In a shocking educational development, enrollment of African-Americans in Indianapolis/Marion County’s public schools fell for the first time since Indiana began recording school enrollment by race in the 1985-86 school year; 29 years ago!
My annual public/charter school enrollment survey for Indianapolis/Marion County shows Black elementary and high school enrollment declined by 600 from the 2013-14 to the 2014–15 school year.
Fueling this unprecedented decline was a stunningly unexpected decline in African-American enrollment in Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS). IPS’ Black enrollment fell 1,326.
Given IPS gained 355 Black students last year, the sharp decline is alarming. And IPS leadership hasn’t a clue why!
When I got the data, I asked IPS officials including Supt. Dr. Lewis Ferebee, whether the data was accurate. Ferebee claims it is; though I have severe doubts about IPS staff’s ability to comprehend and accurately document the district’s shifting demographics.
Ferebee blamed the dramatic African-American enrollment drop on new charter schools opening. Unfortunately, Ferebee’s wrong about that.
Overall Black enrollment in Indy’s charter schools only increased 619 students. Not enough to account for IPS’ precipitous decline.
Some township school districts showed strong gains in Black enrollment. Lawrence Township — up 276; Washington — up 149; Pike — up 66 students and Speedway Schools — up 48 students.
Decatur, Perry and Warren Townships saw Black enrollment declines.
Among charters, Fall Creek Academy had the largest Black enrollment decline; 255 students. Gains were shown by KIPP — up 139 students; Phalen Academy — up 126 students. Tindley’s five charters combined Black enrollment rose 484.
IPS continued to have the largest overall number of African-American students at 14,761. Pike ranks second 6,594; followed by Lawrence 6,361; Warren 5,821; Wayne 4,849; and Washington 4,505.
The three Southside townships continued to grow their Black enrollment with Perry’s 872, Franklin’s 499 and Decatur’s 574. And what about Blacks bused from IPS neighborhoods to townships?
Court ordered busing is nearing an end as Blacks in the Class of 2015 and 2016 in Perry, Decatur and Franklin are the last bused under the 32-year long federal desegregation effort.
At its peak some 5,000 Black students were bused. Today it’s just 112! Nine bused to Franklin, 19 to Decatur and 84 to Perry.
Overall, our survey of district enrollments found 53,480 African-Americans in Indy’s public schools. Three school districts are Black-majority — IPS; Pike and as a group charter schools; with charters having a higher percentage of Blacks than Pike or IPS.
Meanwhile the steady decline of whites from Indianapolis school districts continues. Indy’s public schools lost another 1,764 white students. But contrary to the hysteria of the school reform crowd, only 1-in-8 of those students —212 — attended IPS.
The majority of the white school enrollment declines in the city/county are in township districts. White declines were led by Lawrence Township down 458 students; Perry 353; Wayne 344; Warren 333; then IPS 212.
Currently, whites are the majority only in Decatur, Franklin, Perry, Beech Grove and Speedway districts. As the numbers of African-American, Hispanic and in some districts Asian students have increased, white declines have intensified fueled by the state’s growing vouchers.
White “flight” from Indy’s school districts seems to be accelerating as minority enrollments increase. A disturbing racial reality myopic school reformers refuse to recognize.
Non-Hispanic white enrollment in public schools is 51,114 with IPS comprising only 11.9 percent of the city/county’s public school students. Township schools comprise 81.6 percent and charters and takeovers the remaining 6.5 percent.
Hispanic enrollment in public and charter schools continues to grow. Overall Hispanic enrollment is 25,420; up 1,471. Of the eleven major school districts in the city/county only Franklin Township saw a decline in Hispanic enrollment. In fact, Pike, Wayne, Lawrence and Washington Township had stronger Hispanic student growth than IPS.
Overall enrollment in city/county public and charter schools is 143,088. Of that African-Americans are 37.4 percent; non-Hispanic whites 35.7 percent and Hispanics 17.8 percent. Asians, American Indians and multi-racial make up the remaining 9.1 percent.
For the first time, we excluded from our enrollment calculations the charter virtual schools and the Excel Center schools. Virtual schools can enroll anyone from Indiana, not just Marion County residents. Including their data skews a realistic examination of Marion County enrollment trends.
The vast majority of Excel students are over 18. Including them skews the data as well in two ways. Excel schools aren’t funded from the regular state funding for K-12 schools. And including adult learners in our enrollment survey isn’t fair.
Finally, the increase of Black students attending private schools with state vouchers could be part of the reason for the overall decline in Black public school enrollment decline. But can’t know until the state releases voucher demographics next month.
Blacks starting to move again from the city/county to suburbs could also be the reason.
But the biggest danger in the data on overall Black school enrollment falling is this: It could be signaling an end to African-American population growth in Indianapolis. Growth that has been steady for decades and that’s fueled Indy’s overall growth since 1970.
If that’s true, that’s devastating news for this city overall and our African-American community specifically.
What I’m Hearing in the Street
By any standard Bill Mays was one of the most distinguished residents of Indy — of any race/ethnicity — in history. So it was beyond shameful that neither Mayor Greg Ballard, nor his chief of staff, or any of Ballard’s highly paid deputy mayors attended Mays’ funeral last Friday. The absence was glaring. The disrespect profound!
See ‘ya next week!
You can reach Amos Brown at ac-brown@aol.com.
