Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Education secretary urges bold social-media limits for children, and higher-education transparency, in Senate hearing
Summary
At a Senate Education and Career Development Committee hearing, Secretary Jenner outlined Senate Bill 199's package: social-media protections for minors (including no accounts for children 13 and under and parental oversight for teens), higher-education return-on-investment reporting by degree, raised three-year literacy benchmarks, and accreditation flexibility. Supporters cited daily school harms; civil-rights groups warned of constitutional risks.
Secretary Jenner told the Senate Education and Career Development Committee that Senate Bill 199 aims to protect young Hoosiers from what she called “the largest unregulated experiment ever conducted on young minds,” proposing age-verification and parental-consent rules for social media, new reporting of degree-level earnings and return on investment, higher literacy intervention thresholds and flexibility on accreditation processes.
Jenner said the bill would raise the intervention threshold for literacy supports from a single-year 70 percent trigger to a 75 percent rolling average on the I-Read 3 assessment, and noted philanthropic support (a $40 million Lilly Endowment grant mentioned in committee testimony) to expand literacy supports. She also said the Department of Education would develop civic literacy and engagement metrics for K-12 and higher education and would be allowed to use a small percentage of ESA/CSA program funds to cover administrative costs beginning July 1, 2026.
On social…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
