A paragraph caught my eye in an Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) story this week about charter schools in Indianapolis.
IBJ reporter Kathleen McLaughlin interviewed Deputy Mayor of Education Jason Kloth and in her story she wrote that Kloth told her “(Mayor) Ballard wants to raise the quality of education in all types of schools, whether traditional public, charter or private.”
McLaughlin’s story then continued, “He (Kloth) thinks that deserves broad public support because the ultimate goal is to reverse the trend of families with school age children leaving Marion County.”
Those two paragraphs stuck with me because as Indy’s leading media expert on Census demographics, I’ve written extensively in this column that Indianapolis/Marion County’s population growth has been fueled by African-Americans and Hispanics. And that non-Hispanic whites are the only racial group leaving the city/county.
Yet, whenever you talk to Indy education reformers, they justify their proposed reforms, including charter school proliferation, as improving the opportunities for Black and minorities to receive a better education than the “poor education” they’ve received from Indy’s public schools; especially IPS.
The mayor’s office and Kloth are telling IBJ readers that their education goal is to reverse the trend of families with kids leaving the city/county.
So since the folks in the mayor’s office and the mayor himself are clueless about the demographic facts in Indianapolis, I looked up the data on families with school age children. How much did they decline in the past decade?
Between 2000 and 2010, the number of families with school aged children (ages 6 to 17) fell by 2,570 or -4.4 percent from 57,879 in 2000 to 55,309 in 2010. On the surface a decline that small wouldn’t justify radical education upheavals in the city/county.
But in drilling down the data, I see where Ballard and Kloth and Indy’s white dominated education reformers may have become panic stricken.
The number of Indy’s white non-Hispanic families with school aged children dropped 7,510 or 19.5 percent between 2000 and 2010; from 38,521 to 31,011.
During the same decade, the number of Black families with school aged children in Indy rose 1,445 or 8.7 percent. The number of Hispanic families with school aged kids rose sharply, 3,063 or a stunning 205.3 percent.
Looking at it another way, the first decade of the new century saw an increased racial diversity in Indy’s families with school aged kids.
In 2000, of the 57,879 families with school aged children, 2.6 percent were Hispanic; 28.6 percent were Black and 66.6 percent were white, non-Hispanic.
In 2010, of the 55,309 families with school aged children in Indianapolis, 8.2 percent are now Hispanic; 32.6 percent are Black and just 56.1 percent are white.
Since our city/county is experiencing a sharp decline in white families with school aged children leaving Indy, and poor education seems the reason, then why does Deputy Mayor Kloth, The Mind Trust, Democrats for Education Reform and the other proponents of charter schools keep ramming charters down the Black community’s throats?
Charter schools are being placed pell mell in Black neighborhoods. With virtually none placed in white neighborhoods.
If charters are so great, where are the charter schools for parents with kids living in Meridian-Kessler, Williams Creek, Franklin and Perry townships, Nora and Castleton?
Where’s a charter for Speedway, Beech Grove, Lawrence and even little Southport?
What I’m hearing
in the streets
Usually Republicans are constricting African-American or Hispanic voting rights. But some of the radical Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly are trying to restrict the voting rights of white Indiana college students.
Last week, the Legislature debated a bill that would have denied college students at state supported universities who pay “non-resident tuition” from voting where they lived and went to school. College students voted strongly for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. And now some Hoosier radical Republicans want to punish them.
Just a couple of problems. The GOP attempt is clearly unconstitutional and ridiculous. During a multi-hour hearing, it was revealed that the rules for charging students “non-resident tuition” doesn’t end if a student establishes legal residency in their Indiana college town. Seems scores of Indiana resident students living in Bloomington, West Lafayette and other college towns are still paying “non-resident tuition.”
The chair of the committee hearing the bill, Rep. Milo Smith, R-Columbus, backed off taking a vote. This isn’t over and is another embarrassment for a party that’s tone deaf when appealing to the younger generation.
* * * * *
Our African-American community lost two more of our lions last week. Eunice Knight-Bowens, died Feb 5 at age 69. She was the engine behind the annual Etheridge Knight Festival of the Arts. Her brother, Etheridge Knight, was an inmate at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City when he began to write poetry in the late 1960s. Though incarcerated, his poetry won critical acclaim.
After his death in 1991, Knight-Bowens organized an annual festival of the arts that attracted some of the great African-American writers and poets from America and worldwide to Indianapolis. Her devotion to her brother’s work and the art of poetry and writing was legendary. She will be deeply missed.
Earline Moore dedicated her life to working with the poor and working class of Indianapolis. She died Jan. 31 at age 71.
Her career in human services began working at Flanner House. Moore then went on to run Christamore House.
When the powers that be decided that Indy’s community centers should unite, Moore was the first and only head of Community Centers of Indianapolis. She became a forceful spokesperson for human service needs in Indianapolis and finished her human services career at Citizens Health Center.
She was one of our African-American community’s unsung heroines who tried to make the lives of Indianapolis’ poor and working class folks better. She will be deeply missed.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
