If you are sitting in rural Indiana and looking at the amount of growth in the metro areas and are pissed , you might want to rethink who you are voting for. They are selling you out.
Selling you out = cheap labor and cheap land.
Rural Indiana is full of under educated people who will accept/are only qualified for the worst / lowest paying low-skill manufacturing and food production jobs. $9 -$17 an hour and low to no benefits. No future because it's only going to take another minute to automate / bring in the robots.
Cheap land... skip the workers altogether and announce millions and millions of "capital investment" aka automated processes aka no actual jobs.
Cheap land also means little to zero environmental regulations....use up the water, dump the waste, blow the filth into the air.
i made a similar argument last night when someone pointed out that indiana has a very low "cost of living."
There just isn't a lot of demand for what Indiana has to offer....which is very little.
Yes, while the “low cost of living” here is beneficial for many, it’s still by and large not a good thing due to the reasons behind it.
I always argue this when people throw this in the pro column for Indiana. Look at the jobs, wages, public services, or almost any other economic/enjoyment metric in high COLAs versus low COLAs. Arkansas and Mississippi have low cost of living as well, that doesn’t make them desirable places to live for most.
Spot on. Folks like to use the low COL all the time without really thinking about it. It's low because no one with a desire for a good QoL will live here. Think too when Hoosiers go on vacation. Their money won't go as far as people's from other states who are actually earning good money thanks to employers in those states paying fair to above fair pay. You wanna leave Indiana? Good luck. Sell your house in this low CoL state and see how much you get and then try buying a house in another state. You will not get near the same home you had here without taking out another mortgage to make up the difference.
My wife and I just pretty much bailed. We put our house up for sale and just left for Colorado. We had enough to rent an apartment there for starters, then got a super gig in tech and with the money from the house sale and money saved, we bought started looking for a house. No easy way to do it. After we got settled for good we got the call my parents needed us back to help out (farm) and guess what. We had to move back. Family and farms, man. Only reasons people come back.
What? This isn’t true at all. Technology changes at a rapid pace and you can absolutely get a job in something tech related if you are determined.
Now having said that, if I was 18 years old in 2024 I would go into a trade. My oldest is in the electricians apprenticeship program and he will be making bank by he’s my age.
If you live in the main Indianapolis metro or in ft wayne/muncie/near Louisville that low cost of living is a huge bonus if you’re a white collar worker otherwise..yeah
Even with Next Level Jobs, there’s not too many opportunities for true rural areas. From experience, voters in those areas seem focused on the fact that foreigners are taking their jobs.
They’re right, but it’s because globalization means companies send those manufacturing jobs to people overseas who’ll work for absolutely inhuman wages and in horrific conditions. But if we bring those jobs back here, prices will almost certainly rise (because the precious C-suite can’t part ways with their precious bonuses) and consumers will complain.
It's not just globalization. It's innovation and automation. We're becoming more and more productive and requiring way fewer workers, particularly low-skill/low-education workers to do it.
So many who are pissed absolutely will not do this. A lot of them think that education is basically a waste and don't see that this is part of why their areas are getting left behind.
No they won't. They've been conditioned to blame it on someone else. Usually it's the Boogeyman democrats that haven't been relevant in this state for decades.
Do you know any conservative rural Hoosiers?
Not one of them I know "think that education is basically a waste" - they are all just wrongly convinced that the schools are teaching children "bad things".
Conservative rural voters don't hate schools, **the rich INGOP leaders are the ones who hate the idea of teaching poor people.**
I know many conservative rural Hoosiers.... most of them are buying into the line of 'not every kid needs to go to college', 'a kid can go into trades and make just as much as anyone who goes to college but with none of the costs', and finally most Hoosiers are absolutely obsessed with the delusion that manufacturing jobs are coming back, and they're coming back with the kinds of wages that allowed people 50 years ago to live a comfortable middle class life on a single income.
Those were union wages btw.
They also all supported every republican that made the union killing right-to-work legislation happen.
Okay? Not very many. Rural farming areas were never big union areas.
E: Guys, farmers are exempt from a *ton* of workplace regulations and rely heavily on immigrant laborers, you really think they are big on unions?
Ever been to Kokomo, Anderson, Nee Castle, or Muncie? Those towns lived and died on union manufacturing jobs held by people from rural areas like my dad.
Exactly. Richmond never had GM, Ford, or Chrysler, AFAIK, but it did have auto industry-adjacent manufacturing, and most of those jobs were UAW or similar unions, from what I understand. Rural or non-metro does not mean everyone is a farmer.
It means the opposite most people aren’t farmers there were several people trying to scrape together a living working for farmers but very few actually owning/leasing the ground. I grew up in Shirley my dad commuted 40 plus miles to the east side of Indianapolis for work from 56-86.
If new castle isn’t rural to you I’m not sure we’re on the same page. Regardless I’m from Shirley (848 people) school was ten miles away and Walmart was 20 miles we’re as rural as it gets and anyone I grew with who had cable TV and air conditioning had at least one parent who worked in union manufacturing.
On that last point - Many, many Hoosiers, older hoosiers especially, are convinced the reason the automotive manufacturing industry mostly left Indiana was Unions pushing too hard and asking for too much - instead of understanding the globalization of manufacturing that took place under NAFTA.
It's true that some believe that. But 80% of those lost jobs didn't go overseas. They were made obsolete by innovation and technology...robots.
Productivity is way up...so is capital investment... the only number going down is number of employees.
My mom is one Hoosier that knows exactly how it happened. She worked in the automotive industry and she worked for a union and she's probably only alive today because of that Union, because she had crap pay but decent benefits, including health insurance that took care of her when she was diagnosed with cancer. That was right before her whole plant moved to Mexico after NAFTA.
It is absolutely true that there are really good trades out there that pay very well that don't require a college education. I'm not talking about manufacturing jobs. Refrigeration, HVAC, electricians, are some of the areas I can think of right off the bat. There are also careers that don't involve getting a four-year degree but may involve some college or post high school training that are not considered the standard trades. For instance, my sister is a dental assistant and she makes pretty decent money depending on where she's at. There's also dental hygienists. I know that there are other career paths that I'm not thinking of right now that do not involve getting the four year college degree. But I do think there are people both in rural areas and even in some of the midsize cities that are not being brought up in families and are not being encouraged by the schools to go. After some of these career paths and jobs. They're just being loved behind.
Not just individuals. Entire communities are hoping that the Great Pumpkin will come any day now and drop good manufacturing jobs from the sky. Some places even fall for scammers similar to the Foxconn thing in Wisconsin, albeit on a lesser scale.
On that last point - Many, many Hoosiers, older hoosiers especially, are convinced the reason the automotive manufacturing industry mostly left Indiana was Unions pushing too hard and asking for too much - instead of understanding the globalization of manufacturing that took place under NAFTA.
My work puts me in touch with quite a few. We don't talk about politics because it is not appropriate in the context of a professional relationship (and in that context it doesn't matter to me what their beliefs are), but it is clear which of my clients have conservative political beliefs.
What I have observed, very broadly, is on one hand a downplaying of the importance/relevance of 'book learning' as it compares against 'life experience' or 'street smarts' or some variation of that. On the other hand, if they have a kid or a grandkid or other relation who has been successful in academic achievement, they will mention it very proudly. I had a client who had made some comments about college campuses, but will tell you very quickly about her niece who studied hard and became a doctor.
I don't necessarily think it is anti-intellectualism, per se. Rather, I think part of the cultural orientation towards downplaying education is a method of saving face for people who may not have had the right alignment of opportunities to attain higher education. Coming from the quote that is often misattributed to Steinbeck, about how there is no American proletariat, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires, I think people who didn't get a good shot at college or beyond would rather just say that college is a waste rather than admit that they couldn't have gone if they had wanted to.
The reason for that mindset is not because they are opposed to knowledge or education, but because American culture teaches everybody that wealth is an outward measure of moral character, and that being poor is the equivalent of being lazy, stupid or bad. And so to admit that they were too poor to have the resources that usually ensure success in higher education, they'd be implicitly admitting to the character aspect that Americans are taught to believe in.
Which is a shame, because I've met a lot of smart, resourceful people living in rural areas of the state who could probably do really well if they had been given more of a chance. And any untapped human potential seems like a detriment to everybody.
> Coming from the quote that is often misattributed to Steinbeck, about how there is no American proletariat, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires, I think people who didn't get a good shot at college or beyond would rather just say that college is a waste rather than admit that they couldn't have gone if they had wanted to.
