Indiana
Indiana cannot afford to botch its curriculum reform
Indiana is in the process of revamping its high school curricula. This could be a superb opportunity to rethink some fundamentals about schooling, its role in society and the needs of the future economy.
It is also a good time to re-center the long-term wellbeing of students into the discussion.
However, the last time Indiana made significant changes to school curriculum, we failed badly. That cannot happen again.
In December 2013, then-Gov. Mike Pence announced an ambitious plan to offer more career-focused education to Hoosier high school kids who weren’t going to college. It was a smart, thoughtful and much-needed addition to our educational landscape. I was an enthusiastic supporter and wrote in support of it.
Almost from the beginning, the execution of that plan was botched. It is worth recounting how a very good idea became very bad public policy, and how the accumulated mistakes of a decade continue to haunt Indiana’s economic performance even now and into the distant future.
The Daniels-era education reforms were successful on almost every important measure.
The push for higher standards revealed itself in test scores, graduation rates and college attendance and success.
They strengthened good local public schools and forced bad ones to change. But not everyone wishes to go to college and, for three generations, we’d cut programs for those students.
Pence’s plan was met with strong support by business, which offered free curriculum in STEM, and support for students wishing a career route.
My school corporation, led by Jennifer McCormick, developed an award-winning program with a local manufacturing firm.
Things started off well. Then the Department of Workforce Development began to push the state’s board of education.
The Department of Workforce Development had an occupational forecast claiming that, between 2014 and 2024, there’d be a huge demand for high school-only graduates — that is, students who graduated high school and did not go to college. The Department of Workforce Development’s forecast claimed that the state would need 400,000 more high school-only graduates by 2024.
I did everything I knew how to do in order to explain why this was mistaken.
I used labor demand forecasts from a half dozen economists that said we’d need fewer high school graduates by 2024. I showed them the studies from the 1970s through the 2000s explaining how these forecasts were too flawed to be used as a labor market policy tool.
Nothing I said or wrote had any effect.
The Department of Workforce Development had already run off their economists for saying roughly the same thing. They weren’t at all interested in hearing analysis from anyone who actually knew anything about labor markets. The newer versions of that forecast are still guiding both labor market and education policy in Indiana.
All of this presents the question: How wrong were they?
A lot.
In 2015, the forecast overstated the demand for high school only graduates in 2014 — that is, the previous year — by 190,000 workers. Yes, you read that correctly. They actually got history wrong. I’ve never seen a forecast that wrong, that quickly. Still, that did not deter their enthusiasm for the forecast.
As of last fall, Indiana has 20,000 more high school graduates working than in 2014. So that forecast of demand for 400,000 more high school graduates is going to be wrong by about 2,000%.
I write this because it is my biggest professional failure.
Had I been more persuasive, I should’ve been able to avoid the train wreck that ensued. I was not, and the state has been trapped by bad human capital policy ever since. It has significantly weakened Indiana’s long-term economic prospects.
The recovery from the Great Recession was the worst economic expansion in state history. We slipped on every important measure of economic success with some of the worst performances coming in the last five years of the expansion.
The COVID and post-pandemic economy should’ve been very kind to Indiana. Because of our manufacturing intensity, our growth should’ve outpaced the nation. It did not. The reason for 15 years of relative decline is that we have a poorly educated workforce that is getting worse.
That bad labor forecast from 2014 was very influential in the legislature. And how could it not be? It was a false promise of economic growth without actually investing more in education. It didn’t matter that the nation had gone more than two decades without creating a single net new job for someone who hadn’t been to college. The bad forecast drove policy.
Funding for K-12 stalled on a per-student basis and dropped as a share of GDP. Pence’s vision morphed into an anti-college agenda. The state’s workforce development director and the president of our community college system downplayed the benefits of post-secondary education.
By 2017, Indiana introduced career indoctrination down to sixth grade. Among the largest of these were manufacturing occupations and truck drivers. The demand for both is lower today than in 2014.
Pence’s program to offer career-focused opportunities to older students became a platform for pushing students away from post-secondary education. To their credit, in 2020, the legislature increased the age that career pathways would start. So, today, we wait until children are 13 to provide them bad labor market advice.
The most damaging effect was on college attendance. Indiana peaked in 2015, sending 65 percent of our high school graduates to college, at a time when the national average was 72 percent of students. In the race for a talented workforce, Indiana was well behind and running slower than the pack. Over the past two years, fewer than 53 percent of our high school graduates have gone to college. Until this changes, we will not be contenders in a 21st century economy.
