Trine University came to the rescue eight years ago when Thea Bowman Leadership Academy was in danger of losing its charter and being shut down. Now Trine has revoked the Gary, Indiana, school’s charter, citing academic and governance issues. But another private institution, Calumet College of St. Joseph, has stepped up. “It’s funny how things have come full circle,” said Lindsay Omlor, executive director of Education One, Trine’s charter-school-authorizing office. Today’s topic is authorizer shopping, what happens when charter schools jump from one authorizer to another to stay open or find a ..read more

The reformers who turned New Orleans’ public education system over to charter schools succeeded in their primary objective of improving the schools’ academic performance, but the gains came at a cost to community and to democracy. That’s the message I take from “Charter School City,” economist Douglas N. Harris’s clear and even-handed analysis of the revolution that reshaped New Orleans’ schools.  Were the test-score gains worth it? That debate seems to be ongoing in the city. The basics of what happened are familiar to anyone who follows national education news. When Hurricane Katrina h ..read more

The 2024 session of the Indiana General Assembly came to an end last week. How much harm did lawmakers do to public schools and their students? Not as much as they might have: It was a short session, after all. But they did enough. The big education measure was Senate Bill 1, the “reading skills” bill. Its key feature is requiring third-graders to be retained if they don’t pass the IREAD-3 exam, with narrow exceptions for some special-education students, English learners and students who have been previously held back. Everyone agrees that learning to read is essential; good for legislators fo ..read more

There’s an unwritten rule at the Indiana Statehouse that you don’t pass laws to interfere with litigation that’s working its way through the courts. But rules can be ignored at the whim of the legislature’s majority, and it seems to be happening more and more. The most egregious example is House Bill 1235, which says that only state government – not cities, towns or counties – can bring lawsuits against the firearms industry. It’s an effort to kneecap a lawsuit that the city of Gary has been waging for nearly 25 years. Indiana Statehouse “HB 1235 is unprecedented in its reach and brazenness ..read more

The term school choice usually refers to charter schools and private-school vouchers. In Indiana, the biggest choice program remains “public school choice,” students attending a public school in a district other than the one in which they live. More than 88,000 Hoosier students crossed district lines to attend a public school in fall 2023, according to the Indiana Department of Education public corporation transfer report. That compares with nearly 69,000 who received state-funded private school vouchers and 47,000 who attended charter schools. Most school corporations have accepted cross-dist ..read more

Indiana legislators voted last year to make school districts share referendum funding with charter schools but limited the law to four counties: Lake, Marion, St. Joseph and Vanderburgh. Now they are poised to expand the requirement statewide. Senate Bill 270, approved Tuesday by the state Senate, would require all school districts to share revenue from operating referendums approved after May 10, 2024. The funds would be shared, on a dollar-per-pupil basis, with charter schools attended by students who live in the districts. There’s a trade-off. School districts that share referendum funding ..read more

Indiana legislators seem determined to roll back regulations that protect children from exploitative work conditions, even if it means clashing with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. One anti-regulatory bill, House Bill 1093, has been approved by the House and sent to the Senate. Another, Senate Bill 146, is up for second-reading amendments in the Senate today. Both measures would significantly ease restrictions on the hours that minors can work in Indiana. Indiana Statehouse They mark a turning away from a 100-year commitment by state and federal governments to protecting children and ena ..read more

The other shoe has finally dropped. Federal authorities indicted the founder of two Indiana virtual charter schools and two of his associates on criminal charges. The indictment alleges they defrauded the state of at least $44 million. We’ve been waiting for this news. A February 2020 report from the State Board of Accounts alleged widespread wrongdoing by Indiana Virtual School, Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy and their operators. It said the findings had been referred to criminal agencies “due to potential violations of state and federal law.” The indictment, filed last week, focuses on Tho ..read more

A new analysis of so-called learning loss in Indiana schools tells a familiar story: Students in high-poverty schools have seen the biggest declines in test scores since the COVID-19 pandemic. Ball State economist Michael Hicks cuts to the chase in a summary of the findings on X (formerly Twitter): “It is poverty folks, plain and simple, that is driving levels of learning loss,” he writes. The study, “School Learning Loss in the Post-COVID Environment, was produced by Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research. Authors are Hicks, a distinguished professor and the center ..read more

Remember the controversy over two virtual charter schools and Indiana’s attempt to claw back up to $154 million in state funds that the schools allegedly misspent? It’s still rolling along, and it doesn’t look like the case will be resolved any time soon. The latest development came last week, when a Hamilton County judge denied a set of motions from the Indiana attorney general’s office. The office had asked the judge to rule that defendants – the virtual schools, their operators and associated businesses – had failed to properly comply with an order to hand over documents related to the case ..read more