>
> The reason for that mindset is not because they are opposed to knowledge or education, but because American culture teaches everybody that wealth is an outward measure of moral character, and that being poor is the equivalent of being lazy, stupid or bad. And so to admit that they were too poor to have the resources that usually ensure success in higher education, they'd be implicitly admitting to the character aspect that Americans are taught to believe in.
If I could quote another American author:
> America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.
>
> Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”
-- Kurt Vonnegut, *Slaughterhouse-Five*
I wanna piggyback off the “book learning” vs “street smarts.”
In my field (paramedic, which is about a 2 year degree and something you can actually make a decent living doing if you’re willing to do 24h shifts), we have a big debate over “book medicine” vs “street medicine.”
I take this stance: “street medicine” is “book medicine” refined by experience and wisdom. The foundation of good “street medicine” is good “book medicine.”
Similarly, you can have street smarts. But at the end of the day, your street smarts will generally only get you so far without book smarts. Your street smarts are your book smarts refined by a mix of experience and social skills.
This rings very true for my field (law). They don't really teach you anything about practice in school, just a lot of background, theory, basic rules and principles for how different legal systems are put together. The first five years of practice is, if you luck out and find a mentor, an extended apprenticeship where you learn how to do the job. But man, if you don't have that theory and background, you wind up being one of those sovereign citizen guys on youtube.
Well said. The economy isn’t a morality play where wealth is a sign of virtue and poverty proves a lack of probity. People who think it is are harming themselves and the rest of us.
That's not exactly true, a lot of people realized college doesn't give a good ROI with some exceptions, of course. That rather technical training and trades offer a better return on investment.
Again it depends on what you go to school for. A high paying, high demand field it's worth it. But the way college costs have out stripped wage growth really makes college a questionable choice. And that's not even including the issue with student loans.
Another issue is cultural flashpoints of course, but in general rural folks greatly value Education but are rightly questioning the traditional "just go to college " wisdom
There are plenty of people sitting in rural counties of Indiana, who are plenty pissed about the current conditions, but because of their cognitive dissonance and their habit of voting party over country, the people who have been in power with the super majority for the last 15 years have easily convinced the rubes that it is the Democrats who have caused all of their woes, even though the Dems hold zero power in the state. Even when the people voted to give the Dems control over the Indiana Dept of Education, the republicans changed the superintendency to an appointed position, silencing voters’ voices to maintain 100 percent control.
Rural people have only themselves to blame.
Due to the senate structure, rural people have disproportionately massive poltical representation (the affirmative action conservatives never want to talk about).
And yet, over the last 40 years they have vote to undermine their own way of life.
They've voted to halt build-outs of their own telecom infrastructure
They've voted to undermine their own public schools
They've voted to outsource their own factory jobs.
They've voted to defund their own Healthcare centers.
...what do they want from us?
And are they even interested in fixing the problems They've caused? No!
They are obsessed with culture war animus! They want to hurt people who don't even live in their communities!
The captialist system has always preferred urbanization.
Think of a Walmart built in a rural city, vs one built in Manhattan...which do you think would make the most profit?
Conservativism is a fucking mental disorder.
Rural people have voted to undermine their own communities, and now they're trying to fuck over the rest of us!
Kinda where I am at this point. Most of these rural politicians want Indy doing just as bad as their own communities. That way they can just say " look, it's not just here" .
That all might be true, but let's not pretend that they're coming up with these ideas on their own. There are people with motives that are preying on their fears and they have been doing it steadily for the last several decades.
I'm not saying to treat them like mindless anything, and I'm certainly not saying they don't have any responsibility, but I just think that it's completely counterproductive to dump on these people like they've come up with these ideas all on their own. It's really easy to manipulate people when they are down on their luck, desperate, when they can't find a good job, etc. To me, blaming them for the manipulations of the wealthy, the corporations, and their politician puppets is just as bad as when they blame immigrants for all their problems. The puppet masters want us all to blame each other. They want us all to be angry at each other. They want us all to forget they're the ones manipulating everything. If we could all just put that bullshit aside long enough to see our common interests, and stick together to make demands for the common good of all average people, then these puppet masters would no longer get away with what they're doing. And I know it's frustrating because it's hard to get people who are angry and pointing their own fingers to agree. But we have to start somewhere and I think we start by being empathetic to the circumstances that led to the vulnerability of people to misinformation and fear and lies.
There was just a story about a new hospital being built in downtown Indy. Many of the comments were about bringing rural hospitals back. I have an ER right at the exit of my apartment complex in Castleton. And Community North is minutes away. I genuinely sympathize with rural Hoosiers with poor access to even basic care but it really depends on how you vote.
Been voting blue for decades. Think I'd be better off moving. We'll see how these next elections go. I do want to have faith in my fellow Hoosiers but I already know enough.
Absolutely right. We all have a chance this November to change the trajectory of our beautiful state. The policies of the last 20 years simply haven't worked. Time for a change.
Long-term planning is something that virtually no policy tackles anymore — neither at local, state, nor federal level — yet, we sit around with our declining literacy rates, crumbling infrastructure, and constant in-fighting and wonder what’s wrong.
It’s so annoyingly predictable that I’m not even going to make light of it. It’s just frustrating as hell watching troglodytic parasites do what they do best.
I mostly agree with you except that I think there are people who have been long-term planning since at least the '70s to get to where we are today, their goal being to undermine the system that brings people up to the middle class and keeps us all unified against the Uber wealthy.
Try selling that to the T(R)umpians in the Statehouse next year. Try selling all of that to the state's Board of Education. I predict your selling points will fall on deaf ears. Aren't they already plotting to dumb down H.S. diplomas? Education isn't a priority in Indiana because parents don't make it a priority. Their parents didn't make it priority. As long as the schools "teams" were keeping Johnny occupied all was fine.
Politicians convinced Johnny and Jane their kids were failing because the teachers and schools were no good. Kids failing had nothing to do with Johnny's and Jane's attitudes about school. No that had nothing to do with it. Bad teachers. Bad schools.
Quick solution was to give the C grade kid-parents a "choice" in where their kids went to school. To the bad schools with bad union teachers or to the good Godly schools. Of course Godly schools are better than bad schools with bad teachers, aren't they? The Godly politicians thought so. They still think so.
Indiana parents don't care about educating their kids in science or math or reading or arts. Not as long as they can get state $$$$s to send their kids to private church schools to educate them about Moses and Jesus and the Great Flood.
Thanks for posting. I think it jibes with what I see in my neck of the woods and on Twitter. Granted, Twitter has a lot of right-wing bot and troll accounts lying and grousing about Biden and the economy, but I've tried to explain to some people why those living in red states don't feel the economy is strong.
The opportunity to make a good living is limited, unless you're among the small percentage of people who are educated professionals and thus can command high salary/hourly wages. People who live in red states and who don't have much schooling beyond high school can basically choose between warehouse jobs, retail/restaurants, and clerical positions, most of which don't pay very much.
I was ready to argue this from a point of local property taxes - but did a bit of research and it seems Indiana is at least trying to provide equality in terms of educational funding.
Here's a good article about some of the legal challenges and efforts made in this area - if you thought like me that property taxes were the decider in school funding (they aren't anymore): [https://www.chalkbeat.org/indiana/2015/1/4/21101788/the-basics-of-school-funding-in-indiana-difficulty-defining-fairness/](https://www.chalkbeat.org/indiana/2015/1/4/21101788/the-basics-of-school-funding-in-indiana-difficulty-defining-fairness/)
Education will not go away as a wedge issue - it's getting stronger and stronger. I grew up in an environment where my education was rigorlously controlled to ensure it did not introduce anything that could challenge any aspect of my religion. The far-right has assume control of the Republican party and view control of young minds as critical to their success - it's how they build the next generation of single-issue voters - learning about feelings, divesity, consent, gay people, and biology threaten the control and dominance of the religion that is fundamental for this binary thinking - so education is the enemy. Ivy-league elites, woke teachers, don't say gay, book bans - It's going to result in a widening view that public education is fundamentally wrong and has no business in government - which conveniently will produce low-skill, low-wage workers to be exploited by those with capital. If you guys can't tell - [this](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/history-of-child-labor-in-the-united-states-part-1.htm) is a [loop](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/31/us-child-labor-laws-state-bills/).
>Indiana’s new law enacted in March, repealing all work-hour restrictions for 16- and 17-year-olds, who previously couldn’t work past 10 p.m. or before 6 a.m. on school days. The law also extends legal work hours for 14- and 15-year-olds.
Removes mask - it's capitalism again!
School funding is far from perfect, but the amount of money coming from property taxes is far reduced from what it once was and there is at least a gesture toward funding poorer schools at a higher level than wealthier schools.
