At Jeb Bush’s bipartisan conference on the privatization movement, outgoing Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels complained that teachers used illegal tactics to defeat State Superintendent Tony Bennett. He claimed, with no evidence, that teachers campaigned for Glenda Ritz using school emails and facilities.
Bennett, of course, was the hero of the privatization movement. Jeb Bush made him the chairman of his “Chiefs for Change,” a group of state superintendents devoted to high-stakes testing and privatization. Bennett had a war chest of about $1.5 million, compared to about $300,000 for Ritz. His loss was a shocking upset and setback for the privatizers.
And Ritz not only beat him, but got more votes that the Republican who won the governorship. Some conservatives insisted that Bennett lost because he endorsed the Common Core standards and angered some conservative voters.
But Governor Daniels, soon to be president of Purdue, blames those terrible, unprincipled teachers, the people responsible for educating the children of Indiana..
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So a guy who uses his time, position and power in a public office to undermine public institutions feels the sting of justice?
Better yet, the guy who appointed 5 of the 6 members of the Board @ Purdue (2 of them within weeks of the announcement) who appointed him president….
Can anyone say, ” Karma”?
Mitch Daniels is the biggest hypocrite on two feet:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/12/wimpy-hypocritical-rep-govs-scared-of.html
OK, I stand corrected – he’s #2 to Chris Christie.
Republican are always crybabies when they do not get their way. They think they can be right of Attilla the Hun and it is OK. Many more people than teachers voted for the new person and yet they complain. Why don’t they just realize that as in 1948 they have gone way too far and do not care about the common person only their privatizer corporatizer hedge fund friends and such. This is war. What does anyone think they are doing being nice guys? Are you kidding. They use every sneaky trick in the book from limiting the voters to hacking the computer voting machines. This is unbelievable that we do not have a paper trail on those computers or access to the source code. Make all private voting computers illegal and only have those in which the people have access to how they work legal. In fact, we should go back to real ballots and those are paper. We can wait a day for a “REAL” election can’t we? Do not forget that the democrats are into this same thing under Obama, Duncan and the DFER. All have right wing corporatizer privatizer agendas and have for a long time. Obama since at least 1995. Let us deal with reality. As a friend of mines grandfather taught him “I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.” The public here had better wake up soon to the fascist takeover and stop it on all levels as that is what is really happening. Right now they own the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and most state legislatures, County governments, city governments and school districts. School districts are being controlled by the likes of Gates, Broad, Walton Foundation and HP for their profit and ideological agendas. Let’s get real here.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Just out of curiosity, is it technically to campaign for someone or issue over email that is technically a “public” email address? I mean I know that we can’t campaign for people to say YES to our bonds, but we can tell people to vote in them. Just curious. Obviously I do not believe him, I think she won fair and square. But I was just curious
Oops, I meant to say “illegal” after technically.
James, all they know what to do is lie. This is standard procedure. Recently, at a California Assembly Select Committee to Prevent School Districts from going into Receivership, bankruptcy, Deasy, the superintendent and Garcia, the board president, testified to the Committee that LAUSD only had $4,800/student. We, CORE-CA, had previous to the meeting submitted our research to the committee so that they would have it before the hearing. Our submitted information only came from the LAUSD budgets or the California Department of Education (CDE) website and in 2010-11 LAUSD received in total funding $11.233/student. Now that is real close to what they stated isn’t it? The prepared spreadsheets on 20 school districts were 10 years deep so as to be able to show the long term flow of funds and students who did not come to school everyday. In 2010-11 over 102,000 students did not come to school everyday for a lost revenue of over 1.15 billion. In 2002 when LAUSD had 156,000 more students than in 2010-11 only 14,500 did not come to school everyday. The Board has the nerve to call themselves the “Reform Board” I call them the “Deform Board.” How is it that the superintendent and board president do not know the revenue of the district? How can they balance the budget without knowing revenue and expenditures? Or is it that all they know what to do is lie?
Talking to parents in N.Y. one night I asked “How much is your budget” they said they told us it was $3.9 billion. I said no way and worked out at numbers I remembered from about 4 years ago at $16.9 billion. I later found the Deloitte and Touche N.Y. City Schools Audit and it was $23.9 billion for 1.1 million students. Think about this. Is this an accident? People do not do their homework.
