A bill that would emphasize teaching students the importance of waiting until marriage before having kids passed its first legislative hurdle on Wednesday.
The bill also supports requiring the state’s colleges and universities to accept a new entrance exam, The Classic Learning Test. The standardized test which has grown popular among Republican leaders and Republican dominated states in recent years.
Language in the legislation would require public schools to include instruction on “good citizenship”. The concept includes three pillars that are commonly referred to as the “success sequence:”
- Obtaining at least a high school diploma and acquiring additional training in preparation for the workforce
- Securing full-time employment
- Waiting until marriage to begin having children.
Bill author Sen. Gary Byrne (R-Byrneville) claims that by emphasizing these three principles it will help lift students out of poverty.
“Children raised in stable, married parent families are more likely to excel in school and generally have higher grade point averages than children who are not,” Byrne explained during committee discussion on the bill.
Democrats on the committee like Sen. Shelli Yoder (D-Bloomington) argued that by requiring the concept to wait until marriage to have kids to be taught in schools. She worries it will stigmatize single family households, blended families or those who may be widowed or divorced.
“This isn't just teaching it to students, but how they espouse and understand their own identity within their own family, and teaching it within the good citizenship instruction, I think, is fraught with shame,” Yoder said.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura (D-Indianapolis) brought up concerns about specific lines in the bill that delete social emotional learning from teacher preparation requirements, but the legislative services agency later clarified that this deletion was a technical correction since a bill passed last year already deleted those requirements from state code.
Still, Qaddoura argued that teaching social emotional skills are just as important when preparing students for the workforce as the three points in the “success sequence.”
“So that young people, when they grow up, they know how to lead teams, how to deal with conflict resolution at the workplace, how to be able to lead and invest in others,” Qaddoura said.
The bill would have also added language requiring that civics instruction include teaching about specific historic documents and texts like the ten commandments and would have prohibited any instruction that would foster a national identity based on racial discrimination, gender identity, victimization, class struggle or other systemic exclusions.
However, Byrne amended the bill in committee to remove all that language.
Many of those testifying against the bill on Wednesday spoke about their concerns that the language around civics education was even being considered.
Randy Hudgins, a teacher at Warren Central High School, said while he’s glad the language was removed from the bill he still cautioned lawmakers from curtailing what is taught about Indiana’s and the nation’s history.
“We need to be an example of a state focused on righting the wrongs of the past, not hiding them from our children,” Hudgins said.
What is the “success sequence”?
The success sequence has been gaining popularity among lawmakers since the early 2000’s when it was discussed in federal programs as a way to reduce poverty and help adolescents be successful.
Sen. Spencer Deery (R-West Lafayette) praised the concept during the committee discussion on the bill.
“The reason why it's important is because there are a lot of messages in society that you're going to be poor because the system makes you that poor you have no agency or determination in your outcomes,” Deery said. “It is important that we counteract that and say, you know what? There are things that you can do, decisions that you can make to escape poverty.”
However, research and studies have been mixed on whether the success sequence does lead to better economic outcomes in adulthood.
What is the Classic Learning Test?
The proposed legislation also requires state universities and colleges to accept the “Classic Learning Test” as an acceptable entrance exam.
The Classic Learning Test, or CLT, is a similar test to the SAT or ACT, in that it tests high schooler’s verbal reasoning, grammar, writing and math skills, but unlike those more well known tests, the CLT draws its testing questions from “classic” works.
According to the testing site’s author bank, they draw from texts from Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare and use experts from works like Beowulf. More modern writers are included like Toni Morrison and George Orwell.
The test is being championed by some Republican politicians as a “back to basics” approach to education, in the wake of recent backlashes to what is taught in K-12 and higher education.
Indiana Senator Jim Banks has been a champion of the test and sponsored legislation last year that was approved which now requires all U.S. service academies to accept the CLT as an acceptable entrance exam.
There are already nine private independent colleges in Indiana who accept the CLT and over 300 nationwide, according to the CLT’s website.
Families attending classical schools in Indiana, as well as some representing homeschooling families, all spoke in favor of the CLT provision of the bill.
Rachel Oren, the head of school at the Classical Academy in Indianapolis, said allowing more acceptance to the CLT will enable their students to be better evaluated on their skills.
“So a one size fits all testing mandate, it really risks narrowing curriculum and unintentionally undermining the very excellence that it seeks to ensure,” Oren said to the committee.
The bill passed along party lines and now heads to the Senate.
Contact Government Reporter Caroline Beck at cbeck@wfyi.org.