We are now near the very bottom in human capital development, making it an opportune time to compare what Indiana does and aspires to do with that of the nation as a whole. Over the past three decades, more than 100 percent of new jobs in the U.S. have gone to people who attended college, with 8 in 10 going to 4-year degree holders.
Over the same time, the college wage premium has grown. We are now 50 years into an economy that places a premium on human capital. That won’t change, no matter how badly some states prepare.
Indiana is moving in the wrong direction at record speed.
The period since 2015 is the start of the first decline in educational attainment in Indiana history.
The educational reforms we now consider must reverse this decline. We must consider what students need to know for the next 50 years of work — not what low-wage employers say they need after graduation. We simply cannot fail at this again.
Michael J. Hicks, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and the George and Frances Ball distinguished professor of economics in the Miller College of Business at Ball State University.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An independent forensic audit of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. that Gov. Mike Braun ordered nearly a month ago will be done by Washington, D.C.-based FTI Consulting, the governor’s press secretary said Wednesday.
As WISH-TV first reported in April, the audit will examine the finances of the Indiana government’s business development arm, including its relationship with Indianapolis-based venture capital firm Elevate Ventures.
The process should take from 6 months to 12 months. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. (IEDC) will fund the audit.
A statement from the governor’s press secretary, Griffin Reid, about the hiring of FTI Consulting did not provide information on how much the audit will cost the state.
Reid’s statement, however, said that FTI Consulting, known for its expertise in conducting audits for both public and private entities, will work in cooperation with the IEDC and the Indiana Office of Inspector General.
FTI Consulting was formerly known as Forensics Technologies International. It’s been involved in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the fraud investigation of financier Bernard Madoff, and the steroids probe in Major League Baseball.
The IEDC audit aims to uncover any potential wrongdoing within the state agency and its affiliated entities. Braun’s decision followed detailed reporting that raised questions about how Elevate Ventures operates and manages public funds.
The governor has previously emphasized that the audit is part of his commitment to transparency, a key aspect of his election campaign.
Elevate Ventures, created in 2011 by former Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, manages $245 million and has invested over $189 million into more than 600 startup companies. CEO Christopher Day has stated that the firm is eager to participate in the audit to address any factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
Braun’s audit announcement in April coincided with a revision to the state budget that included a significant cut of 25%-30% for the IEDC, the largest reduction among state agencies.
Previous WISHTV.com reporting contributed to this story.
Tyrese Haliburton goes off for 31 points to close out the Cavs in Game 5, sending the Pacers back to the East Finals.
CLEVELAND – NBA regular seasons are, apparently, what you make of them.
Consider the Cleveland Cavaliers being eliminated Tuesday night from the 2025 playoffs by the Indiana Pacers, who closed out the conference’s No. 1 seed from the Eastern Conference semifinals 4-1 with their 114-105 victory at Rocket Arena.
The Cavaliers, like Oklahoma City in the West, had stormed through the season from start to finish, stringing together winning streaks of 16, 15 and 12 on their way to a 64-18 record. Indiana was back in the pack, happy to land the No. 4 seed with a solid but unspectacular 50-32 mark.
Look a little deeper, though. The Pacers started the season 5-10 and for a variety of reasons – a tough schedule, injuries, a slower-than-expected start by point guard Tyrese Haliburton – were 16-18 when the calendar rolled over to 2025. They were 13.5 games behind Cleveland on New Year’s Day and never did gain ground.
Then again, they didn’t lose any. From Jan. 1 through Game 82, the Cavs went 35-14. The Pacers, 34-14.
“I’m sorry their season had to end like this, in a way,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “Kenny [Atkinson, Cleveland coach] did an amazing job with their guys, .They just kind of had the perfect season. Then we came along and we’re hot.”
Indiana didn’t get the acclaim the Cavs, the Thunder and the Celtics did in barreling to 60-plus victories, because it needed a couple months to find itself.
Now it finds itself back in the East finals for the second consecutive year. Here are five takeaways from the clincher:
1. Indiana: We’re not about the stats
It’s not accurate to say that the Pacers’ whole is greater than the sum of their parts because their parts are many and talented. The roster is as deep as those of the league’s elite, with 10 or 11 players who – to use a popular NBA term – are stars in their roles.
But there is no Kia MVP candidate on this squad, no star’s name above the title. Haliburton is a two-time All-Star and a leader but the 31 points he scored Tuesday were the Pacers’ first 30-point performance of the postseason. Heck, even some of his peers consider him to be (cough) “overrated.”
