New high school diplomas approved.

A child care waitlist.

Plus, Diego Moraless no bid contracts and more.

From the television studios at WFYI, It's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending December 13th, 2024.

Indiana Week In Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting.

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Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

This week, the Indiana State Board of Education approved a new high school diploma after months of revisions.

Indiana Public Broadcastings Kirsten Adair reports state officials say the new diploma will give students the skills they need to succeed after high school, whichever path they choose.

The final proposal is very similar to the second draft debuted in August.

That draft resembled the current CORE 40 diploma more closely than the widely criticized first draft.

The new diploma will allow slightly more flexibility in math, English, and electives.

B.J.

Watts is a member of the State Board of Education.

This was really hard, messy, sometimes unpopular work, but where it landed is a really, really, really good place for kids.

One of the most significant changes from the current diploma is the introduction of reading the seals for enrollment, employment, and enlistment.

Each category includes an Honors and Honors plus seal.

Schools can opt into using the new diploma during the next school year.

The new diploma will take effect for all students, starting with the class of 2029.

Did the State Board of Education land in the right place?

It's the first question for our Indiana Weekend Review panel.

Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Oseye Boyd, editor in chief of Mirror Indy.

And Niki Kelly, editor in chief of the Indiana Capitol Chronicle.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse bureau chief Brandon Smith.

Ann DeLaney, did the board hit the mark?

Who knows?

I mean, these guys have been in charge of education for the last 20 years, and they have failed by every indication, by reading in the third grade, by high school graduation, by the number of kids going to college.

Every single measure they failed.

So I don't know whether this one's going to work, whether they are the same people who screwed this up for 20 years are now going to fix it all of a sudden.

There are a lot of unanswered questions with this.

Who's going to pay for the transportation for those kids to go to these work environments?

And who what happens if a child is injured at one of these work environment you know, all of those kinds of questions.

There are a number of responsible companies in this state who already have associations with high schools and, and a small number of students, and work to integrate them into the workforce.

If we're talking about thousands of students, you know, these companies are in the business of, you know, making engines or making widgets or whatever it is.

They're not in the business of training high school kids.

So I don't know whether it's going to work or not, but I really don't have an awful lot of confidence in the same people who have screwed up our educational system for the last 20 years.

Now fixing it.

This was billed from the legislative level on to the State Board of Education is we're really rethinking remaking high school.

And there's a lot that goes into that.

But these new diploma requirements aren't wholly dissimilar from the ones we had before.

So are we really remaking high school with where we ended up here?

I think we are in of what they just described, which is the partnership.

And this whole process started because of demand from the from the private sector.

This wasn't just the legislature saying, hey, business, we're going to send some high schoolers to your office today.

It was it was those industries saying, hey, we need we need a pipeline of trained workers, and we can't start thinking about that when they walk out of high school.

We got to start thinking about that.

And as as they're completing or see, they'll see the end, the final steps of their education and in high school and start catering it towards whatever those career paths might be.

and all the changes over all the months were because the superintendents of the Indiana's public high schools were involved in this in writing, and it was endorsed by the presidents of our public universities.

You know, so this so it's what they've been screwing it up for 20 years.

It's like, I don't know what that means, except that it constantly does have to involve things.

I know what you think it means, but it constantly has to evolve.

because the workplace, what you do after high school, evolves and what kids want to do after high school, what do they want to take?

I've got nieces and nephews and my own son right now in that process.

So what am I doing next?

And there's a lot of different answers that I'm going to college, or I want to go to a trade school or I want to do do something, I'll do something else.

So thinking, thinking about that when, not when you're 19, when you're 17, 18 years old and your school is a partner in that, in the private sector as a partner, and that is really important.

A lot of the criticism of the early part of this process, the first draft of this new diploma, was a lot of confusion from a lot of the folks.

Just Mike.

Mike just mentioned superintendents to presidents of universities, to parents, importantly, parents and students going, what are you talking about?

What does any of this mean?

Do you feel like we got to a place of more clarity with these final requirements?

Do you think it it got better as it went along?

I think it got better as it went along, but I don't know that the average parent and student will still understand.

I'm thinking about parents who have children who would be 1 in 1, graduation requirement.

Another another graduation requirement.

