Let’s start with a shocking sentence. Charter schools are not living up to their promise in Indianapolis! The nearly all-white legion of “education reformers” who’ve used their influence fueled by money from out-of-state wealthy patrons, have said that charter schools would be the panacea to provide “quality” education to Black and minority children.
They used charters and other reforms like Indiana’s A-F Accountability Grading system to say that school districts like the Indianapolis Public Schools are bad because a majority of their schools are “low performers” earning “D” and “F” grades.
Now in the 13th year of charters in Indianapolis’ capital city, how are charters doing? By the reformers own standards – horrid! A recent release of Indiana’s A-F accountability grades reports a majority of the charter schools in Indianapolis/Marion County are “low performing” “D” and “F” schools.
Of 29 charters in Indy, 16 of them are “D” or “F” schools. Ten of the 29, are high performing schools – ones receiving the highest grades of “A” and “B”. That group includes charters whose initial grades were “changed” by the Indiana State Board of Education which has the power to change the grades of charters who complain about their scores; but they get amnesia when considering changing grades for traditional public schools that complain.
In IPS, which reformers always complain is a system saddled with low performing schools, 54.7 percent of their 75 schools are low performing. Another 30.7 percent are high performers. Percentage breakdowns similar to the performance of charters.
Two charters – Excel Center and Damar Academy schools that specialize in dropout recovery and special needs students respectively– are special cases. The state includes them in the A-F system.
The city, which authorizes those schools, thinks I shouldn’t include them in any analysis of charter school performance. I might be tempted to agree, but the state includes the Blind and Deaf schools in the A-F system. Both score “F” grades by the way.
So until the state excludes them and others like Excel and Damar (which the state should strongly consider) I’ll include them in my analysis of charter performance.
Being fair, though, schools chartered by the Mayor’s Office are the only charters in Indy that include high performing schools.
All but one of the schools in the city/county chartered by the Indiana Charter School Board, Ball State University and Trine University up in Angola, Indiana, are ‘D” or “F” schools; some for several years.
Ball State has the distinction of operating the city/county’s worst long term performing charter, Hoosier Virtual Academy, an all virtual school that’s scored “F” grades four straight years. Almost state takeover time.
As I start this year’s survey of the racial diversity of Indy area schools and charters, I expect that Black students continue to flock to charters. But I’m tired of hearing school reformers cry about IPS’ shortcomings and say not one damn word about the educational shortcomings of charter schools.
Maybe if the school reformers spent some of their filthy lucre they wasted in the IPS race on improving the quality of charter school board members and teachers and encouraged real instruction instead of listening to out-of-town educational scam artists, the majority of Indy’s charters would be “high performing” schools for our kids.
What I’m Hearing in the Streets
It’s possible when you read this column, Mayor Greg Ballard will finally have announced whether he plans to seek a third term or leave office 14 months from now. I have a hunch, but no real clue what the mayor plans to do. Once Ballard decides, columnists, analysis and pundits will start weighing in on the impact of the Ballard Mayoralty.
However, when examining whether Mayor Ballard has been good for our 265,000 strong Indianapolis/Marion County African-American community, this standard should be used.
A standard the mayor himself set in his now famous (infamous?) January 29, 2011 WTLC-AM (1310) radio interview.
Here, in full context, is what Mayor Ballard said then, “Now I will tell you honestly, Amos, because I’m trying to convince you, here. I know you got all this institutional memory, with you, but I will tell ‘ya if I wasn’t a Republican you’d say I was the most African-American friendly mayor in the history of Indianapolis”.
That’s how our African-American community should evaluate the mayor. Was he the “most African-American friendly mayor” in this city’s history? Let the evaluations begin!
In this column’s 22 years, I’ve written extensively about the progress, and sometimes lack of, African-Americans in Indianapolis mainstream media. Especially Blacks holding key news-gathering and management positions.
In recent months, I’ve been particularly critical of the Indianapolis Star.
So I was surprised when I received an invitation to the grand opening of the Star’s new newsroom and offices in the old downtown Circle Centre Nordstrom.
The Star folks didn’t realize there was strong minority business participation when Nordstrom built the space back in 1994/95.
I think the Nordstrom family would’ve been pleased how the Star transformed the store’s second floor into a unique huge workspace for the newspaper’s entire staff.
The importance of digital and Internet to the Star and owner Gannett was seen in the phalanx of huge TV monitors around the floor. Especially in a hub where Star editors make news-gathering decisions.
I met all but one of the newspaper’s African-American journalists. The missing reporter was working on a story when I toured. While touring, I uncovered a bit of news!
The Star’s hired an African-American woman as the paper’s new vice-president of human resources. So the Star has resumed employing at least one African-American manager.
Gannett President/CEO Gracia Martore attended the grand opening; but the paper never reported on Martore’s visit. So, I thank them for giving me another column scoop! See ‘ya next week!
You can email comments to Amos Brown at ac-brown@aol.com.
