This afternoon, hundreds of supporters of Glenda Ritz turned out at a rally in Indianapolis to show their support for the embattled superintendent of Indiana public schools. Governor Mike Pence and his allies in the legislature have been trying to strip away the powers of her office, even though she was elected by more voters in 2012 than Governor Mike Pence.
1.3 million voters chose her over the Republican reform idol Tony Bennett, then superintendent of the state. Since then, the governor and legislature have waged constant war on Ritz, either because she is a Democrat or because she is a woman or because they fear her ability to win votes, or all three.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good start, but a lot more than “hundreds” of Hoosiers are going to need to get off their duffs if they want to save (what’s left of) their democracy.
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Everyone who voted for Ritz and stands by her–needs to go to the polls the next election and vote for like-minded senators & representatives who will help support public schools! Meanwhile, write to your senators and representatives now to make your support for Ritz known! She can’t do it all by herself. Today’s rally was energizing. #istandbyritz
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Some of us had to work, Dienne – but I have called and written my representatives (like that will help in this gerrymandered state).
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Exactly what Pence and the legislators are counting on. At some point, though, it may be necessary to take time off work to save democracy.
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Diane, sorry to attach this here – don’t know how else to get it to you. Hoping you can check out Mr. Steve Trevelise from NJ radio station 101.5. This radio station, and Steve in particular, is constantly focusing on our opt out movement. He has listened and learned all of the background and has aired callers viewpoints for hours. He is a key voice in our fight. Can you check him out and perhaps make him a hero of your blog?? Thanks!
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Thanks, flea girl
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Why not invite him to interview Diane on the air?
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What time is he on the air?
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I heard on the 6 pm news that it was “hundreds” but I am pretty sure it was near a thousand. I shared an elevator in parking garage with a group of teachers and one of them had spoken to a security person (we had to be metal detected one at a time as we entered the state house with our coats off and belongings scanned like airport…I had to be wanded and lift my pants legs to show my shoes) who told her it was just over 1000. I think that was what I would have guessed…maybe 900. Some of those could have been there for other business but the atrium was packed, as many standing as seated and up the stairs and around the balconies during the 2 hours of speaking. Glenda opened her office after she spoke and greeted all who entered and posed for pictures. I was touched by the college students who were there and obviously they were impressed to be there and so excited to pose with Glenda. The cheering and chanting were quite loud at times and the speakers well received. I lost count but 10-12 speeches were given. My favorite was Cathy Fuentes Rawher, an Indiana parent whose “rant” was posted last week in this blog. I saw children as young as two and elders who looked near 80. I saw school buses as well as motor coaches delivering folks. We had a couple of inches of snow early this morning and the southern part of the state got 6-7 inches and wind chills were an issue. I think it was an impressive turnout considering the bad weather and that many schools were making up days missed due to snow. The legislators were meeting and we were LOUD!
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Our two car loads from southern Indiana had to cancel because of our winter storm, but we followed the events on social media. Our local representative met with us on this issue a week ago. He told us that since the state voted overwhelmingly Republican, there was no reason to listen to those of us who voted for Glenda since the majority wanted the Republican agenda. He also told us that he did not monitor our calls and emails because “can you imagine the logistics of keeping tract of over 1300 bills and amendments?” Thus is the arrogance of the Republican supermajority in Indiana.
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Will you vote for him next time? I’d say he’s suffering from “electile dysfunction.”
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Bilgewater, that is genius! You made my night complete!
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I have written to every legislator in the house and senate. Only VanNatter and Smith have had the courtesy to respond. Smith even attached Hendry’s July editorial. Steele who is my representative is thus far silent. I didn’t write Lucas with whom I have had many other far more frustrating conversations. I’ve written Pence four times. We must keep reminding them this is not and education bill; its a voter writes issue. They need to know it isn’t their Republican brethren and their corporate rhetoric who will be making that call either – it’s the court of voter perception.
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Pardon my typos!
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I got the same response from Smith.
My response was:
Thank you for the response. Unfortunately, the letter to the editor is not relevant to the conversation. We both know the “democrats” appointed by the governor are “Democrats in Name Only” or are selected because they favor the governor’s positions on education.
There should be disagreement on the board about what is to be done. That is called debate. That is still no excuse for removing the powers of the elected Superintendent of Public Instruction. It is an obvious attempt to eliminate any dissent and nullify an election.
The State School Board should be elected. There is no accountability for the board members. The Superintendent of Public Instruction is directly accountable to the voters. The board is not.”