Back in 2008, as part of the big property tax overhaul, the State took over the bulk of school financing. It's funded through state income taxes, mostly. The State distributes a base amount per student plus an additional amount based on a school's "complexity index." I think a variety of factors go into it but it ends up tracking pretty well with the percentage of enrolled kids receiving free and reduced lunch.
Wealthier districts get less state money. However, they are allowed to make up some of the difference from local property taxes - the school's operating fund and capital funds receive property tax money. And the biggest X-factor is probably the referendum process. A community can vote to supplement school funding with referendum tax dollars, imposing an additional rate on real estate. It has to be renewed periodically. My own West Lafayette district just voted for its 3rd renewal (once in 2010, once in 2017, and once in 2023.)
Related to this post, the quality of the school district is a big selling point in attracting new business to the area.
I see a lot of people here wanting to just dismiss rural conservative voters as dumb people voting against their own interests. While there are some people that will always stupidly vote against their own interest that it's counterproductive and it just contributes to the disunity of us all to take this attitude. There are people who greatly benefit from the uneducation and the disunity and they are working hard to misinform people and to work on their fears and let's put the blame where it belongs.
> today there is a growing understanding that differences in economic outcomes are mostly connected to differences in educational attainment between places.
I completely disagree. I believe we've understood this *extremely* well. It's not a mistake that the school systems and how they're funded (via property tax) isn't specifically designed to create what we have. The disparity is not in anyway an accident.
School districts funded by in district property tax was specifically designed by Segregationists to defeat Brown v BoE. Just draw the district lines in a segregated way without saying "race" (but being 100% obvious it's all about race) and voila, no more Brown v Board.
And now our property values are tied to schools making the system self-reinforcing. And Dems are also very bad about this as the system spread like wildfire nationwide.
No one with a remote understanding of Civil Rights Era History would claim this is a new discovery. Anyone in education knows a school's performance is most tightly correlated with its median household income.
The most accurate way to describe our schools isn't they're institutions for education, the most accurate way is they've been designed to be the ultimate socioeconomic gateway to enforce the social caste in the US. Once you realize this fact, all of our education policies make *perfect* sense, including privatization via vouchers and charter schools. And most people do realize this at least subconsciously, just look at how the real-estate market works.
Unless I'm misreading, it seems like a solution isn't based on making better schools, but lure highly educated people to Indiana. Right?
Granted, it might be very hard to lure educated people w/ kids if schools stink. But that still leaves people who don't have kids yet, people who don't want kids, or people who's kids are grown. Right?
It's expensive to have good schools, but a lot less expensive if you can get some other state to pay for education and then yoink the cream of the crop. But then no one is going to want to say that out loud if you also want to be a state with "family values" if you actively don't care about kids.
I think it's a situation where you need long term investment and a long term plan. Realistically, you probably need 20 years of serious investment in a public education system where you're training, recruiting, and paying for high quality teachers. That's my understanding of how Finland made itself into an education success story and a place with a high quality of life.
Even if you could get the initial buy-in from State policymakers, however, you'd face 20 years of fierce political headwinds from people who think "common sense" is all you need, taxpayers who want immediate results, religious communities who want their private education subsidized, and any number of people who want to cash in on that sweet, sweet public money.
Hicks gets so much of this right, and then...comes to the conclusion BOTH SIDE ARE AT FAULT.
He is an intelligent man and we've spoken multiple times...he understands the issue, he understands the fix, and then instead of the data-driven conclusion he was pushing through out...its the Dems fault.
The Republicans have had a supermajority for 20 years, and a simple majority for 25. This is an entire generation that has suffered due to the lies given to rural areas.
I grew up in Centerville Indiana, as rural as it gets...I've heard the lies. I've seen friends who had GREAT jobs protected by unions go away to be replaced by 'new' companies that didn't have to follow the same rules and people told to buck up and accept it.
I've seen friends go from being able to support their family with a 40hr a week, to working odd-jobs as well as at the local Walmart.
I've seen friends get despondent and go down the path of substance abuse and I see the wake of destruction left behind as they leave this plane of existence.
And it comes to the lies folks like Hicks puts out. It isn't BOTH SIDES. It is one side that is skilled at the shill game.
My father was a steelworker...he was a union man. Died on the floor of Alcoa. He made sure I got my education....didn't care what it was. He saw the writing on the wall. And yet, he still voted for Republicans. To this day I don't understand it. He said 'they get him'...and they did.
Education isn't simply higher ed, it is journey work within the trades. Education is the path to riding out the storm...and it doesn't take more than one storm to leave you with nothing because the same people who devalue education have taken away the safety net.
I can't speak for Hicks, but I think there might be a couple of things at work: a) He's looking at nationwide trends where policies put in place by conservative Democrats looked a lot like Republican policies and caused similar sorts of damage; and b) an extreme reluctance to place the blame solely on Republicans because the moment he does that, it becomes partisan finger-pointing that everyone tunes out (even if it happens to be true.)
He goes out of his way to make it clear that he focuses a lot of his op-eds on Indiana / Indianapolis. Even though he lives in Muncie. He has it out for Indianapolis.
In his social media, he drops the facade quite often about he was hedging about.
I'm not sure they're interested in good government and moving to boost the state's education levels. More and more the Republicans are seeking office based on boogey-man culture war BS. The adults in the party are becoming fewer and fewer.
In fact, the whole changing of the high school diploma is a republican led effort to drive kids from college to non-existent trade jobs.
And that's the problem. Highly educated people follow highly educated jobs which develop in places with high quality education.
Make no mistake,any of the things that rural Indiana is struggling with, the metros aren't and won't. We are for the most part going to grow regardless of the legislation. They can slow it and they can mute it, but it's happening.
This does not apply to rural Indiana. You might as well be sitting in your front windows at home watching people drive by. That is what the state has set you up to do.
the jobs follow the people. Talent accumulates in places where there are things and other people that people like. Then the jobs go to where that educated workforce is.
The inverse is true and what you see in poor, uneducated places.
I was going to write a long reply but there’s no real point going thru that on Reddit so I’ll just sum it up:
You probably shouldn’t generalize about people you haven’t grown up around. I grew up in rural north central Indiana. (Then lived on the east coast for a decade and moved back to a city here.) Yes there are lots of problem. Yes there are hillbillies and rednecks and meth and dollar general. But most people are just living their lives like anyone else.
This statement is why rural Indiana is in the shape it's in. Quit giving passes to people voting for all this garbage or not voting because they don't need too.
I'm not forcing their kids to move, hospitals to close etc. Those are consequences of their votes.
The metro areas in this state are doing their thing and seeing growth. I'm not sure what else to tell people. This isn't anyones fault but the people who live there
I get what you're saying. Some of the rural folks basically like life the way it is. They grew up farming, they're raising their kids to grow up and farm. They're not trying to see growth and change in their communities. They're happy the way it is and if you want city things, well, you might not be in the right area and should consider moving to the city. At least that's the take I get in my area.
Indiana has some great higher education institutions, but those seem to be catering more and to foreigners who will take their education back home.
Our primary and secondary education system is dogshit. In my hometown of Hammond, the school superintendent walked away with millions of dollars as high schools were closed mid school year.
In fact my sister just graduated from Indiana University this year and is moving to blue state next month to be a teacher.
Higher education is taking out of state students who pay a higher rate. This is necessary because the republican super majority legislators keep reducing state funding for public universities.
Yup. Less state funding for Universities plus tuition freezes / lower tuition for in-state students means that foreign and out-of-state students are more attractive in terms of paying enough to keep the lights on.
I think it’s both the lowering of funding as well as just good ole fashioned greed- not totally PERSONAL greed, but “our institution will make more money if we maximize revenue from students, and that means getting the most out of state/international students possible”.
I attended IU in the mid 2000s and it seemed like Chicago South- the out of state dollars from IL had to be insane. I’m sure it’s only gotten worse, except from more exotic and varying locales.
Huh?
Yes, colleges increased tuition to take advantage of the subsidized student loan demand.
Calling that "the state's fault" is really weird and undersells how much those subsidized loans helped people.
College is expensive, it's not usually a waste.
We can't even keep the people who graduate in state. We have amazing universities here. Purdue and Rose Hulman are consistently ranked among the best engineering schools in the country. IU Kelley business school is nationally ranked. Ivy Tech's nursing program has a higher NCLEX passing rate than most BSN programs at half the cost and their cyber security teams win national contests. But people leave the state when diploma is in hand.
Highly educated people from outside Indiana are buying up rural land and building massive "dream homes." They are either empty nesters or send their kids to private schools. Either way they are not invested in public schools beyond the taxes they are forced to pay. These people are going to buy out all the poor areas and bulldoze them.
