Governor Mike Pence of Indiana never gets tired of finding new ways to support charter schools, and he doesn't appear to be too worried about who he has to shaft to do it.
As reported in the Indy Star, Pence earlier this year convinced the Indiana legislature to set aside a few truckloads of free money for charter schools.
This was actually a compromise of sorts. Pence's goal had been to get a $1,500 bonus payment for each charter student, arguing that this would give charters the money to build to match the kind of money that public schools get through property taxes, an argument that kind of hurts my head because of course those same property tax dollars are used to fund charter schools. So Pence's argument was, I guess, that charter schools should get public tax dollars, and then they should get more public tax dollars.
Why is that "conservative" lawmakers so often support the most inefficient, expensive system of education possible? As public school systems are strapped for cash, the universally react the same way-- they close schools, because fewer buildings are cheaper to operate. But in charterland, we open more buildings and flood the school system with excess capacity, all of which must be paid for by the taxpayers.
Charter supporters are the shoppers saying, "Look. A 12 oz can of Dr. Pepper costs less than a two-liter bottle. There for, instead of getting one two-liter bottle, we should get a case of cans. That's cheaper, right?"
Ultimately, lawmakers balked at the $20 million price tag for the charter bonus, and as a "compromise" okayed only $500, plus a charter loan fund of $50 million.
Charters will pay a whopping 1% interest on the loans, meaning that the taxpayers of Indiana could have done almost as well taking $50 million and burying it in a jar in the back yard. And that's assuming that the loans are paid back. Back in 2013 the state paid off $90 million dollars in charter loans, which makes it all the more impressive that charters in Indiana are back in sorts of debt-- over half the charters in Indiana are collectively in debt to the tune of $120 million. Of course, if you could borrow money at rates somewhere between 1% and -100%, wouldn't you?
Supporters of the public money giveaway say that it's a good deal because the state ends up with a building as security. But noting that charters can close up shop any time they like, John O'Neal of ISTA comes up with the on-point quote:
"In the last couple years, there have been about 15 or more school
closures in Indiana alone," said John O'Neal, policy and research
coordinator for the Indiana State Teachers Association. "I think it's
definitely something to question whether it's a good use of tax dollars
when these schools can just pick up and leave."
It is something to question, but it doesn't look like the Indiana legislature is prepared to do the questioning (or even allow it-- the new loan package was passed at the 11th hour without debate or discussion). But they have certainly done their best to make sure that taxpayers foot the bill for as many extra school systems as their are privateers interested in profiting from them. Congratulations, Indiana taxpayers!
Showing posts with label Indiana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indiana. Show all posts
Monday, June 8, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
What's The Matter With Indiana
In the modern era of education reform, each state has tried to create its own special brand of educational dysfunction. If the point of Common Core related reforms was to bring standardization to the country's many and varied state systems, it has failed miserably by failing in fifty different ways.
What Indiana provides is an example of what happens when the political process completely overwhelms educational concerns. If there is anyone in the Indiana state capitol more worried about education students than in political maneuvering and political posturing, it's not immediately evident who that person might be.
The current marquee conflagration of the moment is the announcement of a new Big Standardized Test that will take twelve hours to complete. This announcement has triggered a veritable stampede from responsibility, as every elected official in Indianapolis tries to put some air space between themselves and this testing disaster. And it brings up some of the underlying issues of the moment in Indiana.
Currently, all roads lead to Glenda Ritz.
Back before the fall of 2012, Indiana had become a reformster playground. They'd made early strides solving the puzzle of how to turn an entire urban school district over to privatizers, and they loved them some Common Core, too. Tony Bennett, buddy of Jeb Bush and big-time Chief for Change, was running the state's education department just the way reformsters thought it should be done. And then came the 2012 election.
Bennett was the public face of Indiana education reform. He dumped a ton of money into the race. And he lost. Not just lost, but looooooooosssssssssst!!! As is frequently noted, Glenda Ritz was elected Superintendent for Public Instruction with more votes than Governor Mike Pence. I like this account of the fallout by Joy Resmovits mostly because it includes a quote from Mike Petrilli that I think captures well the reaction of reformsters when Bennett lost.
"Shit shit shit shit shit," he said. "You can quote me on that."
