Two years ago, Glenda Ritz pulled off an astonishing upset in Indiana when she trounced rightwing favorite Tony Bennett to win the position as State Superintendent of Instruction. Bennett far outspent her but lost anyway. She got more votes than new Governor Mike Pence. Since then, Pence has worked tirelessly to undermine Ritz’s authority and transfer her responsibilities to other agencies, including one that he created. He wants her powerless. He wants to reverse the election results and undermine democracy in Indiana. Ritz’s defeated opponent Tony Bennett was immediately hired as Commissioner of Education in Florida, but resigned hurriedly after a scandal in Indiana broke about grade-fixing during his tenure to protect the charter school of a big campaign contributor.
Here is a report from retired teacher Phyllis Bush of the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education. Bush is a board member of the Network for Public Education.
“ISTA has learned that the State Board of Education intends to further diminish Superintendent Ritz’s role as Chair of the board and transfer some responsibilities to the board’s staff at the Center for Education and Career Innovation (CECI). The actions will take place at the board meeting on Wednesday.
“The board will propose dramatic new board procedures through approving a resolution that will form a one-time, ad hoc committee that will approve the new measures intended to cut into the Superintendent’s traditional role as Chair.
“It’s no secret that the Governor and the CECI have wanted to remove Superintendent Ritz as Chair of the State Board of Education. In December, it was disclosed in a leaked CECI memo that Ritz being the Chair was perceived as a “problem” that should be addressed by the legislature. The goal then was to have the Chair appointed by the Governor.
“This latest move coincides with efforts to seemingly make the Department of Education a minor administrative bureaucracy folded within one agency under the Governor’s office.
“Efforts first began when the Governor, with the stroke of a pen and without legislative approval, created and diverted funding for his duplicate education agency, the CECI.
“We learned just weeks ago that the Governor’s Indiana Career Council has adopted a new strategic plan that includes consolidating more than 30 state agencies and programs, including the Department of Education, totaling more than $650 million, under one lead agency directed by the Governor.
“This new resolution brought forth by the governor-appointed state board of education members is the latest in this fixation over gaining singular power at the expense of the authority of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
“Please contact the members of the State Board of Education and urge them to work WITH Superintendent Ritz instead of continuing on this path of disrespect for her, the office she holds and the 1.3 million voters who elected her.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rotten administrators are everywhere.
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Consolidating agencies may be a way to run government more efficiently, but that consolidation should NOT ever alter the powers vested in Glenda Ritz’s authority. She is there because voters want her there, so she should stay there unaltered.
And voters should band together and let the governor know what they think, ad nauseum.
This should be the people’s will, not the governor’s.
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Absolutely right, Robert, voting should count. Nullification is underway at all levels of govt, from the top down, Congress nullified by corporate money while SCOTUS legislates pro-corporate policies. The powers-that-be will use any tool available to nullify democracy. Like Cuomo nullifying the landslide victory of progressive Mayor DeBlasio last January in passing state legislation giving charters in NYS more money and more authority to claim public space at public expense, undermining the new Mayor’s power to modestly limit these tools of the private sector.
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You got that right . . . . !
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….and THIS is exactly what THEY do. They get around how public schools should be run by buying elections with out of state contributions from billionaires who have no reason to be there in the first place, and then THEY either break the laws or circumvent the laws by creating duplicitous boards, committees, councils, or create new laws putting power into the government’s hands….all suspicious and often illegal.
Or, a complete State takeover – where the Governor can appoint who he/she likes, who will put through the reformist agenda. In NJ, Christie has capped salaries of Superintendents at $175,000 – but Cami Anderson, who he anointed/appointed, is making about $350,000 with bonuses, and, he went on to generously give raises to his staff and give million dollar “tax incentives” to businesses he favors, while simultaneously underfunding schools, etc.
Isn’t this illegal to keep circumventing how school districts are run?
Isn’t it time for some lawsuits?
How about some laws to keep “foreign” monies out of school board elections?
From what I remember in civics classes, Governors and Mayors aren’t dictators – they just like to play them.
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Why do elected officials want to destroy public education? What are they gaining from the reformist agenda? The way that White in Louisiana and Pence in Indiana are behaving makes no sense to me.
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Hedge fund managers see privatization of education as the last untapped market from which, they can enrich themselves. Politicians respond to payoffs. Politicians write the laws and conservative judges interpret them to make pay-to-play, legal.