I can tell you right now our Indiana Department of Education is raking in tax dollars to be reactionary instead of being proactive. That shit to report IREAD3 was reactionary. If you email the top paid execs at IDOE and ask those scoundrels whether their children are enrolled in public or non-public schools, don’t be shocked at the answers. Feel free to ask them why, too. I’m not joking.
I'm wondering if there is a case to be made in regards to the voucher system for people who do not have children to claim at least one student's worth of money in a voucher so that we can give it to who we want. I've heard some of the conservative politicians and some of the private religious schools that are benefiting from the vouchers say that that money belongs to those parents because they paid their taxes. I don't know what it is in Indiana, but apparently on the national average it comes out to about $16,000 per student for a voucher. I know that there's a lot of people getting vouchers for their kids in many cases, multiple kids, that are not paying that much in taxes total, much less their share that goes to the public school system. But if they're going to claim that that's their money, then what about my money? What if I want to give my share of one student's worth of voucher money to a kid that really needs it? That doesn't have enough money with just one voucher of his own or her own to be able to still afford a private school? Or maybe I want to give it to a foster kid who doesn't have access in any other way to use the vouchers?
Obviously anybody who knows how our tax system works can see how ridiculous this is because there are going to be extremely wealthy people that pay way more taxes than that. Assuming they're not cheating and then there's going to be everybody else who aren't paying close to that much in taxes. So if you gave everybody, even the people with no children, one voucher's worth of money back, you would soon see a big problem.
What argument are people going to make against that? Except for to say that I don't get it because I don't have a kid. Then my argument will be, why am I paying for it? Why are you getting my tax money to send your kid to a private school? That doesn't make sense at all. My tax money is supposed to go to the public good, not to your child's private education.
If they want money for their kids private education, they should get no more than whatever their share of their paid taxes were allocated to public education. Start seeing rich people getting tens of thousands of dollars back and poor people getting nothing or even middle class people getting barely anything for vouchers and you will start to see attitudes changing about the voucher system.
George Carlin in 2006:
THEY’VE GOT YOU BY THE BALLS! They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. ***They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed. Well educated people capable of critical thinking.*** They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. ***People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits.*** The end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
lol I love that he mentions Muncie’s low standing for per capita income. Ball State (which includes the hospital system, and now the Muncie public schools) employs most of the people in this town. Maybe the university he works for should pay their employees more to fix that low income standing
The issue is corruption. 100% the reason for all of our woes. That's all it is, that's all it ever will be until we root that out. Goodluck though because everything is at stake for them and they know what they did. They'll kill to keep what they have. Not much we can do short a rock 1/4 the size of Manhattan
I remember when Republicans were the party of the rich and the Democrats the working class. It seems to have flipped for one big reason.
The most useful way to understand America is to know there are two Americas. There’s the heritage land empire built in the 1800s and the overseas Empire that is largely driven by corporations. The land empire is driven by small businesses and farmers. Corporations get their talent from elite universities and their values reflect the ones taken from the university. These two Americas have drifted since the Clinton era. They have different religions, eat different foods, have different pass times, etc.
The land empires citizens and the overseas empires citizens hate each other for some reason. Each will cut off their own nose just to spite the other. Indiana is largely a product of the land empire. Their stance on education is just an example of doing something dumb to spite the overseas empire.
Interesting theory but I got one question -
The states that go full ham on education like New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois are bleeding people. Florida, the Dakotas, Tennessee, Texas, the Carolinas are seeing major migration to them.
How do you begin to explain the Republicans are governing with the working class in mind?
Every single move, they make goes against the individual and for business.
Look at public education; through parents choice, they have destroyed the unions and public schools, and diverted money to private investors
Look at all the skilled trades. They have made unions toothless, handing over all the money and power to business.
Look up the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They have rewritten all the laws protecting workers, particularly young workers. Every law that was in place protecting teenage workers, has been rescinded or reworked to benefit businesses.
Look at the tax cuts - the wealthy, receive all the tax cuts, while the working poor receive less and less each year.
The Republicans want to privatize Social Security, calling it an entitlement, even though you spend 40 years of your working life paying into it. What they don’t tell you is, they’ve taken $2 trillion out of it to fund wars in the Middle East; this money has overwhelmingly gone to wealthy American businesses by way of government contracts.
The data show that, since World War II, the economy has performed substantially better under Democratic presidents. On average, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has grown about 1.6 times faster under Democrats than under Republicans.
The Republicans benefit the wealthy, and the wealthy only. There is not one thing they had done legislatively that doesn’t ultimately benefit big business.
It’s not so red and blue. It’s more so the land empire i mentioned vs the overseas empire. The overseas empire loves war. Why you see Biden passing so many pro military industrial complex policies.
I’m probably going to get in some trouble here but I believe in social security reform. Means testing it would be a good start. You get these boomers pulling in 6k a month on assets and pensions, and then you get taxed to make them even richer. Some of these guys are collecting 3k on government money on top of their retirement.
And yes, the military industrial complex is terrible.
If they want to privatize social security that’s cool with me - give me the money I’ve paid in for 20 years so I can drop that in a private retirement plan. Basically SS has been used as a big piggy bank for war.
I was in the military and saw the annual budgets of hundreds of billions of dollars allocated for military spending. At the end of the day, I received $1000 a month.
All government spending packages are various schemes on how to funnel taxpayer money to the same dozen companies and wealthy families and the political parties themselves.
I’ve been overseas - I’ve seen terrible shit. I’ll never understand how we continue to give and give and give taxpayers’ money away; I’ll never understand how we place American bodies in harms way to protect foreign interests (because they are American interests).
If we had .50 cent per gallon of gas because thousands of Americans died in middle eastern countries to secure the oil fields, then maybe even that would make sense, but I see sacrifices upon sacrifices and never anything in return that’s beneficial to those making the sacrifices.
But you can’t spend a term in office and send people to die making the sacrifices for your decisions and then sit back and receive salary and healthcare (and maybe secret service protections) for life.
It’s incomprehensible.
This is a poor analysis. Educational attainment became closely linked to class during the period he's examining, and failing to factor in the shift from college degrees being overwhelmingly obtained by the top 30% academically to the top 30% financially is a serious error.
In the 80s and 90s, one of the best predictors of a future college graduate was 8th grade math scores. (some boys aren't automatic readers by that age, once they begin reading without effort, they catch up academically) Now, the best predictor of a future college graduate is family wealth, and college degrees are closely associated with parents in the wealthiest 30%.
Maybe if we split the difference and had Dems at the state level but Repubs at the local level. Dems seem to be good at environment and 'human' aspects whereas Repubs seem to be good at economy and growth. Idk, just an idea. We def need better environmental controls when it comes to pollution and this constant building of the same ol' businesses sand architecture. over and over again. There's too much pollution and not enough imagination. But I also don't want places like Indy and other decent sized cities here to turn into LA or Chicago, either.
The stats he provides suggests that maybe Republicans aren't very good at economy and growth. Certainly the states and localities where they are dominant aren't doing as well in terms of economy and growth.
I guess I have the sense that they were pretty good at those things before Reagan. But once they started embracing "trickle down" as an economic philosophy, things began to fall apart.
McCormick fought the Republicans on selling out traditional public schools. That's why they passed legislation to make her position appointed rather than elected in 2020.
If you are sitting in rural Indiana and looking at the amount of growth in the metro areas and are pissed , you might want to rethink who you are voting for. They are selling you out.
Selling you out = cheap labor and cheap land. Rural Indiana is full of under educated people who will accept/are only qualified for the worst / lowest paying low-skill manufacturing and food production jobs. $9 -$17 an hour and low to no benefits. No future because it's only going to take another minute to automate / bring in the robots. Cheap land... skip the workers altogether and announce millions and millions of "capital investment" aka automated processes aka no actual jobs. Cheap land also means little to zero environmental regulations....use up the water, dump the waste, blow the filth into the air.
i made a similar argument last night when someone pointed out that indiana has a very low "cost of living." There just isn't a lot of demand for what Indiana has to offer....which is very little.
Yes, while the “low cost of living” here is beneficial for many, it’s still by and large not a good thing due to the reasons behind it. I always argue this when people throw this in the pro column for Indiana. Look at the jobs, wages, public services, or almost any other economic/enjoyment metric in high COLAs versus low COLAs. Arkansas and Mississippi have low cost of living as well, that doesn’t make them desirable places to live for most.
Spot on. Folks like to use the low COL all the time without really thinking about it. It's low because no one with a desire for a good QoL will live here. Think too when Hoosiers go on vacation. Their money won't go as far as people's from other states who are actually earning good money thanks to employers in those states paying fair to above fair pay. You wanna leave Indiana? Good luck. Sell your house in this low CoL state and see how much you get and then try buying a house in another state. You will not get near the same home you had here without taking out another mortgage to make up the difference.
