Paramount Schools of Excellence is a high-performing network of charter schools in Indianapolis. In partnership with Girl Scouts of Indiana, Every Girl Can STEM, and Purdue Polytechnic High School, they plan to open a new, all-girls STEM school that’ll enroll any girl who wants to attend from across the Circle City this fall.

The main problem they’re trying to solve with Girls in Stem Academy? Despite women being approximately half of the US population, they make up just 28% of those employed in STEM professions. The school clearly believes Indiana, and Indianapolis in particular, can smash more of the glass ceiling for the young girls who want to be tomorrow’s scientists, engineers, computer whizzes, and mathematicians.

Light the candles, blow em out, and let’s eat cake to celebrate, right? Not so fast.

By a wrinkle of geography, it just so happens the school’s future address (in the old Witherspoon Presbyterian Church building) falls within the boundaries of Washington Township. And Washington Township has some beef with the new charter school’s proximity.

Washington Township’s Reaction

From the early reactions peppering the news and different social media, Washington Township leaders hope that Girls in Stem Academy never opens. At least not in their neck of the woods.

They claim their district already offers sufficient STEM programming. They also feel Paramount didn’t do enough to engage them before purchasing the building in their geographic area and moving ahead with plans to open there.

Some voices have also raised the specter of the school’s operator: Trine University. It is true Trine isn’t local to Indianapolis (though it is still in Indiana and already authorizes other Paramount schools outside Indianapolis). Yet it’s a legitimate authorizer who put their trust in a school network (Paramount) with a strong track record of both financial and academic success that Trine already had a relationship with.

It’s understandable why Washington Township might feel a bit threatened or like they had their toes stepped on. By all accounts, Paramount found the location late in the process to open the school and perhaps could have done more to engage grassroots folks and parents in the neighborhood before they made the address official. Yet perhaps one of the biggest reasons for Washington Township to feel nervous is also, from my perspective, Paramount’s strongest case for opening the school.

Paramount’s Case for the School

For me, there’s a fundamental question that must be asked whenever there’s a new school being proposed or slated to open. Will it benefit kids? On the whole, will the students in our city, both present and future, be better off for having this new school option? (I know that’s technically two questions but it’s really just a short and long version of the same question for narrative effect. Forgive me.)

If you can answer that affirmatively, you’re a long way in my book toward getting the stamp of approval. (Yes, I do think charter authorizers should use an official stamp that they bang down like a gavel for either yay or nay decisions. It’s weighty after all, deciding the future of education in our city.) I’m not naïve enough to think that’s the only question that matters. Education, let alone opening a new school, is wildly complex. But if you can’t clear that hurdle, don’t bother with the rest is where I’m coming from.

And one way to answer my question is to look at the academic track record of the folks behind the proposed school. Essentially, do kids who attend Paramount schools receive an excellent education? And, since Washington Township seems to view the school as a direct threat, let’s make direct comparisons to see where students might actually be better off were they faced with an either or choice. That means it’s table time. First, let’s check out some demographics as that should almost always be step one before diving into academic performance comparisons between schools. Look at Table A (all data in the following tables is publicly available on IDOE’s site).

	Black	Hispanic	White	Female	Male	FRL
MSD Washington Township	39.6%	22.1%	28.2%	49.2%	50.8%	51.5%
Paramount Brookside	52.9%	19.4%	16.9%	50.8%	49.2%	77.8%
Paramount Cottage Home	59.5%	15.4%	17.6%	49.9%	50.1%	75.4%
Paramount Englewood	52.2%	22.4%	18.4%	51.3%	48.7%	68%

Both Washington Township and the Paramount network of schools here in Indianapolis serve very diverse student bodies. Still, you’ll notice Paramount serves higher percentages of students of color alongside higher percentages of students who qualify for free- and reduced-price lunch (a common marker for low-income). That matters for what you’re about to see next.

Now check out Table B and C. These detail ILEARN proficiency for ELA and math from 2023.

	Black	Hispanic	White	Female	Male	FRL
MSD Washington Township	18.9%	18.1%	67.3%	35.3%	29.9%	18.4%
Paramount Brookside	47%	51%	72.8%	58.2%	50.6%	52.5%
Paramount Cottage Home	60.8%	75%	81.3%	66.7%	64.6%	62.9%
Paramount Englewood	50.4%	48.9%	65.7%	58%	52.5%	53.3%

	Black	Hispanic	White	Female	Male	FRL
MSD Washington Township	14.5%	18.9%	64.8%	27.2%	33%	17.6%
Paramount Brookside	49.6%	59.2%	77.2%	55.2%	60.3%	75.8%
Paramount Cottage Home	76.5%	87.5%	87.5%	81%	77.1%	55.6%
Paramount Englewood	46%	36.2%	62.9%	43.2%	55.1%	46.3%

Anything jump out to you? The first thing I see are the academic outcome differences between Washington Township and Paramount. Despite Paramount serving higher percentages of students of color and low-income students, their students outpace Washington Township academically across the board.

Even if we’re charitable and use the smallest difference, it’s still 28.1 points in ELA between Washington Township and Paramount Brookside when it comes to Black student performance. (No, this is never the student’s fault in case you were about to come for me. Nor am I here to throw shade at any teachers in Washington Township. I am confident they work their butts off.)

If I’m feeling less charitable, I’m looking at where the difference is largest, like with Hispanic students and math. If you are a Hispanic student attending Paramount Cottage Home, you are four times more likely to be proficient in math than if you attend a Washington Township school.

Now, before you come for me again, yes, the tables clearly indicate that Paramount has not eliminated opportunity gaps among its different student groups in every case. Some are even quite large as those gaps go. But none of the gaps are anywhere close to what they are for Washington Township. That, coupled with the raw academic outcomes being better for Paramount across the board lead me to a pretty simple answer to that question I posed earlier.

If Girls in Stem Academy opens in Washington Township, students in that part of our city will have access to a fundamentally better academic option. Maybe Washington Township does offer STEM programming. But if it does, it’s not exactly like saying you can eat an apple in a Washington Township school or an apple at a Paramount school, there’s no difference. The reality is, one apple is quite a bit better at producing the kind of academic results students deserve and need to be ready for long-term success. (Forgive the extended apple metaphor, it is an education blog after all.)

Will Washington Township give the same amount of energy to improving academic outcomes and closing opportunity gaps as it does to fighting Paramount’s new school? Or is this just a turf battle trying to stop parents from accessing a potentially superior option?

What Comes Next

The last hurdle to clear for Paramount’s new school to open is, you probably won’t be surprised: bureaucratic. The thing actively holding the process up is zoning. That’s because the building Paramount bought used to be a church. To be used as a school, the property has to be rezoned.

Due to numerous appeals from Washington Township and assorted community groups, the zoning hearing has been pushed back multiple times. For now, it’s slated for later this month. It could get pushed back again, despite the city’s planning staff offering positive recommendations that Paramount’s rezoning request be approved.

How long will Washington Township keep up the fight? Paramount’s CEO Tommy Reddicks is on the record saying they plan to open the school this fall regardless of how this zoning issue shakes out, even if it means they open in a different, temporary location first.

After all, that glass ceiling won’t shatter itself.