School closings in America, which unleash deep emotions, are usually preceded by weeks and months of notice, fact-finding and community debate before a school’s governing board pulls the trigger to shutdown.
Unfortunately, every time Mayor Greg Ballard has closed one of his charter schools; it’s been a train wreck. Last week’s decisions surrounding the Flanner House Elementary Charter School is an example.
FACT! Cheating did occur during the administration of 2013 and 2014 ISTEP tests. It was blatant, conducted by adults, without students’ knowledge or complicity.
FACT! The cheating wasn’t systemic. It didn’t involve every third through sixth grade student; or every Flanner Charter teacher. Kindergarten, first and second graders and their teachers weren’t involved.
The crisis began when virtually every Flanner Charter third through sixth grader passed the 2013 ISTEP. The near perfection fueled suspicions among the City’s Office of Education Innovation (OEI), which supervises the mayor’s charter schools.
OEI asked for documentation from the school and asked the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) to investigate their concerns.
The crisis escalated in March 2014 when some Flanner Charter students blurted out during ISTEP testing that the test was “easy” because the school’s testing coordinator had run them through practices with the exact questions/topics the students saw on the tests.
March 11, Flanner Charter Principal Latika Warthaw reported a potential testing breach to IDOE.
The testing coordinator “resigned” March 14.
(One item in the investigation stunned me. In Mid-February, 2014 ISTEP test materials were received by Flanner Charter and locked in a secure cabinet. But for two weeks, the keys were missing. Not found until just before testing started.)
Parents and the community are angered by the lack of candor and transparency by the school, IDOE and the mayor’s office.
At no time in 2013 or 2014 did either OEI or Flanner Charter’s board tell parents the city and state were investigating the school for testing and academic improprieties.
Indiana law, regulations and IDOE policies are clear what happens to school staff involved in cheating. And those punitive actions should be immediately instituted!
But the big question is whether Flanner Charter should have been closed now.
IDOE investigated the cheating allegations and made specific recommendations for remedial action to Flanner Charter’s board and OEI. Those sanctions included “invalidating” Flanner Charter’s 2013 and 2014 ISTEP results; but did NOT include closing Flanner Charter!
An IDOE source told me their investigation was finished before the start of the current school year, but the mayor’s office didn’t want it released yet. If true, that’s absolutely inexcusable!
The mayor’s office pressured Flanner Charter’s board to vote to close the school or the city would revoke the charter.
When state and city officials briefed me on the extent of cheating they assured there was specific documentary evidence, including forged answer sheets and student essays. I demanded that evidence be publicly released.
As of my deadline it hasn’t. That failure to produce the cheating’s “smoking guns” reinforces parent and community suspicions that the city’s actions were hasty and unnecessary.
Flanner Charter, 21st Century and Christel House Academy were Indy’s first three charter schools in 2002.
In its first year Flanner Charter did great. They added a Higher Learning Center a year later, but by 2005, the Higher Learning Center was embroiled in a massive accountability scandal and was forced to close by Mayor Bart Peterson.
Flanner Charter was formerly a private elementary school run by its namesake Flanner House of Indianapolis as a grassroots, community based school, dedicated to providing basic education to Black children, keeping with the legacy of Flanner House’s leader Dr. Cleo Balckburn.
Unfortunately, Flanner Charter’s leadership forgot Blackburn’s legacy.
And it’s that historic legacy that’s fueled a strong backlash against the decision by the Ballard Administration to push for the school’s closing.
It didn’t help that announcement of Flanner Charter’s closing came while Mayor Ballard appeared at a new Mayor-favored charter school just two miles away.
Flanner House is separate from Flanner House of Indianapolis (FHI.) United Way quickly absolved them of involvement.
FHI, Flanner Charter and OEI banning media from meetings about the closing was illegal and inexcusable.
Though stunningly, a top Ballard Administration official told one media Flanner Charter was a “private” school; not public.
Legislators need to examine Indiana’s charter school laws to reinforce the public’s and parents’ rights of public access to charter school board meetings and other public records.
Oh, if Ballard’s Boyz think I’m being hard on them, go read my October 28, 2005 Recorder column where I excoriated Mayor Peterson’s people for their failure to inform parents and the community when they closed the Flanner House Higher Learning Center.
Mayor Ballard’s charter schools disproportionately educate children of poor and working poor parents as 70.9 percent of all students are below the poverty level.
The body language of OEI staffers at last week’s meetings with Flanner Charter parents demonstrated lack of empathy, understanding and feel for those families.
It didn’t help that at a Southport community meeting last week, Mayor Ballard dissed poor and working poor parents.
If Mayor Ballard and his staffers can’t relate to Flanner Charter’s poor and working poor parents, how can we trust them to care for the 4-year-olds of those parents with his pre-school proposal?
See ’ya next week!
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