First, Mitch Daniels’ claims are false. I am a public school teacher and we were warned not to mix our personal politics and our teaching jobs or we could be fired. We were told that we were to be professional at all times and we were not to use parent meetings, school resources, or even our school email account (from home) to promote our personal politics. On the other hand, I have a friend that has a child in a charter school. She told me that she received a flyer in her child’s backpack that stated that she should vote for Bennett. Just because the Republican incumbent stooped to using children as mules for his political career and using taxpayer dollars to print things to promote his personal career doesn’t mean that public school teachers did the same. The playing field was uneven on every count in this election and Ritz still beat Bennett soundly. I am a Republican voter, but I believe that this lack of understanding of key issues and this inability to connect with the voter is symptomatic of what is ailing the Republican Party nationally as well as locally. For some reason, the Republican Party has adopted a “Father Knows Best” type of attitude toward the voting public and is disregarding all but those who agree with the personal agendas of the elected officials. In Indiana, our officials have systematically attacked every opponnent to Republican Power (every union), enacted laws that prevent them from being removed from office unless they do something illegal, and laws may not be enacted from voter initative. They have solidified their power absolutely. They need not listen to their constitutents and they are assured that they will not be removed from office. Despite the resounding mandate from the voters, the State Board is planning to push through REPA II – a measure to deprofessionalize teaching and allow people with no teaching experience or teaching education to teach children in Indiana. There is no conceivable way that this can help children or increase our test scores but they will push it through despite great amounts of public outcry from parents, grandparents, educators, and students. The elected officials in Indiana aren’t listening. It is a very dark day for democracy indeed.
I would guess that you are not allowed to use school resources to campaign. You are not the public, but an individual with an opinion.
My brother-in-law is a retired Indiana middle school principal who was very active in the Fitz campaign. He said they won using two strategies – first, getting lots of people to write letters to all the small town newspapers in Indiana, and, second, through using Facebook.
A couple things to point out. We can turn this into Republican bashing, and believe me, there are several I am not fond of; but as a conservative, there are a number on the other side of the aisle who supported Bennett’s “reforms” as well. These “reforms” started in Indiana on the Democratic side of the aisle; with the author being the Democratic candidate for Governor. The plan was put together under Governor Joe Kernan, who replaced Frank O’Bannon, who had passed away while in office. The most important thing to point out here is that it was Republican voters who helped get rid of Bennett. Yes they voted for Daniels, but he did NOT run on a platform of education reform. The bottom line charter schools and vouchers are just policy, plain and simple. There are people on both sides of the aisle who are pushing for these across the country. Teachers got busy; telling as many people as possible. There were a number of teachers who used their facebook connections to spread the word. There were pages created there to help get the message out. A number of tireless efforts helped get rid of Bennett; and we are glad he is gone, but the work is nowhere near over. I strongly suggest everyone here to contact their elected officials to make certain your state is not heading down the same path Bennett took Indiana.
I’m not sure about kernan’s record, but all of these reforms that are hurting our schools were brought about in the last 4 years. Kernan was governor 8 years ago.
I don’t remember any dems supporting these polies and laws. In fact, two years ago, they walked out of the house to stop the attack on our schools & hid out in Springfield for weeks. Their income was impacted too through steep fines 4 their protest. A few republicans in both houses voted friendly 4 our public schools, but all the dems banded 2gether 2 try 2 slow this agenda.
…contact their elected officials to make certain your state is not heading down the same path…
What is a credible alternative? Under Ohio’s previous (Democratic) governor, we adopted an education formula we couldn’t afford to phase in. When that was repealed, educators bashed Republicans.
So the two choices are:
1. Educators bash Republicans for adopting model legislation from ALEC.
2. Educators bash Republicans for repealing Democratic legislation for which there is no funding.
The only “bipartisan” education reform option echoes ALEC.
The “broader and bolder” position (cure poverty first) is not responsive to what courts demand from the other branches: a “thorough and efficient system” of public schools.
Doesn’t high school civics teach the importance of electing officeholders based on their ability to fulfill their oaths of office? Instead, teachers’ endorsements go to imaginary friends with imaginary sources of revenue.
Meanwhile, the public education doomsday clock advances toward midnight.
ALEC is not bipartisan it is totally controlled by the most radical elements of the Republican party. Which planet do you live on I might ask? Privatization and corporatization are not the answer to anything except more profit for the owners of ALEC. In this country most of the medium to large schools are now being run by Gates, Broad, Walton Foundation and HP. This is just a fact. Last year alone they place over 45% of the top management in medium to large school districts. Obviously, you do not do your homework or are paid to promote ALEC like propaganda.
Would it help if perhaps teachers only counted as 3 fourths of a vote? These folks certainly have their nerve. I hope this signals a trend, may they have many more occasions to lament their failures.
