Glenda Ritz will be making an announcement on June 5th at 11:00 a.m. that is running for Governor.
She will make the announcement at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) in Fort Wayne.
Glenda is state superintendent of education in Indiana. She defeated reformster Tony Bennett in 2012, despite a 10-1 funding advantage for Bennett. Tony Bennett was chairman of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, the reformy organization of state chiefs who favor vouchers, charters, high-stakes testing, and digital learning. After his defeat, Bennett was immediately hired to be state superintendent in Florida. (Can anyone spell Jeb Bush?) But he resigned that position after a news story revealed that he and his aides had manipulated the school grades to favor a charter school founded by a major contributor to his campaign.
In 2012, Glenda received more votes than Governor Mike Pence. Pence must have been afraid she would run against him, because he has spent the last three years undermining her, whittling away the powers of her office, transferring her authority to an agency he created or to the state board, which he appoints.
Glenda Ritz would be a great governor for Indiana.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for this post…in Indiana, a light continues to flicker for our democracy!
Ms Ritz…in addition to the many supporters you have in Indiana…count another family from New York that is with you.
Finally someone to root for!
GO GLENDA!!! from a neighbor in IL!
I’m writing to my Indiana friend right now to urge her and her friends and relatives to vote for Glenda. Go, Glenda!
I agree finally someone to root for who has withstood a bunch of malarkey – I hope she wins and cleans up house!
May the party back her and build a great team around her.
This time the oligarchs will outspent her 20x or more to one. That campaign for governor will probably end up costing more then Obama’s first run for president. As long as Citizen United stands, I think we will see the cost of campaigns climb and climb and climb.
Lloyd, you know as well as I that the poor and the rich are equally welcome to spend money on political campaigns. And equally welcome to sleep under bridges.
We live in a upscale community, and I know that under at least one bridge there is a colony of homeless—-unless the city had the police run them off.
Maybe the rich should be forced to live under a bridge for a year or a freeway underpass. To keep them there, I think we’d have to surround them with razor wire and armed guards.
As a voter in Indiana, I have mixed feelings. Symbolically it really FEELS GOOD
to see her extending a rigid middle finger towards Governor Empty Suit and the Alec/Koch/Klipsch marionettes. God knows that she deserves it!
But, sadly, with donors such as the aforementioned charlatans throwing around massive dollars to Fuehrer Pence and his brown shirts in the super majority and then adding in funding from the likes of “Boss Hoggs” such as Dean V. White (look this charmer up @ followthemoney.org), she has little hope in this race. A better option would be Glenda as a running mate for John Gregg.
Lloyd is absolutely correct about Citizens United. On top of it, Indiana has a most uninformed voter base.
Some may take offense with this appraisal, but spare me. I live here. I can say it. The same clowns who voted for Ritz because they disagreed with Tony Bennett’s policies and turned right around and voted for Empty Suit (’cause I always vote “R”) were the ones who negated their own votes and fouled the punch bowl.
As an Indiana resident/voter, I totally agree with you here, DEzerov.
I am also a teacher–one who resigned after 22 years of high-quality experience, but under the constant political/administrative nonsense of moving evaluation goalposts for teachers and the total lack of connection between the insistence that our teachers and schools accept a kind of deficit mentality when providing lessons to “difficult” kids and classes and what 100 years of Ed research and classroom practice has shown us what is good for our kids.
That stated, there is another issue at hand, here:
Would Glenda make a good governor for Indiana?
Glenda Ritz is a fine human being–a good person and one who has shown a great deal of integrity in the face of unfair treatment and an incredible degree of political backstabbing. She is an outstanding educator with a broad knowledge of the field. She is, indeed, a quick study. She is even a smart and aware political newcomer, as her dealings with the current powers has demonstrated.
But, I do not see her skill set and personality being in line with the needs of a savvy Governor of one of our states in these days. She cannot be a single-issue politician (education and child care) and lead our state through the current social-political topography–Not unless she can assemble an incredible staff behind and beside her that can teach the leader and fight most of the battles as her champions. I don’t see those people showing up in her party. Maybe I am wrong and such a cadre will emerge and assemble to aid her efforts.
(True, there are other candidates who will run who also lack the skill set needed and who and are even less prepared or less qualified to act as a Governor; but they aren’t going to succeed in winning their party’s ticket or the governor’s race, either.)
I laud her desire to buck the current “croneyist” political system and those who wield the power. I will certainly support her effort and shout my “Huzzahs!” when she takes the stage, but I fear she needs more than what she already has in order to effectively compete and to decisively win.