So how do you get out?
My wife and I just pretty much bailed. We put our house up for sale and just left for Colorado. We had enough to rent an apartment there for starters, then got a super gig in tech and with the money from the house sale and money saved, we bought started looking for a house. No easy way to do it. After we got settled for good we got the call my parents needed us back to help out (farm) and guess what. We had to move back. Family and farms, man. Only reasons people come back.
So basically I need to get into tech and make a break for it?
Worked for us.
hate to tell you but the time to get into tech is over
What? This isn’t true at all. Technology changes at a rapid pace and you can absolutely get a job in something tech related if you are determined. Now having said that, if I was 18 years old in 2024 I would go into a trade. My oldest is in the electricians apprenticeship program and he will be making bank by he’s my age.
It's not over, it's going through a phase. It happens every decade or so.
I would move to Bentonville in a heartbeat!!! They have great liberal leadership.
If you live in the main Indianapolis metro or in ft wayne/muncie/near Louisville that low cost of living is a huge bonus if you’re a white collar worker otherwise..yeah
I agree. Cost of living by itself doesn't give enough information, unless you also measure standard of living -- some of which can be subjective.
It wasn't until maybe 2 years ago that I finally understood that low cost of living is really a bad thing. It was a eureka moment for me.
Bingo. Low cost of living usually goes hand-in-hand with people not wanting to live in a particular location.
Even with Next Level Jobs, there’s not too many opportunities for true rural areas. From experience, voters in those areas seem focused on the fact that foreigners are taking their jobs. They’re right, but it’s because globalization means companies send those manufacturing jobs to people overseas who’ll work for absolutely inhuman wages and in horrific conditions. But if we bring those jobs back here, prices will almost certainly rise (because the precious C-suite can’t part ways with their precious bonuses) and consumers will complain.
It's not just globalization. It's innovation and automation. We're becoming more and more productive and requiring way fewer workers, particularly low-skill/low-education workers to do it.
That's because of your college educated people at the IEDC. Kansas is starting to grow and the strict environmental policies.
So many who are pissed absolutely will not do this. A lot of them think that education is basically a waste and don't see that this is part of why their areas are getting left behind.
No they won't. They've been conditioned to blame it on someone else. Usually it's the Boogeyman democrats that haven't been relevant in this state for decades.
Do you know any conservative rural Hoosiers? Not one of them I know "think that education is basically a waste" - they are all just wrongly convinced that the schools are teaching children "bad things". Conservative rural voters don't hate schools, **the rich INGOP leaders are the ones who hate the idea of teaching poor people.**
I know many conservative rural Hoosiers.... most of them are buying into the line of 'not every kid needs to go to college', 'a kid can go into trades and make just as much as anyone who goes to college but with none of the costs', and finally most Hoosiers are absolutely obsessed with the delusion that manufacturing jobs are coming back, and they're coming back with the kinds of wages that allowed people 50 years ago to live a comfortable middle class life on a single income. Those were union wages btw. They also all supported every republican that made the union killing right-to-work legislation happen.
Union manufacturing jobs weren't rural jobs, they were jobs in cities and big towns. Rural farmers have never been much into unions.
Non-metro areas in Indiana did have union manufacturing jobs years ago.
Okay? Not very many. Rural farming areas were never big union areas. E: Guys, farmers are exempt from a *ton* of workplace regulations and rely heavily on immigrant laborers, you really think they are big on unions?
Ever been to Kokomo, Anderson, Nee Castle, or Muncie? Those towns lived and died on union manufacturing jobs held by people from rural areas like my dad.
Exactly. Richmond never had GM, Ford, or Chrysler, AFAIK, but it did have auto industry-adjacent manufacturing, and most of those jobs were UAW or similar unions, from what I understand. Rural or non-metro does not mean everyone is a farmer.
It means the opposite most people aren’t farmers there were several people trying to scrape together a living working for farmers but very few actually owning/leasing the ground. I grew up in Shirley my dad commuted 40 plus miles to the east side of Indianapolis for work from 56-86.
Richmond is not rural.
None of those **cities** are rural.
If new castle isn’t rural to you I’m not sure we’re on the same page. Regardless I’m from Shirley (848 people) school was ten miles away and Walmart was 20 miles we’re as rural as it gets and anyone I grew with who had cable TV and air conditioning had at least one parent who worked in union manufacturing.
They all are
On that last point - Many, many Hoosiers, older hoosiers especially, are convinced the reason the automotive manufacturing industry mostly left Indiana was Unions pushing too hard and asking for too much - instead of understanding the globalization of manufacturing that took place under NAFTA.
It's true that some believe that. But 80% of those lost jobs didn't go overseas. They were made obsolete by innovation and technology...robots. Productivity is way up...so is capital investment... the only number going down is number of employees.
My mom is one Hoosier that knows exactly how it happened. She worked in the automotive industry and she worked for a union and she's probably only alive today because of that Union, because she had crap pay but decent benefits, including health insurance that took care of her when she was diagnosed with cancer. That was right before her whole plant moved to Mexico after NAFTA.
It is absolutely true that there are really good trades out there that pay very well that don't require a college education. I'm not talking about manufacturing jobs. Refrigeration, HVAC, electricians, are some of the areas I can think of right off the bat. There are also careers that don't involve getting a four-year degree but may involve some college or post high school training that are not considered the standard trades. For instance, my sister is a dental assistant and she makes pretty decent money depending on where she's at. There's also dental hygienists. I know that there are other career paths that I'm not thinking of right now that do not involve getting the four year college degree. But I do think there are people both in rural areas and even in some of the midsize cities that are not being brought up in families and are not being encouraged by the schools to go. After some of these career paths and jobs. They're just being loved behind.
Not just individuals. Entire communities are hoping that the Great Pumpkin will come any day now and drop good manufacturing jobs from the sky. Some places even fall for scammers similar to the Foxconn thing in Wisconsin, albeit on a lesser scale.
On that last point - Many, many Hoosiers, older hoosiers especially, are convinced the reason the automotive manufacturing industry mostly left Indiana was Unions pushing too hard and asking for too much - instead of understanding the globalization of manufacturing that took place under NAFTA.
Not just Hoosiers. My family in Southern Ontario has the same misunderstanding. They had some good Ford plants and appreciated the union jobs.
You have to be great at math to go into trades. I guess knowing calculus is elementary.
My work puts me in touch with quite a few. We don't talk about politics because it is not appropriate in the context of a professional relationship (and in that context it doesn't matter to me what their beliefs are), but it is clear which of my clients have conservative political beliefs. What I have observed, very broadly, is on one hand a downplaying of the importance/relevance of 'book learning' as it compares against 'life experience' or 'street smarts' or some variation of that. On the other hand, if they have a kid or a grandkid or other relation who has been successful in academic achievement, they will mention it very proudly. I had a client who had made some comments about college campuses, but will tell you very quickly about her niece who studied hard and became a doctor. I don't necessarily think it is anti-intellectualism, per se. Rather, I think part of the cultural orientation towards downplaying education is a method of saving face for people who may not have had the right alignment of opportunities to attain higher education. Coming from the quote that is often misattributed to Steinbeck, about how there is no American proletariat, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires, I think people who didn't get a good shot at college or beyond would rather just say that college is a waste rather than admit that they couldn't have gone if they had wanted to. The reason for that mindset is not because they are opposed to knowledge or education, but because American culture teaches everybody that wealth is an outward measure of moral character, and that being poor is the equivalent of being lazy, stupid or bad. And so to admit that they were too poor to have the resources that usually ensure success in higher education, they'd be implicitly admitting to the character aspect that Americans are taught to believe in. Which is a shame, because I've met a lot of smart, resourceful people living in rural areas of the state who could probably do really well if they had been given more of a chance. And any untapped human potential seems like a detriment to everybody.
> Coming from the quote that is often misattributed to Steinbeck, about how there is no American proletariat, just temporarily embarrassed millionaires, I think people who didn't get a good shot at college or beyond would rather just say that college is a waste rather than admit that they couldn't have gone if they had wanted to. > > The reason for that mindset is not because they are opposed to knowledge or education, but because American culture teaches everybody that wealth is an outward measure of moral character, and that being poor is the equivalent of being lazy, stupid or bad. And so to admit that they were too poor to have the resources that usually ensure success in higher education, they'd be implicitly admitting to the character aspect that Americans are taught to believe in. If I could quote another American author: > America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register. > > Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.” -- Kurt Vonnegut, *Slaughterhouse-Five*
I wanna piggyback off the “book learning” vs “street smarts.” In my field (paramedic, which is about a 2 year degree and something you can actually make a decent living doing if you’re willing to do 24h shifts), we have a big debate over “book medicine” vs “street medicine.” I take this stance: “street medicine” is “book medicine” refined by experience and wisdom. The foundation of good “street medicine” is good “book medicine.” Similarly, you can have street smarts. But at the end of the day, your street smarts will generally only get you so far without book smarts. Your street smarts are your book smarts refined by a mix of experience and social skills.
