THE HISTORY OF THE OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION AND WHY THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION SHOULD ALWAYS BE ELECTED The office of Superintendent of Public Instruction was created when Indiana’s current constitution was written in 1851. The writers of the constitution did not specify in the constitution if the office should be elected or appointed, but they did determine that it should be elected in 1852. It has been an elected office ever since. William C. Larrabee, elected the first Superintendent of Public Instruction, began his service on November 8, 1852. Electing the Superintendent of Public Instruction provides an important check and balance to government. The writers of the constitution believed education was so important that they created the office and made it elected separately from the Governor. The Superintendent of Public Instruction office is a one-issue office – education. The Governor office is a multi-issue office. Clearly electing the Superintendent of Public Instruction gives the people of Indiana the opportunity to express their position on education, Indiana’s single largest budget item. The question of appointing the Superintendent of Public Education needs to be examined in light of the intention of the writers of the constitution and the history of electing the Superintendent. If, for example, the Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction were almost always from the same political party, then having the Governor appoint the Superintendent of Public Instruction might have merit. However, that is just not the case. In the 163 years since William C. Larragee took office, the Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction have been of the same party in 112 years and of different parties in 51 years. So 31% of the time the people of Indiana wanted a Superintendent of Public Instruction that did not share the same education view as the Governor. This should be reason enough to continue to make the Superintendent of Public Instruction an elected office. However …. In the 26 years since 1989 the Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction have been of the same party in only eight years and of different parties in 18 years. So 69% of the time beginning in 1989 the people of Indiana wanted a Superintendent of Public Instruction that did not share the same education view as the Governor. Clearly the people of Indiana utilize their right to select a Superintendent of Public Instruction with view different than that of their Governor. If the Indiana Chamber of Commerce really wanted to do what is best for education they would take the politics out of education by proposing the following: 1.The SPI office should continue to be an elected office but it should be a nonpartisan office, in much the same way that judges are elected. Candidates would be placed on the May primary ballot by producing a certain number of signatures. The top three vote getters from the primary would be placed on the November ballot. There would be a limit of two consecutive four-year terms for the office. The SPI would continue to be the chair of an 11 member State Board of Education. 2.The members of the State Board of Education would continue to consist of 11 members. However, the nine members representing our congressional districts would also be elected in a nonpartisan manner in the same way as the SPI. Each district SBOE member would be limited to a single 6-year term with three district elections being held every two years (i.e. districts 1-3 in 2018, districts 4-6 in 2020 and districts 7-9 in 2022, then repeat the process). The eleventh member of the SBOE (SPI plus 9 district members) would be appointed by the Governor and serve a four-year term. Making both the SPI and the SBOE district representatives elected in non-partisan races gives the people of Indiana the greatest opportunity to get their education views heard. Finally, everyone talking about the dysfunction between the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education needs to review the history of these two and examine what is different today. The answer is that the most significant difference today is the existence of the Center for Education and Career Education. Never in the history of Indiana as a Governor created a duplicate shadow government agency with the sole purpose of negating an elected public official. Only the Governor can eliminate the dysfunction by eliminating the Center for Education and Career Innovation. The Governor needs to do this now.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 18:12:23 +0000
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