社区黑料

Indianapolis, already one of the nation鈥檚 most charter-friendly cities, is going even further with the creation of a powerful and controversial pro-charter board. 

The Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, created by the state legislature this spring, will help pay for charter and district school buildings, create a busing system that includes charter students and take over from the city鈥檚 elected school board the ability to ask voters for tax increases. 

Indianapolis is already one of Experts predict charter schools could become even more popular in Indianapolis under IPEC, despite some community opposition that the new board strips power from the city鈥檚 elected school board and may drain money and resources from district schools.

Indianapolis won鈥檛 likely jump from the 51% of students attending charter schools today to the 99% in New Orleans, charter advocates say. Hurricane Katrina destroyed most schools there in 2005, prompting the dramatic shift from district schools to charter schools as the city rebuilt. Indiana faces no such crisis, but the state鈥檚 push to treat charter schools as equal to district schools makes the city nearly as charter-friendly. 

鈥淭his is going to be a game changing model for charter schools,鈥� said Cara Candal, vice president of policy for ExcelinEd, the education advocacy group of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

鈥淚t’s going to compare, at the very least, incredibly favorably [to New Orleans],鈥� Candal added. 鈥淭his might鈥�might鈥�actually put it over the top.鈥�

The new nine-person board, appointed by Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett, includes members of the Indianapolis Public Schools鈥� board, but leans heavily pro-charter. A majority of its members have worked for or served on boards of charter schools. Its chairman, David Harris is founder of several charter schools and led the Mind Trust, a local advocate of charter schools, until 2018.

The plan was opposed by the local NAACP and the National School Boards Association, which objected to the legislature making 鈥渁 shift from normal practice鈥澛燽y creating the new board.

鈥淗aving layers of governance can create unnecessary disruption,鈥� said the association鈥檚 CEO, Verjeana McCotter-Jacobs.鈥淲ho’s going to suffer from that? It’s going to be the community, parents and students.鈥�

Resident Megan Alderman, co-chair of Progressive Democrats of America, told the state senate at a February hearing the power shift聽鈥渦ndermines democracy.鈥�

鈥淚t strips core powers from our democratically elected school board, which is by definition, taxation without representation,鈥� she said.

IPEC鈥檚 superseding the school board breaks the pattern of other pro-charter cities including Denver and Baltimore, where the local school board keeps some control over planning and oversight of charters, while also helping pay for them and letting them use former schools.

Mike Petrilli, president of the pro-charter Fordham Institute, called the new board and sharing of assets 鈥渧ery different than what we’ve seen anywhere else, maybe with the exception of New Orleans.鈥�

Doug Harris, a Tulane University professor and expert on charter schools in New Orleans and nationally, said he could think of no other city, besides New Orleans, where a central board stepped in to oversee district and charter schools, other than state takeovers of districts because of bankruptcy or academic failure.

The first big step in the power shift will begin by Aug. 1 when the new board starts flexing its taxing authority. The board is expected to ask voters to approve a ballot measure for a tax that would provide more money for both district and charter schools.  

The new board will also research how to take the district鈥檚 busing plan and expand it to include charter school students by the 2028-29 school year, as the legislature requires.

And it will wade into a complicated tangle of property law and finance to merge district-owned schools and charter school buildings into one portfolio of properties for the new board to manage and maintain.

That will be a challenge experts believe no other city has faced on this scale. Managing school buildings centrally is simpler where districts share properties with charter schools and keep control of them. If a charter wants to build its own school, the district and charter can sort out who controls and pays for a building right from the start.

But Indianapolis is trying to create central control after-the-fact, with more than 60 charter schools, all with different building arrangements. Some use district buildings. Some lease old church schools. Others have purchased and rehabilitated old church schools. Some have built new facilities. And others have partnered with donors or community groups to rehabilitate old industrial buildings.

All of which have different financing and debt, or shared ownership with other nonprofits or companies, that block any easy merger of schools into a collective portfolio.

That鈥檚 partly why the legislature gave IPEC until the 2028-29 school year to take over buildings. 

The legislature also allowed the district and charters to choose whether they want to put each building under IPEC control, or not 鈥� with millions of tax dollars riding on that choice.

The state now gives charters $1,400 per student for facilities costs, but that money will shift to IPEC and only go to participating buildings. Charters can also receive a share of local property taxes designated for buildings, but only those that join the portfolio.

Charters lose out on both sources of money if they don鈥檛 join, said State Sen. Bob Behning, the Senate Education Committee chair who authored the bill.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a distinct disadvantage for a charter to opt out because they’re going to lose their [money],鈥� Behning said. 鈥淭hey’ll have no capital projects or no dollars for facilities.鈥�

Charters are researching how, and whether, they should have their buildings included.

鈥淪ome of the facilities that we have ownership in, if we have full site control and full ownership, we’re happy to leverage that ownership through IPEC and see how that plays out,鈥� said Tommy Reddicks, founder of the Paramount charter school network. 鈥淏ut we have some debt holders on some of our buildings, so it’s really not up to us whether or not we can give ownership away or share ownership. Because they’re the ones holding the note, they would have to approve anything like that.鈥�

Charter experts could not point to any other districts which had to sort out these issues at this scale. Even in New Orleans, where charter schools were still so new when Katrina hit, experts said, only one school at the time was privately-owned. After Katrina, that school and the state-created recovery school district shared insurance and federal Katrina relief aid to build a new building the district owns.

Behning said that so many details need to be researched and ironed out that he expects the legislature to change state law several times over the next few years. 

Disclosure: The Mind Trust provides financial support to 社区黑料.

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