Chamber: Make Ritz's seat appointed

The powerful Indiana Chamber of Commerce said Monday one of its top priorities for the upcoming legislative session will be to make the state superintendent of public instruction an appointed position.

That elective post is now held by Glenda Ritz, the only Democrat currently in a statewide elective office in Indiana government.

She often has clashed with Gov. Mike Pence and the Republican education agenda.

Chamber President Kevin Brinegar said the business organization has advocated for making the superintendent an appointed position for many years.

But constant clashes between Ritz and the State Board of Education, whose members are primarily appointees of Republican governors, have prompted the Chamber to "speak up even louder this session than ever before," Brinegar said.

Leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature also voiced support for making the position appointed, though they acknowledged it would look bad to do so with a Democrat currently in that office.

"One thing I know," House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, said at the Chamber's annual legislative preview event. "The bickering on the front page of the paper has to stop or the General Assembly will take action and it will probably be action nobody will like."

"We are stuck between a rock and a hard place on this issue right now," said Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, R-Fort Wayne. "I will say that we wouldn't be having this dysfunction right now if it was an appointed position."

But, he added, "to eliminate that right now as an elected position, I think there would be a firestorm of protest."

The proposal drew a sharp rebuke from Ritz's spokesman, Daniel Altman.

"Two years ago, Hoosier voters clearly said that they wanted Glenda Ritz to be Indiana's top education official and a vital check and balance at the Statehouse," he said in a statement. "Half of Indiana's budget is spent on education, and voters deserve the right to say how their children are educated. Taking such an important and personal decision away from voters because of petty partisan bickering is shortsighted and simply wrong."

The governor's office declined to comment.

According to the National Association of State Boards of Education, only 12 states elect their top education officials. Governors pick state school chiefs in 12 states, but it's more common for state boards of education — whose members are often chosen by the governor, too — to appoint or recommend them.

Ritz supporters say this isn't the first attempt to unseat Ritz. Last year, she accused Pence's Center for Education and Career Innovation of wanting to overthrow her.

She cited a policy document drafted by CECI that targeted her chairmanship of the State Board of Education as a "problem" and proposed a "solution" of the governor naming a chair.

State board members protest that Ritz has blocked them from bringing up items while presiding over meetings, while she contends that the governor's center undermines her efforts.

On Monday, Marian University President Dan Elsener — a longtime state board member and perhaps Ritz's most frequent opponent on the board — sided with having an appointed education official.

"I think it would depoliticize," Elsener said, "so you don't have a superintendent out working on legislative races and making speeches and getting heavily involved in politics. I want a very highly talented school educational leader in that position and not a politician. And not have them hire politicians as part of their staff."

He added: "I think it creates better alignment in governance so that the governor and the state superintendent and the board are all in alignment. Teachers, principals and superintendents all deserve to know who's accountable to whom and that there's one agenda, not two or three."

Ritz and the board have been at odds since her surprise election win over incumbent state schools chief Tony Bennett, a Republican, in 2012. Murmurs of changing the position to an appointed one began almost immediately.

But at least one Republican leader, Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis Kruse, previously said he wouldn't support such a proposal until Ritz served out her full term, which runs through 2016.

Ritz recently announced her intent to run for re-election in 2016.

The Chamber also announced two other education-related priorities during Monday's event: the development of statewide publicly funded preschool and opposition to a new Indiana-specific statewide test.

The Chamber wants the existing test to accommodate new standards rather than create an entirely new test.

Call Star reporter Tony Cook at (317) 444-6081. Follow him on Twitter: @indystartony.