So-called reformers continue to pursue a fantasy: they believe that changing the governance of public schools will lead to improvement in the education of children.
And so they advocate for mayoral control, state takeovers, charter schools, vouchers.
They choose to ignore the overwhelming consensus among education researchers that the home lives of children has a far greater impact on children’s school performance than the governing structure.
Here is a case in point, offered by In the Public Interest.
If you’re worried about corporations taking over public schools, this next sentence will not allay your worry: The state of Indiana just turned over much of the responsibilities for the city of Indianapolis’ schools–public and charter–to something called the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation (IPEC).
“This new organization will be charged with building and transportation management for both charter and traditional public schools,” reports Governing. “It will also be charged with creating a single set of evaluation criteria for both types of schools.”
Admittedly, it’s a nonprofit corporation and its nine board members are appointed by the mayor with statutes to determine the corporate board’s membership: three come from the Indianapolis Public Schools [IPS] board of commissioners–which still exists, three from the charter school industry, and three with administrative and financial expertise.
In reality, however, four board members are from the charter industry. Its board chairman is David Harris, who founded the Mind Trust-Indianapolis, the driving force pushing the charterization of the district. Harris is the President and CEO of Christal House International that operates the Christal House Academy charter chain. According to the organization’s 990 tax form, in 2025, Harris received $554,148 in compensation.
But IPEC inserts a layer of control and bureaucracy beyond–or, better put, around–Indianapolis’ elected school board. At least as troubling as that is the fact IPEC was given the authority to levy property taxes that it can use to fund–with public money–charter schools. This puts charter schools on equal footing–and funding–with public schools–a dangerous precedent that is certain to be attempted elsewhere.
One of IPEC’s first orders of business is likely to be placing on the November ballot an operating referendum since IPS’ expires at the end of this year. While Indianapolis Public Schools expects a $40 million deficit for the year, that might have been addressed if IPS’s attempt to place an operating referendum on the 2023 ballot hadn’t been derailed by the charter school industry and the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.
For public school advocates, the implications of the new, non-elected board are clear–and disturbing.
“What is occurring in Indianapolis is part of a growing movement to destroy the neighborhood school governed by the community and replace it with a corporate vision of schooling that sees the marketplace and competition as the primary drivers of quality,” Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, tells In the Public Interest. “We are now more than thirty years into the charter school experiment, and we have yet to see the miracle.”
Jeff Hagan
Communications Director
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The rush to privatization is unending. The power of groups like the Mind Trust goes on and on. Public schools serve are accessible to all children. Public schools are required to serve our children’s needs and protect their civil rights.
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The Mind Trust is an corporate group designed to give the illusion of fairness, but it is a rigged group that is mostly about usurping the school board’s power over education and its funding. Like so many of these schemes it is a group that is interested in transferring funds away from public schools and sending it to profiteers, and business people are generally seeking opportunities for profit. Community members should investigate if there are any grounds to sue this group based on laws or the state constitution.
I found a very good opinion piece from a group called Mad Voters in Indianapolis. The author looks at all the problems associated with so-called choice, its inherent racism and disregard it shows toward poor families. It’s worth reading as it gives the reader some insights into what is happening in the city and its impact on families with children. https://www.madvoters.org/post/the-mind-trust-exploits-black-brown-students-in-indianapolis-education-fight
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I see that the mayor backing this plan—and appointing a board with a charter majority—is a Democrat, Joe Hogsett. That reminds me of what happened in Chicago under Rahm Emanuel, when the district privatized janitorial services in the name of efficiency. It was a mess, literally.
Modest savings from privatization come from cutting wages and benefits.
At a time when automation and AI are already threatening stable employment, public institutions should be protecting and sustaining good, middle-class jobs—not replacing them with lower-wage alternatives under the banner of reform.
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Most privatization rarely results in modest savings when corporation corral public funds. They always try to get a bigger piece of the pie while they engage in shady ways to grab more funds. Medicare Advantage was presented as a cost savings plan. It has become a snake pit of abuse by refusing to treat costly patients and upcoding (saying people are sicker than they are) patients’ conditions to grab more funds from Medicare. https://cepr.net/publications/medicare-advantage-myth-busting/
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