Crowe didn't tolerate bullies

One wonders what Sparkle Crowe would think.
Mrs. Crowe was a guidance counselor at Portland High School and was involved in Republican politics some 50 years ago.
Back in 1966, she put together a campaign for the GOP nomination as superintendent of public instruction, the same post Democrat Glenda Ritz holds today.
Getting the nomination required winning support of delegates to the Indiana state Republican convention, and that was an impossible task.
That’s because a key plank in Mrs. Crowe’s platform was that the job of superintendent of public instruction shouldn’t be an elected position. She believed the job should be the equivalent of a cabinet-level position and be an appointment made by the governor.
With that point of view — and her long history as a conservative Republican — she probably would have sympathized with Gov. Mike Pence in his disputes with Glenda Ritz since the two of them were elected.
But it’s unlikely she would have approved of the tactics Pence has used to undermine Ritz over the past year and a half.
By packing the state board of education with political partisans and creating a new, executive office that’s essentially a shadow version of the state department of education, the governor has done his best to undo the will of voters who booted Republican Tony Bennett.
That wouldn’t go over well with Mrs. Crowe, who was a steadfast believer in the democratic process.
Change the system if you want, make the state superintendent of public instruction a position appointed by the governor, but play by the rules and make any changes transparently and legislatively, giving the public a fair chance to weigh in.
She might have understood where Gov. Pence is coming from philosophically, but Mrs. Crowe had no patience for bullies, not in school corridors and certainly not in state government. —J.R.[[In-content Ad]]