You know the Fall Out Boy song “Alone Together” and the line “I don’t know where you’re going / But do you got room for one more troubled soul”? 

Sure, yes, I am predisposed to such a lyric given my recent predilection for early 2010s emo rock. But I couldn’t help but think of the line in response to seeing the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) Board of School Commissioners submit a set of seven recommendations to the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance earlier this month.

A swirl of visions from differently troubled souls have now landed on the ILEA’s desk—Rise Indy, Stand for Children, the Indiana Charter Innovation Center, and IPS.

So mow that IPS’ cards are on the table, let’s look at the hand they played. 

What are the IPS Board’s Recommendations? 

Here they are. All seven. To quickly orient you, I’ll quote just the headlines of each section from their official release below. 

1. “Governance must remain democratic and accountable.” 
2. “Fewer authorizers, stronger accountability.”
3. “Stability through right-sizing and strategic planning.”
4. “Adequate funding: the foundation of excellence.”
5. “Transportation: efficient, safe, and equitable.”
6. “Protecting community stewardship of facilities.”
7. “An Indianapolis Public Schools for the future.”

Each offered a paragraph or two fleshing out exactly what they mean. I’ll give you a moment to go read them at the link above. Ready? Let’s “dance, dance” as Fall Out Boy would say. (I promise that’s the last time.)

Reflections On IPS’ Recommendations

Four of IPS’ recommendations are worth exploring a little more deeply. First, on recommendation “2: Fewer authorizers, stronger accountability,” the IPS Board calls for reducing the number of charter school authorizers to one (the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation). That would eliminate the Indianapolis Charter School Board and Trine University as authorizers of schools in Indianapolis.

I think authorizing in Indianapolis can be strengthened. I don’t have a personal horse in the race to decide the correct number of authorizers (but if I did, it would have a cool name like Peanut Eminem and the 8 Mile Race).

One possible downside of shifting to a single authorizer centered in the mayor’s office is that charter school oversight becomes more subject to changing political winds. Get a new mayor with a very different perspective on charter schools and they could overturn the apple cart (albeit in slow motion given charter agreement renewal timing). I can imagine some saying that would just be an example of democracy in action: elect a person, get a result the person promised. Maybe they’re right. I’m mostly pointing out it could open a can of worms labeled “possibly increased instability.”

What about recommendation “3: Stability through right-sizing and strategic planning”? This one frustrates me slightly. The IPS Board statement says, “We encourage an immediate moratorium on any new schools until existing facilities are fully and efficiently utilized.” Why am I frustrated? I wonder if the IPS Board would have supported a moratorium before implementing their Rebuilding Stronger plan. The landscape then wasn’t meaningfully more or less saturated then it is now. 

Maybe it’s splitting hairs to think of Rebuilding Stronger creating any “new” schools. But it did reopen standalone middle schools (Broad Ripple, TC Howe) and triggered the construction of a new facility for IPS’ high-ability academy on the site of the old Kindezi Academy building. You might read those moves as efficiently utilizing existing facilities, especially Broad Ripple and TC Howe as those definitely fit the “underutilized” descriptor.

IPS has every right to repurpose previously-closed buildings and construct a new building for its high-ability academy. Notwithstanding the rough start to life for the middle schools, these actions may even create a stronger district overall (I’m not convinced it will but I won’t rule it out completely). 

The part that frustrates me is that they seem to want one set of rules for themselves and another for charter schools. Just consider Cold Spring’s situation earlier this year. Cold Spring applied for and received approval from the Indiana Charter School Board to operate as a charter school (while remaining an Innovation Network School). But they needed IPS’ sign-off to begin operating as a charter school. They didn’t get it, with IPS Board members more or less saying it was because they are ideologically committed to not allowing the growth of new charter schools in the district, even though this was an existing school that was simply going to adopt a slightly different operative frame.

Moving on to recommendation “4: Adequate funding: the foundation of excellence.” Some time ago, I did a thought exercise about how much per student funding would be “enough.” Not because I have the expertise to arrive at the answer. But because requests for “full funding” are never precise and I wanted to make the conversation more concrete. 

Does IPS know how much it costs to adequately educate their students? Apparently not, considering this line in their statement: “We challenge the ILEA to present both the maximum and the minimum of what it takes to educate a child in Indianapolis.” It would be great if someone did.

Here’s what is precise: current funding amounts. This school year, IPS received over $23,000 in funding per student. That’s around $8,000 more in per student funding than what independent charter schools in Indianapolis receive (Innovation Network Schools tend to fall somewhere in between). That gap is going to narrow given the new property tax sharing law. But IPS has long received more funding per student than charter schools.

Which brings me to “7: An Indianapolis Public Schools for the future.” Here, the IPS board says, “Twenty years after the launch of charter schools in our city, student achievement remains low, with collective proficiency rates yet to reach 30% regardless of school type.” 

That’s true. But it’s hardly a full story. Indianapolis charter schools, on average, produce better academic results for students than direct-run IPS schools. Proficiency rates practically everywhere in Indianapolis are unacceptably low. But if you’re going to resist a move to an all-charter district, which IPS vociferously does here, I think you need to lay out your own vision for how you’re going to produce stronger academic outcomes. The answer can’t simply be more funding when you’re being outperformed by nearby schools that spend less per student while serving a higher proportion of low-income students and students of color.

I promised I wouldn’t quote Fall Out Boy again. Sorry, I lied. To IPS, I’d say, based on these recommendations, “I don’t know where you’re going.” But there’s no room for this troubled soul.