By Matthew Tully
(From The Indianapolis Star, January 7th, 2011)
Every Wednesday morning for several months, a group of local Democrats has gathered for breakfast to address a tremendous problem for their party in Indiana: the idea that Democrats are obstinate roadblocks standing in the way of education reform.
The group has spent hours talking about hot-button education issues such as charter schools, teacher evaluation measures and school turnaround efforts. They’ve shared what they’ve seen in classrooms and heard in conversations with teachers and students. And they’ve begun to devise a plan to ensure their party takes its rightful place as a leading voice in the push to improve public schools.
“We want to be a part of the solution,” state Rep. Mary Ann Sullivan of Indianapolis said when I joined a few members of the group this week at Cafe Patachou in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood. “We want to be at the table when the decisions are made.”
Many of those decisions soon will be made at the Statehouse, where Republicans, who now control everything, are pushing for sweeping education reforms. In one of the most disappointing political moves of the past generation, Democratic House leaders refused to seriously debate those ideas while they controlled the chamber from 2006 to 2010, even though the reforms have the support of many Democrats outside the Statehouse, from President Barack Obama on down.
“Democrats own and are leading education reform at the national level, and even at the state and local level in many cases,” Sullivan said. “We want to remind people of that.”
She’s right. But the power of the state teachers union, and the piles of cash it provides to candidates, has led many Statehouse Democrats to block changes that would significantly help students and families in areas represented by many of those same legislators.
With all that in mind, the early-morning group has spent months preparing for the upcoming launch of the Indiana chapter of Democrats for Education Reform, joining a national effort that has spread to several states. They will announce the formation of their group in coming days and plan to start a political action committee that will raise money for reform-minded Democratic candidates for local and state offices.
Larry Grau, one of the leaders of the group, is president of the Pike Township School Board. Over coffee at Patachou, he said the education of Indiana’s children is too crucial to be bogged down in partisan politics.
“There are kids that are getting lost in our system,” he said. “That’s what I can’t live with. If we as Democrats — the party of those who are down and forgotten — can’t stand up for these children, who can we stand up for?”
The group plans to weigh in heavily during the upcoming education policy debates, and some members recently met with Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels to make clear their interest in finding common ground. Their voices will add much-needed balance to the debate.
The group also will work with teachers, providing accurate information on policy proposals. That should provide another balance — to the sometimes one-sided messages they get from unions and administrators.
“Big changes can only happen within the schools,” said Kelly Bentley, a former IPS School Board member who is part of the new group. “Things won’t change simply by changing policies. So we have to make sure teachers feel like partners in this debate.”
With this new group, Democrats can be partners in the debate, too.