ANDERSON — At the end of a contentious special session of the Indiana General Assembly last month, Gov. Mitch Daniels made a comment that’s still striking a nerve with some area school leaders at the start of a new school year.

“I heard it said in floor debate, I think in overheated fashion, that this budget means the end of public education as we have known it, to which I say, ‘Thank goodness,’” the governor said.

Daniels was talking about changes in school-funding formulas in which money for school systems more closely follows student enrollment, but the remark became emblematic of a relationship between school districts and state government that education leaders say has become chilly at best.

“I was greatly offended by Gov. Daniels’ statement,” said John Trout, superintendent of Madison-Grant United Schools. “There seems to be an assault on public education today.”

“It’s kind of disheartening at times to read what elected leaders say about public education in general,” said Ronald Green, superintendent of Shenandoah Community Schools.

“I think people go into education because they have a sense of service, and that service being back to children,” he said. “We should be in a mode to try to build up public education in Indiana, not to tear it down.”

Daniels spokeswoman Jane Jankowski said that was what the governor was trying to do.

“From Gov. Daniels’ perspective, we’re always talking and listening to educators to see how we can improve the education system for educators and students alike,” she said.

“Our intent is that every student in Indiana has an opportunity to obtain the best education they can. That’s ultimately what we’re working for in Indiana,” Jankowski said.

Scott Jenkins, Daniels’ education policy director, said many education professionals are resistant to change despite foundering student achievement.

“This administration really is not satisfied with the performance of our schools on a very fundamental level,” Jenkins said. “We have concerns when we’re only graduating 75 percent of our students” statewide, with figures at 50 percent or lower in some urban schools.

“We want both sides to come to the table with ideas and suggestion and not just say ‘I don’t want change,’” he said.

But some recipes for reform from Daniels and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett have been hard to swallow for local school system leaders.

“I think it’s strained because there are so many changes,” Alexandria Community Schools Superintendent Alice Mehaffey said of the relationship between state and local education leaders.

Among those changes, the new public school funding formula leaves many school systems staring down deficits for years to come. Anderson Community Schools, for example, will face a budget deficit this year of more than $10 million, largely due to declining enrollment.

“I think there is a clear movement, and I personally support a movement where the money follows students,” Bennett said last week during a visit to Anderson. “When you consider the fact that money should follow children, it is going to change the way school corporations with declining enrollment can do things.”

But Trout of Madison-Grant said that charter schools gained greater funding increases in the new budget than did public schools. “How is that fair to my kids? How is that helping me? I want to fight for our kids as much as anyone else, and how is that equitable to me?”

Trout said Madison-Grant, where enrollment is largely unchanged this year, is projected to gain $57,000 in state funding over the next two years. That compares with an annual budget of almost $14 million. The increase, he said, “doesn’t even keep up with many of the expected responsibilities ... the bills that we already know are forthcoming.”

Daniels spokesman Jankowski said the governor deserves credit for an actual increase in total school funding over the next two years. Indiana was one of just a handful of states that was able to muster an increase in funding for education during the recession, she said.

“With the national economy the way it is, it’s difficult times for everyone. The budget that was just approved by the General Assembly is indicative of the prudence everyone has to undertake.

“There will continue to be discussions about the school funding formula probably through every funding cycle, with everyone working to try to find the right balance.”

Another sore point between state and local education leaders: Who should be considered qualified to teach? Or lead?

Bennett was in Anderson last week to discuss proposed changes in licensing for teachers and administrators. He said the proposals would make expertise in subject matter a key component of teacher licensing, and that teachers would have to at least earn a minor in a subject area in which they would teach.

The proposals also would create alternate pathways to licensing for professionals in other fields who might wish to teach, become principals or school administrators. In some cases, certification could be as easy as passing a test.

“It takes Indiana from a grade of a D in terms of (teacher quality) policies to closer to the A/B- range,” Bennett said, citing state rankings by the bipartisan National Council on Teacher Quality.

The proposed requirements would also include testing for all teachers and are designed to make it easier to weed out bad teachers, Bennett said. If approved, the licensing requirements would take effect next July.

Bennett said that proposed changes in licensing requirements are consistent with positions taken by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and President Barack Obama, opening the classroom door to a wider variety of professionals

But Anderson Federation of Teachers President Rick Muir said the proposed changes water down the teaching profession. “Once again it’s politicians in the Statehouse who think they know more about education than people in the field,” he said.

Content mastery is important, Muir said, “but it doesn’t come close to being enough for a person to be an adequate educator. There are a lot of skills that are necessary for a person to be successful the in classroom and you cannot slight those in any way, shape or form.

“I’ve heard a lot of uproar about it and I hope I hear more,” Muir said. “It’s very unsettling to those who’ve dedicated their lives to education.”

Local education leaders are particularly critical of aspects of Bennett’s plan that they say would de-emphasize classroom teaching methods in licensing requirements.

“I think a teacher needs to have a strong combination of content knowledge, but they also have to have a strong sense of how to work with children,” said Shenandoah’s Green.

“If a child comes to school with fears, hurts, you have to be able to help that child before you can expect that child to learn,” he said.

Alexandria’s Mehaffey said, “I do think there are areas where changes and improvements can be made in our licensing system.

“But just because someone is an expert in physics doesn’t mean they’re an expert in cognitive development,” she said. “It’s not just about delivering content.”

Mehaffey said she would not recommend hiring someone as a teacher who didn’t have a solid education in classroom teaching methods. “I think it’s important for schools to realize no one’s telling us who we have to hire,” she said. “We still have the local authority to be able to hire the individuals we want.”

Bennett said he’d heard criticism of the proposal to change teacher and administrator licensing requirements. He suggests, for example, that Duncan, the U.S. education secretary, would not be qualified to be an Indiana public school superintendent under current requirements.

The proposed licensing revisions would also help address a coming shortage of teachers in key areas such as math and science, Bennett said.

“To assume we’re getting perfect candidates in the current system is incorrect,” he said.

Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com