TUESDAY TATTLER 5



If you teach elementary school, or remember to your younger days, then the following scenario is a familiar recess occurrence. 

Bobby – “I don’t like you and I am not going to play with you!”

Denny – “That’s not nice.  I am not going to play with you either!”

Bobby – “ Oh yeah?! Well, I will tell my friends not to play with you either!”

Denny – “Fine!  I will take my toys and go over there!”

Bri – “Teacher, teacher, Bobby and Denny are fighting again!”  They are not playing nice and Denny is taking his toys somewhere else to play!”

Sound familiar?  Well, it should!  This scenario is playing out in the Indiana Legislature and it is becoming rather childish.  House and senate education committee members, obviously still reeling from Novembers upset of Tony Bennett, can not seem to figure out how to please 1.3 million voters or their counterparts in different houses.  Representative Behning and Senator Kruse seem to be so bent on their dislike of educators and public education that they are now turning on one another. 

It appears that the battle has gotten to the point where Behning is deciding that senate bills will not get hearings in the house, and this apparent move seems to be causing Senators, like Carlin Yoder(R-Middlebury), to withdraw bills already passed out of committee.  Senator Yoder, author of  the bill to scrap the A-F grading of schools, pulled the bill on Monday for questionable reasons.  This bill was originally authored by Ed Charbonneau (R-Valparaiso).  Senator Charbonneau was “demoted” to second sponsor so that Yoder could take the lead role, and now withdraw the bill in another apparent recess playground dispute of “I will just take my toys and leave”.

Does anyone else think it is time for these grown men to stop the petty political bickering and return to doing the jobs they were elected to do?  Yes, there have been some catastrophic bills moving through both houses this session, but there have also been some good.  It is time to put the bickering aside, stand up for our children, and stop making threats to one another’s legislation in order to further the destructive agenda aimed at Indiana’s Public Schools in favor of the profit driven private sector. 

Boys, the teacher has decided that you each need a time-out.  As we reach the halfway point of this legislative session, take time to understand the reasons 1.3 million voters chose a new direction and see to it that you serve that constituency with the same determination you spent the first half trying to destroy.  Glenda Ritz was elected as the voice of Indiana’s PUBLIC schools.  She is an even tempered, education expert who knows why she was elected.  I think back to my hour long conversation with her on election night.  She said to me, “ There never was any doubt in my mind that I was going to defeat Tony Bennett, we will see for sure in a few hours.”  Well, there is no doubt in this teacher’s mind that Superintendent Ritz has great things in store for Indiana’s public school children, once she is allowed to serve the 1.3 million voters in the capacity in which she was elected to do so. 

Representative Behning and Senator Kruse, take your half way point time-out and come back in the second half ready to do something to benefit and support our public schools.  The teacher is watching, and your next election could very well be your last.