Local advocacy groups are increasingly pressing the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance on how it should conduct its work and what kind of recommendations it should make. These forces reflect the wider debate around the future of education in Indianapolis. Are these competing visions reconcilable? Continue reading Are Competing Visions for Indianapolis’ Education Landscape Reconcilable?
ILEARN results for the 2024-25 school year just dropped. The top-line results for the state reading something like this. In reading? Stagnation. In math? Modest growth. We do a deep dive into this year’s results and offer four takeaways for the broader landscape in Indianapolis and statewide. Continue reading 2025 ILEARN Deep Dive, Analysis, and Takeaways
What’s our priority as education professionals, leaders, and advocates? Is it supporting students? Or supporting systems? And are those always mutually-exclusive? Those were a few of the questions on my mind after reading about IPS’ rejection of Cold Spring’s bid to operate as both an Innovation Network School and a charter school. I unpack them here. Continue reading The Curious Case of Cold Spring and IPS: Supporting Students or Supporting Systems?
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.
Collaboration between schools that on paper might be seen as competitors? You’d be hard-pressed to find quality examples. But ACE Prep Academy and Circle City Prep just joined forces, offering our local education ecosystem a compelling template for what inter-school collaboration can look like. Continue reading How ACE Prep and Circle City Prep Created a Collaborative Template for the Future
There’s a new acronym in town. I’m pleased to introduce you to the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance (ILEA). It’s time to get acquainted to the advisory group that could transform the relationship between Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) and charter schools in Indianapolis. Continue reading The Acronym That Just Might Transform the Relationship Between IPS/Charters
One thing that this legislative session proved is that the charter school sector carries weight as a collective. It is as much a political force as it is an educational force, its strength largely matching IPS. So where does the sector go from here? And what will its relationship be with IPS in the years to come? Continue reading Where Next for the Indianapolis Charter School Sector?