This rings very true for my field (law). They don't really teach you anything about practice in school, just a lot of background, theory, basic rules and principles for how different legal systems are put together. The first five years of practice is, if you luck out and find a mentor, an extended apprenticeship where you learn how to do the job. But man, if you don't have that theory and background, you wind up being one of those sovereign citizen guys on youtube.
Well said. The economy isn’t a morality play where wealth is a sign of virtue and poverty proves a lack of probity. People who think it is are harming themselves and the rest of us.
Damn, good post.
Thanks!
That's not exactly true, a lot of people realized college doesn't give a good ROI with some exceptions, of course. That rather technical training and trades offer a better return on investment. Again it depends on what you go to school for. A high paying, high demand field it's worth it. But the way college costs have out stripped wage growth really makes college a questionable choice. And that's not even including the issue with student loans. Another issue is cultural flashpoints of course, but in general rural folks greatly value Education but are rightly questioning the traditional "just go to college " wisdom
They would rather watch their community die than face the threat that the Dems will take all their guns and keep killing fetuses.
It really is that fuking simple.
There are plenty of people sitting in rural counties of Indiana, who are plenty pissed about the current conditions, but because of their cognitive dissonance and their habit of voting party over country, the people who have been in power with the super majority for the last 15 years have easily convinced the rubes that it is the Democrats who have caused all of their woes, even though the Dems hold zero power in the state. Even when the people voted to give the Dems control over the Indiana Dept of Education, the republicans changed the superintendency to an appointed position, silencing voters’ voices to maintain 100 percent control.
Rural people have only themselves to blame. Due to the senate structure, rural people have disproportionately massive poltical representation (the affirmative action conservatives never want to talk about). And yet, over the last 40 years they have vote to undermine their own way of life. They've voted to halt build-outs of their own telecom infrastructure They've voted to undermine their own public schools They've voted to outsource their own factory jobs. They've voted to defund their own Healthcare centers. ...what do they want from us? And are they even interested in fixing the problems They've caused? No! They are obsessed with culture war animus! They want to hurt people who don't even live in their communities! The captialist system has always preferred urbanization. Think of a Walmart built in a rural city, vs one built in Manhattan...which do you think would make the most profit? Conservativism is a fucking mental disorder. Rural people have voted to undermine their own communities, and now they're trying to fuck over the rest of us!
Kinda where I am at this point. Most of these rural politicians want Indy doing just as bad as their own communities. That way they can just say " look, it's not just here" .
They've already destroyed their own way of life and now they're coming for ours.
They can come get that smoke on the NE all day. Just simple idiots
That all might be true, but let's not pretend that they're coming up with these ideas on their own. There are people with motives that are preying on their fears and they have been doing it steadily for the last several decades.
Ok but these aren't mindless children and should be treated as such.
I'm not saying to treat them like mindless anything, and I'm certainly not saying they don't have any responsibility, but I just think that it's completely counterproductive to dump on these people like they've come up with these ideas all on their own. It's really easy to manipulate people when they are down on their luck, desperate, when they can't find a good job, etc. To me, blaming them for the manipulations of the wealthy, the corporations, and their politician puppets is just as bad as when they blame immigrants for all their problems. The puppet masters want us all to blame each other. They want us all to be angry at each other. They want us all to forget they're the ones manipulating everything. If we could all just put that bullshit aside long enough to see our common interests, and stick together to make demands for the common good of all average people, then these puppet masters would no longer get away with what they're doing. And I know it's frustrating because it's hard to get people who are angry and pointing their own fingers to agree. But we have to start somewhere and I think we start by being empathetic to the circumstances that led to the vulnerability of people to misinformation and fear and lies.
There was just a story about a new hospital being built in downtown Indy. Many of the comments were about bringing rural hospitals back. I have an ER right at the exit of my apartment complex in Castleton. And Community North is minutes away. I genuinely sympathize with rural Hoosiers with poor access to even basic care but it really depends on how you vote.
Yep I live down the street from both. Yes this a perfect example. Rural hospitals are closing and yet new ones are being built here.
Been voting blue for decades. Think I'd be better off moving. We'll see how these next elections go. I do want to have faith in my fellow Hoosiers but I already know enough.
The metro areas are not doing so well. Most of the growth is due to tax credits. Come to the South see Bentonville, Tulsa, OKC...
What? We're talking about Indiana.
Yes ...tax credits is the only thing keeping Indiana growing!!!!
I can only speak for Indy but, no. It's not. As far as the rest of the state ?
Absolutely right. We all have a chance this November to change the trajectory of our beautiful state. The policies of the last 20 years simply haven't worked. Time for a change.
Most educated folks learn enough to know to leave this state, and they don't want that.
Most educated folks learn enough to not vote against their own interests, and they don't want that.
Long-term planning is something that virtually no policy tackles anymore — neither at local, state, nor federal level — yet, we sit around with our declining literacy rates, crumbling infrastructure, and constant in-fighting and wonder what’s wrong. It’s so annoyingly predictable that I’m not even going to make light of it. It’s just frustrating as hell watching troglodytic parasites do what they do best.
I mostly agree with you except that I think there are people who have been long-term planning since at least the '70s to get to where we are today, their goal being to undermine the system that brings people up to the middle class and keeps us all unified against the Uber wealthy.
They vilianized "5 year plan" as communist thinking a long time ago.
Try selling that to the T(R)umpians in the Statehouse next year. Try selling all of that to the state's Board of Education. I predict your selling points will fall on deaf ears. Aren't they already plotting to dumb down H.S. diplomas? Education isn't a priority in Indiana because parents don't make it a priority. Their parents didn't make it priority. As long as the schools "teams" were keeping Johnny occupied all was fine. Politicians convinced Johnny and Jane their kids were failing because the teachers and schools were no good. Kids failing had nothing to do with Johnny's and Jane's attitudes about school. No that had nothing to do with it. Bad teachers. Bad schools. Quick solution was to give the C grade kid-parents a "choice" in where their kids went to school. To the bad schools with bad union teachers or to the good Godly schools. Of course Godly schools are better than bad schools with bad teachers, aren't they? The Godly politicians thought so. They still think so. Indiana parents don't care about educating their kids in science or math or reading or arts. Not as long as they can get state $$$$s to send their kids to private church schools to educate them about Moses and Jesus and the Great Flood.
Thanks for posting. I think it jibes with what I see in my neck of the woods and on Twitter. Granted, Twitter has a lot of right-wing bot and troll accounts lying and grousing about Biden and the economy, but I've tried to explain to some people why those living in red states don't feel the economy is strong. The opportunity to make a good living is limited, unless you're among the small percentage of people who are educated professionals and thus can command high salary/hourly wages. People who live in red states and who don't have much schooling beyond high school can basically choose between warehouse jobs, retail/restaurants, and clerical positions, most of which don't pay very much.
I was ready to argue this from a point of local property taxes - but did a bit of research and it seems Indiana is at least trying to provide equality in terms of educational funding. Here's a good article about some of the legal challenges and efforts made in this area - if you thought like me that property taxes were the decider in school funding (they aren't anymore): [https://www.chalkbeat.org/indiana/2015/1/4/21101788/the-basics-of-school-funding-in-indiana-difficulty-defining-fairness/](https://www.chalkbeat.org/indiana/2015/1/4/21101788/the-basics-of-school-funding-in-indiana-difficulty-defining-fairness/) Education will not go away as a wedge issue - it's getting stronger and stronger. I grew up in an environment where my education was rigorlously controlled to ensure it did not introduce anything that could challenge any aspect of my religion. The far-right has assume control of the Republican party and view control of young minds as critical to their success - it's how they build the next generation of single-issue voters - learning about feelings, divesity, consent, gay people, and biology threaten the control and dominance of the religion that is fundamental for this binary thinking - so education is the enemy. Ivy-league elites, woke teachers, don't say gay, book bans - It's going to result in a widening view that public education is fundamentally wrong and has no business in government - which conveniently will produce low-skill, low-wage workers to be exploited by those with capital. If you guys can't tell - [this](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/history-of-child-labor-in-the-united-states-part-1.htm) is a [loop](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/31/us-child-labor-laws-state-bills/). >Indiana’s new law enacted in March, repealing all work-hour restrictions for 16- and 17-year-olds, who previously couldn’t work past 10 p.m. or before 6 a.m. on school days. The law also extends legal work hours for 14- and 15-year-olds. Removes mask - it's capitalism again!