My question is: Mitch, how is what you did to become President of Purdue not illegal? Mitch Daniels appointed eight of the trustees to the Purdue Trustee Board and re-appointed 2. The vote for his reigning over a state run University was unanimous. Was this not by design and illegal tactics? We need to call him out on this. http://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_94017752-3cb7-567d- aaff-dc9ca89520ca.html
Additionally, there are 40,000 teachers in Indiana registered with ISTA. That is a long call form 1.3 million. I’m a parent, I can tell you I’ve contacted many parents that were not happy with Bennett’s “design” for education here. People actually love their children more than politicians, that is what Daniels, Bennett and their cronies seem to not understand in the election process. And that drives me mad.
What about the plan to move the power to oversee Repa from the Idoe to the sdoe scheduled to be discussed at their December 5th board meeting.
While Mitch is a crybaby…I’m crying as a result of this:
Daniels was George W. Bush’s first budget director. He served from 2001 to mid-2003. That is to say, he oversaw the first round of tax cuts, and the initial cost estimates of the war in Iraq, and the development of the deficit-financed Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. During his time as Bush’s budget director, the deficit increased by almost $200 billion. After he left, the policies he helped pass would add trillions more to the deficit. They are still adding to the deficit today.
More at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/mitch-daniels-cant-save-the-republican-party/2011/08/25/gIQA4VGkQQ_blog.html
Some Republicans I know are in the process of ordering bumber stickers that read “NO MORE BUSHES” .
There is some hope for the “free press” in Arizona. A good news reporter, Anne Ryman ,associated with “The Arizona Republic”, in Phoenix, Arizona, has been writing some good articles exposing what is happening in most Charter Schools in Arizona.
The Charter Schools do not have to follow the same rules and regulations that other “public” school follow. The Arizona Charter School Board has actually (believe it or not) exempt most charter schools , apparently forever, from the state laws for procurement. One can only wonder what other “waivers” were provided under the Bush and Obama administraton. Was this done by Executive Order? Did Congress approve such disregard for laws? Did the Legislature in our states disregard laws? If not , how was this achieved under our U. S. A. and state constitutions? I’m awaiting a logical response from someone out there.
Let us place the blame where it belongs on both political parties, but I agree on one part – the neoconservatives who want to privatize everything that is owned by the people are by far the worst of the lot. The Democrat controlled teacher unions leaders sold out public education and their membership years ago, so the leadership is rotten to the core. Forget them!
I’m thinking of ordering a bumper sticker reading “PRIVATIZING STEALS OUR SCHOOLS AND CHILDREN!”
Go read the recent DOE OIG report on the total lack of accountability of charter schools in Florida, Arizona and California. This report is ED-OIG/A02L0002. This will definately give you a boost in your fight on charter schools in Arizona.
I just finished reading the report noted by Beorge Buzzell and Diane Ravitch’s blog, and I’m still shaking my head in disbelief. This report is only on 3 of the 41 states who have charter schools, and it actually is not complete as they noted. One can only wonder if the same is happening in the other states.
Only one of Arizona’s 535 charter schools has closed since our “astute ALEC” Legislators passed the first Charter School Bill in 1994. This one closed apparently on its own after receiving a 230 thousand dollar grant from the government. No reference is made to what happened to the taxpayers money after the school simply never started. It looked, from the report, as though about 5 thousand was left over, but the report never accounted for that either. There is absolutely no accountability to the citizens of the USA re charter schools according to the report. Even the state that have been wise enough not to engage in the hoax, are still paying with tax money going to the other states. This whole thing must be the “biggest rip-off” in the history of our country. The children will reap the tragic results, and so will our country because as our children are educated, so goes our country.
The greedy privateers are now busy passing legislation state by state to get rid of our best qualified and highest paid teachers. This way the computer companies can sell more and more “junk” programs to the uneducated and greedy. I saw a picture taken in Yuma, Arizona with 60 students in one room all hooked up to computers–boxed off exactly like the “Skinner” box education he predicted. In Arizona, the charter school teachers do not have to be certified. Most of the citizens have been so conditioned against all teachers, most will think this is an improvement. The tax free foundatons and multi-national corporatons have paid billions to achieve that end.
Diane keep your blog going please! Several others are now forming across the country by concerned citizens. Our bumper sticker “NO MORE BUSHES” is progressing well. He now appears to be leading the pack, so that is why he has been singled out. “Wolves in Sheep Clothing” might be a better title for all involved in the charter schools.