Mitch “the Blade” Daniels is Still a Stinky, Cretinous, Disgusting Lout (Part in an Ongoing Series)

Indiana, my home, and home to cultural cavemen who want to protect children from naked statues and super-duper protect hetero marriage by legislating a gay marriage ban even though we’ve already got one on the books, could probably stand to improve its educational system, since the Enlightenment clearly has yet to reach significant parts of our state.

Our state legislature, however, has decided what we need is less education—or less funding for education, anyway—and the #1 wart on this ugly toad of state leadership, former Bush budget guru and current Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, agrees.

Indiana doesn't have a public education advocate in Gov. Mitch Daniels and too few lawmakers are interested in adequately funding the state's 1,909 public schools.

[…]

Lawmakers are struggling to craft a new two-year spending plan. Funding for Indiana's 293 public school districts takes up nearly 40 percent of the state's $24.2 billion two-year budget.

Senate Republicans have shaped a K-12 funding plan that provides 1.2 percent more in 2006 and 1.3 percent more in 2007. Schools are used to increases of at least 2 percent a year.

Even though the plan would provide overall increases in education spending, 129 public school districts would receive less in 2006 than they now receive.

The cuts that are being proposed could result in losing as many as 6,000 teachers statewide.

You’d think that Daniels, who nine years ago referred to Indiana public schools as an "abysmal and atrocious failure," would be interested in changing that reputation. In true GOP social Darwinist fashion, however, Daniels has decided to ignore the public schools in favor of voucher proposals.

Jackson Schlemmer, 12, came to the rally with his 8-year-old brother, Lincoln, and his parents, who are both teachers. The Crawfordsville boy carried a sign that he had hoped would catch the eye of Daniels and lawmakers:

"We are not budget cuts. We are the future."

My parents were both teachers who spent their entire working lives teaching in the Indiana public school system. I was educated in the Indiana public school system. My parents had a good, secure life as teachers, and consequently provided a good, secure life for my sister and me—and we both had damn fine educations. It’s a shame that the Schlemmers, parents and children alike, may not be as lucky.