Background
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Republican Gov. Mike Pence.
Mike Pence succeeded Mitch Daniels as governor of Indiana in January 2013. He served as U.S. Representative for Indiana’s 6th District and chaired the House Republican Conference. His lieutenant governor is Sue Ellspermann.
StateImpact interviewed Pence in October 2012 — we’ve posted it along with a transcript here.
“We cannot succeed in the marketplace if we fail in the classroom,” Pence told attendees at the state Republican convention. He called for higher standards in Indiana classrooms and says more schools need to bring back vocational education.
Career and technical education is just one part of Pence’s plan to improve graduation rates. He says high schools need to focus on college and career readiness with more dual-credit programs. Pence also says he wants to see the number of students in successful dropout recovery programs increase.
Pence supports school choice — he calls for charter school innovation in his campaign literature — and gives a hat tip to the state’s third grade reading exam. He’s also in favor of merit pay for effective teachers, all policies Daniels’ Republican administration supported.
Pence also wants to award students who finish college in four years, as well as institutes of higher learning that adopt policies promoting on-time graduation. He’s proposed shifting more than $8 million from state financial aid funds to pay for the performance grants.
