Shrinking Indianapolis Schools Could Be Dissolved, Turned Into Charters

The shrinking Indianapolis Public School system — and four other districts — will be dissolved and its 50 schools will become charters as part of an unprecedented proposal creating an uproar across the city and state.

A state bill introduced earlier this month comes as elected officials tackle an issue facing cities across the country: how to share state and property tax dollars between public schools that are losing students and charter schools that are gaining them.

The bill targets districts where so many students have left for charter and private schools that fewer than half remain in district schools.

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It would shut all five districts, including the Gary Community School Corporation near Chicago, by 2028. Schools would then be turned over to charter schools that would be overseen by new panels appointed by the governor, Indiana charter school boards and local officials.

If passed, experts say it would be an unprecedented action against a city school district, reaching far beyond temporary state takeovers — and even the reshaping of New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“It is sending a message to several school districts that things have to change,” said

State Rep. Robert Behning, chair of the house education committee where the bill will have its first hearings. “Status quo is not okay.”

Behning said the bill goes too far for his comfort, but it is forcing a discussion about how to better support charter and voucher schools that are popular in the state.

“It’s actually encouraging some districts to come up with strategies that could improve academic success for all students,” Behning said.

“I authored this legislation… to find solutions in districts where the current governance is failing its students,” said bill author Jake Teshka, a Republican from the South Bend area.

In Indianapolis, less than 40 percent of students attend schools run by the district. Enrollment fell by more than 900 students in the last year to about 20,000.

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Nearly 27,000 other Indianapolis students attend charter schools or Innovation Schools, an unusual group of independent schools the district helped create.

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The funding difference between traditional districts and charter schools is also driving the bill. A 2023 study found Indianapolis Public Schools spent $18,500 per student with the help of local property taxes, while charters spent roughly $10,600.

Bill author Jake Teshka, a Republican from the South Bend area, said it is unfair for parents that send children to charter schools to pay property taxes to the school district where charters receive little property tax money or transportation for students.

“Their property taxes are funding a school system they don’t attend,” he said in a written statement to The 74. “This is an important conversation to have.”

Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EDChoice, a national organization promoting charter schools and vouchers, praised the bill for calling attention to the “monopoly” districts have on property taxes even as their enrollments fall and charters grow.

“They’re only educating 30 percent of the kids, and they’re getting 100 percent of the dollars,” Enlow said. “There’s a dramatic and systemic problem with districts who can’t even attract one out of two of their students.”

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The proposal drew immediate protest from the Indianapolis school board, which said the bill “threatens local authority and community control of public schools.”

The Indiana State Teachers Association also opposes the bill.

“Rather than supporting schools and addressing critical issues like poverty and underfunding, House Bill 1136 would unfairly target districts based on student transfers,” union president Keith Gambill wrote.

The bill also has notable critics in the national charter community, who would prefer a more moderate way of providing charter and voucher schools more resources.

“It’s a bad idea, for several reasons,” said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which backs school choice. Petrilli said districts serving only about half of the students still serve a lot of them and a change can’t happen quickly.

He also said the bill could also bring an unintended backlash.

“Proposals like these give ammunition to opponents who argue that charters are out to destroy traditional public education,” he said. “That’s not what the vast majority of charter leaders and educators are trying to do. We want the public schools to respond to competition and get better.”

He added, however, “If policymakers wanted to force IPS and similar districts to close some of its under enrolled schools, that I would support.”

The National Association of Public Charter Schools directed questions to Scott Bess, a member of both the Association’s board and of the Indiana State Board of Education. Bess is also founder of the new Indiana Charter Innovation Center, which is seeking more resources for charter schools.

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Bess wants to find more ways to share property tax revenue, busing and school buildings with charter schools. He’d like to expand on two bills the state legislature passed in 2023 that require districts to share new property tax money – gains from both increased property values and from passing new taxes – with charters based on the percentage of students they serve.

“If a charter school has 10% of the students who live in that district, then they would get 10% of the proceeds,” Bess said.

He also wants the state to create a regional board as a pilot program to treat all charter, private and district schools in a region as common property, then allocate buildings and busing to operators as best serves students.. Such a plan would be similar to states that have countywide school districts that share all resources with charter schools, he said,

For such a board to work, districts and charters alike would have to give up control of buildings and money to the board. That could be a sticking point, Bess said.

“This is where everything gets complicated,” Bess said. “This is why no one has solved this issue across the country, because it’s really complicated.”

Several other local officials, including two former Indianapolis mayors, have joined the call to send more resources – cash, busing or buildings – to charters. In a letter to the Indianapolis Public Schools, they asked the district to share buildings and tax money and provide transportation for all public school students in the city.

“We call on IPS and legislative leaders to ensure all public school students within IPS boundaries are served by a system that uses its resources fairly and efficiently,” said the letter from former mayors Bart Peterson and Greg Ballard joined by four other current or former city and school officials.

Maggie Lewis, majority leader of the Indianapolis City-County Council and a signer of the letter, said she opposes the bill to close the district. She wants the school board to be part of a local plan to help charters, not one forced by the state. She also said that penalizing the district because it lost students to Innovation Schools it helped create sends the wrong message.

“For over two decades, Indianapolis has been known as a hotbed for education innovation,” the letter states. “Now it is time for Indianapolis leaders to ensure we sustain this progress through needed structural changes.”

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