Andrew Downs, Assistant Professor of Political Science introduced Governor Mitch Daniels to a room of IPFW students on Wednesday April 14. It was one stop among many that Daniels’ is making, in an effort to hear the voices and opinions of the state’s college and university students. Downs introduced Daniels’ administration as “several years from now scholars will look back at this administration that got done what it wanted to get done.”
While he was on campus, Daniels took time to hold a special open forum to hear the concerns of students. There were several topics discussed at the event among them were: healthcare reform, jobs, religion and the definition of “Hoosier Values.”
But above and beyond everything else, IPFW students addressed the state of Indiana’s education system. They asked questions concerning the viability of pursing education as a career choice and they probed him on the ways in which he plans to get the system back on its feet.
One suggestion that Daniels offered was the idea to privatize lunch and bus services. He said by looking in the yellow pages, the government can find businesses that offer specialized services, “Maybe they can do things better than the government can,” Daniels said. He went on to say that this kind of privatization would allow for more money to be spent in the classroom and ultimately on the students themselves. Daniels mentioned that there are a lot of ways in which the school systems can save money but blames the Teacher’s Union on preventing changes calling them as “the stalwarts of upholding the status quo”.
Piggy-backing on this topic, Daniels told students about his idea to remove the 12th grade and use the money that the state would have spent on the extra year of high school to being spent on their first year college. From a post-secondary education standpoint, Daniels endorsed the movement among colleges and universities to offer three- year undergraduate degree program, such as the one that Ball Sate offers.
