Episode 102: Just the FACS - Indiana Statehouse Needs a Lesson in Home Economics
Guests: Natasha Baker - Family & Consumer Sciences Teacher; Candidate for State Senate District 22
Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from an unapologetically leftist perspective. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers and I’m recording from Bloomington.
We’re releasing this episode on the day before Thanksgiving, which means half the state is standing in a Kroger aisle trying to figure out what’ll be more painful: the grocery bill or hours in close quarters with their MAGA relatives. We’re in the middle of a real affordability crisis - not the polite “economic indicators are mixed” nonsense, but the lived reality of families watching food prices spike year after year while their budgets remain more frozen than the bird you forgot to thaw. People talk about it constantly: groceries, childcare, rent, bills - the stuff that hits you long before you ever get to the politics.
And that’s exactly why today’s guest makes so much sense for a Thanksgiving-week episode. Natasha Baker teaches Family and Consumer Sciences - Home Ec for those of us above a certain age - which means she spends her days teaching young people how to budget, how to plan, how to shop smart, how to stretch a dollar without snapping it, and how to build the life skills every household depends on. It’s the practical, quietly heroic work that matters even more when everything keeps getting more expensive and families are stuck patching together solutions the state should be helping with.
But Natasha isn’t just teaching kids how to balance a household budget - she’s running for Indiana State Senate District 22, where the policies shaping every household budget get made. And this is where her perspective is vital: school economics are home economics. When the state guts public schools, parents feel it. When lawmakers shovel money into the school voucher boondoggle, families feel it. When Indiana lets the childcare crisis fester - sky-high costs, vanishing providers, and no plan to fix it - families feel it immediately and painfully. What happens in the classroom, in the school budget, in the broader education system… that all shows up in the grocery aisle and in the family checkbook.
Natasha sits exactly at that intersection of home, school, and politics - where affordability, education, family well-being, and real life collide. So today, we’re talking about budgets, schools, and the systems that either lift families up or push them over the edge. And Natasha Baker has a lot to say about how Indiana could do better — and why the stakes for Hoosier families are way too real for lawmakers to keep pretending otherwise.
In the conversation you’re about to hear, Natasha and I dig into what it actually looks like to teach Family & Consumer Sciences in 2025 - everything from budgeting lessons that reveal how little a dollar buys anymore to the hands-on work of helping kids build real-world skills. We get into the shape of State Senate District 22, how she navigates the divide between Lafayette and deeply rural Carroll County, and why she believes rural voters are being left behind by policies crafted in Indianapolis. We also talk about the new diploma requirements, the “school choice” scam, the childcare crisis, teacher morale, the “Eyes on Education” surveillance culture, and the very real economic consequences of SB1’s school funding cuts. And throughout, Natasha brings a perspective you don’t often hear in Indiana politics — the day-to-day reality of someone who sees exactly how state policy lands on students, families, and classrooms on the ground.
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Now, here is my conversations with Natasha Baker.
In the Interview:
District 22: Urban–Rural Mix & Gerrymandering
Covers eastern Tippecanoe County + all of Carroll County.
Current State Senator Ron Alting has been in office since 1998.
Lafayette is split from West Lafayette by design (classic “cracking” gerrymander).
District contains:
A mid-sized city (Lafayette)
Purdue-adjacent communities
Extremely rural, farm-based towns in Carroll County
Natasha has lived and worked in both sides of the district — giving her rare credibility with the whole constituency.
Natasha’s Background
11 years teaching Family & Consumer Sciences (FACS) - that’s Home Ec to us old folks
Teaches:
Culinary arts
Food science
Child development
Preparing for college & careers
Personal finance
Intro courses for future teachers
Mother of two (6 and 3).
Grew up in a conservative family in rural northern Tippecanoe County.
Life in a Split District: Rural & Urban Realities
Students in her rural school literally park tractors during “farm equipment day.”
A million dollars of farm equipment isn’t even that much anymore.
Rural schools lack local businesses required for new diploma “employment seal” work hours; Lafayette schools have far more opportunities.
Why She’s Running
Tired of conservative candidates running unopposed — no alternative voice.
In Indiana, 63% of elections are uncontested.
Alting ran unopposed in 2022.
Wants younger progressives, kids like she once was, to see someone like them running.
Believes “courage is contagious.”
State Senate offers a bigger platform to challenge the status quo.
Education Policy: What’s Broken & How It Lands on Teachers
Multiple diploma tracks simultaneously.
Teachers scrambling to fulfill new requirements with less funding.
2. Workforce hypocrisy
State demands more “skilled workers” while cutting public school resources needed to develop them.
