shorter matt tully: what indiana really needs are some innovative ideas to shake up public education. for example, superintendent white wants to eliminate union collective bargaining rules! hooray for innovation! ¶

And our "clueless" state legislature, too. Tully appears to think that Indiana needs a Pope.

Gene White has operated from Day One as though teacher contracts did not exist. The only change I can see here is that now he wants to stop losing lawsuits. Their cost has been added to the salaries of the two assistants the Board hired for him last year so he wouldn't have to work so hard. The man is a genuine, 24K fraud.

Let's just ask about these young innovators White has to lay off lest he be forced to cut out some sinecures at the Administration Building. It's not most, or many; like any other profession most neophytes are struggling to adapt and master their skills. Give White the power to fire at will and it won't be the innovators being kept, it'll be the experienced teachers getting canned, because they cost more. And the genuine innovators, at the secondary level at least, will quickly find themselves being asked to take larger class loads and to teach courses, even areas, where they have no experience, no lesson plans, nothing. And no experienced teachers to turn to for help.

Tully just got done with a personal tour of IPS, where he had to have seen that innovation and youth are not synonymous. He just got done profiling Jeffrey White, the "young, innovative" principal at Marshall that the Racist Star covered in a feature series two years ago, and whom Gene White drove out of the system. Jeffrey White lasted eighteen months. Gene White doesn't want innovation. He wants power. You'd think recognizing the difference would be part of a political columnist's job description. ¶

Maybe Tully & White could try some innovative critiques of unions, rather than using the same tired canard. ¶