INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -
When tea party activist Heather Crossin discovered Indiana might be close to
taking as much as $80 million in federal money for pre-kindergarten funding,
she quickly activated a network of religious conservative groups to urge
Gov. Mike Pence to turn it down.
Pence did just that
a few days later, shocking many people who had previously supported him on
the issue. But groups including Crossin’s Hoosiers Against Common Core, the
Indiana Association of Home Educators, and the American Family Association
of Indiana celebrated a victory.
"In a matter of
days, people from all across the state called and emailed their concerns,
which allowed them to be heard by Governor Pence,” Crossin wrote in a blog
post Wednesday, detailing their efforts.
Supporters of
efforts to expand and create pre-kindergarten programs say they are critical
in setting up future educational success. But tea party groups and religious
conservatives have argued that the federal program is little more than a
dressed-up version of federal daycare, a concept that conservatives
successfully fought two decades ago.
Crossin is hardly a
stalwart Pence supporter; her group lambasted the governor for formally
withdrawing the state from Common Core education standards earlier this
year, while replacing them with standards strikingly similar to the federal
rules. And a little more than a week ago, her group chastised Pence for his
creation of a “data czar” to oversee reams of government data, including
student information.
Many similar
groups, long considered Pence’s political base stemming from his years in
Congress, have expressed frustration at his decision to seek an expansion of
Medicaid using a state-run alternative.
But Wednesday they
were cheering the governor.
Pence
Communications Director Christy Denault didn’t disclose how many calls or
emails the governor’s office received on the issue but said that the
governor would not be bowed by lobbying.
“The governor’s
office routinely hears from constituents on a wide variety of issues, but
Governor Pence makes his decisions based on fact and principle, not
lobbying,” Denault wrote in an email Friday.
Pence’s decision
caught many of his own allies on the issue off guard, in part because he had
not spoken out before against the federal grant. He opened the year with an
extensive push for a state-run preschool voucher program, one that enlisted
bipartisan support to dislodge it in the General Assembly amid budget
concerns.
But he explained in
an op-ed issued Friday that he was concerned federal requirements could
derail the state program, by forcing it to an early start.
"On behalf of the
children the pilot is designed to serve, it is imperative that Indiana get
this right,” Pence wrote.
As of 2012, Indiana
received roughly $115 million in federal money to send about 15,500 poor
children to preschool programs through Head Start, according to data from
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Supporters of the
governor’s efforts on preschool said they were surprised Wednesday when they
discovered he had rejected the grant application. Lucinda Nord, public
policy director for the Indiana Association of United Ways, said volunteers
working with the governor’s Early Learning Advisory Committee, had been
charging ahead with the idea the application would be submitted.
“I did not see this
coming at all,” Nord said. “So many volunteers and staff spent countless
hours preparing for the State’s application and the next steps that would
follow.”