What do we do with when does it start?

Because you can opt in, but you don't have to opt in.

It doesn't take effect until 2029, right?

Then the other 2029.

Right.

So, the eighth grade start with the eighth grade class now.

So I think for a parent, you're all kind of confused if you have kids who are being in both of those cohorts.

I also think to this point it is kind of, frustrating for parents to think like we're restructuring again.

We keep restructuring.

Like, didn't we just do this because I thought, didn't we just do this reinventing high school again?

I also wonder, why are we going back even before high school, before 1718, to think about what can we do to start preparing students before they even get to high school?

Start thinking about what we're going to do after high school because we still have third grade we have to worry about we're still talking about pre-K.

So what are we doing to actually get kids into that area?

Thinking about school after after school, Army, enlisting employment, education after high school.

I think high school is kind of late to be starting it.

Well, to.

That end, yeah, I was going.

To say, if you look at all these rules, like all these requirements, I mean, those kids are going to have to know going into ninth grade which way they want to go.

Is that fair to expect from a 14 year old?

I mean, they have just so many.

They can.

They can they.

Can change.

But I'm just saying they are going to have to start thinking about it much earlier to pick a path.

Yeah.

And then start getting the classes they need for each path or the 75 hours of an internship or an apprenticeship they need.

and I go back and forth on that.

Part of me thinks it's good for them to start thinking about their options, and part of me thinks, good Lord, let them be kids for a while longer, you know.

But are you are you asking too much of a 14 year old's brain to go?

Yeah, I know what I'm going to do for the next four years in my life.

Yes and no.

Subscription while I was in sixth grade.

Well, you are.

You're very special.

You're a parent.

Great.

I know I want to be a journalist in fourth grade, but if not everyone does.

We're like.

We're the rarity, right?

We're not normal in that respect.

Yeah, we're definitely, definitely not normal.

Yeah.

All right.

The state is reimplementing a waitlist for two of its child care voucher programs: the Child Care Development Fund and On My Way Pre-K. Indiana Public Broadcasting's Timoria Cunningham reports this is the first time since 2018 new voucher applicants will be waitlisted.

The two programs are administered by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration's Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School learning.

FSSA says a waitlist is in response to a growth in both programs, citing an increase of more than 30,000 children who have participated over the last two years.

Currently, the waitlist will only impact new applicants, with priority given to On My Way pre-K applications, families who earn below 100% of the federal poverty line and children of child care workers.

Other applicants will receive vouchers while they are available.

The vouchers for these programs assist families that are seeking employment, or who are enrolled in an education or training program, and who make less than 150% of the federal poverty line.

Mike O'Brien, we've talked about it before.

We'll be talking about it for the next several months.

This is a year with a lot of budget requests and not and probably not a lot of budget money.

Does this, though, put more pressure on lawmakers to increase funding for these programs?

There's clearly more demand for it.

They expanded the eligibility for it.

that didn't follow enough funding to meet the meet the meet the demand.

So they've got to make they got to make a decision on whether or not this is a priority or not.

We have talked about childcare more, in the last couple of years than ever before.

It was typically kind of a kind of a Democrat issue.

And as employers have made it may have more of a priority.

you know, for their back to back to workforce.

you know, it's become more mainstream.

And Republicans in the legislature focused on it.

pre-K, it's fits and starts for decades, right, of like create the program originally when we when we first talked about this, what was it 15 years ago?

Yeah, a long time ago it was supposed to be the employers were involved.

Locals were involved.

The state was going to help fund, you know, fund the large the large share of it.

And there it just hasn't caught on.

Right.

And I mean, this was a.

It was a big push by Mike Pence.

And he got the start up money.

Right.

And then it's never really gone much higher.

Than that because the because the expense of it is like so significant.

It can't just be a state line item.

and that's, that's always that's always been the problem with it.

Despite all the evidence, that's how important it is, to what we just talked about, by the time you get to high school, it matters a lot.

If you're in pre-K, you know, there matters a lot.

What you did ten years, ten years earlier.

All the data plays that out.

But it's a matter of, you know, priorities and choosing what you're going to spend this limited amount of money on.

We have seen on child care.

We have seen Republican leaders start to talk more about it.