After Ritz became a Democrat education in a GOP administration, Republican politicians decided that given her overwhelming electoral victory, they'd better just suck it up and find a way to honor the will of the people by working productively with her to fashion bi-partisan educational policies that put the needs of Indiana's students ahead of political gamesmanship. Ha! Just kidding. The GOP started using every trick they could think of to strip Ritz of her power.
As Scott Elliot tells it in this piece at Chalkbeat, things actually started out okay, with Ritz and the Pence administration carving out some useful compromises. Elliot marks the start of open warfare at Bennettgate-- the release of emails showing that Tony Bennett had gamed the less-than-awesome Indiana school grading system to favor certain charter operators.
Certainly Ritz and pence have different ideas about how to operate an education system. Mike Pence particularly loves charters-- so much so that he has taken the unusual move of proposing that charter schools be paid $1,500 more per student than public schools (so forget all about that charters-are-cheaper business).
Indiana has also created a complicated relationship with the Common Core, legislating a withdrawal from the Core, but one that required the state to do it without losing their federalbribes payments. The result was a fat-free Twinkie of education standards-- not enough like the original for some people and too much like it for others.
The Indiana GOP has been trying to separate Ritz from any power. They cite any number of complaints about her work style and competence (the GOP president of the Senate famously commented "In all fairness, Superintendent Ritz was a librarian, okay?") and most of the complaints smell like nothing but political posturing.
It's understandable that the state Board of Education would be a cantankerous group. Consider this op-ed piece from Gordon Hendry, newest member of the board, Democrat, attorney, business exec, and director of economic development under former Indianapolis mayor and current charter profiteer Bart Peterson. Hendry opens with, "To me, education policy is economic policy" (pro tip, Mr. Hendry-- education policy is education policy). After castigating Ritz for not running pleasant, orderly meetings (because her job is, apparently, to make alleged grownups behave like actual grownups), Hendry works up to this:
As a Democrat, I don't know why the superintendent insists on creating conflict where rational debate should instead exist.
That just sets off the bovine fecal detector into loud whoops. First, we've got an accusation buried as an assumption (she's the one creating conflict). Combine that with playing the feigned ignorance card-- I just have no idea why she could be so touchy! Really, dude? I'm all the way over here in Pennsylvania, and I can tell why she might be involved in some crankypants activity. I'm pretty sure winning an election and being forced to work with people who dismiss you and try to cut you out of power-- I'm pretty sure that would put someone in a bad mood. So I can understand finding her ideas obnoxious and disagreeing with how she runs a meeting, but when you claim her point of view is incomprehensible, that tells me way more about you than about her.
Most of the statements I read coming out of Indiana are like that-- they carry a screaming barely-subtext of "I am just stringing words together in a way that I've calculated might bring political advantage, but I am paying no real attention to what they actual mean to real humans."
I have no idea how good at her job Glenda Ritz actually is, but the political statement represented by her landslide election seems clear enough, and it's a little astonishing that Indiana's leaders are so hell bent on thwarting the will of the electorate. But damned if the legislature isn't trying to strip her of chairmanship of the Board of Education.
Meanwhile, the fat-free Twinkie standards have spawned some massive tumor of a test, coming in at an advertised length of twelve hours which breaks down to A) weeks of wasted classroom time and B) at least six hours worth of frustrated and bored students making random marks which of course gets Indiana C) results even more meaningless than the usual standardized test results although D) McGraw-Hill will still make a mountain of money for producing it. Whose fault is that? Tom LoBianco seems close to the answer when he says, basically, everyone. (Although Pence has offered a gubernatorial edict that the test be cut to six hours, so, I don't know- just do every other page, kids? Not sure exactly how one cuts a test in half in about a week, but perhaps Indiana is a land of miracles.*) But it's hard for me not see Ritz and Indiana schools as the victims of a system so clogged and choked with political asshattery that it may well be impossible to get anything done that actually benefits the students of Indiana.
UPDATE: On February 11, the Senate Education Committee gave the okay to a bill that would exempt voucher schools from taking the same assessment as public schools. In fact, the voucher schools can just go ahead and create a test of their own. It is remarkable that the State of Indiana has not just closed all public schools, dumped all the education money in a giant Scrooge McDuck sized vault, and sold tickets to just go in a dive around in it.
