In Indianapolis, there will be a crucial school board election tomorrow. Money is coming into the district from corporate reformers who see a chance to turn Indianapolis into another all-charter district, like New Orleans. They apparently don’t realize that most of the charter schools in New Orleans have been rated D or F by the charter-friendly State Education Department. Or that of 68 school districts in Louisiana, the Recovery School District in New Orleans is ranked #65. This is no model for Indianapolis or any other city.
The Indianapolis Public School Board election is one of the most hotly contested races in Indiana. A great deal of money has been injected into this election by reformers who support the further expansion of charters and vouchers in IPS. I urge my Indianapolis friends to support the following 3 candidates, who are currently members of the IPS Board.
Annie Roof is the current IPS Board President. She is an IPS graduate, a parent, and an IPS advocate. She has initiated community engagement designed to reach more constituents. She has worked diligently to make sure there is a great school for every student. She was part of a national search team to bring new leadership to IPS in the hiring of Dr. Lewis Ferebee. She has championed competitive pay and benefits for IPS teachers. Annie has ushered in a new era of transparency about the IPS budget and agenda items. She has advocated for increased autonomy at the school level where parents and community members and principals work together.
Samantha Adair White and Dr. Michale Brown are both incumbents and have both helped to bring the IPS Board and district a long way toward transparency and responsiveness to parents and community in the past 4 years (including the hiring of a new Superintendent Dr. Lewis Ferebee). Without their election, Annie Roof’s voice for public education will be lost especially since their opponents have been endorsed and funded by Stand for the Children and the Chamber of Commerce. If their opponents are elected, corporate reform candidates will control the majority of the Board and further privatizations would proceed very rapidly after the election, and Indianapolis will become another New Orleans or Chicago or Philadelphia, all cities where public education is under threat by privatizers.
Vote for your public schools tomorrow.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for posting. I reposted this on several facebook pages and asked Indy friends and family to vote accordingly. Indianapolis is so business oriented. I hope they don’t get snowed by the promise of business interests bettering their schools. It hasn’t worked ANYWHERE and it will not work in Indianapolis.
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As a former Indiana pubic school teacher, I am distressed at Indy Republicans’ endless war on public schools, even backed by the state supreme court.
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@Edd, the current war for IPS Board seats is neither a Republican nor a Democrat battle. It’s a nonpartisan war funded and waged by outside interests including non-profits, foundations, and the captains of Wall Street who are intent on a coup, a takeover of an urban public school district, whereby they will profit financially off the misery of those living in inner-city poverty. Do not be fooled by any party label in this ugly situation. When three candidates for a school board election receive campaign donations ranging from $50K to $70K+ from donors running the gamut of political ideology between Michael Bloomberg and Mark Nunnelly, recently retired General Manager of Bain Capital (think Mitt Romney), then please know the deep-pocketed donors have expectations, not necessarily for the students, but rather for financial gain.
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The sleazy stealth buying of public education is happening all over the country, not just in evidence in California’s Torlakson-Tuck race (or in the Indiana races described above).
For example, check out this report from Minnesota:
It’s a great bit from Edushyster’s interview with Minnesota’s investigative reporter Sarah Lahm.
http://edushyster.com/?p=5929#more-5929
Lahm disclosed the fact—just prior to today’s elections—that privatizing billionaires are behind a huge dump of money to two candidates, and whose group has the innoccuous name…
“Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund”…
(Think “PARENTS AND TEACHERS FOR TUCK”.. which is anything but, and whose ranks contain no parents or teachers, but out-of-state billionaires and millionaires)
This group is dropping cash for “corporate reform” candidates out to privatize Minnesota’s public schools.
It’s exactly what happened with the Torlakson-Tuck race out here in California.
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SARAH LAHM:
“If you listen to the Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund, which seemed to sprout out of nowhere in order to support particular school board candidates, these well-heeled individuals are interested in *investing* in Minneapolis. The Fund, by the way, is going all out to support two candidates: Don Samuels and Iris Altamirano because of their commitment to *equity and excellence* and the *transparency of district leadership.*
“We’ll find out tomorrow if $200,000 is enough to seal the deal, and we may find out at some point if this billionaire-backed fund can survive the bit of hot water it’s gotten itself into. Seems there was a reporting discrepancy on their end…
http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/281082332.html
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STAR TRIBUNE: “Daniel Sellers, listed as chair of the Minneapolis Progressive Education Fund, admits that his group erred in not filing its campaign registration within the 14-day window required after raising or spending $100.
“Sellers said Friday that the failure to file on time was an honest mistake, and that as soon as he discovered the omission he was at the county election office with the required filing the following Monday.
“But the failure to file meant that campaign material was already appearing in mailboxes across Minneapolis from a group listed on the mailer but not on file with the county. It’s not as if the fund’s officers had no experience with campaigns and filing requirements; treasurer Seth Kirk chaired the campaign committee for the 2012 re-election campaign of board member Carla Bates.”
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SARAH LAHM: “… which means no one knew Bloomberg, Rock, and Sackler, aka The Billionaires with Big Hearts, were involved in the Minneapolis School Board race until the last possible moment. Whoops. Even Funds with lots of funds make mistakes, I guess.”
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Here’s another good excerpt from Edushyster’s interview with Lahm that gives the overall picture or privatization and the public being taken unawares, or simply not wanting to know about school privatization: (CAPS on the quote from Sarah are mine, JACK)
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SARAH LAHM: ” … there’s been such a tremendous lack of investigation and analysis of education in Minneapolis for so long. There are definitely some people who’ve been really upset and offended by what I’ve been writing about. Lots of assumptions and allegations have been thrown my way, which I can mostly laugh about. I was just linked to the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss, for example, because apparently we both go after people who *just want change.* ”
EDUSHYSTER: “Are there particular issues you’ve raised that people are unhappy about?”
SARAH LAHM: “I THINK PEOPLE HAVE A HARD TIME GRASPING THE CONCEPT THAT OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE BEING PRIVATIZED. They don’t see it, they don’t want to see it, they call it a conspiracy. The notion that people who are investing money in our schools may not have completely altruistic motives, that they may actually have a business goal, that seems very offensive to some, especially people who’ve really hitched their wagons to charter schools as the solution to all of our problems.”
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Your distance from the subject seems to be clouding your judgement and the facts about this very important race. The current IPS board is dysfunctional (see recent rescind of the Teach Plus contract they voted in favor of just a short time ago). Annie Roof and Samantha White have also abused their positions for personal vendettas against IPS principals, enlisting unwitting parents to accomplish it – recent Facebook post confessions by said parents have been removed from the school timeline page unfortunately, but the facts remain disturbing. Not all candidates favor the reforms that you blanket across all of them. in fact, some have clearly stated the opposite and favor more autonomy for individual schools, principals and teachers. It would be helpful for you to learn the facts before making claims that put my IPS attending childrens’ future at risk of continued mediocrity by leadership that is short sighted and uninspired.
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@Victor, you’ve not witnessed a personal vendetta unless you were under contract with IPS during former Board member Bentley’s and former Supt Eugene White’s tenure. Both were control-freak bullies; both appeared to thrive on throwing their weight around, literally and figuratively. I was there. IPS does not need another bull-dozer like Bentley in ANY position.
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Diane, thank you.
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