Indianapolis Public Schools continues to operate like a rudderless ship in the midst of a stormy sea. Anger is building in our African-American community at the layoff of 59 classified IPS employees, 47 (79.7 percent) of whom are African-American, virtually all males.
When folks first heard of these permanent layoffs, they thought these were highly paid, $100,000 to $200,000 a year top administrators, school bureaucrats and central office paper pushers. Instead, we learned that most of those laid off are making modest wages.
Of the 59 laid off, 15.3 percent earn over $50,000 yearly, while 10.2 percent earn less than $20,000! Another 33.9 percent earn between $20 and $35,000 with 40.7 percent earning between $35,000 and $50,000. The total savings would be $29.9 million, just under 10 percent of the $30 million IPS needs to shave from the budget.
Appearing on WTLC-AM (1310’s) “Afternoons with Amos,” Interim Superintendent Peggy Hinckley said most of those laid off were individuals just hired in the last two years. Evidently former Superintendent Eugene White had put a bunch of Black men in positions to supervise discipline in the districts’ troubled middle and high schools. And hired Black men to provide some employment and compensation (between around $32,000) for those coaching IPS high school teams.
Hinckley, based by an edict from the School Board to start cutting the deficit, chose this low hanging fruit, instead of paring down top IPS administrators.
Meanwhile on WTLC and in other media, Hinckley let it be known that at some point down the road IPS will be forced to take a hard look at closing schools. Something that should have been done three to four years ago as the district was hemorrhaging students.
IPS’ enrollment has dropped 10,183, a 25.7 percent decline, in the past 10 school years. Nearly three-fourths of that decline (72.1 percent), 7,345 was Black students leaving the district. White enrollment in IPS has fallen 42 percent or 4,583 in 10 years.
Only Hispanic enrollment that grew by 2,507 or 72.1 percent kept IPS’ enrollment losses from becoming more devastating.
Blacks and whites moving out of the IPS geography, plus the proliferation of charter schools and the growing number of voucher students have caused a number of IPS schools to operate far below their capacity.
Worse, IPS operates school buildings as office buildings.
In the heart of the Forest Manor neighborhood sits the old Forest Manor Middle School, which has been closed for several years. It’s operated as a Professional Development Center for the district. I’ve been inside and there can’t be more than 200 staffers occupying a huge school building designed for hundreds of students and staff.
The utility bills for the building must be a monster.
When asked why IPS isn’t looking at closing schools, Hinckley said the district was fearful of helping “the competition” because if IPS abandons a school, then a charter applicant could obtain it free, under state law.
So, IPS would rather be in debt, laying off employees, while holding on to buildings that are far from full that they don’t need, just to keep it from a charter?
Absurd!
Meanwhile, school reformers refuse to talk straight with our community about what school reform really means. The Stand for Children reform group was miffed with my criticism of reformers in last week’s column. Justin Ohlemiller, coordinator for Stand/Indiana, thought my criticisms were off base.
But, why is it that school reformers always talk about what’s “best for the children” while ignoring how school districts treat the rest of our community?
If a school district treats its Black and minority workers like dirt or with disdain, how do you think they’re treating Black and minority youth?
Until school reformers begin to engage our African-American community on all education issues that my community cares about, reformers will continue to be a group of whites that may not necessarily have the best interest of Black children, Black workers and our Black community at heart.
And the IPS Board needs to bring some sanity to their personnel decisions and not make Blacks bear the burden of layoffs alone.
What I’m hearing
in the streets
Let’s see if I understand this. In 2009, Mayor Greg Ballard said Indianapolis and Indy Parks was wasting millions of dollars in leaking swimming pools in Black neighborhoods so the pools were closed – said it would save the city a couple of million bucks.
Now Mayor Ballard and the city’s wasting nearly three times that amount to build a park with fields for sports the majority of Indianapolis residents will never play.
Quietly, with little fanfare or publicity, it was revealed last week that the city is spending nearly $6 million to build a “World Sports Park” in the 1300 block of south Post Road with a rugby, lacrosse, and inexplicably, a cricket field.
During his alleged economic development tour (vacation and junket) to India, the mayor told businessmen in Hyderabad that Indy was planning to host a tournament of cricket teams from around America.
In a nation that likes cricket, the mayor bragged that he wanted Indianapolis to be the capital of cricket in America.
Cricket is popular in India, Great Britain and other former British colonial nations. Unlike soccer, which is wildly popular in Britain, especially among the middle and lower classes, cricket is a game for the elite, including India’s elite.
In a city where we have fewer cops on the streets, abandoned homes are a growing eyesore, streets are ragged, many of our parks are worse, why is our mayor wasting $6 million for playing fields for sports the vast majority of residents doesn’t play or enjoy?
Black kids and neighborhoods lose their swimming pools, but the elite get cricket fields.
Interestingly, the Indianapolis Business Journal Monday reported that City-County Council Republicans claimed not to know about this cricket park. IBJ said Council Minority Leader Michael McQuillen wanted the Ballard administration to brief the GOP councilors. IBJ reported that Democratic councilors are also asking questions.
Indianapolis’ 911,000 residents need to be asking questions about Ballard’s cricket boondoggle too.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