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The sad thing is that all of this is not enough to make a difference in Indiana. Unless we have a major electoral victory soon (like defeating Pence), then we might as well raise the white flag. Politicians respect nothing but their own elections. And since 2010, voters have rewarded them with an ever growing number of Republicans In Indianapolis each time they entered the ballot box. Our message is not getting out to the public.
All the major battles have been lost. Glenda Ritz will soon be stripped of her minimal powers, negating that “victory.”
The “war” itself may have been lost. We just don’t know it yet.
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Brent,
Never give up. Never. There is always another election. Maybe Ritz will beat Pence. Maybe voters will get sick of the Pence Ring.
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Former Congressional Representative Baron Hill is seriously considering running for Governor in 2016. I think he could defeat Pence. But the Republican supermajority will be hard to remove.
Thanks for the encouragement, Diana. You do a lot of good things for public education all over the U.S.
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Oops! I mean Diane. 🙂
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As a follow up to Dienne’s and KD’s posts, the next election is the big enchilada. Removing those who have made it possible for this Fascist coup coup d’état to take place in Hooterville…er…Hoosierland must be the priority of not only educators, but of every citizen here concerned about the not-so-gradual replacement of a democracy with a corporativist, dominionist oligarchy.
I’ve seen so many posts recently that read something like this:
“I’ve voted Republican all of my life but I voted for Glenda Ritz… hoped she would make a change. She is the first Democrat I ever voted for. Of course, I voted for Pence too.”
Really? Make a change? With the bunch of corporate puppets that ALEC and the Koch Bros. have bought off in charge and their unholy alliance with “Democrats for Reform” (puke), Ritz has had little chance of repairing anything since being elected.
Van Winkles and Winklettes, guess what? Pence and the GOP Inner Circle have an AGENDA. and ed. reform is just a part of it.
Education should be the SINGLE issue next election if you are an educator, a parent, a grandparent, or a taxpayer with grown children or no children at all (translation: EVERYONE). Put aside your feelings about the POTUS and health care. Shelve the feelings about reproductive rights. Place the idea of lower property taxes on hold. None of this $h!t is going to matter if you are living in a country with a bunch of stupid people -Thanks John Green! Creating “a bunch of stupid people” is the end game here.
Contrary to what the education defamation league wants everyone else, AKA as the 99%, to believe, work-place ready does not equate to being smarter, to better problem solving, or to an increase in critical thinking skills. Yes… I know I’m preaching to the choir, but it’s critical to spread the message beyond our circle.
It pains me some when I see the sincere, yet sometimes naive, posts in this blog and similar ones extolling the virtues public education, how its a great equalizer, that librarians/media specialists are a critical component of it, that we don’t “just take summers off”…need I go on? We need to stop telling this to one another and start going outside of our educational comfort zones and spreading the word. Social media is a great starting point. But more importantly we need to be prepared to go toe to toe with those who don’t recognize the problem outside of schools and blogs.
Talk about it in your favorite pub. Bring it up after at church. Discuss it in your coffee klatch. Debate it at the poker game. Go to followthemoney.org and find out who financially supported Pence, Tony Bennett and any of the other GOP goons who’ve fostered Fascism here. Then go to these businesses and tell them WHY you aren’t going to support their businesses in person or in writing. Then make a conscious effort to do it!
Our household no longer uses Red Gold tomato products, Pop Weaver Popcorn or any beverage sold by Monarch Distributing (painful, in that I appreciate Heineken and Pilsner Urquell very much). If you oppose Koch involvement then Brawny, Dixie, Sparkle, Angel Soft, or Mardi-Gras paper products (Georgia-Pacific) shouldn’t be in your home either.
Write Kevin Brinegar at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and tell him kindly that you’ve never seen his name on a ballot and that you’d appreciate him BUTTING OUT of the public education debate in Indiana. Remind him that he is not an elected official.
We have to get outside the comfort zone and take it to voters without an immediate connection to public education. If we don’t, there will be no public education to talk about.
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I was unable to attend. I was “enjoying” having an echo-cardiogram at the time ;).
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I completely agree. I once attended a rally at the statehouse (in 2011) where more than 3,000 opponents of education “reform” showed up to oppose pending legislation. It scared the shit out of the GOP legislators; really shook them up. I’ve tried being polite, tried sending diplomatic emails, tried asking questions about the legislation. None of it worked. I now talk to parents, and students who will be of voting age in the next election. These legislators are no longer opponents; they are now political enemies. I will give my time, effort, and (when I can) money to the people who will get them out of office. The best way to influence policy is to get the right people elected. And I’m damned straightforward in telling incumbents that.
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Sadly, the super majority situation has elevated the perceived testosterone level in the GOP camp. There is no such thing as checks and balanced in Indiana government these days.
