![]() Find your favorite artists (and maybe some new favorites) at the AC’s open house!*
Participating Artists
Heather Landry
Nikki Pritchett
David Rodenberg
The Curated Loom
Lisa Heichelbech
Alisa (Al) Holen
Donna Kipp
Penny McLeod
Chris and Amy Wilke
Billy Hedel
Jon Fuchs
Jenna Citrus
and many more!
Questions? Call 812.422.2111 or email info@artswin.org for assistance.
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*Weather may be an issue on Friday, stay updated on our Facebook page for any last minute cancellations. |
Holiday Fine Art Sale
Commentary: GOP should heed own advice, get rid of education agency jumble
TheStatehouseFile.com
John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – Not far into the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s critics had a lot of fun at his expense by cracking jokes about the “alphabet soup†he’d cooked up by creating a lot of government agencies known only by their acronyms.
Those critics, mostly Republicans, fired shots at the National Recovery Administration, or NRA. They made some jibes about the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC. And they quipped about the Works Progress Administration, or WPA.
Behind the jokes, those conservative critics of the New Deal had a point. They thought the proliferation of agencies – many of them with overlapping missions – blurred lines of authority and accountability and make efficiency much more difficult.
Flash forward 75 years and move the scene to Indiana, where the same criticism could be leveled at the Republican Party’s approach to education administration.
The back-alley brawl between Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz (on one side) and Gov. Mike Pence and the state Board of Education (on the other) has gained a great deal of attention.
Often lost in the analysis is just how crowded the field upon which the combatants have been tussling is – and how those crowded conditions may have helped lead to the conflict.
One catalyst that kicked the squabbling into overdrive was the creation of the Center for Education & Career Advancement, a new state agency that will have to struggle to find elbow room at the Statehouse.
With the creation of this new agency, Indiana now has a superintendent of public instruction, a department of education, a board of education, an education roundtable, a higher education commission and a partridge in a pear tree.
In some cases, the membership of these boards, roundtables, agencies, commissions  and pear trees overlap, which further confuses things and makes it that much harder for anyone inside or outside the process to determine where one entity’s responsibilities end and another’s begin.
That has been one of Ritz’s arguments.
She has argued that the proliferation of education-related state agencies, departments, boards and roundtables has created an organizational that resembles the tracks in the dirt left at the conclusion of a demolition derby.
The blurred lines of authority, the overlapping of missions and the sheer number of voices yapping in the board room or at the round table make it almost impossible to hold anyone in government accountable for anything related to education. She said that the Center for Education & Career Advancement was a straw dropped on an already overloaded camel’s back.
Ritz has a point.
Members of the GOP should understand that, because the point she’s making is the one they usually do.
Republicans pride themselves on being the party of small government, the ones who have a passion for efficiency and streamlined systems of accountability. Most of the time, they look for ways to scale back the size of state agencies.
But in the case of education in Indiana, they have piled one agency, board, roundtable and commission on top of another. In the process they’ve created an education system that is so muddled that it’s impossible to tell what’s going on, much less who is responsible for what.
I don’t agree with much of what conservatives want to do in regard to education reform, but I’ve been around long enough to know that they are sincere in their desire to create an education infrastructure that is nimble enough to embrace effective innovation quickly and more responsive to the concerns and needs of students and parents.
My humble suggestion is that the state’s Republican leadership could start the work of building such an infrastructure by honoring their historic principles and establishing such a system at the top.
They could lead by example.
If there were fewer agencies, boards, commissions and roundtables crowding the Statehouse – and fewer education experts, many of them self-proclaimed, struggling to find an audience – we Hoosier might find it easier to understand what we’re fighting about.
Or, even better, we might find that we don’t have as many reasons to fight as we thought we did.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits†WFYI 90.1 FM Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
WEEKEND IS IT TRUE THAT 911 Gives Hope For The Holidays
 IS IT TRUE that this weekend the Townsquare Media Radio Stations (WKDQ, WJLT, WDKS, WGBF, WGBF-AM) will team up with Henderson Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and the 911 Gives Hope charity to present the 5th annual “911 Gives Hope For The Holidays?  …†Last year 911 Gives Hope committee successfully filled a 53ft trailer with toys that were distributed to the Children’s wards at local hospitals.  …this year all 5 radio stations will again partner together for a mass broadcast “Radiothon†to urge the public to donate toys, clothing, gift certificates and more to the Children’s wards at Deaconess Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, Methodist Hospital, Evansville Psychiatric Children’s Center and the Ronald McDonald House. …that the Radiothon will begin 5am on Friday, December 6th and will run thru 6pm on December 8th.  The radio stations will broadcast live from the Walmart on Burkhardt the entire weekend with additional broadcasts live from Henderson Chevrolet in Henderson, KY. Local Fire Departments, Police Departments, Sheriff’s Departments, and AMR will be in attendance all weekend in an effort to fill another 53 foot trailer.  … that the toys collected will be sorted and delivered to the local hospitals just in time for Christmas.  …for more information please contact Melanie Leach at 812-425-4226
EVPL closing at noon
Due to the inclement weather, all Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library locations will close at noon today.