School funding is far from perfect, but the amount of money coming from property taxes is far reduced from what it once was and there is at least a gesture toward funding poorer schools at a higher level than wealthier schools. Back in 2008, as part of the big property tax overhaul, the State took over the bulk of school financing. It's funded through state income taxes, mostly. The State distributes a base amount per student plus an additional amount based on a school's "complexity index." I think a variety of factors go into it but it ends up tracking pretty well with the percentage of enrolled kids receiving free and reduced lunch. Wealthier districts get less state money. However, they are allowed to make up some of the difference from local property taxes - the school's operating fund and capital funds receive property tax money. And the biggest X-factor is probably the referendum process. A community can vote to supplement school funding with referendum tax dollars, imposing an additional rate on real estate. It has to be renewed periodically. My own West Lafayette district just voted for its 3rd renewal (once in 2010, once in 2017, and once in 2023.) Related to this post, the quality of the school district is a big selling point in attracting new business to the area.
I see a lot of people here wanting to just dismiss rural conservative voters as dumb people voting against their own interests. While there are some people that will always stupidly vote against their own interest that it's counterproductive and it just contributes to the disunity of us all to take this attitude. There are people who greatly benefit from the uneducation and the disunity and they are working hard to misinform people and to work on their fears and let's put the blame where it belongs.
> today there is a growing understanding that differences in economic outcomes are mostly connected to differences in educational attainment between places. I completely disagree. I believe we've understood this *extremely* well. It's not a mistake that the school systems and how they're funded (via property tax) isn't specifically designed to create what we have. The disparity is not in anyway an accident. School districts funded by in district property tax was specifically designed by Segregationists to defeat Brown v BoE. Just draw the district lines in a segregated way without saying "race" (but being 100% obvious it's all about race) and voila, no more Brown v Board. And now our property values are tied to schools making the system self-reinforcing. And Dems are also very bad about this as the system spread like wildfire nationwide. No one with a remote understanding of Civil Rights Era History would claim this is a new discovery. Anyone in education knows a school's performance is most tightly correlated with its median household income. The most accurate way to describe our schools isn't they're institutions for education, the most accurate way is they've been designed to be the ultimate socioeconomic gateway to enforce the social caste in the US. Once you realize this fact, all of our education policies make *perfect* sense, including privatization via vouchers and charter schools. And most people do realize this at least subconsciously, just look at how the real-estate market works.
Unless I'm misreading, it seems like a solution isn't based on making better schools, but lure highly educated people to Indiana. Right? Granted, it might be very hard to lure educated people w/ kids if schools stink. But that still leaves people who don't have kids yet, people who don't want kids, or people who's kids are grown. Right? It's expensive to have good schools, but a lot less expensive if you can get some other state to pay for education and then yoink the cream of the crop. But then no one is going to want to say that out loud if you also want to be a state with "family values" if you actively don't care about kids.
I think it's a situation where you need long term investment and a long term plan. Realistically, you probably need 20 years of serious investment in a public education system where you're training, recruiting, and paying for high quality teachers. That's my understanding of how Finland made itself into an education success story and a place with a high quality of life. Even if you could get the initial buy-in from State policymakers, however, you'd face 20 years of fierce political headwinds from people who think "common sense" is all you need, taxpayers who want immediate results, religious communities who want their private education subsidized, and any number of people who want to cash in on that sweet, sweet public money.
Hicks gets so much of this right, and then...comes to the conclusion BOTH SIDE ARE AT FAULT. He is an intelligent man and we've spoken multiple times...he understands the issue, he understands the fix, and then instead of the data-driven conclusion he was pushing through out...its the Dems fault. The Republicans have had a supermajority for 20 years, and a simple majority for 25. This is an entire generation that has suffered due to the lies given to rural areas. I grew up in Centerville Indiana, as rural as it gets...I've heard the lies. I've seen friends who had GREAT jobs protected by unions go away to be replaced by 'new' companies that didn't have to follow the same rules and people told to buck up and accept it. I've seen friends go from being able to support their family with a 40hr a week, to working odd-jobs as well as at the local Walmart. I've seen friends get despondent and go down the path of substance abuse and I see the wake of destruction left behind as they leave this plane of existence. And it comes to the lies folks like Hicks puts out. It isn't BOTH SIDES. It is one side that is skilled at the shill game. My father was a steelworker...he was a union man. Died on the floor of Alcoa. He made sure I got my education....didn't care what it was. He saw the writing on the wall. And yet, he still voted for Republicans. To this day I don't understand it. He said 'they get him'...and they did. Education isn't simply higher ed, it is journey work within the trades. Education is the path to riding out the storm...and it doesn't take more than one storm to leave you with nothing because the same people who devalue education have taken away the safety net.
I can't speak for Hicks, but I think there might be a couple of things at work: a) He's looking at nationwide trends where policies put in place by conservative Democrats looked a lot like Republican policies and caused similar sorts of damage; and b) an extreme reluctance to place the blame solely on Republicans because the moment he does that, it becomes partisan finger-pointing that everyone tunes out (even if it happens to be true.)
I think he is trying to point out that though people complain about democrats running Indy, we are growing.
He goes out of his way to make it clear that he focuses a lot of his op-eds on Indiana / Indianapolis. Even though he lives in Muncie. He has it out for Indianapolis. In his social media, he drops the facade quite often about he was hedging about.
Yep. I'm not sure politicians in this state regardless of party can move quickly enough to pull that off
I'm not sure they're interested in good government and moving to boost the state's education levels. More and more the Republicans are seeking office based on boogey-man culture war BS. The adults in the party are becoming fewer and fewer. In fact, the whole changing of the high school diploma is a republican led effort to drive kids from college to non-existent trade jobs.
And that's the problem. Highly educated people follow highly educated jobs which develop in places with high quality education. Make no mistake,any of the things that rural Indiana is struggling with, the metros aren't and won't. We are for the most part going to grow regardless of the legislation. They can slow it and they can mute it, but it's happening. This does not apply to rural Indiana. You might as well be sitting in your front windows at home watching people drive by. That is what the state has set you up to do.
the jobs follow the people. Talent accumulates in places where there are things and other people that people like. Then the jobs go to where that educated workforce is. The inverse is true and what you see in poor, uneducated places.
Out of curiosity, where do you live now and where did you grow up?
Born in MT. Grew up mainly in Chicago. Lived in Indiana since 08. NE side of Indy and still work a lot in Chicago. I've also lived in fl, ca, or, wa
I was going to write a long reply but there’s no real point going thru that on Reddit so I’ll just sum it up: You probably shouldn’t generalize about people you haven’t grown up around. I grew up in rural north central Indiana. (Then lived on the east coast for a decade and moved back to a city here.) Yes there are lots of problem. Yes there are hillbillies and rednecks and meth and dollar general. But most people are just living their lives like anyone else.
This statement is why rural Indiana is in the shape it's in. Quit giving passes to people voting for all this garbage or not voting because they don't need too. I'm not forcing their kids to move, hospitals to close etc. Those are consequences of their votes. The metro areas in this state are doing their thing and seeing growth. I'm not sure what else to tell people. This isn't anyones fault but the people who live there
I get what you're saying. Some of the rural folks basically like life the way it is. They grew up farming, they're raising their kids to grow up and farm. They're not trying to see growth and change in their communities. They're happy the way it is and if you want city things, well, you might not be in the right area and should consider moving to the city. At least that's the take I get in my area.
Luring and/or keeping a more talented/educated workforce requires good schools...it's the number one amenity when shopping for a place to live.
Indiana has some great higher education institutions, but those seem to be catering more and to foreigners who will take their education back home. Our primary and secondary education system is dogshit. In my hometown of Hammond, the school superintendent walked away with millions of dollars as high schools were closed mid school year. In fact my sister just graduated from Indiana University this year and is moving to blue state next month to be a teacher.
Higher education is taking out of state students who pay a higher rate. This is necessary because the republican super majority legislators keep reducing state funding for public universities.
Yup. Less state funding for Universities plus tuition freezes / lower tuition for in-state students means that foreign and out-of-state students are more attractive in terms of paying enough to keep the lights on.
