Part 2 of our “Fully funded, fully public” thought experiment, wherein I unpack what would make Indianapolis’ education ecosystem fully public. And address concerns traditional public school advocates tend to raise about charter schools and why they feel they aren’t actually public schools. Continue reading What Does Fully Funded, Fully Public Mean? A Thought Experiment, Part 2.
Fully funded, fully public. It’s what many education advocates call for, this last legislative session included. Yet the terms are often nebulous, ill-defined. So I’m undertaking a two-part series to explore what a system of public schools that are fully funded and fully public might look like in practice. Continue reading What Does Fully Funded, Fully Public Mean? A Thought Experiment, Part 1.
Coverage around the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance (ILEA) has focused on how the advisory group is exempt from Indiana’s Open Door Law. But the worry around transparency seems not to extend to the inordinate number of executive sessions IPS holds, where discussions about school consolidation remain largely under wraps. Continue reading What’s the Deal With Open Doors? IPS and the ILEA.
Every time I assert that charter schools are public schools, I get a predictable line of pushback. “Well, that may be true on paper,” people will say. “But they don’t really accept every student.” But too often what people are concerned about happening at charter schools is largely a specter. And what they believe could never happen at a traditional public school does happen. Just as often, if not more frequently, than it does at charter schools. Continue reading Free and Open to All? Not So Fast.
