If you’ve been missing the budget squabbling in Washington since it calmed down last week, you could look to Indianapolis for your daily fix of dysfunction.
By involving a lawsuit between dueling political parties, the bickering in Indiana government has gone one step beyond the federal feud.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz sued the 10-member state board of education a week ago, contending it broke Indiana’s open meeting law by huddling without telling her — or anyone else.
We’ve been building up to this since Ritz won an upset election last fall over her predecessor, Tony Bennett. The win made her the lone Democrat in the state power structure, and Republican leaders have gone out of their way to shut her out of decisions.
In doing so, Republicans risk ignoring a clear message that Hoosier voters were trying to send last November. Voters took the trouble of crossing party lines to elect Ritz — a relative unknown — because they were upset by the rapid changes Bennett was bringing to Indiana schools.
We suspect voters especially disliked the way Bennett was handling a new system of A through F grades for Indiana schools. Now, the grading system has become the focus of the quarrel between Ritz and Republicans.
Ritz sued after the state school board — bypassing her entirely — called for the Indiana Legislative Service Agency to help calculate this year’s school grades. The board and the governor say Ritz’s Indiana Department of Education is taking too long with the process.
Ritz’s excuse sounds reasonable. The grades are running only slightly behind Bennett’s pace last year, and she’s battling extraordinary circumstances. This year, Ritz is dealing with computer foulups that plagued ISTEP testing. As a related hindrance, the number of parents appealing their children’s ISTEP scores grew by 20 percent.
What does not seem reasonable is Ritz making things worse by tossing the controversy into the courts.
All 10 state board of education members have been appointed by Republican governors. But at least four of them describe themselves as bipartisan in a letter they sent to Ritz, calling for a truce.
The four members say they have complaints, too, contending that Ritz ignores messages from them.
“However, in the interests of our students — the future of our state — we are ready to set that aside and start over” in working with Ritz, their letter says.
We’re pleased to see that one of the board members exhibiting good sense is Troy Albert, principal of tornado-stricken Henryville High School, who previously served as principal at Westview High School and assistant principal at Fremont.
We also took encouragement last winter from the attitude of northeast Indiana’s state Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn. Kruse chairs the Senate committee on education. Shortly after Ritz took office, Kruse said he respects her and considers her a friend. He seemed willing to ignore their partisan differences for the good of Indiana students.
“I look forward to working with her, and I think we will have a lot of things in common that we would like to change,” Kruse said.
Let’s start by changing the atmosphere in Indianapolis. We hope Ritz will accept the invitation from the four state board of education members to drop her lawsuit and give peace a chance.