There's going to be a rally at the Statehouse on Monday, February 16th. If I were an Indiana taxpayer-- hell if I were a live human who lived considerably closer-- I would be there. This is a state that really hates its public schools.
* Edit-- I somehow lost the sentence about the shortening of the test in posting. I've since put the parenthetical point back.
What Indiana provides is an example of what happens when the political process completely overwhelms educational concerns. If there is anyone in the Indiana state capitol more worried about education students than in political maneuvering and political posturing, it's not immediately evident who that person might be.
The current marquee conflagration of the moment is the announcement of a new Big Standardized Test that will take twelve hours to complete. This announcement has triggered a veritable stampede from responsibility, as every elected official in Indianapolis tries to put some air space between themselves and this testing disaster. And it brings up some of the underlying issues of the moment in Indiana.
Currently, all roads lead to Glenda Ritz.
Back before the fall of 2012, Indiana had become a reformster playground. They'd made early strides solving the puzzle of how to turn an entire urban school district over to privatizers, and they loved them some Common Core, too. Tony Bennett, buddy of Jeb Bush and big-time Chief for Change, was running the state's education department just the way reformsters thought it should be done. And then came the 2012 election.
Bennett was the public face of Indiana education reform. He dumped a ton of money into the race. And he lost. Not just lost, but looooooooosssssssssst!!! As is frequently noted, Glenda Ritz was elected Superintendent for Public Instruction with more votes than Governor Mike Pence. I like this account of the fallout by Joy Resmovits mostly because it includes a quote from Mike Petrilli that I think captures well the reaction of reformsters when Bennett lost.
"Shit shit shit shit shit," he said. "You can quote me on that."
After Ritz became a Democrat education in a GOP administration, Republican politicians decided that given her overwhelming electoral victory, they'd better just suck it up and find a way to honor the will of the people by working productively with her to fashion bi-partisan educational policies that put the needs of Indiana's students ahead of political gamesmanship. Ha! Just kidding. The GOP started using every trick they could think of to strip Ritz of her power.
As Scott Elliot tells it in this piece at Chalkbeat, things actually started out okay, with Ritz and the Pence administration carving out some useful compromises. Elliot marks the start of open warfare at Bennettgate-- the release of emails showing that Tony Bennett had gamed the less-than-awesome Indiana school grading system to favor certain charter operators.
Certainly Ritz and pence have different ideas about how to operate an education system. Mike Pence particularly loves charters-- so much so that he has taken the unusual move of proposing that charter schools be paid $1,500 more per student than public schools (so forget all about that charters-are-cheaper business).
Indiana has also created a complicated relationship with the Common Core, legislating a withdrawal from the Core, but one that required the state to do it without losing their federal
The Indiana GOP has been trying to separate Ritz from any power. They cite any number of complaints about her work style and competence (the GOP president of the Senate famously commented "In all fairness, Superintendent Ritz was a librarian, okay?") and most of the complaints smell like nothing but political posturing.
It's understandable that the state Board of Education would be a cantankerous group. Consider this op-ed piece from Gordon Hendry, newest member of the board, Democrat, attorney, business exec, and director of economic development under former Indianapolis mayor and current charter profiteer Bart Peterson. Hendry opens with, "To me, education policy is economic policy" (pro tip, Mr. Hendry-- education policy is education policy). After castigating Ritz for not running pleasant, orderly meetings (because her job is, apparently, to make alleged grownups behave like actual grownups), Hendry works up to this:
As a Democrat, I don't know why the superintendent insists on creating conflict where rational debate should instead exist.
That just sets off the bovine fecal detector into loud whoops. First, we've got an accusation buried as an assumption (she's the one creating conflict). Combine that with playing the feigned ignorance card-- I just have no idea why she could be so touchy! Really, dude? I'm all the way over here in Pennsylvania, and I can tell why she might be involved in some crankypants activity. I'm pretty sure winning an election and being forced to work with people who dismiss you and try to cut you out of power-- I'm pretty sure that would put someone in a bad mood. So I can understand finding her ideas obnoxious and disagreeing with how she runs a meeting, but when you claim her point of view is incomprehensible, that tells me way more about you than about her.
