In a move called historic by charter advocates and shameful by opponents, Indianapolis officials reached agreement on a plan to provide all charter students with buses and close struggling schools.
The proposal, recommended to the state legislature by a panel of leaders from around the city calls for creating a powerful new government agency, the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, handing charters a measure of control over citywide education decisions they have never had.
The corporation — Indiana’s legal term for a school district — would oversee a unified transportation system for all schools; along with the ability to decide which schools are not serving students. The agency would also oversee a single enrollment system.
The plan, which still needs approval by the state legislature, is a big win, in some ways, for charter schools that have grown rapidly in recent years and now educate more than half of Indianapolis’ students.
Along with gaining transportation for students, charters will have representatives on the new board with equal standing to district officials for the first time in shaping Indianapolis school policy.
That power, though, is taken from the Indianapolis Public Schools district, whose schools could be closed by the corporation and which already saw the state legislature shift property taxes away from the district to charters earlier this year.
Robert Enlow, CEO of the national charter advocacy group EdChoice, based in Indianapolis, called the recommendation “historic” in its support of charters.
“It is a bold and courageous direction that represents a groundbreaking pathway,” Enlow said after the vote on Wednesday.
But the proposal has tradeoffs for all sides, which have already sparked howls of opposition from voters and other charter advocates, as well as worry from the district about how the legislature could change the plan.
That more power could go to charters has enraged some residents since leaders started discussing the new plan this summer. Right before the vote, Rev. Clyde Posley, president of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Indiana, spoke on behalf of several clergy calling the entire effort a “heavy-handed public overreach” in support of “private agendas.”
“(It) not only invites scavengers and investors to pillage off the plight of a broken school system,” Posley said. “It is not only wrong, it is vicious.”
Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Aleesia Johnson, who worked on the plan for several months, urged residents to keep fighting as the plan goes to the legislature, but said change is necessary.
“The proposal tonight is an imperfect solution for a challenging set of realities,” Johnson said before voting in favor of it..
Those realities include growing pains from the rapid rise of charters in a city with a stagnant population. Many charter schools don’t offer buses, forcing students to use public transport or be driven by parents who have pleaded for buses for their children.
The city also has about 50,000 school seats for 41,000 students, leaving 9,000 open, while the Indianapolis Public Schools faces a budget deficit that will require a tax increase from voters.
Whether the plan will pass as is by the Republican-dominated, pro-charter legislature is unclear. State Sen. Jeff Raatz, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development, had no immediate comment.
Bob Behning, the chairman of the House Education Committee who wrote the bill forcing Indianapolis officials to work out a partnership, said he was “pleased with the decision.” He did not elaborate on details of the plan, some of which he has opposed.
The new corporation would move toward mayoral control of schools, which cities across the U.S. have tried with varying success. It would have an executive director and a nine-member board appointed by the mayor – three chosen from the Indianapolis Public Schools board, three charter school leaders and three others.
That proposal for a mostly-unelected board immediately drew protest from residents, many with the Central Indiana Democratic Socialists of America. After constant shouts of “Unelected!” and “This is a sham!” residents called for the city’s voters, not the legislature, to approve the new corporation. One climbed onto the platform where the panel was seated and was removed by security. And audience members chanted “Shame!” as the panel ended its meeting.
Charter schools are also raising opposition, including the recommendation that every charter must share money and participate in the new busing system, even as the overall recommendation would give them more power.
One charter school advocacy group, the Indiana Charter Innovation Center, called that an “unfunded mandate.”
“The proposals put forward would place significant burdens on charter schools without providing funding, would reverse major legislative progress, and would create a structure that pulls decision-making farther from the schools and families most affected,” the center said in a social media post.
The center also objected to the recommendation to limit charter authorizers — organizations that oversee charters and decide which can open — just to the mayor’s office, the state charter board and, as a recent development, the Indianapolis Public Schools board.
Andrew Neal, a member of the panel making the recommendation, said requiring all schools to be part of the plan is “a significant equity issue.”
“I know there are some individuals out there who fear how that will impact their schools, or how that will impact their systems,” Neal said just before the vote. “But I am telling you, this is an opportunity for students…the ones that because of a fragmented system, continue to fall through the cracks.”
Stand for Children, an education advocacy group that has led the push for busing, said parents will appreciate the new system.
One parent, Christa Salgado, has repeatedly asked state and local officials for help with transportation after driving her son to school every day took a toll on her and her son had to move to live with his father.
“I had to drive across the city about 30 minutes back and forth in the morning, and then in the afternoon to pick him up, as a single mother,” she told the panel just before Wednesday’s vote. “This was unsustainable, and unfortunately, I could only do this for a year.”
The district still isn’t sure, with the final result still up to the legislature, what impact it will have on its authority and budgets. But superintendent Johnson voted in favor of the recommendations, while urging residents to put pressure on the state legislature to make sure the district doesn’t lose too much to charters.
“If we continue to have an elected board with just the same oversight as they do today…,” she conceded, “the challenges of incoherence and thinning resources will remain.”
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