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PODCAST: | “Freedom to Learn:” Indiana’s Quest for Federal Education Flexibility

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Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner on Federal Waivers, Investing in Literacy, & Rethinking High School.

Make sure to follow or subscribe to Freedom to Learn on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released every Thursday.

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What are your key priorities? Is it tackling chronic absenteeism? Is it focusing on literacy?

Katie Jenner: Right out of the gate, we focused primarily on literacy. What we had seen in Indiana, people often talk about the pandemic exacerbating academic scores. But really, if you look historically and in Indiana, our literacy rates have been declining for about a decade and the pandemic just further exacerbated that. So we immediately put our foot on the gas on literacy. We got a big investment of public-private dollars, about $170 million, and spent the majority of that training and retraining our current teachers and educators and also our future teachers and educators. And they have been excellent in doing that and doing the training and being part of the solution. So we most recently saw a 5% jump in one year in our literacy scores in third grade, which was for Indiana the largest we’d ever seen by far.

Now, of course, the conversation is, what are we doing in math? So certainly math and STEM is hot on our radar now. And then what most states know is the work we’ve done in the high school space. We just heard loud and clear from Hoosiers across the state that the four years of high school are just not as valuable as they should be. And in fact when looking at our chronic absenteeism data, the students said they didn’t necessarily see the value, which was obviously hard to hear, but something that we needed to look right in the mirror and take on. So I would say those would be the key areas.

You’re saying that the third grade test has this significant improvement. How did that come about? I heard you say that there was an investment, there was training, but we know from a very popular podcast series, Sold a Story, that teachers were taught to teach reading incorrectly. And there’s this science of reading that they should have been taught and they’re now having to be trained to understand so that they can teach reading properly. How do you turn that around at the state level? How do you train those teachers? How do you deprogram teachers to get it right?

Katie Jenner: So I cannot say enough about Sold a Story and how thankful I am as a leader to have had that in a time such as this when you’re trying to empower the masses to focus on literacy. It’s interesting, Ginny, in this really defined the Indiana approach. I can remember, I think it was the first session, my first session here at the Statehouse, I had a Republican come up and he was just so excited about Sold a Story. And then within 24 hours, I think it was maybe the next day, I had a Democrat on the Education Committee come up and he said, have you heard Sold a Story? So that really provided a common foundation across party lines for people to understand the why: Why does this policy work matter? Why does this investment matter?

We very humbly took a script or took the recipe right from Mississippi. Mississippi’s ratings had always been behind Indiana, but no one had moved at scale quite like Mississippi. Talking directly to whether it was Dr. Carey Wright or Dr. Kymyona Burk who now works for ExcelinEd, but was at Mississippi at the time, and just really studying what did you do. And they talk about building teacher coalitions to study science of reading. We call it in Indiana, the Indiana Literacy Cadre. So we have over 600 schools who are part of the cadre. And that includes instructional coaching and looking at student data, just a ton of wraparound training.

We also had for years an assessment at the end of third grade called the IREAD. And we had some folks who, I think they came to me around January of 2022, and they said, ‘wait, if we have all the research that by the end of third grade, if they can read or not, can be predictive of what’s ahead. Why would we wait until then to know at scale where students are?’ Because so often testing at scale starts third through eighth grade.

So it was proposed, ‘why don’t we take the IREAD and allow schools to use that in the second grade? We’ll build an on-track indicator for parents to know where your child is, for teachers to know where the student is.’ It was opt-in. I honestly, probably would have told you it would have maybe caught, but maybe not. It caught on like wildfire.

And we had, within three years, nearly every school in Indiana had already opted in. So now it’s a requirement. Every student in second grade takes it. It’s not punitive at all in second grade, but it provides an on-track indicator so that parents and families and teachers know exactly where the child is. If they’re reading, if they’re not reading, but if you’re on track or not to read by the end of third grade. I’d say those two things were our big difference makers. The literacy cadre and that strategy with understanding where our kids are to triage.

And then heavy interventions to make sure that they are where they need to be. There’s a new law in Indiana where students do have to pass that IREADS test for third grade?