To download eBooks and eAudiobooks and read online magazines anytime, visit evpl.org.
St. Mary’s Convenient Care East and West Are Closed
St. Mary’s Convenient Care east and west locations will close at 3:00 today. Anyone in need of immediate care should go to the nearest Emergency Room. Currently, both locations plan to reopen at their usual time tomorrow, 9:00 a.m. We will keep you updated if that changes.
In addition, we are looking for members of the community who are willing to serve as volunteer drivers to help us meet our staffing needs. Volunteers will need to provide a copy of their current driver’s license and active automobile insurance information. Anyone interested should call 812-485-1888 for more information.
Road and Weather Update – Evansville District
Snow and freezing rain continues to fall throughout the Evansville district, which covers the following counties: Knox, Pike, Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh and Warrick.
No serious crashes were reported overnight or this morning. Troopers did investigate several minor crashes and slide-offs on I-64 in Posey County and on US 41 in Knox County.
All roadways within the Evansville District are snow covered, slick and hazardous. The roadways are passable, but motorists must slow down, increase their following distance, avoid sudden lane changes and ensure everyone is buckled up.
Additional snow is expected throughout the day and drivers should expect hazardous conditions.
For road and weather information please call 1-800-261-7623 or go to www.TrafficWise.IN.gov.
Our local schools deserve better

As you may have heard by now, Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson announced on Tuesday that her office had finalized a settlement of a federal securities fraud lawsuit. The $14 million lawsuit accused the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) and the National Education Association (NEA) of defrauding Hoosier schools out of over $27 million
This announcement is a partial victory for schools across Indiana including one of our own, the Warrick County School Corporation, which will be receiving $376, 585. 22. This total equates to about 50 cents for every dollar they lost. The ISTA and NEA have ten days from Tuesday to pay this money to the Secretary of State’s office who will then distribute it to the schools in a manner we have been assured will be expeditious. This took almost four years to litigate, and it is important that the public knows not only the end result, but also how and where the problem started.
Almost 30 years ago, the ISTA Financial Services Corporation created the ISTA Insurance Trust to manage health care and disability liabilities. In this case, the ISTA and NEA were accused of selling healthcare plans with benefits, which were unregistered securities, to 27 school corporations in Indiana. With certain exceptions, selling unregistered securities is considered a felony offense.
The ISTA and NEA then used the money from the health plans for their own benefit to cover funding shortfalls in their long-term disability plan. This meant the money was never invested on the school’s behalf to offset future health care costs as was promised. It was also alleged that ISTA continuously issued phony financial statements to schools misrepresenting investment fund balances.
Because our Secretary of State’s office only has the authority to file civil suits and cannot file a criminal suit, she turned this issue over to the United States’ Attorney General’s office as well as the FBI; however, the U.S. Attorney General declined to take up the case. As a result, the issue was never allowed to play out through the criminal justice system, and we will never fully know if a criminal act was committed or by whom. In essence, no one is being held accountable for this deliberate mismanagement of funds, and I find that troubling.
I commend Secretary of State Connie Lawson and former Secretary of State Todd Rokita, now Congressman, for their due diligence on this issue, which has enabled our school system to recover a portion of the money they are owed. This settlement has been a long time coming.
With this now settled, I still firmly believe that the ISTA and NEA should pay every penny that they mismanaged back to the school corporations and teachers. It’s simply the right thing to do, especially from organizations that have pledged to do work in their best interest.
The most important thing moving forward is to work towards a more permanent solution that ensures this does not happen again – our teachers deserve as much. I am a firm believer in our state’s education system and that we need to be doing everything we can to culture the best learning environment. This takes an all-in effort from administrators, teachers, students, parents, local communities and statewide organizations. This is why I plan to look into what we can do legislatively to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, and so that Hoosier students can realize and create a better future for our state.
PET OF THE WEEK
Beans is a 1-year-old Boxer mix! He is full of energy and love to give. He already knows several commands and rides very well in the car. He’s also treat-motivated, so this will help you teach him all the tricks in the world you want to! Just take a look at that face. How can you resist the grin?! He will gladly play tug-of-war with you! Beans’ adoption fee is $100, which includes his neuter, microchip, vaccines, and a bag of food.
Old Evansville Historic Association Holiday House Tour
History • Education • Preservation | www.reitzhome.com | |||
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Reitz Home Museum E-News December 2013 |
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 34th Annual Victorian Christmas: Visit Now to December 31 During Regular Museum Hours
     Join us for one of our special Candlelight Tours on Friday December 6, or Friday December 20, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. The mansion has a special glow at night with its stained-glass panels, Tiffany lamps, and twinkling lights. This informal self-guided tour is one of the most popular ways to experience the Reitz Home’s Christmas decor, collections of art and furnishings, and nineteenth century decorative arts. Tours begin in the Carriage House. Regular Museum admission applies.         Please Consider Becoming a Member of the Reitz Home Museum Formalizing your membership is one of the most important ways you can help us to continue our mission of history education and historic preservation.  For more information on membership, visit us online at:  www.reitzhome.com/become-a-member        |