Many educators said the effect of budget cuts to K-12 education eventually will be so deep that it can't help but influence the final product as well as the way education in Indiana is structured.
School City of Hammond Superintendent Walter Watkins said the district just found a way to reduce spending by $4.5 million in 2010 with minimal effect to students, but, with continued cuts, the impact on student achievement and student learning will be evident.
"The kind of interaction, focus and attention that children need will be seriously jeopardized," he said.
Watkins said there is tremendous competition to get into colleges and universities as well as the job market, and too many young people are entering the work force lacking the ability to work as a team, something that is critical to employment and future success.
Linda Woloshansky, president and CEO of the Valparaiso-based Center of Workforce Innovations, agreed.
"We have heard from business people that the foundation skills -- the basic reading and writing skills, good presentation, critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills that are essential in any business, whether it's McDonald's or Centier Bank -- are missing," she said.
She said a common report is that 65 percent of the students who enter community college need remediation. The number is a little lower at Purdue University and Indiana University, she said. Unfortunately, students have to pay for those classes.
In October, Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Teresa Lubbers said, "At a time when higher education has never been more essential to our collective well-being, state resources are scarcer, families are saving less, students are borrowing more, and those who do graduate are finishing with larger debt loads.
"Far too many Hoosier students are heading to college unprepared -- either academically, financially or both -- greatly decreasing the odds that they will earn a degree and unnecessarily increasing costs. And our international standing -- as both a state and a nation -- is actually declining in terms of college-degree production."
At the Indiana Education Roundtable last week, a panel of elected officials, teachers, administrators and others involved in education discussed ways to improve degree completion, including more online learning, three-year bachelor's degrees, greater flexibility in class scheduling and a focus on measured student performance rather than measured time in a classroom.
Robert Rivers, dean of Purdue University Calumet's School of Education in Hammond, said there have been gains at the elementary and middle school level but few at the high school level as a result of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
"We have issues with our urban secondary high schools, especially in graduation rate and failure to make the federal adequate yearly progress benchmark," he said. "Some of our suburban schools have had some declines."
Rivers said it doesn't look like this is a good time to make budget cuts.
"I don't see any way you can improve high school performance without the support for teachers and development," he said.
But there are still pockets of success in Northwest Indiana and across the state.
Jon Groth, director of the Porter County Career and Technical Center, said of the 935 students enrolled in the 2008-09 school year, 93 percent received a diploma, and more than 80 percent were placed in post-secondary education, military service or employment.
The center serves Porter County high school students, along with those from Hobart High School, he said.
"Our biggest demand is students who have electrical and mechanical background as well as health care careers," he said.
State education chief Tony Bennett points to the southern Indiana city of Charlestown as a community where the school district and city have worked together successfully to overcome budget cuts and put young people to work.
"There are some very intriguing partnerships developing across the state, which show a new way to build relationships to help schools," he said.
Tiny Charlestown, which had a population of 5,993 people according to the 2000 census, built a relationship with its schools.
Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall said the city and the district developed a program that gave middle and high school students laptops. Other programs developed around it, enabling students to teach adult learners about technology and social networking.
"The school budget cuts were a catalyst to get some of these things done now, but it also helped closed the gap between those who do and don't know about technology," Hall said.