3. Rural inequities
“Employment seal” requires work hours students literally cannot access in rural areas.
4. Voucher system (school choice) harms rural schools
There are no private/religious schools in Carroll County.
One third of counties lack voucher-accepting private shcools.
Rural families pay taxes for vouchers they can’t use.
Public schools lose funding, class sizes rise, resources shrink.
5. Lack of accountability for private schools
No parallel oversight compared to DOE demands on public educators.
Private schools can expel students mid-year while keeping voucher dollars.
One example of how schools manipulate “count day.”
Rokita’s ‘Eyes on Education’ & the Culture of Surveillance
Someone photographed an unused building with no flag and submitted it as a “violation.”
Rokita posted it publicly and blasted the school corporation.
Creates paranoia and pressure among teachers, especially liberals in conservative communities.
Teachers feel undervalued and disrespected by state leadership.
State education ranked in the bottom ten.
Curriculum constantly shifting; three different diploma systems running at once.
Rural districts fear staff cuts under SB1 (“Who won’t be returning in August?”).
Many teachers leave for jobs at Purdue for higher pay and more respect.
Teachers often responsible for buying their own supplies.
SB1 & the Cost of Defunding Schools
Natasha’s district could lose ~$1 million over 3 years.
Carmel set to lose $9.4M over that time.
Cuts equivalent to several staff salaries in a small corporation.
Public schools act as economic centers, attracting families, stabilizing communities, and generating long-term growth.
Cuts accelerate rural decline.
Indiana CTE funding model.
Students in 2025: What They’re Facing
Heavy political awareness — students talk openly about current events.
Social media is constant: streaks, pressures, misinformation.
AI makes cheating easier, but teachers can usually tell when ChatGPT wrote something.
Boys in particular are being targeted by online radicalization.
Affordability & Teaching Personal Finance
Students dramatically misunderstand prices (“$40 ground beef,” “$5,000 new car”).
Natasha runs hands-on budgeting simulations using beans as currency.
Exercises show eighth graders how quickly necessities drain a paycheck.
Indiana’s $7.25 minimum wage doesn’t cover basic expenses — a key pillar of her policy platform.
What a living wage looks like compared to minimum wage.
Why Education Policy Is Economic Policy
Public schools create workforce, stability, and community longevity.
Universal childcare is an investment — helps families work and boosts local economies.
New Mexico launches universal child care program
Other nations treat childcare as common sense; Indiana treats it as a wedge issue.
“Poverty brain” leads to poor decision making.
Where to Find & Support Natasha Baker
Website: electnatashabaker.org
Instagram: @natashabakerforindianasenate
TikTok: @electnatashabaker
Facebook: Natasha Baker for Indiana Senate
Once again, that was Natasha Baker, teacher and candidate for Indiana State Senate District 22. What stuck with me from this conversation is how sharply the day-to-day work of a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher reveals the real conditions families are living under. Natasha sees the affordability crisis not as a talking point but as the reality her students carry with them. She sees how state policy lands in classrooms, how funding cuts ripple through rural communities, and how public schools function as the economic backbone of places like her district. If you want to understand what Indiana’s choices at the Statehouse really mean for working families, you listen to someone like her.
But, if you want to listen to a certain leftist curmudgeon bring together a couple of friends to rant about the week news from across Indiana and beyond, then you should tune into HoosLeft This Week, which is now streaming exclusively on our own channels - YouTube, Facebook Live, and of course at HoosLeft.US. Indiana’s most thorough weekend morning news and politics talk show, it’s a lot of fun - if you can call following the news in this timeline fun. My panel and I go “around the corn” to cover all the week’s top Indiana news stories and look at US and international happenings through a Hoosier lens. I hope to see you there in the comments, but if you can’t make it live, the program will be available for download later Sunday afternoon. This week, it looks like Indiana Republicans might take yet another stab at stealing two congressional seats after all. Join us to talk all about it.
Thanks again to Natasha for this interview, for her work teaching the next generation, and for putting herself out there as a candidate in this environment.- and thank you for listening. One last reminder to please consider contributing to this project with a paid subscription at HoosLeft.US, where you’ll find my entire archive. I rely solely on the generosity of kind patrons like you to make this information available for free to everybody. In addition to the website, you can find me on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads at HoosLeft.US and on Facebook, X, TikTok, Mastodon, and YouTube at HoosLeft. Direct message me at any of those sites with feedback, tips, ideas, and concerns or email me at scott@hoosleft.us. While you’ve got the old email machine out, please forward the show to a friend and have them pass it on, too. Let’s keep building this project - and a truly democratic state - one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.
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