A Republican Legislator has proposed turning over the Muncie School District to Ball State University and allowing the University to replace the elected board with an appointed one of its choosing. Muncie currently has a large deficit and an emergency manager. The state has starved the schools of adequate funding.
“During a hearing on Thursday, Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Portage, questioned the bill’s author, Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, and the university president about a provision that would exclude a BSU-run MCS from having to follow numerous education laws.
“The bill would allow BSU to govern financially distressed MCS effective July 1 by appointing a new seven-member school board to replace the current five-member elected school board.
“There is a list four pages long, Tallian said, of “a huge part” of the Title 20 education code that the school district would not be required to follow, such as collective bargaining rights for teachers, health insurance, “the entire body of the school transportation law,” accreditation, equal education opportunity, teacher licensing, “the whole body of law about school curriculum” and data reporting.”
Ball State’s record running charter schools is unimpressive, although it’s lab school has high ratings.
“A laboratory school is a school run by a university, like Ball State’s highly rated Burris Laboratory School, which has much less poverty among students and many fewer minority students than the city school district.
“Unlike teachers in Indiana’s traditional public schools, Burris teachers lack collective bargaining rights. Charter schools are not required to participate in collective bargaining with teachers, either.
“A charter school is a public school operating under a contract, or charter, between the school’s organizers and a charter school authorizer, such as BSU, which oversees but doesn’t manage more than two dozen charter schools around the state, nearly half of which are rated D or F.”
So Ball State runs a successful elite school on campus but nearly half its charters are rated D or F.
The people of Muncie are divided about whether this is a good idea.
Ball State thinks it will burnish the university’s reputation. The heads of businesses and law firm like it. Legislators say “it’s a done deal.”
This is how democracy dies. One step at a time.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Someone should look into the university authorizers.
In Michigan they pick up a percentage of K-12 dollars every time they open a new charter.
Ed reformers portray all public school supporters as “self interested”- why doesn’t this “self interest” apply to ed reform?
How much revenue do colleges and universities generate by pulling in K-12 dollars?
Why do colleges that are hundreds of miles from Detroit skim Detroit K-12 dollars as “authorizers” and what value do they return to Detroit public school children in return for the cut they’re taking?
Can we see the books? What, exactly and specifically, does Ball State do to earn a cut of charter school funding?
I feel as if this is off-limits for discussion because universities and colleges are so dominant in the ed reform “movement” and there’s an entire ed reform lobby who are employed at colleges and universities.
The growing enthusiasm to jump in and profit from educational tax dollars is found right there up front: “In Michigan they pick up a percentage of K-12 dollars every time they open a new charter.” DOLLARS which will not be taken out of opportunists’ pockets and paid back to taxpayers if/when charters close down.
Maybe Ball State should focus less on appropriating public schools and more on their own students:
“In-State Tuition: $9,498 USD
Noticeably more expensive than other bottom tier public institutions in the country.
Out-of-State Tuition: $25,016 USD
Considerably more expensive than other bottom tier public institutions in the country.”
Here’s a question I have. Should K-12 public schools really look to the higher education system as a model?
The higher education system has some big problems. Is that what we want? A K-12 system that looks like our unaffordable and grossly inequitable higher ed system?
What happened to cleaning up your own side of the street before moving into a new sector?
Chiara: Thanks for the information. I’m totally disgusted with living in Indiana..the state that brags about having a budget. I live here because I’m retired from teaching and it is cheaper than Illinois. I live an hour from downtown Chicago.
This is more of what we have come to expect from privatization. The authorizer oversees, but does not manage the school. They should have to define what they actually do for their slice of public cash. The second issue is that laboratory schools are different from regular charters, and it is another opportunity to create separate and unequal schools. The laboratory schools are mostly for the middle class, ie. white, and the regular charters are for the poor, ie mostly minority. I hope the people of Muncie find this ranking and sorting offensive and unfair.
Ripofflichens think that communities are a communist plot …
Not knowing all the facts I’m hesitant to comment, but, and there is always a but, I’m surprised the faculty of Ball State would go along with the destruction of collective bargaining, and of the elimination of one of the necessary institutions to ensure our democracy: public education. Jefferson believed in “the natural aristocracy” and believed that education was the key to preserving this group of individuals. …”there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents…There is also an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents…”
I don’t know why you’re surprised.
Michigan colleges and universities enthusiastically support privatization of public schools and those who authorize charters get a share of every charter dollar.
Ohio State (shamefully) promoted the same garbage ed tech program that ECOT used. They endorsed cheap ed tech crap being shoved into public schools- used their good name within the to promote it.
Universities and colleges have a huge role in this. Many times they are actively undermining K-12 public schools.
It needs to be discussed. We need an honest conversation about the extent that colleges and universities have been captured by this “movement” and whether this zeal for privatization they have should be funded by public dollars.
Perhaps colleges and universities could work on some of their own failings- the FACT that they are unaffordable to ordinary people and no longer serve the public who fund them.
Ball State has a teacher’s college.
I guess they’re more than happy to load up 22 year old new teachers with student loan debt while actively working against those same teachers who want a decent salary and basic collective bargaining rights.
If we wait for colleges and universities to address their role in all this we’re going to be waiting a long time. They won’t and they set the terms of the “debate”.