“We’re different from every other team in the NBA,” Haliburton said. “We don’t have one guy who scores all the points. We defeat teams in a lot of different ways. We move the ball, the ball finds guys making shots, making plays.”
Said Carlisle: “People look at playoff victories and point to great scoring performances and triple-doubles and stuff like that. Series-defining plays oftentimes are loose-ball effort plays.”
Those moments were strewn throughout the game, but particularly so down the stretch. Myles Turner’s run-down block of De’Andre Hunter. Andrew Nembhard bursting along the left baseline. Bennedict Mathurin swatting a Donovan Mitchell layup off the glass.
All timely plays, pivotal sequences, and added effort.
2. Tough ending for Cavaliers
Boil it all down and this very special season for Cleveland ended with a splat. Three of its four losses in getting eliminated came at home. Its star, Donovan Mitchell, has yet to reach a conference finals. This wasn’t what it had in mind at all as it breezed through the previous six months.
Mitchell was so unprepared for this ending that, after the final horn, he went back out into the arena bowl to acknowledge the disappointed fans. He sounded as heartbroken as any of them.
“Just couldn’t believe it. Still don’t wanna believe it,” Mitchell said. “I love playing in that arena man. That energy, that crowd. Lost three at home, let the city down.
“Y’all gonna write us the [bleep] off man. But we’ll be back. We let the city down, we let each other down but will be back.”
After being eliminated in the semifinals, is it fair to call top-seeded Cleveland a regular-season team that fails to deliver in the playoffs?
3. Nipping it in the bud
The Pacers had gotten spanked in the first quarter 31-19 and Cleveland’s start spilled into the second quarter when it went up by 19, 44-25. Indiana scratched back to get within four by halftime, felt good about themselves … and then promptly messed up again.
Out of the break, the Pacers failed to execute a play, then turned over the ball. Cavs guard Darius Garland got to midcourt, veered around a soft pick-and-roll, then strolled in unobstructed from the logo for a layup. Several Indiana players shot each other puzzled looks. Carlisle called timeout just 55 seconds into the half.
“We had miscommunication,” he said. “We allowed a guy to defiantly just trot in there and lay the ball up. We came in the timeout and said ‘No more. This isn’t us.’ And our guys turned it around.”
4. Bryant shines in 3rd quarter
A lottery pick back in 2017, Thomas Bryant had settled into a journeyman’s role when the Pacers acquired him in December from Miami for the princely sum of a 2031 second-round draft pick. Indiana became his fifth NBA team in four seasons and his contributions the rest of the season were modest (6.9 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 15.1 mpg).
Not so in Game 5. Bryant was a force in the third quarter especially, active at both ends to give Turner the breathers he needed.
One sequence began with the 6-foot-10 Bryant getting his shot blocked by Evan Mobley. He raced downcourt, picked off Darius Garland’s pass and ran back for a fast-break dunk. He cut and dunked a pass from Obi Toppin, then closed his personal spurt with a 3-pointer from the right corner.
By that point, the Pacers were back up by 12. It had to be deflating to Cleveland for yet another player to come off Indiana’s bench and make a difference.
“Gave us some of the greatest minutes you can ask of a backup center,” Carlisle said. “His enthusiasm permeates our team.”
5. Brief scouting report for Knicks or Celtics
Playoff opponents are virtually autopsied by teams they’ll be facing in a series, and it’s safe to say the Pacers and Cavaliers knew each other inside and out. Still, they learn things from repeated competition squeezed into a week or 10 days.
Here’s Atkinson on the biggest thing he learned about the Pacers in this up-close look:
“The duration of their intensity,” the Cavs coach said. “How long they can go. They press fullcourt, and then they run consistently all game. They never stop. It’s hard to do. I give them a ton of credit for that. It’s extreme ball pressure.”
* * *
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Warner Bros. Discovery.
Herman Yancey | Illinois State Police
CHICAGO – A Gary man was charged with murder in connection with a shooting last summer on Interstate 94 near Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood.
Herman Yancey, 37, was arrested Friday and charged with one count of first-degree murder.
The backstory:
Yancey was identified as the suspect who shot and killed a man around 10 p.m. on June 7, 2024 in the northbound lanes of I-94 near 37th Street, according to Illinois State Police.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. He was identified as Tywuan Donald by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
No further information was provided.
The Source: The information in this report came from Illinois State Police.
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