Indiana Writers Group column for Nov. 21 and thereafter730 words By Andrea Neal     The quadrennial debate over the Electoral College is back. Last month, a Pennsylvania House committee heard a bill that would change the way that state votes for president. If the bill became law, Pennsylvania would require its Electoral College delegates to vote for the candidate who wins the majority of the national popular vote, no matter how Pennsylvanians voted. If enough…

Indiana Writers Group column for release Nov. 11 and thereafter.746 words By Dr. Sam Staley Indiana, like dozens of other states, has struggled with school reforms of all sorts for decades. Many of them, such as collective bargaining and school choice, have often degenerated into partisan bickering. For an issue that affects so many Hoosiers in so many different ways, the only thing more stunning than the debate’s decibel level may be the lack of…

Indiana Writers Group column for Nov. 7 and thereafter 700 words By Andrea Neal     INDIANAPOLIS — Under Gov. Mitch Daniels’ tax plan released last month, property taxes would be capped at 1 percent of a home’s assessed value. In exchange, the sales tax would go from 6 to 7 percent. For me, this would be a great deal. My property tax bill would go down $1,300 a year while I’d spend about $200 more in…

Indiana Writers Group column for Oct. 24 and thereafter 715 words By Andrea Neal     To the Norwegian Nobel Committee:     I’ve been scratching my head for days trying to figure out why Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize and Dick Lugar hasn’t. I’m a teacher in Indiana and the question came up last week in my eighth-grade history class.     After all, Lugar’s efforts have resulted in the deactivation of thousands of nuclear warheads. Gore’s campaign…

Indiana Writers Group column for Oct. 17 and thereafter 500 words by Lisa Snell “Beating the Odds,” a May 2007 report by the Council of the Great City Schools, details how urban school districts have closed their achievement gaps in the past six years. Unfortunately, the report notes that in Indianapolis the most disadvantaged students have lost ground since 2001. For example, the achievement gap in reading on the I-Step for low-income eighth graders was…

Indiana Writers Group column for Oct. 10 or thereafter 730 words By Andrea Neal     If Gov. Mitch Daniels wants schools to open closer to Labor Day, he needs to enlist Hoosier parents for support. In other states that have rebelled against ever-earlier August start dates, parents have been the key lobbying group.      In announcing the move of the ISTEP test from fall to spring, Daniels expressed hope that schools would “start at a more natural…

Indiana Writers Group column for release Oct. 3 and thereafter 650 words By Ron Reinking, CPA The coffee group in my hometown read the news two ways. Despite heavy municipal subsidy there was only one bidder on a downtown hotel project. Either the city fashioned its incentive package to fit a specific developer or the other developers judged the project economically and politically infeasible, as one pointedly said in his letter to the city. (1)…

Reauthorizing NCLB May Be Exercise in FutilityIndiana Writers Group column for Sept. 26 and thereafter 715 words By Andrea Neal     When the President’s chief education policy upsets both Reagan-style conservatives and the teachers’ union, he’s got a problem. That problem brought Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to Indianapolis last week on a bus tour to promote reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.     Spellings is trying valiantly to convince the country that NCLB is working…

Indiana Writers Group column For release Sept. 19 and thereafter 672 words Color digital mug shot available on request By Craig Ladwig Oops, we missed it again, the anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. So we’ll have to stretch a bit and use as our peg the governor’s call for a more accurate county assessment of taxable property. No, stick with us and you’ll see that all of this has to do with…

Indiana Writers Group column For release Sept. 12 and thereafter 667 words (with optional cut) Color digital mug shot available on request By John Tatom It is true that Indiana is among those states that has had a major foreclosure problem. And it is true that the Indiana foreclosure rate is likely to climb to historical levels in association with a national explosion several years ago of subprime loans. It is not true, however, that…