Indiana Democratic Party 2-9-19 Weekly Radio Address Podcast

Chairman John Zody delivers the Indiana Democratic Party Weekly Radio Address Podcast for February 9, 2019.

TRANSCRIPT:

This is Chairman John Zody bringing you the weekly podcast for the Indiana Democratic Party.

Today, I want to focus on one of our core issues as Hoosier Democrats – education and paying teachers fairly.

The basics on this topic are simple. Indiana teachers have seen their pay decrease on a sliding scale for nearly two decades. As the GOP-run state legislature slashes taxes for the rich and gives handouts to big companies, the revenue in our state has fallen and our schools arestruggling to keep the lights on.

The state has offered less funding to public school districts, which in turn has left fewer dollars on the table to fill classrooms with books, supplies, and additionalexcellent teachers. Our state is ranked among the bottom 30 for teacher salaries. It only makes it more difficult to recruit high quality teachers out of undergrad programs and from out of state, and it also makes it harder to retainthe best educators in our public schools.

Money follows priorities. It is not surprising to see our public schools get less funding per pupil or teachers seeing less pay per year. The GOP has proven time and time again that Indiana public schools aren’t their priority.But when this hands-off approach continues to deny opportunities to our future workforce in our public schools now, the Statehouse GOP supermajority should take another look at those priorities.

When we invest in teachers, we invest in Indiana’s future. We are asking teachers to do more out of the classroom than ever before. They deserve to be paid fairly, and we can’t let their value to Hoosier children go unnoticed. Hoosier Democrats are leading this effort to increase the pay for teachers to catch up.

Our fight is for the long haul, especially in Indiana. We need more folks to come off the sidelines in 2019. You can get involved with the Party at indems.org/join.

Also, please follow the IDP on Facebook and Twitter. Simply search INDems – that’s I-N-D-E-M-S on Facebook and Twitter, and follow us to get the latest news about our candidates and what we’re doing to hold our counterparts at the Statehouse and in Washington accountable.

Thank you for listening.