FAILED INDIANA SUPERINTENDENT TONY BENNETT’S Promise “gave way to punitive micromanagement, with overblown testing and outside opportunism” | Scathing Purple Musings

FAILED INDIANA SUPERINTENDENT TONY BENNETT’S  Promise “gave way to punitive micromanagement, with overblown testing and outside opportunism” | Scathing Purple Musings:

FAILED INDIANA SUPERINTENDENT TONY BENNETT’S  Promise “gave way to punitive micromanagement, with overblown testing and outside opportunism”

by Bob Sikes

Indianapolis Star columnist Dan Carpenter doesn’t hold back in expressing his exasperation with outgoing governor Mitch Daniels and education superintendent Tony Bennett. This on Bennett and Indiana’s way forward:

Bennett’s promise gave way to punitive micromanagement, with overblown testing and outside opportunism that left embittered the very people a state superintendent and an “Education Governor” should most count on for allegiance.
A leader of vision would acknowledge that the state’s future depends on free common schools that inculcate democracy and do not function as workforce development arms of the Chamber of Commerce, much less as employment options for consultants. He and his staff also would give the schools their due, drawing the connection between poor academic results and poor children. Government should be about helping public schools help those kids — and not about helping the