Tim Swarens

tim.swarens@indystar.com

Gov. Mike Pence is announcing this morning that he will abolish by executive order the Center for Education & Career Innovation, the controversial agency he created last year to help drive education policy in the state.

Pence told me in an interview Wednesday afternoon in his Statehouse office that he will shut down CECI on Feb. 1 because "someone has to take the first step" to end nearly two years of intense fighting over education policy among his staff, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz and the State Board of Education.

Ritz has described CECI as a direct attack on her authority as the state's top educator. Pence said his decision to abandon CECI is driven by a desire "to restore harmony and trust in education."

Its elimination is a major political victory for Indiana's only statewide Democratic officeholder. But it's also a smart political move — it removes a rallying cry for Ritz and her supporters, and puts the onus on the superintendent to make her own conciliatory efforts.

Yet other points in Pence's proposed legislative agenda, detailed in a speech Thursday at the Indiana Convention Center, are certain to spark fresh controversy.

By law, Ritz serves as chair of the State Board of Education. But Pence will ask the General Assembly to give board members the authority to elect the chair, a move that could push Ritz out of the leadership role and dramatically reduce her ability to shape the board's agenda.

"The Superintendent of Public Instruction plays a vital role on the board and brings an important perspective as the head of the Department of Education, and should always be on the State Board of Education," Pence said in an advance copy of the speech obtained by The Star. "But…in the interest of restoring trust and greater harmony, I believe the time has come for the members of the State Board of Education to have the ability to elect their own chair, and I am calling on the General Assembly to enact that reform."

Another point of likely contention: Pence wants to increase state funding for charter schools.

He plans to ask the legislature to add a grant to the school funding formula that would boost per-student funding for charters. He hopes that move will attract more high quality charter operators to Indiana and expand charter schools into new areas of the state.

In a disappointing decision on another high-profile issue, Pence plans to stand pat on preschool. He will request $10 million a year for scholarships as part of the state's pilot program for the 2016-2017 budget cycle. That would maintain current funding, but fail to expand the state's modest step into public support for preschool.

In the roughly 30-minute speech, Pence stayed away from specific budget numbers, other than the preschool funding, because the final fiscal forecast before the legislative session won't land until later this month. But the governor did say on Wednesday that he plans to seek an increase in overall education funding. However, whether all schools and districts will see additional dollars in the new two-year budget is unclear.

On teacher salaries, Pence said he wants to reward top-performing educators with more higher pay. How that would be accomplished also is likely to be controversial.

In an effort he's calling "Freedom to Teach," Pence wants the State Board of Education to be given the authority to grant schools waivers from laws and regulations that govern how teachers are compensated. In essence, traditional public schools would become more charter-like and have more flexibility to pay teachers based on job performance.

Perhaps lost in the all but certain flurry of discussion about the CECI decision are two overarching goals that the governor articulated Thursday:

One, to increase by 100,000 the number of students who attend A- or B-grade schools by 2020. (About 270,000 Indiana students now are enrolled in C or below schools).

Two, increase the number of students who graduate from high school with industry-recognized certification from 4,000 to 20,000 by 2020.

Those are appropriately ambitious marks, the kind that only a chief executive can set. And they are in the long term far more important than squabbles over CECI to helping Indiana meet what needs to be its highest priorities: significantly improving student achievement and dramatically increasing the education level of its workforce.

Still, the governor insisted Wednesday that he wants to send an olive branch to Glenda Ritz — and eliminating an entire agency that she sees as an affront to her personally and professionally is a mighty big branch.

Whether Ritz and her supporters see it that way, however, may be an entirely different matter.

Contact Swarens at tim.swarens@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @tswarens.