Most of the statements I read coming out of Indiana are like that-- they carry a screaming barely-subtext of "I am just stringing words together in a way that I've calculated might bring political advantage, but I am paying no real attention to what they actual mean to real humans."
I have no idea how good at her job Glenda Ritz actually is, but the political statement represented by her landslide election seems clear enough, and it's a little astonishing that Indiana's leaders are so hell bent on thwarting the will of the electorate. But damned if the legislature isn't trying to strip her of chairmanship of the Board of Education.
Meanwhile, the fat-free Twinkie standards have spawned some massive tumor of a test, coming in at an advertised length of twelve hours which breaks down to A) weeks of wasted classroom time and B) at least six hours worth of frustrated and bored students making random marks which of course gets Indiana C) results even more meaningless than the usual standardized test results although D) McGraw-Hill will still make a mountain of money for producing it. Whose fault is that? Tom LoBianco seems close to the answer when he says, basically, everyone. (Although Pence has offered a gubernatorial edict that the test be cut to six hours, so, I don't know- just do every other page, kids? Not sure exactly how one cuts a test in half in about a week, but perhaps Indiana is a land of miracles.*) But it's hard for me not see Ritz and Indiana schools as the victims of a system so clogged and choked with political asshattery that it may well be impossible to get anything done that actually benefits the students of Indiana.
UPDATE: On February 11, the Senate Education Committee gave the okay to a bill that would exempt voucher schools from taking the same assessment as public schools. In fact, the voucher schools can just go ahead and create a test of their own. It is remarkable that the State of Indiana has not just closed all public schools, dumped all the education money in a giant Scrooge McDuck sized vault, and sold tickets to just go in a dive around in it.
There's going to be a rally at the Statehouse on Monday, February 16th. If I were an Indiana taxpayer-- hell if I were a live human who lived considerably closer-- I would be there. This is a state that really hates its public schools.
* Edit-- I somehow lost the sentence about the shortening of the test in posting. I've since put the parenthetical point back.
Friday, January 23, 2015
More Hard Charter Lessons
News comes from Indianapolis this week that two of the older charters in town are being shut down. Fall Creek Academy and University Heights Preparatory Academy are going to that Big Chalkboard in the sky.
Fall Creek actually goes back to the days when then-Mayor Bart Peterson could whip up charters at will thanks to a magic mayoral empowerment law that Indiana passed just for his city (Peterson has since moved on to making money more directly in the charter biz). After a strong start, the school fell on less stellar times, and when the city pulled the charter, they turned to Ball State University. It's Ball State that has now shown them the door "due to chronic underperformance"
I don't know much more about these charters; I don't know if they're the victims of gross injustice or incompetents long overdue for being closed down. That's not what I noticed about the story. What I noticed was the headline:
ANGER BUILDS! Over Closing of Fall Creek & University Heights Charters. Why Won’t Ball State Explain; Respond?
The article also contains this sentence:
Parents wanted to know why and were stunned to hear that officials from Ball State weren’t prepared to personally answer their concerns.
I want to feel bad for these parents. I really do. But it's like trying to feel bad for people who smoke cigarettes for the health benefits and then are shocked and upset when they get cancer. It's like people who buy a long-haired dog and are upset that there's fur on the furniture. It's like people who hit themselves in the head with a hammer and complain about the headache.
Here are two things for charter school customers to remember, so they can avoid being shocked, stunned, angry or otherwise surprised in the future.
Charters are not run by elected school boards. They do not have to answer to the voters. They do not have to answer to the customers. They do not have to explain anything, and in some cases have gone to court to fight for their right to be just as non-transparent as they want to be. They are a business, and they don't have to show you their decision making process any more than McDonald's has to show you the recipe for their special sauce.
Charters can close at any time for any reason. People seem to automatically associate the idea of a school with the idea of permanence. That's incorrect. Public schools are permanent. Charter schools are not. Public schools represent a community commitment to provide schooling as long as it's needed. Charter schools represent a business decision to operate as long as it makes sense. Enrolling your child in a charter is making a bet that the school will be in business as long as you want to send your child to it. If you lose the bet, you have to know that losing was always a possibility when you made the bet in the first place.
Considering a charter? Do your homework and understand the risks that come with choosing a charter. Pro tip: "doing your homework" does not mean "listening to charter sales pitch and nothing else." That's like getting info about the car you want to buy only from the salesman trying to sell it to you.