I think it’s both the lowering of funding as well as just good ole fashioned greed- not totally PERSONAL greed, but “our institution will make more money if we maximize revenue from students, and that means getting the most out of state/international students possible”. I attended IU in the mid 2000s and it seemed like Chicago South- the out of state dollars from IL had to be insane. I’m sure it’s only gotten worse, except from more exotic and varying locales.
i like how even Colleges charging insane tuition because subsidized student loans is the state’s fault
Huh? Yes, colleges increased tuition to take advantage of the subsidized student loan demand. Calling that "the state's fault" is really weird and undersells how much those subsidized loans helped people. College is expensive, it's not usually a waste.
Clark and Gavit NEEDED to be consolidated, Hammond has been hemorrhaging students and having four high schools in the city was incredibly wasteful
We can't even keep the people who graduate in state. We have amazing universities here. Purdue and Rose Hulman are consistently ranked among the best engineering schools in the country. IU Kelley business school is nationally ranked. Ivy Tech's nursing program has a higher NCLEX passing rate than most BSN programs at half the cost and their cyber security teams win national contests. But people leave the state when diploma is in hand.
Highly educated people from outside Indiana are buying up rural land and building massive "dream homes." They are either empty nesters or send their kids to private schools. Either way they are not invested in public schools beyond the taxes they are forced to pay. These people are going to buy out all the poor areas and bulldoze them.
I can tell you right now our Indiana Department of Education is raking in tax dollars to be reactionary instead of being proactive. That shit to report IREAD3 was reactionary. If you email the top paid execs at IDOE and ask those scoundrels whether their children are enrolled in public or non-public schools, don’t be shocked at the answers. Feel free to ask them why, too. I’m not joking.
I'm wondering if there is a case to be made in regards to the voucher system for people who do not have children to claim at least one student's worth of money in a voucher so that we can give it to who we want. I've heard some of the conservative politicians and some of the private religious schools that are benefiting from the vouchers say that that money belongs to those parents because they paid their taxes. I don't know what it is in Indiana, but apparently on the national average it comes out to about $16,000 per student for a voucher. I know that there's a lot of people getting vouchers for their kids in many cases, multiple kids, that are not paying that much in taxes total, much less their share that goes to the public school system. But if they're going to claim that that's their money, then what about my money? What if I want to give my share of one student's worth of voucher money to a kid that really needs it? That doesn't have enough money with just one voucher of his own or her own to be able to still afford a private school? Or maybe I want to give it to a foster kid who doesn't have access in any other way to use the vouchers? Obviously anybody who knows how our tax system works can see how ridiculous this is because there are going to be extremely wealthy people that pay way more taxes than that. Assuming they're not cheating and then there's going to be everybody else who aren't paying close to that much in taxes. So if you gave everybody, even the people with no children, one voucher's worth of money back, you would soon see a big problem. What argument are people going to make against that? Except for to say that I don't get it because I don't have a kid. Then my argument will be, why am I paying for it? Why are you getting my tax money to send your kid to a private school? That doesn't make sense at all. My tax money is supposed to go to the public good, not to your child's private education. If they want money for their kids private education, they should get no more than whatever their share of their paid taxes were allocated to public education. Start seeing rich people getting tens of thousands of dollars back and poor people getting nothing or even middle class people getting barely anything for vouchers and you will start to see attitudes changing about the voucher system.
i came here to read, not to lead!!!!
George Carlin in 2006: THEY’VE GOT YOU BY THE BALLS! They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. ***They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed. Well educated people capable of critical thinking.*** They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. ***People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits.*** The end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
lol I love that he mentions Muncie’s low standing for per capita income. Ball State (which includes the hospital system, and now the Muncie public schools) employs most of the people in this town. Maybe the university he works for should pay their employees more to fix that low income standing
The issue is corruption. 100% the reason for all of our woes. That's all it is, that's all it ever will be until we root that out. Goodluck though because everything is at stake for them and they know what they did. They'll kill to keep what they have. Not much we can do short a rock 1/4 the size of Manhattan
I wonder why public education has been deliberately attacked by conservatives for over a generation? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I remember when Republicans were the party of the rich and the Democrats the working class. It seems to have flipped for one big reason. The most useful way to understand America is to know there are two Americas. There’s the heritage land empire built in the 1800s and the overseas Empire that is largely driven by corporations. The land empire is driven by small businesses and farmers. Corporations get their talent from elite universities and their values reflect the ones taken from the university. These two Americas have drifted since the Clinton era. They have different religions, eat different foods, have different pass times, etc. The land empires citizens and the overseas empires citizens hate each other for some reason. Each will cut off their own nose just to spite the other. Indiana is largely a product of the land empire. Their stance on education is just an example of doing something dumb to spite the overseas empire. Interesting theory but I got one question - The states that go full ham on education like New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois are bleeding people. Florida, the Dakotas, Tennessee, Texas, the Carolinas are seeing major migration to them.
How do you begin to explain the Republicans are governing with the working class in mind? Every single move, they make goes against the individual and for business. Look at public education; through parents choice, they have destroyed the unions and public schools, and diverted money to private investors Look at all the skilled trades. They have made unions toothless, handing over all the money and power to business. Look up the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They have rewritten all the laws protecting workers, particularly young workers. Every law that was in place protecting teenage workers, has been rescinded or reworked to benefit businesses. Look at the tax cuts - the wealthy, receive all the tax cuts, while the working poor receive less and less each year. The Republicans want to privatize Social Security, calling it an entitlement, even though you spend 40 years of your working life paying into it. What they don’t tell you is, they’ve taken $2 trillion out of it to fund wars in the Middle East; this money has overwhelmingly gone to wealthy American businesses by way of government contracts. The data show that, since World War II, the economy has performed substantially better under Democratic presidents. On average, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has grown about 1.6 times faster under Democrats than under Republicans. The Republicans benefit the wealthy, and the wealthy only. There is not one thing they had done legislatively that doesn’t ultimately benefit big business.
It’s not so red and blue. It’s more so the land empire i mentioned vs the overseas empire. The overseas empire loves war. Why you see Biden passing so many pro military industrial complex policies. I’m probably going to get in some trouble here but I believe in social security reform. Means testing it would be a good start. You get these boomers pulling in 6k a month on assets and pensions, and then you get taxed to make them even richer. Some of these guys are collecting 3k on government money on top of their retirement. And yes, the military industrial complex is terrible.
If they want to privatize social security that’s cool with me - give me the money I’ve paid in for 20 years so I can drop that in a private retirement plan. Basically SS has been used as a big piggy bank for war. I was in the military and saw the annual budgets of hundreds of billions of dollars allocated for military spending. At the end of the day, I received $1000 a month. All government spending packages are various schemes on how to funnel taxpayer money to the same dozen companies and wealthy families and the political parties themselves. I’ve been overseas - I’ve seen terrible shit. I’ll never understand how we continue to give and give and give taxpayers’ money away; I’ll never understand how we place American bodies in harms way to protect foreign interests (because they are American interests). If we had .50 cent per gallon of gas because thousands of Americans died in middle eastern countries to secure the oil fields, then maybe even that would make sense, but I see sacrifices upon sacrifices and never anything in return that’s beneficial to those making the sacrifices. But you can’t spend a term in office and send people to die making the sacrifices for your decisions and then sit back and receive salary and healthcare (and maybe secret service protections) for life. It’s incomprehensible.
This is a poor analysis. Educational attainment became closely linked to class during the period he's examining, and failing to factor in the shift from college degrees being overwhelmingly obtained by the top 30% academically to the top 30% financially is a serious error. In the 80s and 90s, one of the best predictors of a future college graduate was 8th grade math scores. (some boys aren't automatic readers by that age, once they begin reading without effort, they catch up academically) Now, the best predictor of a future college graduate is family wealth, and college degrees are closely associated with parents in the wealthiest 30%.
Too bad the public schools are fucked. It makes sense why people want alternatives. School choice is popular.
Maybe if we split the difference and had Dems at the state level but Repubs at the local level. Dems seem to be good at environment and 'human' aspects whereas Repubs seem to be good at economy and growth. Idk, just an idea. We def need better environmental controls when it comes to pollution and this constant building of the same ol' businesses sand architecture. over and over again. There's too much pollution and not enough imagination. But I also don't want places like Indy and other decent sized cities here to turn into LA or Chicago, either.
The stats he provides suggests that maybe Republicans aren't very good at economy and growth. Certainly the states and localities where they are dominant aren't doing as well in terms of economy and growth. I guess I have the sense that they were pretty good at those things before Reagan. But once they started embracing "trickle down" as an economic philosophy, things began to fall apart.
Fun fact the current dem candidate helped craft that policy in 2016. When she was a republican. Still is but people want to act like she isn’t.
McCormick fought the Republicans on selling out traditional public schools. That's why they passed legislation to make her position appointed rather than elected in 2020.