Gary's Tony Walker, representing Northwest Indiana on the board, joined Elsener, David Freitas, Gordon Hendry, Sarah O'Brien, Brad Oliver and B.J. Watts in voting to reduce Ritz's authority to lead the board.

Andrea Neal, of Indianapolis, said the action by her board colleagues was a disservice to Hoosiers, especially the ability to immediately put topics on the agenda and vote on them.

"This resolution makes it too easy to add last-minute items, possibly controversial items, possibly ambush items, and that would deprive the public of sufficient notice to appear before us," she said.

House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, condemned the board's "power grab."

"Instead of working on issues that help improve the quality of education in the state of Indiana, our appointed State Board of Education shows it is more interested in trying to show our superintendent of public instruction that she is not in charge of education policy, the role that the people of Indiana elected her to perform," Pelath said.

In addition to reducing Ritz's role, the board also approved resolutions Wednesday blasting Ritz's handling of Indiana's No Child Left Behind waiver renewal and insisting Pence's Center for Education and Career Innovation lead policy making on turnaround schools.