But increasingly, the message, at least I think I hear Todd Houston say this, which is don't come to the state looking for the answer on child care.

We will work on regulations, making sure that we're making it as easy as possible to get access to these programs.

But it has to be the private sector who steps up.

Companies stepping up and providing it for their workers, doing things at the local level.

Should it be the state's responsibility to.

You know, if.

You're dramatically expand access.

If you're going to talk about choice in educating children, why aren't vouchers available for preschool, for pre-K and for childcare?

I mean, the.

Sounds like you're advocating for a huge expansion of.

The voucher.

Well, you know, it makes more sense than giving vouchers to people making $220,000 a year.

It makes more sense.

Maybe everybody gets a certain amount of money and they can use it for, you know, preschool or, childcare, or they can use it.

They can use it for private education, or they can use it for college.

Okay, maybe that's more fair and put a cap on that income wise.

Because if you're talking about jobs that are not being filled because we don't have enough people in the workforce, this is the single biggest impediment.

You can ask people making $15 an hour to be paying $300 a week for childcare.

You know, we just talked about in the first topic about the the redesign of high schools, about that talent pipeline, about making sure we have enough workers to meet the demands of our future economy.

Isn't this a huge impediment to that?

If the state doesn't step up in a more significant way?

And that's what the employer community has been saying for the last couple of years.

And, you know, in some states, they've used childcare tax credits.

you know, we obviously had federal help with that for a while.

so, I mean, to me, using these two programs is a maybe better way to funnel that state money if you're going to add money.

I'm saying, like, maybe not create a whole new tax credit, but say, you know, we've got these two programs, we're going to put more money into it.

We want these to grow where we can see the kids getting their income driven too, which makes sense.

But at the same time as I started this conversation with a lot of budget asks, probably not a lot of budget money.

We'll find out for sure next Tuesday.

Well, you could stop with the the well, you could.

You could, you could, you could.

We're not going to do that.

I mean, I can predict that they're not going to do that.

And then don't say there isn't enough money.

It's a matter of choice.

And.

So in terms of what they're going to spend their money on is child care pre-K just not making it very far up the list in 2025?

I don't think it is, but it should.

It definitely should.

I think if you're going to expand it, if you say it's important, if you say we need this, then we definitely should have more money going to child care.

To your point, if we're going to have vouchers, school vouchers, going to, parents, higher income parents, then why aren't we making sure we're taking care of the students who need it most?

Children who need the most?

Because it does matter what happens in pre-K if we want.

I think at some point we have to really consider if we want better outcomes for Indiana as a whole.

We need to start thinking about Indiana at the very young age that we can't.

I think we keep trying to put bandages on things that we really need to go back and look at.

Okay, how does this really affect us comprehensively?

Well, it's the same, I mean, it's it's it's almost exactly the same conversation we've been having in health care.

Indiana's health care costs are really high, in part because Indiana is really unhealthy.

The way to solve that is by spending money on the front end, because it's way more expensive on the back end.

And arguably the same is really true in education.

We've encouraged being unhealthy, too.

Yeah.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question.

This week's question is should state government be responsible for funding more child care access?

A yes or B no.

Last week, we asked you whether governor elect Mike Braun will be able to accomplish most of his broad agenda in his first year in office.

24% of you say yes.

76% say no.

It is a very broad agenda.

If you'd like to take part in the poll.

Go to WFYI.org/IWIR and look for the poll.

Well, the Indiana Capitol Chronicle reported this week that Secretary of State Diego Morales's office has quietly spent about $4 million in less than two years on IT services from outside companies that received no bid contracts.

The Capital Chronicle's reporting shows that Indianapolis based Clean Slate Technology Group received $2.3 million from the secretary of state's office between March 2023 and July 2024, while MXT Group, a Texas based technology consulting firm, has been paid $1.7 million in just the last few months.

Neither of those companies went through competitive bidding processes.

Morales's office defended that decision, saying it's allowable under state law.

The first company, Clean Slate, has donated $59,000 to Morales's campaign committee, its first and only donations to any Indiana political candidates.

The founder of MTS Group, Das Noble, donated $80,000 to Morales's campaign after his company's contract was signed First in the piece I, I mistakenly said M X T group it is M T X group.