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Gee, I thought right wingers, libertarians, Tea Partiers and assorted Ayn Randians believed in limited government, personal responsibility and reduced taxes (especially on the rich)? But when one of these guys becomes a governor (governator), they rule as if they were dictators or loud mouthed bullies (Christie, Schwarzenegger, etc.).
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Add the lesser known (but bitter enemy of public education) former governor mitch daniels of Indiana (notice the lower-case letters, for a man of small stature and small-minded ideas), and add current governor mike pence to your list. Others who read this blog regularly would probably add Jindahl (LA), McCrory (NC), Kasich (OH), and Snyder (MI).
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Take time all Indiana Educators, active. & retired
Spread the word to sign & support Ritz
http://www.change.org/petitions/indiana-state-board-of-education-respect-democracy-keep-all-elected-power-in-superintendent?recruiter=10394955&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_facebook_mobile
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If you live in Indiana, please sign and forward this petition.
http://www.change.org/petitions/indiana-state-board-of-education-respect-democracy-keep-all-elected-power-in-superintendent
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Thanks for sharing that. I’ll forward this to my mailing list and colleagues in my school corporation.
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The libertarian mantra, by hook or by crook. They are the old law firm of DCH. Old timers will remember it well. They really were a joke, we did not elect them. It is funny how they want to protect the people’s rights….until they think they have a better idea they just have to impose on us. They remind me of the Godfather.
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Sorry, did I miss something? I did not see the usual list of people to whom we can send our concerns. I live in Indiana and would certainly e mail those people.
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The list is here: https://ista-in.org/in-further-effort-to-weaken-doe-state-board-will-attempt-to-strip-authority-from-ritz-transfer-to-ceci
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The consolidation of power within the political sphere of the American social network has seldom had, at its underlying goal, the diversification of input, ideas, the broadening of intellectual thought or the building of the minds of our youngest citizens. But rather in the narrow minded goal of control and the self-serving philosophy that they know best what we need. In our country elections are about a choice, they are about the right to have a say, even if that say turns out to be wrong or a bad decision we as a free people living in a democracy have the right to self governance through our elected leaders, and in the event we find that leader wanting to replace them at predetermined intervals. I know this, because as child a teacher, practicing their craft, in a democratic society, was free to place facts before me as a student, without fear of retribution, in a system directed and governed by democratically elected leaders. The act of dissolving those governing bodies, who are lead by elected officials, who represent an idea different than that of the leaders executing the consolidation, for no apparent reason other than to consolidate power and to position themselves and their political party to control the education of a free people, says on its face that those individuals have no respect for the citizenry that elected then, that they embrace a political system that embraces the destruction of dissent, that denies the citizen free speech and destroys the vary notion of one citizen one vote. Leaders should, and most often fail to, remember that our country stands and is made strong by the belief in, confidence of and the loyalty to an ideal, that we are governed by those we have chosen, in this case no rational person can defend in this action as falling within the ideals of a great country. The only actions that can be supported on whole by the people are the actions embraced and decided in a fair and open election by the citizens to whom we, as a country, have entrusted the authority to decide the election. Any action with the intended or unintended conaquence of subverting a open and democratic election must be viewed, by open minded and rational observers, as an attempt to over throw the democratic system of governance envisioned by our citizenry as articulated in our Declaration of Independence and Codified in our National Constitution. Tierney grows on undefended ground, and is nourished by apathetic inaction.
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Who is Tierney?
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I support Superintendent Ritz! The voters of Indiana have spoken…we want Glenda Ritz as Chairperson.
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Diane, I really hope you read this. At the meeting today Ed Power, a charter school company, that operates Arlington HS as a turn around school asked the board for more money to run Arlington as they cannot fund it for the coming school year. The board expressed surprise and shock that they would not be able to afford it. The board denied their request for more money and asked for a plan to have the school running by next month. The board also asked Ed Power, Indianapolis Public Schools, and the mayor’s office to start working on a transition plan so that IPS could resume operation of the school.
Ironic that an organization that claims to be able to do better than the local public school has to rely on a public school that they took money from how to operate without funding. They are top heavy and their administrators make an incredible amount of money while underpaying their teachers and relying on TFA.
Ed Power in Indy is notorious for expelling special education students and students with severe discipline issues after they turn in their head count to the state, but do not believe that they practice a separate and unequal system.
(Given my location, I have to use a pseudo name)
Here is a link to the story:
http://www.wthr.com/story/25973286/2014/07/09/state-education-board-heads-into-contentious-meeting
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Thanks, IPS Teacher. Sounds like this is another charter corporation that claims it has all the answers but has none except “send. More money”
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