Indiana – the envy of America?
Fresh from his trip to the Farnborough Air Show in England, Indiana Governor Mike Pence delivered a thoughtful “message of hope” for Indiana July 22, touting the emerging possibility of Hoosierland becoming the literal “envy of America.”
Indiana has much to celebrate, but also has much to consider. What do the new Pence “three R’s” – relationship, rigor and relevance – have to do with success? How can Hoosiers create “a continuum of hope”? Please read on.
Acknowledging that Indiana—particularly the state’s capital city—was presently facing unprecedented upheaval from near-record murders and violence, the Governor advocated a multi-level solution. Speaking at the downtown Indy Rotary Club, Gov. Pence put forth three areas that would help resolve current issues and sustain current high levels of growth.
“A prosperous people are a peaceful peace,” he noted, pointing out that “Job Creation is Job One” in his administration. He spoke of several hundreds of jobs in potential creation from recent deals, elevating Indiana even further into a dominant leadership position as a manufacturing state.
A recent groundbreaking in northeast Indiana for GE Aviation will ultimately become the final assembly plant for the premium jet engine on the planet. This will join other entities such as the massive Rolls-Royce manufacturing and development operations in Indianapolis.
Maintaining a business-friendly environment – that presently includes a balanced budget and an estimated $2 billion surplus – is critical. Indiana must continue to live within its tax-generated means.
Apart from Jobs as a major focus, Gov. Pence wants justice. But he also wants innovation in addition to law and order and “being tough on serious crime.” Remarkably, the Governor wants to break what he calls “the cycle of recidivism” – where criminals who have done their time fall back into criminal behavior to survive. He advocates and is piloting “faith-based, character-based programs in prison” that help inmates improve their lives, gain skills and develop a path for a post-prison future.
To aid in this, the Governor wants to give those who have paid their debt to society a legal clean slate, a second chance to live a full life.
Finally, The Governor wants an increased emphasis on effective education, developing Hoosier residents into a powerful workforce that can further Indiana’ transformation and emerging economic leadership position.
The state is developing and funding early learning centers for pre-K. While he firmly believes that the best pre-K program is “a prosperous and intact family,” he also recognizes that “for far too many kids in Indiana this [intact family environment] is simply not the case.”
The result? “Too many kids start from behind and then fall further behind.”
While the Governor wants every Hoosier child to have access and opportunity for a college education, he also wants opportunities created for viable vocational education and job preparation.
While at the Farnborough Air Show, the Governor said that several CEOs discussed the recent growth of Indiana. “Aerospace is very excited about Indiana,” he noted.
But a principal CEO question was this: “Talk to me about what you’re doing [in Indiana] in vocation education.”
The Governor then expounded on what he called the “three R’s” of success in education: relationship, rigor and relevance.
Hoosier children, teens and young adults must learn in school and life how to build critical relationships to be successful, he said.
Second, they must deploy rigor and discipline in their personal lives, putting forth sustained and necessarily effort toward their goals to succeed.
Finally, educational opportunities must be possess a high degree of personal relevance. “The way you engage is to create educational pathways that are relevant to their lives.”
This means that college may not be the preferred way to acquire life skills or a pathway to a career. Vocational education can be just as important and just as valid.
“There’s no one solution” to Indiana’s sustained success, the Governor emphasized.
Hitting on the Rotarian motto of “service above self,” the Governor told the assembled group that they must be “speaking hope into the moment, speaking with confidence.”
The result? Indiana, he maintained, holds the possibility of becoming “the envy of America…a just and compassionate state.” The goal? With the state coming up on its bicentennial, “Indiana’s third century can be greater than its first two.”
By Michael Snyder