‘People who hold $460,000 jobs don’t give them up’

Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston’s duties as a state legislator meshed just fine with his responsibilities as an official of the College Board for nearly 10 years.

Then something changed. Huston’s $460,738 job with the testing organization fell victim to the right’s contrived war against so-called critical race theory.

Indiana Statehouse

The speaker stepped down from his position as senior vice president of the College Board two weeks ago after questions were raised about his support for House Bill 1134. As approved by the House, it would have restricted teaching about “divisive concepts” regarding race, sex and religion and required teachers to post lesson plans online so parents could opt out.

As speaker, Huston typically votes on bills only to break a tie or to signal that the measure is a priority for House Republicans. He voted for HB 1134, which passed, 60-37.

The legislation is part of a national campaign, playing out in state legislatures and elections, aimed at fighting “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs and curricula in school. And it’s in direct opposition to the culture of diversity and inclusion the College Board claims to favor.

I’m not sure how this contradiction came to widespread attention, but it did. Around Jan. 20, teacher and writer Anne Lutz Fernandez started asking on Twitter why the College Board had been silent on the anti-CRT campaign. Some of her followers noted that Huston was promoting HB 1134 while drawing a big paycheck from the College Board. About the same time, voting-rights activist Santiago Mayer went on a tear, launching a #FireToddHuston hashtag on Twitter. The issue seemed to reach critical mass on Feb. 7, when Judd Legum wrote about Huston on his accountability news site Popular Information. When Indy Star reporters reached out to the College Board for comment, they learned Huston was no longer working there.

Huston issued a statement saying he left voluntarily after contemplating “how I could best balance the tremendous level of responsibility required in my substantial role at the College Board and as a public servant.” But balancing the jobs apparently wasn’t a problem for 10 years. And Huston has held the job of speaker since May 2020, so those duties weren’t new. As Indy Star columnist James Briggs wrote, “People who hold $460,000-a-year jobs don’t want to give them up.”

Until this month, the College Board apparently had no problem with Huston’s balancing act. It was happy to pay him a nearly half-million-dollar salary even while he spent months on end tending legislative business. (His compensation as a legislator in 2021 was $76,586).

Detail from College Board IRS Form 990 from 2019 (Source: Guidestar)

Here’s the thing: Few people have had a greater influence on Indiana education policy.

Huston was first elected to the House in November 2012, a month after he went to work for the College Board. Before that, the Fishers Republican served as chief of staff to controversial Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett and was appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels to the State Board of Education and the Education Roundtable. In his first years in the House, he authored numerous education bills. As speaker, he largely controls which bills advance in the House. He received a 2021 Champion of School Choice award for shepherding an expansion of Indiana’s private-school voucher program.

And state education policy matters to the College Board.

Since Huston was first elected to the House, the New York-based nonprofit has had contracts worth $55 million with the Indiana Department of Education, mostly for SAT and Advanced Placement tests, according to documents on the state government contracts portal. Indiana’s current two-year budget appropriates $14.2 million for students to take the College Board’s science, math and English AP exams and PSAT assessments.

And starting this spring, all Indiana high school juniors are taking the College Board’s SAT assessment as a graduation requirement. The state dropped its ISTEP-Plus exam for high schoolers and became one of about a dozen states that require students to take the SAT. The change comes as many colleges have quit requiring entrance exams and the COVID-19 interrupted standardized testing across the country. For the College Board, revenue from testing fell by $286 million in 2021, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Indiana’s SAT requirement reflects a 2018 law that said the state would require a “nationally recognized college-entrance exam” for graduation. The state Department of Administration and the Department chose the SAT.

Huston did not vote on the 2018 legislation, but the saga shows how messy things can get when a top official with a giant, policy-focused organization like the College Board is also one of the most powerful people in state government. And things got worse when he became speaker.

As a legislator representing an affluent district in Hamilton County, he could promote school choice and “education reform” while taking relatively moderate views on culture-war issues. As speaker, he’s responsible to an increasingly right-leaning caucus that sees political benefits to appealing to racial resentment with measures like HB 1134.

A Senate committee dialed back some of the worst provisions in HB 1134 and could send the bill on to the full Senate today. But opposition to the measure has been building. It would be sweet irony if Huston lost his job over this legislation only to see it crash and burn.