NEW ALBANY —

By ED CLERE

Local Columnist



Attempts to politicize a recommendation to close four Floyd County elementary schools conveniently ignore facts — and history. Politics don't belong in education; that's why school board elections are nonpartisan. Only bipartisan cooperation and respectful, constructive dialogue will lead to solutions.

The move toward closing neighborhood schools started long before last week's announcement by the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp.

My grandmother attended Cora Martin School in the 1920s. It was a neighborhood elementary school at Vincennes and Shelby streets.

When Fairmont Elementary School opened in 1943, Cora Martin became an annex of neighboring New Albany High School. At the time, Fairmont was at the very edge of town, where a highway sign gave the distance to Seymour and Indianapolis. Cora Martin was demolished in 1979 to make room for the high school's swimming pool; a few stones at the corner are all that's left of what was once a vital - and beautiful - neighborhood school. In an ironic twist, under the schools' current proposal to save money, the swimming pool that replaced Cora Martin would remain open while three of four others would be closed.

I'm not against swimming pools or other amenities, but they weren't always a given. That, of course, brings up another bit of useful historical fact. New Albany High School's original gym at its current location wasn't built at taxpayer expense. “Residents and alumni together organized the New Albany Gymnasium Corporation and raised $75,000 for the construction of the gym,” according to New Albany in Vintage Postcards by David C. Barksdale and Robyn Davis Sekula.

Now we're faced with the closing of another neighborhood school. Will history repeat itself? Will we be left with a few stones at the corner of Silver Street and Ekin Avenue? Let's hope not, but let's do more than hope; let's work together to look for solutions - not just to save and support the few remaining neighborhood schools, but also to address the many other challenges in public education.

As a homeowner in the Silver Street school district and a historic preservationist, I'm very concerned about the proposed closing. I also recognize that difficult and unpopular decisions must be made. These are local decisions, and I hope school officials will engage parents, educators and other community members who feel left out of the decision-making process regarding all four proposed school closings and the dozens of other cost-saving measures.

In the case of Silver Street, if the decision is to close the school, I hope school officials will commit to maintaining the school's appearance and actively seeking an adaptive reuse that will benefit the neighborhood. It's even possible Silver Street could reopen as a charter school. Why not?

Since the proposed school closings were announced last week, many have blamed Gov. Mitch Daniels and other Republicans who supported a major change in the way schools are funded. In 2008, as part of a sweeping property tax reform package, the legislature shifted funding for public school operations from property taxes to the state budget. It was a bipartisan move.

In fact, I'm the only local legislator who didn't vote to shift school funding from property taxes to the state. Those votes took place almost exactly two years ago - before I was elected. In fact, my predecessor, former Rep. Bill Cochran, a Democrat, was on the conference committee that crafted the final legislation. Democrats were in the majority in the House of Representatives then, as they are now, and could have blocked the change. Instead, every legislator representing Floyd and Clark counties — all Democrats — voted for the shift from property taxes to state revenue.

They also all voted — in a separate measure — to amend the constitution to include property tax caps. Three of them are current or former public school educators: Sen. Connie Sipes (New Albany), a retired principal, Rep. Paul Robertson (Depauw), a retired teacher, and Rep. Terry Goodin (Austin), superintendent of the Crothersville Community Schools.

Fast forward to the present. It's convenient for some to blame Republicans. Others want to blame Democrats. I'm not interested in pointing fingers at anyone. I'm looking for solutions. That's why I worked to make Senate Bill 309 a bipartisan bill. I was one of two Republicans on the House Education Committee who joined seven Democrats in passing it out of committee 9-3, and I was part of a bipartisan 83-16 majority that supported it on the floor.

SB 309 is one of two bills that would give schools flexibility to use normally restricted funds to replace funds that were cut by the governor in December. The other is House Bill 1367. House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, had announced that the House would complete its business last Thursday - 10 days before the March 14 deadline for adjournment. At the 11th hour - literally - Bauer unexpectedly adjourned the House until tomorrow, leaving education funding up in the air.

The state has accepted responsibility for funding schools, and we must fulfill that commitment. We cannot, however, deny economic reality. We're in the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The last time we experienced such economic challenges there was a striking Richardsonian Romanesque elementary school at the corner of Vincennes and Shelby streets.

Things will get worse before they get better. Revenue collections for February missed forecast for the 17th consecutive month. Additional cuts will be necessary.

Property taxes are considered to be stable compared to sales, income and gaming taxes and other sources of state revenue, which fluctuate with the economy. Many other vital programs are funded by the state, and I haven't heard critics of the 2008 property tax legislation call for them to be funded by property taxes, even though stability would be desirable. Higher education, Medicaid and state police are a few examples. Another big one is teacher pensions, which the legislature has a bad habit of tapping whenever there's a budget crisis. As a result, teacher pensions are underfunded by more than $11 billion - that's right, billion.

Finger-pointing won't solve any of these problems, but if we work together, we can solve them.



Rep. Ed Clere represents District 72 in the Indiana House of Representatives. He may be reached by phone at 1-800-382-9841, by e-mail at h72@in.gov or by mail at the Statehouse, 200 W. Washington St., Room 401-7, Indianapolis, IN 46204.