HARRIS: Evaluate teachers annually based on clear standards
Evaluations should be based on “clear standards of instructional excellence that prioritize student learning.”
Forefront
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BOEHM: Put top officials in charge of lower offices
If we let the leaders of the executive branch of government select their team of professionals, we have a more coherent governmental team. More important, we get accountability to an elected leader for performance that is inept or worse.
SHELLA: We’re the ones permitting raw discourse
I compare the attack ads to gossip. Everybody claims to ignore them and abhor them, but they grasp the messages sent and repeat them.
VAUGHN: Restore civility with the Fairness Doctrine
Although the Fairness Doctrine would not stop politicians and political commentators from using violent imagery and hate speech designed not to inform but to incite, it would guarantee that opposing views be heard.
BROOKS: Spending should pass achievement test
Unless something big and unexpected happens, 2011 will be consumed by a debate over the size of government.
RICH: Let Obama’s Reagan revolution begin
Barack Obama’s Christmas resurrection was so miraculous that even a birther or two may start believing the guy is a Christian.
KRUGMAN: Texas is a bad omen for the nation
Wasn’t Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn’t its governor declare, during his re-election campaign, that “we have billions in surplus”? Yes, it was, and yes, he did. But reality has now intruded.
DOUTHAT: The continuing paradox of the unborn
This is the paradox of America’s unborn. No life is so desperately sought after, so hungrily desired, so carefully nurtured. And yet no life is so legally unprotected, and so frequently destroyed.
COLLINS: Balance gun access, rights with sanity
In 2009, Gabrielle Giffords was holding a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting at a Safeway supermarket in her district when a protester, who was waving a sign that said “Don’t Tread on Me,” waved a little too strenuously. The pistol he was carrying under his armpit fell out of his holster.
HERBERT: Obama casting his lot with the megarich
Consider the extremes. President Barack Obama is redesigning his administration to make it even friendlier toward big business and the megabanks, which is to say the rich, who flourish no matter what is going on with the economy in this country. (They flourish even when they’re hard at work destroying the economy.) Meanwhile, we hear […]
FARGO: Building futures alongside memories
My hometown and the southern Indiana communities I encountered have much to offer, including hard-working people, clean air and beautiful scenery. To ensure they survive and grow, community and education leaders need to help prepare workers for opportunities in the new economy.
REED: Democracy depends on the right basics
I believe we need to do some clear thinking around at least three issues: civil discourse; death, taxes and change; and stepping up to serve.
MAHERN: Kill off townships to save public services
OK, here’s your choice: You can reduce the public library book budget by a million dollars or you can recoup a good portion of that savings by deciding we really don’t need 72 elected public officials to dispense poor relief in Marion County.
WAGNER: A new generation of Indiana Democrats
The creation of a political generation depends not just on working for a winning candidate, but on that elected official’s making it a priority to place top talent outside of his or her administration.
TORR: Right-to-work freedom would stoke Indiana’s economy
There is one simple change we could make in state law that would put more Hoosiers back to work: Make Indiana the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state.
GUYOTT: Legislation threatens established stability, prosperity
Passage of right-to-work legislation would mean unions could not negotiate contracts that say all workers must pay for union representation.
LADWIG: Local property rights, Zimbabwe style
Is it hyperbolic to relate anti-colonialism in the African Corn Belt to the machinations of the Capital Improvement Board, the Metropolitan Development Commission or the Indianapolis mayor’s office?
HOWEY: Daniels still thinking outside the rut
With just two years left in his second term—and beginning only his third year with Republican legislative majorities—Gov. Mitch Daniels presides over a state that has been trapped in a jobless rate hovering around 10 percent for two years.
MUTZ: Improve our existing utility regulations
The actions by utility representatives, the regulatory commission chairman and one of his employees created the appearance of impropriety.
KRULL: School choice not as simple as it seems
The fight over public education has become a way for entrenched interests—the business community and teachers’ unions—to lob shells at each other.