Politics & Power Quote by Mitch Daniels

Daniels builds his case on a double comparison that’s hard to argue with: Indiana is behind everyone else, and even more damning, it’s behind itself. The first half is the familiar reform alarm bell - rankings, competition, the implicit threat of national decline. The second half is the rhetorical judo move. By pivoting to “the potential of the kids and the devoted teachers,” he inoculates his critique against the most common backlash to test-score talk: that it blames educators and reduces children to data points. He’s not attacking classrooms, he’s defending them against a system that’s failing to cash in on their effort.

The word “worse” is the tell. Falling behind other states can be explained away as demographics or economics. Falling behind your own “potential” implies mismanagement, complacency, or political cowardice. It’s an argument designed to justify disruption - policy changes, accountability regimes, new incentives - while keeping moral authority on his side. “Devoted teachers” is doing strategic work here: it flatters the profession while repositioning the problem somewhere above them, in governance and structure.

Context matters: as a Republican governor-era figure associated with education reform, Daniels is speaking into the post-No Child Left Behind landscape, when “results” language became the currency of seriousness. The subtext is clear: if the people on the ground are already devoted, the only acceptable target left is the system - and the leaders who control it.