations' spending habits.
How? For starters, the Daniels administration and the Indiana Department of Education should help local teachers' associations by giving them the ammunition and political backing to challenge school boards and superintendents, when such challenges are merited.
Teachers could get aggressively behind the idea of eliminating the silos that dictate where property tax dollars must go, and prevent money collected for items such as transportation and debt service from going to classroom expenses.
Though Daniels has tried hard to break schools' dependence on property taxes as a revenue stream, he could budge a little. And if he does, it could go a long way toward restoring teachers' trust in his administration.
Daniels and Bennett have made clear their disdain for teacher tenure, and union contracts that protect older teachers who have lost their drive and force strong young teachers to the front of the layoff line. As an initial step, they want better ways of evaluating how teachers affect their students' performance.
The Indiana State Teachers Association could earn some good will by seriously contributing to a conversation about how best to achieve those goals.
Maybe those ideas are nonstarters. Surely better ones exist. But the bottom line is if both sides want to direct more dollars into the classroom, there's no reason they shouldn't link arms.
After all, a working relationship could be a valuable asset for all involved if revenues eventually rebound, this discussion fizzles out and another one sits on the horizon.