In a fit of pique, IPS Superintendent Dr. Eugene White announced that IPS wouldn’t enroll any student in IPS neighborhoods who transferred from a charter school back to IPS after the mid-September enrollment funding count. An edict that’s a clear violation of state laws governing public school enrollment.
On our WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Afternoons with Amos,” White declared that charter schools cost IPS millions; enrolling students then cutting them loose after the funding count is taken.
After interviewing White, I remembered that the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) had instituted a new enrollment system.
For years, every Indiana student has had a unique Student Identification Number (STN). It allows the state to track enrollment. It is also the bedrock of the state’s graduation rate calculations.
Last September, every Indiana public and charter school began reporting attendance data weekly. The unique STN allows the state to know where students transfer from and to.
So, I asked IDOE for enrollment and transfer data for IPS and the city/county’s 25 charter schools. They provided it and included a snapshot of enrollment as of last Wednesday, May 11, for IPS, charters and other area districts.
Here’s some of what I learned, which was shared on our radio program on Monday.
Just 425 students transferred from Indianapolis’ charter schools back to IPS after official student enrollment data for funding was conducted in mid-September. That represents just 1.32 percent of IPS’ total official enrollment of 32,197. That same percentage is the amount of state funding they’d lose because of charter transfers. Only 1.3 percent of several hundred million bucks.
Dr. White says it’s unfair that charters get to keep money for students no longer enrolled. Yet IPS earns tens of millions that way as 3,501 IPS students (nearly one-in-nine or 10.9 percent) transferred to other schools or left the system after the funding count day.
White, though, has a point about charter school stability. Nearly one-in-seven charter school students (1,400 or 13.7 percent) transferred to other schools or left the system after the funding count day.
But, White’s wrong about charters’ impact on IPS, since most charter transfers went to districts other than IPS; some 975. Only 425, 30.4 percent of the total, transferred to IPS.
IPS officials have maintained that their enrollment increases as the school year goes on. The state’s “real time” system seems to confirm that. Enrollment as of May 11 was up 656 students, 2 percent, from the September count.
Several other districts – Lawrence, Wayne, Pike and Perry townships, along with Speedway – have seen their enrollments increase from the official fall counts.
Disturbingly, most charter schools saw their enrollments decline during the school year. Only Flanner House, Monument Lighthouse, Andrew Academy, Padua Academy and The Indianapolis Project School have higher attendances now than in September.
Now, I found out this data with an e-mail request in just two days. IPS had access to the same data. Dr. White and the School Board should’ve known the extent of charter transfers into their schools.
They should’ve made the exact figures known, instead of implying the fiscal impact of charter transfers after count day on IPS is far greater than it really is.
White, and the School Board that’s supposed to supervise him, need to think before they create wild, illegal policies. It’s hard to defend IPS when they’re constantly shooting wildly from the hip; without facts, without reason.
I hear the IPS board’s mad at me for my recent criticisms. Instead of directing their anger here, they should direct their anger at themselves for continuing to fiddle while their school district refuses to recognize the crisis they face from a shrinking population and enrollment and a bloated bureaucracy that burdens the system from within!
What I’m hearing in the streets
Mayor Greg Ballard brought Martin Luther King III, son of the late Dr. Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King to Indianapolis last Wednesday to help dedicate the refurbishment of a quarter of the 3.69 mile long street named after the civil rights icon.
The project used money from the UNWA neighborhood that’s been sitting in a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) redevelopment fund. A TIF long sought by former state Sen. Glenn Howard who long sought to spur economic development in his neighborhood.
As a City-County Councilman, Howard fought to name an Indianapolis street after King. In a compromise he got the old Northwestern Avenue named after King in the 1980s.
It was ceremonies surrounding King’s visit that showed the Ballard administration’s tone deafness when it comes to America’ 13th largest African-American community.
It’s political etiquette that local politicians, regardless of party, are invited to ribbon cutting ceremonies for tax supported projects in their districts.
But at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Dr. King Street project, officials of the area – City-County Councilman Monroe Gray, state Rep. Vanessa Summers and state Sen. Greg Taylor – weren’t invited.
Some of the UNWA neighborhood’s leading pastors, many who supported development, weren’t invited either. Only those pastors publicly supporting the mayor seemed to be there.
But the most egregious snub went to the family of Glenn Howard. Without Howard’s tireless advocacy, there would be no MLK Street in Indy; no place for Ballard to cut an election year ribbon.
The mayor made no mention of Howard’s contributions in his speech. Howard was not included in the community icons whose faces and histories adorn bus shelters in the area. Nor was Howard’s family invited to be present.
Greg Ballard, the self-proclaimed “most African-American friendly mayor in the history of Indianapolis,” needs every Black vote he can get in November.
But cutting a ribbon in a Black neighborhood, standing next to the son of a world icon, while refusing to include the neighborhood’s Black elected officials and senior religious leaders is another example of disrespect the Ballard administration has shown in their 41-month reign.
See ‘ya next week.
