Skip to content
Indiana Civics: How Your State Government WorksLesson 7 of 10

7 · Two Indiana offices that recently CHANGED (flagged)

This lesson exists because of the course's core honesty rule: state facts change, and two Indiana executive offices changed recently enough that older sources, and even the constitution's own text, can mislead you. Both are flagged here so you check the current name rather than trusting a stale one.

1) Superintendent of Public Instruction → appointed Secretary of Education (effective 2021). For most of Indiana's history, the state's top K-12 education official, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, was elected statewide. Indiana changed this: the legislature passed House Bill 1005 (2019), titled "State superintendent of public instruction," which moved up the date the elected office is abolished and provided for a Secretary of Education appointed by the Governor beginning January 11, 2021 (Indiana General Assembly, 2019; Ballotpedia, n.d.-a).

How you can check that for yourself. The state's own education department is the tiebreaker, and it settles the question: the Indiana Department of Education's leadership page describes Dr. Katie Jenner as "Indiana's first Secretary of Education" and "one of eight secretaries in Governor Mike Braun's cabinet" (in.gov/doe; Indiana Department of Education, n.d.). A cabinet secretary is appointed, not elected. If Indiana still had an elected superintendent, there would be no "first Secretary of Education" to name.

⚠️ The subtle part to flag: the constitution still names the office of "Superintendent of Public Instruction." So the working, appointed job is the Secretary of Education, while the older constitutional title lingers in the document. If you read the constitution and then read a news story, you may see two different names for what is now one appointed office. Don't assume the elected superintendent still exists; confirm the current structure at in.gov/doe.

2) State Auditor → State Comptroller (effective July 1, 2023). The statewide elected officer long called the State Auditor, the state's chief financial/accounting officer, was renamed the State Comptroller, effective July 1, 2023 (WFYI Public Media, 2023). It's the same office and the same elected position; only the name changed, to better match what the office actually does. Sources written before mid-2023 will call it "Auditor"; sources after call it "Comptroller."

Why a whole lesson on two name/selection changes? Because this is exactly where learners get tripped up, and it teaches the transferable skill: when a source and a document disagree on an office's name or how it's filled, the state's own current site is the tiebreaker. Indiana isn't unique in renaming or reworking offices (every state does it), so the habit ("verify the office's current name and current selection method") matters more than memorizing today's answer.

Check yourself

What changed about Indiana's top K-12 education office in 2021, why can the constitution's text still confuse you about it, and what was the State Auditor renamed to (and when)?

Sources

Also saves the next lesson, so you can keep going offline.

Sign in to track your progress