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.
(The REPORTER) — The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, June 10, regarding a proposed corridor improvement project on State Road 32 in Hamilton County.
The hearing will provide an opportunity for the public to interact with the project team, review the features of the proposed roundabout project, and provide official public comment. Project documents are available for review at improvetomove32.com.
The project area is between East Street in Westfield and River Road in Noblesville. The proposed project includes adding lanes to accommodate two lanes in each direction, removing all traffic signals within the project limits, and constructing roundabouts at the following intersections with SR 32:
- Carey Road/Grassy Branch Road
- Gunther Boulevard
- Shady Nook Road
- Moontown Road/Gray Road
- Pebble Brook Boulevard
- Hazel Dell Road/Little Chicago Road
- Mill Creek Road
The hearing will take place at Prairie Waters Event Center, 4180 Westfield Road, Westfield. Doors will open at 5 p.m. to allow the public to view displays and talk with the project team. A presentation will be given at 5:30 p.m., with a public comment session held directly after. INDOT is offering livestreams of all public meetings and hearings. You must register here in order to participate in the livestream. Livestream audience comments will only be accepted in written electronic form, not verbally. A recording of the livestream presentation will be posted on the project webpage and INDOT YouTube page after the hearing and will be available for at least 90 days.
All verbal statements recorded during the public hearing and all written comments submitted prior to, during and for a period of two weeks following the hearing date, will be evaluated, considered, and addressed in subsequent environmental documentation.
Written comments may be submitted within the comment period to Nick Batta, CMT, 8790 Purdue Road, Indianapolis, IN 46268; or sent via email to SR32HamiltonCounty@cmtengr.com.
INDOT respectfully requests comments be submitted by June 26.
A beloved tradition is drawing stitchers, shoppers, and curious newcomers across the region.
If you have ever walked into a quilt shop “just to look,” you already know how that story ends. One minute you are admiring a cheerful stack of fabric with names like sunflower, buttercream, and cardinal red, and the next you are seriously considering whether your house has room for a new table runner, a holiday wall hanging, and perhaps a life-changing bundle of fat quarters. Quilt shops have that effect. They are part treasure hunt, part therapy session, part color explosion, and in Southeastern Indiana, they are also some of the friendliest gathering places around.
That is especially true during the ALL INDIANA SHOP HOP, the statewide sewing and quilting event running through June 30, 2026.
The idea is delightfully simple: visit participating quilt shops, collect passport stamps, pick up thank-you gifts, and become eligible for prizes. The official event even describes it as a quilting version of a bar crawl, only with less late-night regret and more batting, bobbins, and beautiful fabric. There is even a youth passport for ages 8 to 17, which is a nice reminder that quilting is not just a pastime handed down from grandparents. It is also being discovered by a new generation who like making things by hand, repurposing fabric to help the environment, learning skills online, and sharing their creations proudly.
And really, quilting has everything going for it. It is practical, creative, social, and just a little bit magical.
A quilt can be a baby gift, a comfort during a hard season, a graduation present, a family heirloom, or simply a way to make a couch look much more put together than the people sitting on it. Quilters are surgeons with rotary cutters, artists with thread, and storytellers with fabric. They notice pattern, texture, memory, and meaning. Even non-quilters tend to fall under the spell. You do not need to know how to piece a block to appreciate the patience, skill, and imagination it takes to turn small shapes into something that warms both the room and the people in it.
That is one reason local quilt shops matter so much.
Yes, they sell fabric, books, notions, patterns, batting, and tools that can make a beginner feel both excited and slightly underqualified. But they also do something online shopping cannot: they welcome people in. Good quilt shops are places where somebody will help you match prints, explain what on earth a layer cake is, admire your progress, and gently steer you away from a fabric choice you may regret in broad daylight. They are equal parts classroom, clubhouse, and creative headquarters.
Southeastern Indiana is lucky to have several shops that make a Shop Hop route feel less like an errand list and more like a mini road trip with excellent scenery and even better conversation.
In Versailles, The Quilter’s Nook has become a creative quilting and sewing destination with classes, learning opportunities, and plenty of supplies and inspiration for anyone wanting to sharpen their skills or finally start that project they have been thinking about for two years. In Greensburg, Tree City Stitches is known for its premium fabrics, project kits, classes, and welcoming atmosphere, with plenty of samples on display to spark ideas before you even make it to the cutting counter.
In Vevay, Cardinal Quilts offers a deep fabric selection, quilting classes, and longarm services, making it the kind of place where serious quilters can stock up and newcomers can get helpful guidance without a trace of intimidation. And in Madison, L&L Yard Goods has been operating in the same location since 1986, offering quilting essentials, classes, and the sort of steady hometown presence that makes people come back year after year.
Together, these shops help keep quilting visible, vibrant, and local.
They also provide handmade quilts for community projects, children’s hospitals, veterans, and emergency services just like the early quilters did centuries ago.
So if your summer plans could use a little more color, a little more small-town charm,
and maybe a little more excuse to buy fabric you absolutely do not need but definitely deserve, the Shop Hop is calling. Bring a friend, bring your passport, and bring a willingness to be delighted by places where craftsmanship still matters and people still make beautiful things with their hands.
In Southeastern Indiana, quilting is more than a hobby.
It is history from the days of early pioneers, hospitality that warms you, creativity and community all stitched together one square at a time.
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