Niki Kelly how problematic is this?

Well, I mean, that's up to each person.

And I do know that a lot of not a lot.

But several people reached out and said, well, you know, our no big contracts, you know, very common.

You know, they end.

Up trying to.

Put in pay to play.

But my point is like, look, no one's ever did anything illegal, but I don't think illegal should be the only bar we have for, you know, someone's actions.

And especially with those campaign donations, those were groups and and even the founder, it would never given to an Indiana candidate before.

I mean, it is directly related to getting that contract, which I think is problematic.

And so, you know, whether it happens all the time or was technically legal, you know, I don't think that should be the end all, be all of the discussion.

Yeah.

Should that should that be the bar.

Should the bar be a little.

The bar should be higher for elected officials.

I think we all at some point agreed to that, that the bar should be higher.

The optics are bad for this.

it it clearly looks as if it's quid pro quo play to play.

It looks like that.

If it's not, then please explain how it's not.

I think, in your article, the campaign purse, not the campaign purse.

I'm sorry, his spokesperson said, well, pointing to a statute where.

It's okay.

Yeah, okay.

It's okay.

But did it have to be.

And then I think, contracts got expanded to.

So after more money came, then you expand the contract.

Now, maybe you needed to have that contract in place because you there was no one else.

But once things were in place, could you have not gone out and then try to get some bids?

I mean, I think there were ways to do it that looked a little bit better and still ended up being that same company.

But optics make a difference.

We're coming up to a budget session.

I know I say that a lot, but it really does matter a lot.

Secretary state's office is asking for more money specifically for these sorts of services.

How are lawmakers going to view the stuff he's already been spending money on in light of those requests?

Well, there's a need here.

I mean, for these services, right?

I mean, there's clearly, clearly a need for election security and other things like secretary of state ministers.

You know, I'm a lobbyist.

I have clients that make political contributions.

I have clients that have state contracts, I have clients, I try to influence policy as it moves through the legislature.

one thing we like to say around our firm, be very mindful of, is that the lines in our business are very thin, but they are lines.

And those things have to be like, you have to manage those things.

You have to.

And there's a reason there's a season for this.

We're not we're not doing fundraisers in the middle of a budget session.

We're doing them in June.

Right.

And the public would look at that and go, yeah, but you know, it's yeah, that's, you know, that's that's inappropriate.

Maybe.

but I think it's important that people in these positions have to be mindful of like, what they're doing and when they're doing it.

Yes.

There's people raising money to run running campaigns.

Yes, there are companies that are doing business with government that make those contributions.

But keeping those things separate is really important and managing when those things happen and when those conversations take place and they're separate, they've got to be separate and they've got to be at different times.

And I know the public, there's plenty of reasons to knock on that process, but the process is what it is.

So within the confines of what's legal, make it as appropriate and transparent as you can.

the same question I sort of ask Mike, which is do you think the legislature will look more, more suspiciously at Diego Morales's budget request?

This in light of this?

I think they should.

And particularly with the bonus.

bonanza that he had in his office, too.

I mean, there are there are reasons to question we I certainly questioned before he was elected when he lied about different things and all.

So I think they'll look at it more carefully.

And but this is exactly why we need investigative journalism.

You know, when I was in the state House, there were something north of 40 credentialed, reporters.

Now what?

There are a dozen, maybe.

Maybe doing something like that, but not better than inspectors.

Okay, but it's not where I used to be.

Not where it used to be, and not where we need it to be to expose these kinds of things.

It's not just giving.

I understand the people that do business with the state have an interest in seeing who's elected.

That is perfectly legitimate.

But giving $50,000 to a secretary of state's race in an off year election, I mean, three years, three years before he's up again in in conjunction with awarding of contracts, I bet they'll look at a they better look at it.

All right.

Indiana is one of 12 states that are vulnerable to Medicaid coverage loss.

If federal funding is reduced under the upcoming Trump administration.

Indiana Public Broadcasting's Abigail Ruhman reports more than 750,000 Hoosiers would automatically lose health coverage if federal funding dips below a certain threshold.

90% of funding for Medicaid expansion programs like the Healthy Indiana Plan, or Hip, comes from the federal government.