I believe it's possible to find charters that do a pretty okay job out there, but any charter comes with certainly fundamental differences from public school, and some come with differences that can be shocking or stunning if you haven't been paying attention. Bottom line? Charter schools are not created to be just like public schools-- and they aren't. If you're going to understand anything about putting your child in a charter, that's the bare minimum that you need to grasp.
Fall Creek actually goes back to the days when then-Mayor Bart Peterson could whip up charters at will thanks to a magic mayoral empowerment law that Indiana passed just for his city (Peterson has since moved on to making money more directly in the charter biz). After a strong start, the school fell on less stellar times, and when the city pulled the charter, they turned to Ball State University. It's Ball State that has now shown them the door "due to chronic underperformance"
I don't know much more about these charters; I don't know if they're the victims of gross injustice or incompetents long overdue for being closed down. That's not what I noticed about the story. What I noticed was the headline:
ANGER BUILDS! Over Closing of Fall Creek & University Heights Charters. Why Won’t Ball State Explain; Respond?
The article also contains this sentence:
Parents wanted to know why and were stunned to hear that officials from Ball State weren’t prepared to personally answer their concerns.
I want to feel bad for these parents. I really do. But it's like trying to feel bad for people who smoke cigarettes for the health benefits and then are shocked and upset when they get cancer. It's like people who buy a long-haired dog and are upset that there's fur on the furniture. It's like people who hit themselves in the head with a hammer and complain about the headache.
Here are two things for charter school customers to remember, so they can avoid being shocked, stunned, angry or otherwise surprised in the future.
Charters are not run by elected school boards. They do not have to answer to the voters. They do not have to answer to the customers. They do not have to explain anything, and in some cases have gone to court to fight for their right to be just as non-transparent as they want to be. They are a business, and they don't have to show you their decision making process any more than McDonald's has to show you the recipe for their special sauce.
Charters can close at any time for any reason. People seem to automatically associate the idea of a school with the idea of permanence. That's incorrect. Public schools are permanent. Charter schools are not. Public schools represent a community commitment to provide schooling as long as it's needed. Charter schools represent a business decision to operate as long as it makes sense. Enrolling your child in a charter is making a bet that the school will be in business as long as you want to send your child to it. If you lose the bet, you have to know that losing was always a possibility when you made the bet in the first place.
Considering a charter? Do your homework and understand the risks that come with choosing a charter. Pro tip: "doing your homework" does not mean "listening to charter sales pitch and nothing else." That's like getting info about the car you want to buy only from the salesman trying to sell it to you.
I believe it's possible to find charters that do a pretty okay job out there, but any charter comes with certainly fundamental differences from public school, and some come with differences that can be shocking or stunning if you haven't been paying attention. Bottom line? Charter schools are not created to be just like public schools-- and they aren't. If you're going to understand anything about putting your child in a charter, that's the bare minimum that you need to grasp.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Indiana: Building a Better Leech
Twice today, this has turned up in my twitter feed:
Indeed, this links to website that offers a $5K bounty for "excellent candidates for school leaders." I don't know. Maybe this is better than when "Dr." Ted J. Morris recruited charter school board members on LinkedIn or when the NYC Teaching Collective went looking for any warm body to pretend-teach by putting an ad on Craigslist. But given the Mind Trust's history, probably not.
If you haven't been paying attention to Indiana, buckle up campers (I mean, specifically, buckle up your nose). I'm going to try to render a quick and dirty picture of the history here. If you'd like the Full Monty, I recommend Hoosier School Heist from Doug Martin, a fully-researched picture of the whole mess.
Indiana education is an unholy mess, a gold mine that reformsters have helped themselves to at length. Jeb Bush used it as an expansion ground for his reformy ideas and Charter Schools USA (currently being considered to take over the entire York PA school system) was one of the early beneficiaries.
But the Mind Trust represents some of the finest home-grown gravy train engineering. The Mind Trust (and by the way, who came up with that name, because it sounds like a cross between "brain trust" and "mind f@#!" and neither is good idea) was founded in 2006 by former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson (Dem) and his charter school director, David Harris. Peterson was mayor in 2001, when Indiana passed legislation giving the mayor of Indianapolis power to singlehandedly authorize charter schools. So, basically, the best and most legally-authorized patronage system ever.