Katie Jenner: That has actually been a law in Indiana for over a decade. I think it was since around 2011-12 neighborhood. We had, essentially what it said is if a student did not pass IREAD in third grade, that unless they had a good cause exemption that they would have to be retained. We saw, and I will own, this was guidance straight from the department at the time. We saw a lot of students moving on to fourth grade and then they were remediated. We found in longitudinal data is those students who were not retained and actually reading, those students who moved on not reading were never passing ILEARN ever. They were constantly in a struggle versus the students who were retained with the assurance they’re going to be readers, their outlook looked a lot better. And there’ve been a number of research, external research reports done on this, but to your point about the new law, the law tightened up a bit. I guess it was the 2024 session, it tightened up just to make sure students who are not reading and do not have a good cause exemption, they are staying in third grade.

And then now we also have where the student, if they have a good cause exemption and move forward, we will still assess them in reading every year until we make sure they are reading. With the philosophy that every single child must be a reader, it’s essential.

Right. And those good cause exemptions, if you’re talking about an IEP, well, that child with learning disabilities, a child with special needs still deserves to learn how to read.

Katie Jenner: Yeah, and then to your point, the assessment is just a piece of it. The intervention that our teachers and educators working with parents and families, what they’re providing, that’s the key. But making sure every child is reading. was going to say no one is going to be left behind, but that seems like an old phrase, like an old back in the day.

Back in the day… back in my day, actually, that was my era of education reform when I was working in government. Dr. Jenner, you mentioned that Indiana is known for what you’re doing at the secondary level. I’ve got two high schoolers. I’d love to hear good news about what can be done to adolescents, engage students at the high school level to connect the secondary school experience with workforce skills and whatnot. What’s been happening there?

Katie Jenner: In Indiana, we believe every child has unique talents, a unique purpose. And so how do we understand each child and best set them up for their unique success ahead?

For us, that meant we had to get several long-standing barriers out of the way, including our diploma requirements. The reality, and you probably know this, if you think of the oldest person you know who graduated from an American high school and you said, ‘can I see your transcript?’ And then you ran into somebody in any state, really, on the street and said, ‘hey, can I see your transcript?’ They’re almost exactly the same.

My daughters take the same classes that I took over 30 years ago.

Katie Jenner: Right, and the world around us is changing so much.

We have really leaned in to partner with business and industry, higher education, military, to say what is the recipe for success. And rather than a push system, which is what K-12 has historically been, where we’re pushing students to graduation — you can get there, you can get there — it’s more of a pull system, where these folks are reaching in to high school and connecting them while in high school with their possibilities with their future potential next step. We now have diplomas that if a student earns an enrollment honors plus diploma, they are automatically admitted to any of our public colleges and universities, many of our privates as well. Same with students who want to go into employment. We have automatic entry into certain apprenticeships, automatic interviews with some of our Fortune 100 companies or our Main Street, Main Street, Indiana regional businesses. And then the military has provided their recipe for success and has agreed to promote students within the military more quickly or give them the preferred job that they’re most interested in. That was the key, just to make sure we’re better connecting kids in high school with what their personal purpose and dream is.

That’s exciting. I want to make sure we touch on what the federal government role is in K-12 education. But before we do that, we have to talk about my favorite topic. People might not know how widespread education freedom is in Indiana, how large the program is. Could you speak a little bit about that?

Katie Jenner: About one in five students in Indiana leverages school choice. y The most common is a traditional public school to another traditional public school. We’re seeing our non-public school numbers increase. Of course, we have a variety of charter schools, primarily in our urban areas. We also have something pretty new, microschools that are popping up. And the microschool really came about because of homeschool families who you know families who may have either pulled their students out or decided to educate their students at home who want some of what the schools have to offer but also want the personalization so we’re seeing an emerging microschool model. So a lot of different options for parents and families in Indiana.

It’s really grounded the conversation in what should matter most as Americans, which is every child deserves to go to a quality school and parents should feel confident in that.

Let’s talk bureaucracy a little. Everybody’s favorite topic. We’ve been talking about all these great things that are happening in Indiana that have nothing to do with the federal Department of Education, but there are a lot of strings in place that have been coming from Washington. And so there’s a lot of talk right now about waiver opportunities. These are things that have been in federal law, particularly since the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. You are at the cutting edge of this waiver conversation. Do you want to share kind of what Indiana has in mind, what you’re seeking from the federal government?

Katie Jenner: You mentioned the word bureaucracy and I got shivers up my body. You know, there’s state level bureaucracy that we’re seeking to get out of the way for our communities to really lead in the best way for kids. And then yes, there is federal bureaucracy that we need out of the way. So Indiana has publicly shared our waiver. We publicly share our waiver because public comment really, really matters and we need to hear insights from different people. we publicly shared that this summer, are going through those comments now and we will be submitting a waiver.

