Teacher Unions Rock!

...Bennett raised $1.3 million for the race, (click here) four times as much as his Democratic challenger, Glenda Ritz, a veteran teacher who relied mostly on union support. Bennett's donors included major education reform figures, such as Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Los Angeles developer Eli Broad. He also had the advantage of running in a solidly red state, where Republicans up and down the ticket had strong showings.

Yet Ritz won 54 percent of the vote. She argued that Bennett had put too much emphasis on standardized test scores, which rose during his tenure, and vowed to give local schools more autonomy.

Bennett declined to comment.

The result "was definitely a surprise, no doubt about it," said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which last year honored Indiana with the title of the "reformist" state in the nation because of Bennett's work.

"This was the most aggressive reform agenda in the country, and you might say that voters thought things were going too far, too fast," Petrilli said....