In Summer of 2007, the charter-loving Hoover Institute had this to say about the new organization:
In January, David Harris left the mayor’s office to work on another side of the charter school problem: ‘stimulating supply,’ as he puts it. If Indianapolis is going to continue being a leader in school innovation, it must, Harris reasons, become the place to develop new ideas. So he has built a nonprofit—IPS superintendent White, among others, sits on the board—to fund highly paid fellowships for education entrepreneurs. It is called [The] Mind Trust, and along with trying to find the next Michael Feinberg (a co-founder of KIPP) or the next Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach For America), Harris will be trying to draw the cream of education reform organizations to establish a presence in Indianapolis.
And nothing says "cream of education reform" like twitter job solicitations. But in 2007 that was far in Mind Trust's future. Closer in the future was voters denying Peterson a third term in office.
This did not slow down the Mind Trust. They simply gathered money and friends. Peterson was hired by Eli Lilly and Company, and they proceeded to become huge boosters of Mind Trust's work. In turn, Mind Trust used that money to turn Indianapolis into a blooming oasis for reformsters. How about $3.4 million for TFA? Done, and the parade of reformy groups continued. In 2012 Mind Trust presented another meeting of the minds to hear prominent voucher booster Howard Fuller speak, sponsored by reformsters like Stand for Children and Education Reform Now.
This came in the wake of their magnum opus, "Creating Opportunity Schools, dumped on the public in December, 2011. The report is roughly 155 pages long. You know I love you, but this is one time I am not going to read the original so that you don't have to. The Mind Trust did produce this nifty 1:33 video.
Incidentally, before you watch this, prepare to have your heart broken-- the narrator is Mind Trust board member Jane Pauley.
The basic pitch is a now-familiar one: "Many students are not learning things at all! Don't you wish they could all have a pony? We totally promise to do that."
NUVO (Indiana's alternative voice) attempted to delve a little deeper into Mind Trust and the report in the summer of 2013. I am going to crib from their work.
The report first asserts that Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) are tragically and completely broken. Soooo... let's cut $188 million worth of central office functions and use it to fund "opportunity schools" which will operate in their own rules-free universe, where school leaders can work like CEO's and hire, fire, pay, and if that sounds like the reformster template for charterization, that's because we ought to channel a bunch of that $188 million toward charters, too.
NUVO writers found that much of the language of the report looked a lot like the language used by Public Impact, the North Carolina education policy and management consulting firm that Mind Trust hired. Bottom line, as one panelist in NUVO article observed, the whole proposal "was a way of establishing a beachhead for people to come in and make a lot of money."
Harris told NUVO that "evidence suggests" that schools under mayoral control perform better; he also suggested that one mayor who must be re-elected based on a variety of issues is more accountable than a large assortment of individuals in each of the school communities who are elected based strictly on their educational performance. Okay, I may have reworded his argument a hair, but his way didn't capture how stupid a justification he offered for dis-enfranchising whole neighborhoods of voters.
Harris, who is apparently either a con artist or a dope, also observed "when you go to schools that have excellent test scores, they're not teaching to the test." Oh, and also this: "When people say we're trying to privatize education, I really don't understand that. They are all public schools. We're just saying other people can be involved than just the people in the central office."
In 2014, Indiana's legislature legislated itself a new brand of school, named Innovation Network Schools, and my quick read is that Mind Trust's Opportunity Schools idea is now law. More specifically, it is open season on education dollars in Indianapolis. The law appears to open schools up to privatization without having to use the word "charter" even as charter operators are just as free to jump on the pile of cash as anybody else.
In the promo video on the Mind Trust page, Peterson says that these schools combine the best of public charter schools and traditional schools, and then he explains-- the resources and buildings of the public system with the autonomy over staffing, curriculum and budget of a charter school. So, charter schools with a twist-- instead of trying to hide the way the charter leech sucks the blood from public schools, this puts the leeching out front and sells it as a plus.
