Charter school goes shopping

Trine University came to the rescue eight years ago when Thea Bowman Leadership Academy was in danger of losing its charter and being shut down.

Now Trine has revoked the Gary, Indiana, school’s charter, citing academic and governance issues. But another private institution, Calumet College of St. Joseph, has stepped up.

“It’s funny how things have come full circle,” said Lindsay Omlor, executive director of Education One, Trine’s charter-school-authorizing office.

Today’s topic is authorizer shopping, what happens when charter schools jump from one authorizer to another to stay open or find a better deal. Thea Bowman looks to be taking the practice to a new level. It now has its third authorizer in less than a decade.

‘Charter School City’ examines New Orleans reforms

The reformers who turned New Orleans’ public education system over to charter schools succeeded in their primary objective of improving the schools’ academic performance, but the gains came at a cost to community and to democracy.

That’s the message I take from “Charter School City,” economist Douglas N. Harris’s clear and even-handed analysis of the revolution that reshaped New Orleans’ schools.  Were the test-score gains worth it? That debate seems to be ongoing in the city.

The basics of what happened are familiar to anyone who follows national education news. When Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005, the levees failed and much of New Orleans flooded. Nearly 2,000 people died, and damages reached $100 billion.

The damage done

The 2024 session of the Indiana General Assembly came to an end last week. How much harm did lawmakers do to public schools and their students? Not as much as they might have: It was a short session, after all. But they did enough.

The big education measure was Senate Bill 1, the “reading skills” bill. Its key feature is requiring third-graders to be retained if they don’t pass the IREAD-3 exam, with narrow exceptions for some special-education students, English learners and students who have been previously held back.

Everyone agrees that learning to read is essential; good for legislators for prioritizing it. But there are problems with their approach. Holding kids back in third grade is likely to improve their test scores in the short run, but the long-term academic effects are not clear, and retention has negative social, emotional and behavioral effects. Lawmakers brushed aside concerns about the cost to the state and schools.

Lawmakers flout ‘unwritten rule’

There’s an unwritten rule at the Indiana Statehouse that you don’t pass laws to interfere with litigation that’s working its way through the courts. But rules can be ignored at the whim of the legislature’s majority, and it seems to be happening more and more.

The most egregious example is House Bill 1235, which says that only state government – not cities, towns or counties – can bring lawsuits against the firearms industry. It’s an effort to kneecap a lawsuit that the city of Gary has been waging for nearly 25 years.

Indiana Statehouse

“HB 1235 is unprecedented in its reach and brazenness,” Paul Helmke, former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne and former head of the Brady Campaign, writes in the Indiana Capital Chronicle. In passing it, legislators “would be placing an entire industry above the law.” 

It has been approved by the House and a Senate committee and goes before the full Senate today.

Public school transfers are Indiana’s biggest choice program

The term school choice usually refers to charter schools and private-school vouchers. In Indiana, the biggest choice program remains “public school choice,” students attending a public school in a district other than the one in which they live.

More than 88,000 Hoosier students crossed district lines to attend a public school in fall 2023, according to the Indiana Department of Education public corporation transfer report. That compares with nearly 69,000 who received state-funded private school vouchers and 47,000 who attended charter schools.

Most school corporations have accepted cross-district transfers since 2009, when Indiana shifted most school funding from local property taxes to the state budget. Districts benefit from admitting more students because they get more state funding, assuming they have room for additional students.

Source: Indiana Department of Education public corporation transfer report

The system is popular, but it’s not for everyone. Families that transfer must provide transportation, so it favors those with resources and flexibility. Students are more likely to transfer from high-poverty to low-poverty districts than vice versa. Districts that lose the most students to transfers tend to be compact urban districts hemmed in by suburban or rural districts: e.g., Kokomo, Anderson, Muncie and Marion.

School districts may have to share referendum funds with charter schools

Indiana legislators voted last year to make school districts share referendum funding with charter schools but limited the law to four counties: Lake, Marion, St. Joseph and Vanderburgh. Now they are poised to expand the requirement statewide.

Senate Bill 270, approved Tuesday by the state Senate, would require all school districts to share revenue from operating referendums approved after May 10, 2024. The funds would be shared, on a dollar-per-pupil basis, with charter schools attended by students who live in the districts.

Child labor is an education issue

UPDATE: Senate Bill 146 was amended Feb. 5 on the Senate floor to remove provisions that conflict with federal child labor law.

Indiana legislators seem determined to roll back regulations that protect children from exploitative work conditions, even if it means clashing with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

One anti-regulatory bill, House Bill 1093, has been approved by the House and sent to the Senate. Another, Senate Bill 146, is up for second-reading amendments in the Senate today. Both measures would significantly ease restrictions on the hours that minors can work in Indiana.

Indiana Statehouse

They mark a turning away from a 100-year commitment by state and federal governments to protecting children and enabling them to get an education without being burdened by working for wages.

SB 146, for example, would let 14- and 15-year-olds work as late as 9 p.m. on school nights and 11 p.m. on non-school nights. It would let those students work six hours on a school day and 28 hours during a school week. All those provisions would conflict with federal law.

It’s easy to imagine employers pressuring young workers to put in long hours, taking away scarce free  time. As the Indiana School Boards Association points out, under SB 146, 14-year-olds could put in 14-hour days, counting school and a job, up to four days a week. And that doesn’t include homework.

Virtual charter school operators indicted

The other shoe has finally dropped. Federal authorities indicted the founder of two Indiana virtual charter schools and two of his associates on criminal charges. The indictment alleges they defrauded the state of at least $44 million.

We’ve been waiting for this news. A February 2020 report from the State Board of Accounts alleged widespread wrongdoing by Indiana Virtual School, Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy and their operators. It said the findings had been referred to criminal agencies “due to potential violations of state and federal law.”

The indictment, filed last week, focuses on Thomas Stoughton, who founded and ran the schools; Phillip Holden, a director of the schools; and Percy Clark, a superintendent. They face one count of conspiracy, 17 counts of wire fraud, and 58 counts of money laundering. Also mentioned in the indictment, but not charged, are Christopher King, a manager of student operations; and an unnamed manager of student services representatives.

Retention mandate would contradict ‘parent rights’

Republicans have worked hard to position themselves as the party of “parents’ rights” in education. When it comes to choosing a school, they say, parents know best. Sex education, mental health services, library books: they’re only OK if parents approve.

So it’s ironic that, on the vital question of whether a child should be promoted to the next grade, the Indiana GOP legislative supermajority would leave parents out of the decision.

Senate Bill 1, the top priority for Senate Republicans in the 2024 legislative session, would require students to repeat third grade if they don’t pass the state’s IREAD-3 reading test. It makes exceptions for some special-education students and English learners, students who have previously been retained, and students who pass a state math test.

Voucher expansion helps those already in private schools

The expansion of Indiana’s voucher program is primarily benefiting families that already sent their children to private schools. That’s the obvious conclusion from data released by the Indiana Department of Education.

The department reported in November that the number of students receiving vouchers to pay private school tuition increased by over 30% last fall. Yet enrollment in Indiana private schools grew by only 5.3%, according to figures released last week.

To put it another way, the number of students receiving vouchers increased by 16,657 this school year. But enrollment in Indiana private schools rose by just 4,641. It’s reasonable to assume that about 12,000 of those new voucher recipients were already attending private schools, without state funding.