Tony Bennett: A Lysenko for our times ... and corrupt, to boot.

Every single time Tony Bennett's name comes up, I think back to Trofim Lysenko.

Howey, Bennett, Lysenko and Daniels.

I'll make this point a final time: Tony Bennett is one hell of a crooner, but he didn't invent the strategy of cooking the numbers to suit ideological imperatives. It isn't for nothing that I've been comparing amok Bennettism with the crazed genetics theories of Soviet half-scientist Trofim Lysenko.

Lysenkoism is a synonym for "scientific quackery."

Lysenkoism

Under Lysenko's guidance, science was guided not by the most likely theories, backed by appropriately controlled experiments, but by the desired ideology. Science was practiced in the service of the State, or more precisely, in the service of ideology. The results were predictable: the steady deterioration of Soviet biology. Lysenko's methods were not condemned by the Soviet scientific community until 1965, more than a decade after Stalin's death.

In the Courier-Journal, via TheStatehouseFile.com, John Krull hammers a few more coffin nails. As for Bennett's future, I wonder if they're hiring greeters at Wal-Mart?

Bennett, a train wreck in slow motion

 ... It turns out that, if the inspector general's investigators are to be believed, there was a great deal of evidence that Bennett and his team used state time, state employees, state equipment and state money to help him run his doomed re-election campaign. Among the highlights, it appears Bennett routinely used state computers to store his campaign databases, traveled to campaign and political events using state vehicles and state drivers and made campaign fundraising phone calls on state time ...

... Despite the fact that Indiana's education leadership structure is in shambles and the evidence that he bent or broke both rules and the law willy-nilly is piled high enough to reach skyscraper proportions, Bennett and the members of his dwindling amen corner still insist he did nothing wrong.

Strangely, Bennett and his partisans actually seem to believe what they're saying.

And the fact that they can't see just how wrong they were may explain how they made such a mess of the state's education system and got themselves into so much trouble.

Howey, Bennett, Lysenko and Daniels.

I'll make this point a final time: Tony Bennett is one hell of a crooner, but he didn't invent the strategy of cooking the numbers to suit ideological imperatives. It isn't for nothing that I've been comparing amok Bennettism with the crazed genetics theories of Soviet half-scientist Trofim Lysenko.

Me? Hey, I never doubted that Lysenko sincerely believed it to be sheer coincidence that his genetic theories jibed with those of Joe Stalin. And the Astros are on track for a Series win next year.

Bennett's down; good riddance, except that Mitch Daniels, his enabler survives to slur Howard Zinn. That's a higher injustice, don't you think?

HOWEY: The hollow facade of Tony Bennett, by Brian Howey (N and T)

... These past eight months, after one of the most rapid rises in Indiana politics and education, we’ve watched the precipitous fall of Supt. Tony Bennett, culminating with his stunning upset loss to little-known Democrat Glenda Ritz last November, and as of Thursday, his resignation as Florida’s education superintendent.

Bennett’s ultimate Sunshine State downfall had its roots in Indiana, where emails obtained by the Associated Press’s Tom LoBianco revealed Bennett’s willingness to take liberties with the A through F numbers of Christel House, a charter school founded by Indiana philanthropist Christel DeHaan. It looked even worse when it was reported that DeHaan had contributed $130,000 to Bennett’s reelection campaign.

Tony Bennett and Trofim Lysenko: Separated at birth?

To refresh your memory as to Lysenko, Wikipedia's fine.

The biggest loser in the Tony Bennett resignation, by Valerie Strauss (Washington Post)

... What Bennett did in Indiana and the Board of Education did in Florida show how little the rules matter to some school reformers who wrap themselves in the mantle of “accountability for all” but try to escape it themselves. In both Indiana and Florida, the Bush-inspired A-F school grading system had to be changed to keep corporate-influenced school reform from collapsing under the weight of its own illogic, revealing the reform model as bankrupt.