This came from a teacher in northern Indiana:

Dear Indiana Politician:

I am a public school teacher. I am a breast cancer survivor. I dreamed as a little girl of the day I would be a teacher. I never dreamed as a woman that I would one day be a cancer survivor. So now I am both and proud that I am.

I write to you today as both, for you see there are times these days that my role as an educator are more challenging, more stressful, more worrisome than my days as a cancer patient/survivor. I never ever in my wildest imagination dreamed that I would one day be in a fight for my life. I also never ever dreamed I’d be in the fight of a lifetime to save my students’ joy of learning, my public schools, my profession.

I didn’t just wake up one day, and my lump was there. It had been there all along, undetected. The same holds true for vouchers and their expansion. They have been there all along, mostly undetected. But now, they have metastasized at unparalleled speed.

With my cancer diagnosis I worked closely with my team of doctors, my cancer experts. I always felt as though my input mattered. Together we made sound decisions.
Yet the educational reform (and all that it encompasses) rages across our country out of control without many, if any, educational experts weighing in. Those educational experts valued by teachers are dismissed by those making legislation in favor of individuals with business savvy and big bucks but no expertise—no experience—in the classroom. Why would educators be left out of the decision-making process?

Even clinical trials are observed to see how well they are working. Yet the voucher program expansion of HB 1003 goes unchecked, willy-nilly, into unchartered territory without regard to how it will affect public education, financially or otherwise. What started out as a way to afford impoverished children an educational opportunity they may not otherwise have had seems to have become lost in this whole process. Today voting constituents feel that the focus is more on profit, not students. Communities are no longer buying into the façade that public schools are failing. They are beginning to follow the money.

I have seen how my having cancer affects those around me. I have seen and, sadly, continue to see how the siphoning off of public funds from public schools affects my students, my colleagues, my district, my neighborhood, my community, my city. More choice for students receiving vouchers results in less choice for my students.

The lessons learned as a cancer patient/survivor are plentiful. Perhaps the most important lesson is that I learned not to let the cancer define who I am.

In the same manner I will not allow all that is happening in education define who I am as a teacher. I know what kind of teacher I am, for I hold that belief in my heart. Teaching is much more than my career; it is my passion. Everyday I enter my classroom believing I am a master teacher, for if I didn’t hold true to that claim, I shouldn’t be there.

Even more importantly, I refuse to let all that is happening in education define my students, my school, my district, my community. My students have so much potential. My students’ lives are more complicated than I can ever begin to imagine. They overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and are successful because they meet their challenges. If you could see my students, you would know what I mean.

It is time to exam how well the voucher program in place is working before expanding it even further. Every dollar diverted from public schools is another blow to public education upon which this great country of ours is founded. When public school funding is lost, my students lose out! It is not a fair and level playing field. When public schools lose, we all lose. The public is becoming aware of the injustice of what is happening to their public schools and their students.

My physicians saved my life. Be a Hoosier politician who saves public education—not one who dismantles and helps privatize it. Give all students the same educational opportunities. Our future, our democracy, depends on public schools. It’s time to bring back the joy of learning for all students! I applaud those of you who have taken a stand in support of public education even it has meant that you must face the ire of your political party. I know that can’t be easy.

Please vote NO! on HB 1003. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Thank you,

Donna Roof

In Indiana, new legislation would offer vouchers to children who never attended a public school. This eliminates the fiction that vouchers are going to “save children from failing schools.”

This is a message from Julian Smith in Induana. He offers a sample letter. Or, write your own.

Subject: Fwd: Two Minute Task #8 HB 1003 Vouchers

As you are probably aware, HB1003 will be coming to the Senate floor for a vote next week.

This is a battle we can and must win. These guys may want a reason to vote no, and blitzing them with a compelling thought may make a difference if we do this together, share with others, and ask them to do the same. The contacts, meetings, and emails have already had positive effects. Let’s keep the pressure on right up to the vote.

Feel free to copy and paste if you’d like, but please make sure they hear from you and anyone you know that has an interest in saving our public schools. It may be more effective to copy/paste to each senator individually, so they don’t see a big group of senators in the address line and realize that they have been targeted.

Miller s24@in.gov
Bray s37@in.gov
Crider s28@in.gov
Steele s44@in.gov
Waltz s36@in.gov
Hershman s7@in.gov
Delph s29@in.gov
Leising s42@in.gov

Dear Senator ____________________,

I’m writing because I oppose HB1003 and the further expansion of the voucher program. If enacted it will have serious negative effects for public schools. I would remind you that the way this was originally packaged and promoted to the Senate was with the understanding that “public schools would have the first shot”, Gov. Daniel’s words, and as a savings to the state. Offering vouchers to children that have never been counted in public schools amounts to a new expense to the state and reduces dollars available to already struggling to catch up traditional public schools.

We have yet to establish whether or not the program is producing any benefit, as some students initially utilizing a voucher have returned to a traditional public school. Accelerating the program at this point does not make sense. Let’s slow down and first evaluate the program we now have in place.

Thank you,

(Sign your name)

Click send

Copy/ Paste/Repeat

Senator Grooms s46@in.gov has already gone on record as opposed. You might send him a quick thank you to help insure he doesn’t have a change of heart.

This is a thoughtful analysis of the dreadful voucher decision in Indiana yesterday.

It says, “The plaintiffs in the voucher case alleged the program violates three sections of the Indiana Constitution: Article 8, Section 1, which requires a “general and uniform system of Common Schools”; Article 1, Section 4, which says citizens can’t be forced to support a place of worship or ministry; and Article 1, Section 6, which forbids spending state money to support a “religious or theological institution.”

In a 5-0 decision, the state court rejected their case.

The schools getting the vouchers may require students to participate in religious exercise, and they typically do.

The schools getting vouchers may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, “But they are free to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, test scores, IQ, family income, parental politics or just about any other criteria you can imagine.”

It is hard to square this decision with the language of the state constitution.

The radical choice ideologues in Indiana don’t like public education. Left in power, they will destroy it.