The Mind Trust seems to be the Godfather of charter/privatized schooling in Indianapolis; under "What We Do" their website has two subheadings-- "launching great schools," and "creating a landscape for success" (which includes the "charter school incubator"). They arranged some start-up grants for charters, and last summer picked some fellows to run some turnaround schools for them (including a former senior intelligence analyst who'd like to start an entrepreneur school). But apparently, somehow, they haven't turned up enough super-duper charterish operators yet. Hence, today's tweet.
What do you get as a new charter operator innovation school fellow? Two years to design and launch your own school. Plus access to national experts (I'd love to see that list), staff support, travel, a generous salary, and more! Plus, Peterson brags, Indianapolis is loaded with TFA and TNTP folks who make a "rich ecosystem of education organizations" and the graphic shows Teach Plus, KIPP, College Summit, Diploma Plus and many more in the ecosystem because this is just an orgy of profiteering.
Lord, I know this is running long, but seriously-- why solicitations on twitter? I suppose it's possible their just looking for a beard-- the support network and staffing help etc are all the people who will really run the school while Mr. McStarsearch draws his generous salary and sips latte in the office. Maybe Mind Trust is offering a new sort of service to the other ecosystem members-- we will set up a school for you to suck the blood from, and if anything goes south, we will also provide a fall guy to be the nominal boss of the whole mess. Maybe Mind Trust is so clueless that they believe that not only can anyone be a teacher with five weeks of training, but anyone can be a charter school CEO with a pile of money.
Look, there are people out there who know Indiana's tortured ed reform history far better than I, and they deserve to have the rest of us pay better attention, because Indiana's messes (aka Jeb Bush and Tony Bennett et al) tend to spread. But after scanning all this history and looking at this newest wrinkle, there's one thing I'm certain of-- whatever the goal is here, it's not about actually educating the children of Indianapolis.
You could receive $5,000 for nominating a talented ed leader to The Mind Trust. Learn more. https://t.co/XWWPuGNjak
— The Mind Trust (@TheMindTrust) December 30, 2014
Indeed, this links to website that offers a $5K bounty for "excellent candidates for school leaders." I don't know. Maybe this is better than when "Dr." Ted J. Morris recruited charter school board members on LinkedIn or when the NYC Teaching Collective went looking for any warm body to pretend-teach by putting an ad on Craigslist. But given the Mind Trust's history, probably not.
If you haven't been paying attention to Indiana, buckle up campers (I mean, specifically, buckle up your nose). I'm going to try to render a quick and dirty picture of the history here. If you'd like the Full Monty, I recommend Hoosier School Heist from Doug Martin, a fully-researched picture of the whole mess.
Indiana education is an unholy mess, a gold mine that reformsters have helped themselves to at length. Jeb Bush used it as an expansion ground for his reformy ideas and Charter Schools USA (currently being considered to take over the entire York PA school system) was one of the early beneficiaries.
But the Mind Trust represents some of the finest home-grown gravy train engineering. The Mind Trust (and by the way, who came up with that name, because it sounds like a cross between "brain trust" and "mind f@#!" and neither is good idea) was founded in 2006 by former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson (Dem) and his charter school director, David Harris. Peterson was mayor in 2001, when Indiana passed legislation giving the mayor of Indianapolis power to singlehandedly authorize charter schools. So, basically, the best and most legally-authorized patronage system ever.
In Summer of 2007, the charter-loving Hoover Institute had this to say about the new organization:
In January, David Harris left the mayor’s office to work on another side of the charter school problem: ‘stimulating supply,’ as he puts it. If Indianapolis is going to continue being a leader in school innovation, it must, Harris reasons, become the place to develop new ideas. So he has built a nonprofit—IPS superintendent White, among others, sits on the board—to fund highly paid fellowships for education entrepreneurs. It is called [The] Mind Trust, and along with trying to find the next Michael Feinberg (a co-founder of KIPP) or the next Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach For America), Harris will be trying to draw the cream of education reform organizations to establish a presence in Indianapolis.
And nothing says "cream of education reform" like twitter job solicitations. But in 2007 that was far in Mind Trust's future. Closer in the future was voters denying Peterson a third term in office.
This did not slow down the Mind Trust. They simply gathered money and friends. Peterson was hired by Eli Lilly and Company, and they proceeded to become huge boosters of Mind Trust's work. In turn, Mind Trust used that money to turn Indianapolis into a blooming oasis for reformsters. How about $3.4 million for TFA? Done, and the parade of reformy groups continued. In 2012 Mind Trust presented another meeting of the minds to hear prominent voucher booster Howard Fuller speak, sponsored by reformsters like Stand for Children and Education Reform Now.
