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Roland Martin holds Indianapolis education reform leaders accountable

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Famed journalist Roland Martin promised a gathering at Central Library on Dec. 2 he would make them uncomfortable during “School Choice is the Black Choice,” a pro-education reform town hall focused on Black students in Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS). Martin delivered on multiple occasions.

The panel — Aleesia Johnson, deputy superintendent for academics at IPS; Candace Pate, director of admissions and community partnerships at Providence Cristo Rey High School; Derrell Bradford, executive vice president of 50Can, a nonprofit education advocacy organization; George Parker, education consultant and reform advocate; and Kelli Marshall, CEO of Tindley Schools — answered questions from Martin, then took questions from the audience.

But those who showed up thinking the event would be a warm, uncritical embrace of Indianapolis’ march toward public charter schools and innovation partnerships were probably caught off guard when Martin, named the 2013 Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists, pushed panelists for better answers. When Martin asked Marshall how Black students are doing at Tindley, Marshall’s answer included “very well.” Martin cut her off and warned the rest of the panel that “very well” wasn’t going to cut it — he wanted numbers.

Martin was also critical of what he called a confusing IPS innovation model, in which all charter schools are innovation schools, but not all innovation schools are charter schools. IPS designates four categories of innovation schools: new, restart, conversion and charter. 

“That’s a whole lot of cooks in the education kitchen,” he said.

That point circled back to one of Martin’s opening comments about why some people are skeptical of education reform. He said the issue becomes “convoluted” because pro-reformers make it sound too complicated.

Bradford said another issue working against the education reform movement is how proponents viewed and treated charter schools in their early days. Those guiding the movement didn’t account for the politics involved in education, and they didn’t prioritize diversity, he charged.

“We proceeded under the idea that we would just make great schools and people would get on board with it,” he said.

Indianapolis is one of the country’s leaders in the education reform movement, and though IPS Superintendent Lewis Ferebee’s resignation — announced on Dec. 3 — takes away one of its champions, much has already been done to cement that legacy for the city. So Martin asked Johnson what the district is doing to replicate its successful schools.

Johnson’s roundabout answer was that a lack of resources makes it difficult to scale those schools that are working. Martin pushed again, asking if there are even schools worth scaling. Johnson singled out two schools: Edison School of the Arts 47 and Center for Inquiry 70, to which some in the crowd booed and said “no.”

In general, Johnson said Black students in IPS — it doesn’t matter if it’s traditional, innovation or charter schools — are “not doing well,” and this brought Martin to one of his strongest themes of the evening: The IPS innovation model won’t work if those running the school don’t look like the student body.

“One of the fundamental problems in education is there are conversations happening that aren’t including those people who are being affected,” he said.

Parker added that he believes a lack of Black male teachers fuels the infamous “school to prison” pipeline. Black men make up only 2 percent of teachers across the country, according to Teach for America, an organization that places teachers in public schools.

Martin ended the night by evoking the spirit of the Montgomery bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. in the mid-1950s, and implored those in attendance to take the same community-based action by staking their claim in education with an alliance to hold charter schools and their leaders accountable.

 

Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.

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