INDIANAPOLIS — The three candidates for Indiana governor often resorted to noncontroversial platitudes during a debate Tuesday that focused on state education issues.
In fact, most of the policy prescriptions offered by Democratic former House Speaker John Gregg and Republican Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb differed only slightly in how they'd be implemented, while their overall goals were all but identical.
They concurred that Indiana's teachers deserve more respect and higher pay; the ISTEP standardized test must be replaced; education should lead directly to college, a career or post-secondary training; students need to get involved in government; and college tuition ought to be more affordable.
Libertarian Party nominee Rex Bell took a different approach by repeatedly condemning excessive state and federal government involvement in education, and demanding school policy decisions be turned over to local elected officials and parents.
Unlike Monday's contentious presidential debate, the only one-upmanship on display at the gubernatorial debate came when Gregg encouraged the Indianapolis students in the audience at Lawrence North High School to visit his campaign website for more information about his proposals.
Holcomb promptly responded by telling the students to also visit his campaign website. Gregg then joked that after seeing what Holcomb's webpage had to say, the students would want to return to Gregg's campaign site.
Bell later plugged his website, too.
Gregg distinguished himself by promoting his plan for making pre-kindergarten available to all 4-year-olds statewide.
He said Hoosiers for too long have allowed themselves to fall behind what's available in other states.
"We can do better in Indiana," Gregg said. "We've got to focus on the economy, we've got to be open-minded, we've got to be inclusive."
Holcomb was the only candidate to defend Indiana's system of rating schools using A-F letter grades, which he said still can be improved to be more useful to parents and teachers who often don't know what goes into the accountability rating.
"We're on the right track, we just need to keep going," Holcomb said.
High school students asked many of the questions answered by the candidates, including queries about arts education (all support it within a workforce training curriculum), how to find a job (look everywhere) and whether undocumented immigrants should get in-state college tuition (maybe, they said).
Afterward, Holcomb promoted Gov. Mike Pence's proposal to make the state superintendent of public instruction an appointed post, instead of elected.
He also vowed that his 2017 state budget proposal would see education money follow a child to whatever school — public, charter or voucher — he or she attends.
Gregg stood by his decision not to hold Holcomb personally responsible for the past 12 years of Republican education policies and promised to work across party lines, if elected, with what is likely to be a hostile General Assembly.
"We're not going to be about politicizing education; it's going to be about the pupil not about politics, it's going to be about ideas not about ideology," Gregg said. "I'd rather fix the problem than affix the blame."
What was supposed to be an hour-long debate lasted 45 minutes after the moderator, Laura Merrifield Albright, assistant professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis, spent the first quarter hour recapping the history of political debates.