It is said that there are three kinds of people: “Those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who ask ‘what happened?’” In the 1930s, attorney Thurgood Marshall reached out to Indianapolis’s Black leadership to include the city in the famous Brown v. the Board of Education case along with Topeka, Kansas, and other cities. At the time, the “fathers” declined, explaining they did not need the help, since they had white leaders in the city whom they trusted and would soon take care of the problem. Unfortunately, the result of that decision was that Indianapolis was the last major city in the north to end school segregation — over five decades later.
Today, IPS is at a similar crossroads. It is currently moving to a “portfolio model,” which is based on “innovation” and “charter” schools. It means the traditional school district model is being dismantled in the city. Rather than school boards and superintendents managing schools, curriculum and teacher contracts, private boards and corporations will make decisions. The elected officials will only be able to make changes at individual schools through contract negotiations or when schools fail to fulfill their contractual obligations. We are told this is the new face of education and innovation intended to usher in the future of American education, but the duplicity of those claims is laid bare through the simplest inquiry. If this is at the forefront of educational excellence for the country and Indiana, why isn’t it the model being used in Carmel, Zionsville and Fishers? In other words, why is the portfolio approach required for “urban” but not “suburban” education? And even if some innovation is a good thing, what characteristic does Indianapolis have that necessitates or encourages a system-wide change that transfers control of schools from elected officials to unelected boards and corporations?
Sadly, Indianapolis has an old itch that is still being scratched — white demand for racially segregated neighborhoods and racially segregated schools. Hold on; I am not talking about Bull Connor segregation or even the racial segregation of the numerous Sundown Towns across the state. This IPS “fix,” I suspect, is needed to entice young urban professionals (read: white middle class young people) to “good neighborhoods” and to ensure them that their children can attend “good schools.” Not persuaded? That is OK; let’s look at some data. Attitude surveys consistently show that most whites identify “good neighborhoods” and “good schools” as primarily, if not all, white. Let’s apply these results. Under the current system, IPS is perceived as a Black and Latino school system that, as a general matter, has inferior students, teachers, administrators and facilities.
However, IPS has some “beacons of light” shining through the perceived incompetence and inferiority of the school system. These beacons are its “successful” magnet schools, like the Centers for Inquiry and Sidener Academy. These “good schools” are increasingly associated with “good neighborhoods” and “great parents.” They are like suburban schools in an urban district, offering commute-wary young professionals the best of both worlds. Accordingly, the IPS “fix” is necessary to initiate and support more of these schools, which, by the way, we should expect will be successful for that exact reason.
Consider Sidener Academy; since 2009, its white student enrollment has grown from roughly 38 percent to 49 percent, and the percentage of African-American students has shrunk from 41 percent to 26 percent. At the same time, the percentage of students on free and reduced lunch has plummeted from almost 80 percent to close to 40 percent. Center for Inquiry II is a similar example. Its percentage of white students has grown from 32 percent in 2007 to 82 percent. The percentage of African-American students has correspondingly fallen from roughly 55 percent in 2007 to 7 percent. The percentage of students on free and reduced lunch during that time dropped from 58 percent to 8 percent. Since white students represent only 20 percent of the IPS system, it is clear that “good schools” are schools that are disproportionately or overwhelmingly white.
The sad truth is that the IPS “fix” is “necessary” because most whites prefer a racial environment under the control of other whites in which whites are the majority. This is what created and maintains the white suburbs. Accordingly, contemporary arguments about race-neutral educational techniques and innovation mask the required gentrification of certain Indianapolis schools to support the gentrification of Indianapolis neighborhoods. The new system enables more of these schools to take hold without the bureaucracy or the political constraints of the old system that could otherwise derail them. At the same time, it saves the state money and weakens unions, which is the only thing that some of its supporters really care about.
The truth be told, this is almost a done deal. Certain power brokers within the city made the decision years ago that this was the direction needed to move the city forward and to promote its economic vibrancy into the future. Those same interests orchestrated new leadership for IPS and the board through financial and political machinations over the last few years that have brought us to where we are today. The question before the majority of IPS parents, students and community members today is whether they will continue to sit by and watch this happen, wait until it is too late to change it and ask what happened, or organize and make things happen themselves.
Carlton Waterhouse is a professor of law and Dean’s Fellow at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
