The IPS-charter school fight puts politics over children
Indianapolis Public Schools appear safe from dissolution for the time being. Let's take a deep breath.
The struggle for resources between IPS and charter schools has pushed many people too deeply into political trenches to see anything beyond their own biases. IPS advocates view charter school supporters as evil incarnate. Charter school supporters see IPS as a caricature of a failing inner-city school district.
Hicks: I support school choice. It hasn't worked in Indiana.
The ensuing debate has revealed the ugliest side of Indianapolis, a side in which many people are so committed to interest group turf wars that they've lost sight of the actual stakes: educating children.
I've been frustrated for weeks while listening to some charter school advocates and state lawmakers talk about IPS as though the district is hopelessly incapable of delivering on its core purpose.
Hi, IPS parent here.
As many people on the internet like to remind me, I used to live in Carmel. My wife and I moved (back) to Indianapolis' east side in 2022 after exhaustively considering where we wanted our child (now children, plural) to attend school.
We could have stayed in Carmel, moved to a different suburb or landed on charter or private schools. We're two parents with graduate degrees and the wherewithal to live wherever we want and overthink school choices for our children, which we did. We settled on moving to Irvington because we loved the neighborhood and felt highly confident in multiple IPS schools.
We're not traditional public school absolutists. We didn't go with IPS to make a political statement. Our children are not virtue signals. We determined that IPS schools could provide an all-around education as good as, if not better than, every other possible option in metropolitan Indianapolis. Simply put, we chose IPS.
Our son has been in traditional IPS neighborhood schools for two years now. We had one hiccup this year, when we decided that his class wasn't a good fit for his fidgety, high-energy personality, and we transferred him to another IPS neighborhood school, where he is engaged and hugging his teacher as we pick him up in the afternoons.
I wouldn't profess to being IPS for life. Like all parents, we want the best for our children, and we will change course if we feel like we need to. But, right now, our son is developing at a rate that tells us he's receiving the highest-quality education possible.
As confident as I am that my son is receiving the best possible education, I am equally confident that is not the case for every child living within the IPS boundaries.
Parents recently expressed displeasure with the district in large numbers. IPS' enrollment fell by 800 students, or about 3.7%, this school year largely because of the district's recent choice to break out grades 6-8 into middle schools as part of the Rebuilding Stronger plan.
It's not just that. I've known parents who have moved their kids out of IPS schools for a range of distressing problems that couldn't be resolved through meetings with teachers or principals.
One key issue is that many parents don't have the flexibility my wife and I have to find the best fit for their children. Our son, for example, goes to a neighborhood school well outside our zone and doesn't have bus service. We're only able to send him there because our jobs enable us to drop him off and pick him up ourselves.
Parents with job- and transportation-related constraints don't have as many options — and many parents are limited to IPS schools that may or may not be suitable for their children.
That gets to the heart of the problem with many urban schools. What many people perceive as school underperformance is often a matter of economic disparities. Children who come from poverty are not as well prepared to succeed in school as children who come from financially secure households — and that reflects on school test scores, regardless of how well teachers and administrators are doing their jobs.
Taking those disparities into consideration, though, research has suggested that charter schools have had more success closing achievement gaps than traditional public schools in Indianapolis. It seems to be the case that many children across Indianapolis only have access to high-quality schools because of their proximity to strong charters operating affiliated with IPS.
You can quibble with causal conclusions and you can certainly point to poorly managed charter schools, but ignoring the data on outcomes altogether is a disservice to children who deserve good schools regardless of our political preferences. At the very least, we should be able to have a rational conversation about the proper balance between IPS and charters without vilifying people who have opposing views.
As I wrote above, I think many people have attacked IPS based on misunderstandings, at best, or bad faith, at worst. It also seems like many of the loudest charter school opponents are childless activists (nothing wrong with that) who have never considered these issues through the eyes of an anxious parent just trying to do what's best. Tribalism, plus the absence of empathy in many cases, has been toxic to this discussion.
On the other hand, I've also been part of many recent conversations in which charter school advocates have expressed sincere desires to create better futures for children in Indianapolis. I trust that IPS administrators and teachers are working toward the same goal — and I see it first hand. These encounters give me hope.
We can't treat education policy as a zero-sum game, an existential feud between charters and traditional public schools. We should debate education based on the understanding that many Indianapolis schools already offer excellent opportunities for children — and that it's in our collective best interest to find ways to make them even better.
Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X and Threads at @JamesEBriggs.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IPS schools serve Indy well. So do charters. | Opinion
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