To all of the women in the Indiana GOP rank and file, please forgive the mention of testosterone and its subsequent gender bias , but as Frank Zappa once said, “Ladies, you can be an a$$hole too.” And in this case the shoe certainly fits…
Manners, diplomacy, and polite exchange of ideas are about as effective with this crew as it is with ISIS/ISIL.Messages are gonna have to come from the ballot box and from where it really hurts – the wallet. Their benefactors need to understand unless they turn the money off, we’re turning the money off.
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@DEzerov
I wanted in the worst way to go to Indianapolis too…sorry you missed it to to an echo cardiogram. I had more mundane reasons to miss the rally: bitter wind chills up here in South Bend, long distance to Indy, papers to grade…… I wouldn’t be surprised if the REASON for your echo cardiogram might be indirectly related to the stresses these reformers have caused.
Speaking of health-related issues, my colleagues and I had a bad year in 2011. We suffered from a variety of medical (psychosomatic?) ailments including
(1) heart palpitations; (2) shortness of breath; (3) sleeplessness; (4) clinical depression; (5) irritability; and (6) unhealthy weight gain. Additionally, one teacher admitted to being an occasional drinker on the weekend but started enjoying his/her alcohol on weeknights. Another teacher said there was a small group of teachers who could get you some “medications” that might help you (pretty sure it was abuse of prescription meds, not recreational or illegal drugs). I’m not proud of any of this, but I think the truth needs to be told.
Most serious of all, I know of three teachers who contemplated suicide. I know who they were, but I have no idea how far/close they got to it. Obviously, some of us were barely hanging on by a thread.
If I could list all the things that went wrong with Indiana in 2011, I could fill up several pages, and still not cover it all:
(1) 2011 was the year that featured the Democratic walkout of the House (not Senate, if my memory serves), denying the GOP a voting quorum. The Dems decamped to Champaign, IL, just over the state line. Wikipedia claims it lasted 6 weeks. The absent members kept track of the goings-on in Indianapolis, staying in communication by phone and computers. Bosma and his goons eventually passed a resolution to fine the missing Democratic house members $250 per day until they returned. (The alternative was to have them picked up by the Indiana State Police and returned to the capital, but that was foiled by the flight over state lines.) While we were heartened by the support of the Democrats, eventually they had to yield. The main reason the Democrats fled was because they wanted to derail the “Right-to-Work” bill, but they also wanted to slow down or stop the education reform bills also.
While we appreciated the solidarity, in the end public opinion was heavily against the Democrats because voters “elected them to do a job, not run away.” By association, teachers took a big hit in popularity because we supported them. The “union-thug” narrative became common in opinion letters in the newspaper. In the end, I suspect that the Indiana’s GOP electoral supermajority was created in 2012, bolstered by memories of the walkout in 2011.
(2) The year 2011 also seemed to be the year that “reform” hit the fan. Not only was the Indiana legislature putting out one anti-public ed bill after another, but Bennett and his people seemed to be in the ascendancy, appearing in the news, and using the IN Department of Ed. web page to promote his ideas. (for example, a Bennett flack wrote a piece called “Celebrate Accountability” ~retching sounds~). In his zeal to find “bad teachers” and weed them out, he went after ALL teachers in the state of Indiana. No amount of weasel words (“It’s all for the kids” “I support teachers” “We can’t wait to get these kids out of failing schools”) will convince me that the GOP has the best interests of teachers, schools, and children in mind. Basically, Bennett started the story that teachers are the enemy of children’s success.
I remember that every communication or document from the IDOE was printed in this peculiar uniform font, and even now when I see that font, I am reminded of the crap load of documents we got that year–a “brown blizzard,” if you will.
(3) My own building administrators, either out of fear for their own jobs or because they actually believed in this “bilge”, started bullying teachers to “get on board.” In addition to the lunacy from the state, we set out on a full-bore (pun intended) restructuring of our building accountability, including an extensive (and ultimately wasteful, in my opinion) professional development package for the entire staff.
I have done a lot of re-thinking about my role as an educator in these last few years. I’ve discovered that
• I can’t “just teach and be left alone” anymore. At some point, every teacher will discover that they can’t be insulated from the dirty world of politics. It’s simply not possible.
• Being diplomatic, polite, and respectful won’t get teachers anywhere. Civility doesn’t influence people, it doesn’t change hearts, and it won’t make anyone realize that sweet Reason is on our side. We’ll get ignored, stepped on, vilified, criticized if we don’t speak up, and do it forcefully. I’m tired of getting the business-end of the whip when I never did anything wrong.
• It will be a rarity if I ever vote for a GOP candidate again. Republicans like Richard Lugar, Dwight Eisenhower, and (former Indiana Governor) Otis Bowen will never be able to hold office in my state again.