When some states wrote their programs into law, they included what's known as a trigger law in case federal funding was reduced.

Adam Searing is a research professor at Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families.

He says these trigger laws can require states to end their expansion programs if there are changes to federal funding.

Of states like Indiana.

It's pretty automatic.

You know, there's some limited review, but the, you know, the expansion, if the legislature doesn't do anything, the expansion just goes away.

Searing says this isn't just a theoretical possibility.

The Trump administration has already shown interest in reducing federal Medicaid funding.

Oseye, Lawmakers are going to be grappling with the Medicaid budget in this upcoming session.

I know I keep mentioning the budget, but it's going to come up a lot.

How much does this potentially complicate those discussions?

I think it could complicate it a lot.

There are a lot of balls in the air, if you will, when it comes to Medicaid.

I mean, we have what president elect Trump has said he wants to do.

We already know we have the waiver waitlist issue happening.

now we're talking about the trigger and actually reducing 700,000 people, Seven hundred fifty thousand.

750,000 people off of Medicare, off of HIP, healthy Indiana plan, an expansion of Medicaid.

So thats people who actually work and who need this because there are no other health care options.

So if those people are also taken off, what happens to Indiana?

Did they everyone go to the emergency room now when they need when they need medical assistance, what happens to, the, the, health care deserts that are exist in rural Indiana?

But governor elect Braun has, has said that he has no interest in, removing Medicaid or reducing Medicaid or Hip.

So then how what happens there?

How do we make everything happen?

How do how do lawmakers figure out how to make it all happen?

Well, we have I think one of the interesting things is we have we're talking about money, but we're really talking about people.

Yeah.

So then how do we really help or harm people with our budget?

So that's going to be interesting.

I don't I don't envy the lawmakers.

I mean, you want to do you want to solve the growth in the Medicaid budget?

You could kick 750,000 people off of it.

But the idea is that actually wouldn't save no.

Actual money on the state.

Much money.

That's true.

And just to explain to me, the reason it wouldn't save any money is the 10% that the state is funding is paid by through a hospital assessment fee that hospitals pay and some tobacco money.

So, you know, the state actually isn't putting in a lot of cash for this program, but yet these people stand to lose, you know, everything.

And it would flood the market again and raise.

I mean, hospitals would be hit the most because people would basically be treating them as primary care physicians.

Is there any chance the legislature gets rid of the trigger?

Well, it's an easy fix.

Just put it in the budget, take it out.

You know.

They could.

They could do it.

and it would make sense because you're.

Because then at least it wouldn't happen immediately.

Well, and you're talking about, like we were talking about with the child care.

You're talking about the most vulnerable part of the population.

And these, as you point out, or people who aren't working, they're trying to do to carry their own weight and all, they just don't have health care or they have a chronic problem.

The other problem is going to come in.

In addition, is one of the proposals in that 2025 thing is to take away the exemption for preexisting conditions.

And if that happens, it's going to have a tremendous effect on, health care costs.

How much does this trigger issue play into lawmakers discussions in the upcoming session?

In part, it I mean, to have the the contrary opinion.

It makes it really easy because if the feds reduce your funding and now you're picking up the tab because you're right, the state's not paying very much right now unless people come in and go, hey, that Medicaid expansion money, that's that's your business, not ours.

That's a that's a.

The 80%.

It would be a huge yeah.

It's a huge.

Oh yeah.

And I think but but I also think it makes it easier for lawmakers if they go, hey the feds just took all the money away.

And if you want the Medicaid budget to completely engulf I'm we're going to keep talking about the Medicaid budget engulfing or continuing parts of the budget and creating on other programing.

But K-12 education, first and foremost, that this makes it would do it.

That would do it.

Yeah.

Well, I'm sure that Jim Banks will protect the Hoosiers in that regard.

He has a lot of influence with the Trump administration.

That's why we need redistricting reform.

We do need to get reform.

I don't think that works in the U.S.. How is it that works for the U.S. Senate?

That's Indiana we can review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Oseye Boyd of Mirror Indy and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Week in Reviews podcasts and episodes at wfyi.org/iwir or on the PBS app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

Join us next time, because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

The views expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI.

In association with Indiana.

Public Broadcasting Stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.