her involvement with a charter school oversight program at Marian University. The state awarded a contract to Marian to establish a "Turnaround Leadership Academy" to train transformational school leaders. Officials noted the contract was awarded through a competitive request for proposals process. Despite receiving nearly hundred thousand dollars in out-of-state campaign money, Bennett ended up losing the 2012 superintendent race to Glenda Ritz. Some controversy arose after the election because the current president of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels, claimed that teachers used illegal tactics to defeat Bennett. Controversy In November 2018, it was reported that Bennett, who directed policies in 2011 that eventually led to a state takeover of the Gary Community School Corporation in 2017, has an ownership stake in the company selected by the GOP-controlled legislature to manage the takeover with a potential to earn $11.4 million. After discovering the conflict of interest in Bennett's ownership in the management company, state and local lawmakers immediately called for a repudiation of the state's contract with his company. Allegations of wire fraud Bennett was investigated for misuse of public resources in his 2012 election, which he lost to Glenda Ritz. In July 2014, the State Ethics Commission accepted Bennett's offer to settle the ethics charges by paying a $5,000 fine. Publicly, the commission admonished Bennett for minor ethics violations, but internal documents obtained from the inspector general's office listed more than 100 potential violations of federal wire fraud law by Bennett or his employees. In May 2015, Marion County prosecutors had reviewed the inspector general's internal documents, and declined to pursue charges against Bennett. Grade manipulation and resignation In the fall of 2012, Bennett, as Indiana superintendent of schools, changed the "A–F" school rating system so that Christel House Academy, a charter school run by a major Republican donor which had donated $2.8 million to Republicans including $130,000 to Bennett himself, would receive a top A rating. Emails suggested a focus on just the one school. Bennett's email quoted him as saying, "We have NO chance of advancing accountability during the session with this problem in front of us." Subsequent emails showed his staff working to get the charter school up to an A rating. Bennett defended the rating change, saying the prior rating system disadvantaged Christel House because the school instructed students from kindergarten through 10th grade. Bennett said the same rating changes applied to other schools spanning nontraditional