Yesterday, the State of Indiana School Board decided that they knew better than the voters of the State of Indiana. They have overturned all procedural decisions by our elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, Glenda Ritz. Now, Glenda (yes, we all call her Glenda, because she's one of us) is a former teacher, highly educated, and until this past year, a practicing teacher. She knows what it is like to work as a teacher. That means that she has been under appreciated and overworked for years. She has spent the last year trying to make teachers more relevant and give them the chance to teach and care for their students.
Over the years, I have read a lot of dystopian stories. These are stories, but behind them there is a lesson. They teach us to watch our leaders. They teach us that power is corrupting. I am currently reading Animal Farm, by George Orwell. In Animal Farm, Napoleon uses propaganda to convince the other animals on the farm that he is smarter than them, and therefore they should do what he wants them to. He changes the rules to benefit him, but he does it slowly. This allows him to make the animals comfortable with really awful ideas. He educated the animals in the topics and in the way he wanted. He told them what to think, and how to think. That is exactly what our governor is doing through the legislature. He has demonstrated that he feels that he is the only person who know what is best for education. I'm not going to lie, I don't know how long he spend in an education program, or what university he went to so he could learn how to be an educator. He may know what he's doing. He may know more than our elected education officials, but it feels more like Animal Farm to me.
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