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Bilgewater,
As much as I’d love to blame the echo test on the GOP public education defamationist scmucks in Indy, it was a routine diagnostic after having a slight bout of arrhythmia way back in 2006. Everything is okay, just my cardiologist being thorough. He has two sons at my school and we talk as much about them as we do about my heart during my visits. He is very supportive of PUBLIC education. I appreciate your concerns just the same.
As for the health maladies, that’s hardly surprising. When a once-respected profession is VILLIFIED day in and day out, the outcome is pretty easy to predict.
Those in our profession historically have not been placed on the defensive and now are resorting to “non-traditional” personal therapy. The defamationists count on this, in their hopes that we will all just say “to hell with this” and simply bow out. Then we will be replaced by TFA scabs, all to the benefit of hedge-fund robber barons.
Civility is no longer necessary and the attackers need to be fully aware that we are prepared for the long haul. Being publicly vocal is an essential tool. My Gawd, we’ve been painted as being “unionist thugs”, as the “privileged elite” from former governor Napoleon (an absolute tool), as incompetents. While it may be outside many in the profession’s nature, it’s time to take the gloves off.
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Oh, yeah…I forgot about the “shortcomings” of our 5’7″ ex-Governor Daniels:
“There may have been a time when government employees needed protection and needed reform, but that was a long time ago,” Daniels said.
He called the unions “the privileged elite.”
http://www.calbuzz.com/tag/the-privileged-elite/
(Even though I focused on just one paragraph, the rest of this article is a lovely drive-by bashing of the 1%-ers, stuffed shirt windbags, and others who richly deserve abuse.)
Shortly afterward, he invited some very wealthy movers-and-shakers to an expensive fund-raising dinner (I think it was $1000 a plate, but I can’t find the article or link). WHAT HAPPENED TO MY INVITATION? If I’m so privileged, I could’ve paid good money to sit with the big wigs.
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Well, we might try one of two ways:
(1) take the gloves off
or
(2) an iron fist in a velvet glove.
Have a nice day. 🙂
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Here is the text of a speech at the Indiana Statehouse rally on Monday, February 16 (http://neifpe.blogspot.com/2015/02/if-not-us-then-who.html):
Phyllis Bush spoke at the Rally for Ritz in the Indiana Statehouse, Indianapolis, Indiana, on February 16, 2015.
If Not Us, Then Who?
How many of you have found yourself repeating this famous phrase from the movie Network?
I’m mad as hell and I am not going to take this any more.
If I were to print out all of the emails and letters that I have written and all of the robo-replies I have received, I am sure that I could paper a path between the State House and Fort Wayne.
While the politicians and reformers have framed the narrative that it is all about Glenda Ritz—who is, after all, just a librarian, this is much, much larger than that.
Why are these people so threatened by one woman that they are pulling out all of the stops to marginalize her and to eviscerate her authority?
What, may we ask, is this really about?
Is this about further crushing teachers’ unions and getting rid of career teachers, or is this simply a way of setting up public education for failure so that there is a good excuse for turning public schools into private or charter money making machines?
Are you sick and tired of all of this? Well, I am!
I am sick and tired of being marginalized and disenfranchised. When they disrespect Superintendent Ritz , they disrespect us!
I am sick and tired of trying to find common ground with people who continue to obstruct and ignore.
I am sick and tired of non-educators deciding education policy and of education committees being chaired by a florist and an auctioneer.
I am sick and tired of seeing what all of these wrong-headed policies are doing to our kids, to our grandkids, to our teachers, and to our communities.
I am sick and tired of the harm being wrought upon the children of Indiana by the House, by the Senate, and by our governor.
Let’s take a look at the more odious bills being considered now:
SB1 –removing Ritz as chair of the SBOE
SB500- more deregulation
HB1009 -Freedom to Teach is aTrojan horse without oversight
SB470 – lets choice schools replace ISTEP with an assessment of their own choice—like choosing your own adventure.
Why should school choice parents have choices while public school parents have none?
In both houses of the General Assembly there are multiple bills whose apparent intent is to destroy public education.
There are bills which strip Glenda Ritz of her elected authority, bills which continue to perpetuate the myth of failing schools by assigning grades, bills which attach a teacher’s evaluation and pay to student test scores, bills which expand vouchers and charter schools and make the playing field more unlevel.
How many of you are tired of this?
Are you mad as hell?
We are witnessing the dismantling and privatization of public education.
We are witnessing the dismantling of democracy.
Will you stand by and watch this runaway train, or will you speak out and do something?
In the words of civil rights leader, Rep.John Lewis:
If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
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