Indianapolis Establishment Looks (Again) to Try to Oust Education Chief Suellen Reed

It is said that the floor of the Indiana State GOP convention is filled with political corpses of those that have tried (and failed) in convention floor fights against Dr. Suellen Reed, who has four times been nominated by Indiana Republicans to run for Superintendent of Public Instruction (and she won every time in November by huge margins).

Now, the establishment powers-that-be in Indianapolis have found a new candidate to latch onto in their crusade, a recently-hired school superintendent in Clark County by the name of Tony Bennett.

The Courier-Journal has the story:

INDIANAPOLIS – Less than a year into his job as superintendent of Greater Clark Schools, Tony Bennett plans to seek the Republican nomination for state superintendent of public instruction.

The position is now held by Republican Suellen Reed, who is in her fourth term.

“I have a high amount of respect for the 16 years of distinguished service Dr. Reed has given the state of Indiana,” Bennett, 47, said yesterday. “Given the issues confronting Indiana, I think the Department of Education needs a fresh set of eyes and fresh leadership.”

Reed has not said publicly whether she plans to seek a fifth term. Her office did not return a call yesterday seeking comment.

Bennett was hired as the district’s superintendent last summer. He told the school board about his intention at a meeting Tuesday, board member Bill Halter said.

Bennett can continue in his current post while he campaigns.

Bennett said he decided to run for the state office because of encouragement from community and business leaders.

Encouragement from community and business leaders my rear.

Mr. Bennett looks to me to be an unwitting front-man for the latest in a long series of plots by Indianapolis insiders and establishment types to try and unseat Suellen Reed and replace her with someone that will dance to their tune.

Last time around, Mitch Daniels was willing to stand by Suellen Reed when a lot of the establishment folks that simply hate her were (yet again) plotting her convention downfall.

To their consternation and outrage, the then-candidate Daniels unexpectedly endorsed Reed, causing their plans to fall apart.

These days, Dr. Reed and the Governor aren’t on such good terms, so another endorsement is probably not in the cards.

Last time around, her opponents reportedly spread word far and wide to hint to Dr. Reed that the party thought she had been in office too long and everyone thought she should step down.

The party rank-and-file didn’t think that (they probably still don’t), but the story was nevertheless peddled by her opponents in an effort to try and get her to either step aside or to build support against her.

It didn’t exactly work.

She ran again, and she won again.

Not just on the convention floor, but also in November.

This time around, they are trying the same trick again (probably with similar results).

Anonymous tipsters have told me that Reed’s opponents have retained a certain GOP political consultant from South Bend to canvas for support among Republican insiders across the state and to build a framework of endorsements around which to work toward unseating Suellen Reed in yet another convention floor fight, if a wave of endorsements can’t be used to “psych” her into not running at all.

There is also a move afoot to abolish the position of Superintendent of Public Instruction entirely, and put it under the Governor (as if the Governor of the State of Indiana doesn’t have enough to worry about and to oversee as it is).

This leads to a dual track approach by Dr. Reed’s opponents.

If they cannot unseat her in a floor fight at the convention and install someone who they find more agreeable, then they will try to abolish the position entirely to get rid of her.

Lord knows she’s a proven vote-getter and will probably never be defeated in a general election.

There is no good reason to unseat Suellen Reed; test scores in Indiana have been going up for a decade while she has been Superintendent of Public Instruction:

Statewide results showed a slight uptick across the board.

Overall, 64.7 percent of Hoosier students in Grades 3-10 passed both the math and language arts portions of the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus. Higher percentages passed one or the other: 74 percent passed math, 71 percent language arts.

That continued a gradual, decade long increase in ISTEP results, according to the state, with percentages climbing from a low of 56.5 percent in 1997.

“The good news is . . . we have good news,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Suellen Reed.

It’s sort of hard for me to buy that we need “fresh set of eyes and fresh leadership”, as Bennett spins it, when the current set of eyes and the current leadership is doing such a good job and test scores have been steadily climbing for ten straight years.

Why should Indiana fire someone that has been doing a good job for sixteen years in favor of a basketball coach (and biology teacher; everybody knows where those priorities lie in hiring teachers in Indiana) who has been a school superintendent for less than a single year?

This post is also available at Hoosierpundit.