In Indiana, it’s it’s in four key parts We would like to get a block grant as a state as an SEA We’d like to ⁓have a block grant for our LEAs And then I would pause because usually this is when people start to get fired up. It’s not every single line item that we’re looking at. It is the majority, but it’s not every single.

We get approximately 15 different line items of federal dollars coming to us as a state. Most run, when you look at some of the spend out requirements, two to three years. So we may have like 45 different streams of money that as a state, or what I’m most concerned about our locals, are running when they’re just trying to get kids to read and they’re trying to make high school more valuable and they have the same key target areas, but every single grant has bureaucracy and compliance built in.

We’ve got to focus on the main thing and make sure that money is not spent on adult time, but really spent on kid time and the instructional opportunities.

The third element to our waiver is the school improvement money. Yes, in Indiana, we are believers, and I will stand on the rooftop and shout this. I feel like I need to say it little louder for those in the back. If a school is failing, meaning, let’s say 4% of their kids are reading. 4% of their kids have math proficiency. That’s not good. If a school is failing year after year after year, that’s hundreds of children that we are also failing. And so we want to make sure to connect those children to other potential options. In Indiana, again, it’s much easier for us because we are a state that supports quality options and supporting parents to decide what’s best for their child. But that’s our third part.

And then our fourth is federal accountability. In Indiana, we are adamant that assessment and accountability really matter. What we would prefer not to have is a state accountability model and a federal accountability model. We want an Indiana accountability model and that’s what we’re asking for. That’s very, very fast four parts.

But for all the people out there that are wondering, yes, we are submitting. 100% certainty, it’s going. And it’s coming soon.

This federal waiver request will be considered by the U.S. Department of Education, and there’ll be probably an ongoing dialogue about that application with them. I understand from a recent interview with Hayley Sanon, who oversees the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, they’re really trying to get to a ‘yes’ when they’re working with states and they are looking for opportunities to free up states from federal strings, from federal bureaucracy. And this waiver process, if done right by the various states, is going to be a main way of doing that. Are there any myths that you wanted to dispel about this shifting relationship between the federal and state education departments, between the federal and state when it comes to education policy?

Katie Jenner: I mean, how much time do we have? But I mean, a couple of things that I would flag. A lot of people think that the federal government has a ton of power right now in setting standards, curriculum, assessment. We do that as states. And I share this with Hoosiers all the time. We’ve been for years. set our own standards. Mostly locals determine curriculum. We have some guiding documents depending on how they perform. And we set our own assessments.

But the money being so siloed is what we would really like to open up a bit. And listen, we were trusted as states to do this during the pandemic. We got a lump sum of money, you trusted us, feds trusted us to serve targeted student populations. I know that is sometimes a myth that is out there, that if we block grant, we’re going to forget about certain kids. No, we need to serve all kids. And we also need a triage based on what the data shows at the time. And so we’re committed to that.

And I would say, you mentioned Hayley and some of the team at USDE. They have been very, very thoughtful and helpful. as we’ve been planning and thinking through this. And students are always at the top of the list in terms of how might we get bureaucracy out of the way to best serve kids and to not spend $2.5 million on its staffing just to fill out paperwork. So I did want to also compliment and thank them. And if others out in the country, whether it’s state or otherwise, are not feeling that, you should pick up the phone and call, and if you don’t have their cell phone, ask me, I’ll give it to you! But they’ve been very, very helpful to those who are willing and to try to do better.

In a thoughtful, it sounds like transparent way. Like you said, your waiver application has been posted publicly and you’re taking in public comment. This is not something that you’re doing in isolation. It’s with parents, with community members, with education leaders across the state.

Katie Jenner: Exactly, and I would even go a step beyond even though we put that out publicly everyone has seen it who wants to it’s out there, we also strategically have focus groups with parents and families, principals, business leaders or community leaders. I think bringing people to the table and talking through how to best set your state up for success and it not being policy just dictated by DC. I think anything we can do to get there is positive and Indiana is ready.

We are eager. Our sleeves are rolled up. I don’t have sleeves, but they would be rolled up if I could! We are so eager and ready to tackle it.

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Listen to our full Freedom to Learn conversation on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. If you have suggestions for future guests or topics, please send them to podcast@dfipolicy.org.

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