This came in the wake of their magnum opus, "Creating Opportunity Schools, dumped on the public in December, 2011. The report is roughly 155 pages long. You know I love you, but this is one time I am not going to read the original so that you don't have to. The Mind Trust did produce this nifty 1:33 video.
Incidentally, before you watch this, prepare to have your heart broken-- the narrator is Mind Trust board member Jane Pauley.
The basic pitch is a now-familiar one: "Many students are not learning things at all! Don't you wish they could all have a pony? We totally promise to do that."
NUVO (Indiana's alternative voice) attempted to delve a little deeper into Mind Trust and the report in the summer of 2013. I am going to crib from their work.
The report first asserts that Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) are tragically and completely broken. Soooo... let's cut $188 million worth of central office functions and use it to fund "opportunity schools" which will operate in their own rules-free universe, where school leaders can work like CEO's and hire, fire, pay, and if that sounds like the reformster template for charterization, that's because we ought to channel a bunch of that $188 million toward charters, too.
NUVO writers found that much of the language of the report looked a lot like the language used by Public Impact, the North Carolina education policy and management consulting firm that Mind Trust hired. Bottom line, as one panelist in NUVO article observed, the whole proposal "was a way of establishing a beachhead for people to come in and make a lot of money."
Harris told NUVO that "evidence suggests" that schools under mayoral control perform better; he also suggested that one mayor who must be re-elected based on a variety of issues is more accountable than a large assortment of individuals in each of the school communities who are elected based strictly on their educational performance. Okay, I may have reworded his argument a hair, but his way didn't capture how stupid a justification he offered for dis-enfranchising whole neighborhoods of voters.
Harris, who is apparently either a con artist or a dope, also observed "when you go to schools that have excellent test scores, they're not teaching to the test." Oh, and also this: "When people say we're trying to privatize education, I really don't understand that. They are all public schools. We're just saying other people can be involved than just the people in the central office."
In 2014, Indiana's legislature legislated itself a new brand of school, named Innovation Network Schools, and my quick read is that Mind Trust's Opportunity Schools idea is now law. More specifically, it is open season on education dollars in Indianapolis. The law appears to open schools up to privatization without having to use the word "charter" even as charter operators are just as free to jump on the pile of cash as anybody else.
In the promo video on the Mind Trust page, Peterson says that these schools combine the best of public charter schools and traditional schools, and then he explains-- the resources and buildings of the public system with the autonomy over staffing, curriculum and budget of a charter school. So, charter schools with a twist-- instead of trying to hide the way the charter leech sucks the blood from public schools, this puts the leeching out front and sells it as a plus.
The Mind Trust seems to be the Godfather of charter/privatized schooling in Indianapolis; under "What We Do" their website has two subheadings-- "launching great schools," and "creating a landscape for success" (which includes the "charter school incubator"). They arranged some start-up grants for charters, and last summer picked some fellows to run some turnaround schools for them (including a former senior intelligence analyst who'd like to start an entrepreneur school). But apparently, somehow, they haven't turned up enough super-duper charterish operators yet. Hence, today's tweet.
What do you get as a
Lord, I know this is running long, but seriously-- why solicitations on twitter? I suppose it's possible their just looking for a beard-- the support network and staffing help etc are all the people who will really run the school while Mr. McStarsearch draws his generous salary and sips latte in the office. Maybe Mind Trust is offering a new sort of service to the other ecosystem members-- we will set up a school for you to suck the blood from, and if anything goes south, we will also provide a fall guy to be the nominal boss of the whole mess. Maybe Mind Trust is so clueless that they believe that not only can anyone be a teacher with five weeks of training, but anyone can be a charter school CEO with a pile of money.
Look, there are people out there who know Indiana's tortured ed reform history far better than I, and they deserve to have the rest of us pay better attention, because Indiana's messes (aka Jeb Bush and Tony Bennett et al) tend to spread. But after scanning all this history and looking at this newest wrinkle, there's one thing I'm certain of-- whatever the goal is here, it's not about actually educating the children of Indianapolis.
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