When you accept a chunk of someone else's money, there is often a motive or a favor owed. Don Corleone comes to mind: "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

What favors do some IPS school board members and Indiana legislators owe?

Long overdue, here is all. the. money received during the 2020 election from wealthy folks who support the privatization of public education. You can read part 1 and part 2 here. 

Do these elected officials work for their communities or their donors? Most of us are aware that many of these legislators (all these folks in this list below are Republicans) would have been elected without this money because Indiana is a conservative state. 

The spending of large amounts in city school board races is new but not too new. And some donations are so large, that it makes a $25 donation from someone who has a legitimate stake in the game—a parent with children in the district—seem insignificant.  

Also, the fact that this money appears to come mostly from out of state and then gets sent right back out is sad. Is this democracy? Is this representing you and your neighbors? Is this the only way to get change in IPS? And what change is that? Whose change is that? Is that Reed Hastings change? He doesn't believe in elected school boards last we read. And he founded a company that is a disruptor. How do kids and communities handle disruption? 

Folks like Reid Hastings and Alice Walton may believe they are doing good. These donations are a fraction of what they are personally worth. It's like you and me donating $20 to a campaign. They may not fully realize the ripple effect. Or maybe they might. 

At the end of the day, you have to wonder what favors do these elected officials— legislators, school board members—owe and to whom?

Will this lead to the further privatization of public education masked under the guise of "choice"? Well, it seems like that was a success this past legislative session based on the American Federation for Children, the Wall Street Journal, and Jeb Bush. 

And if legislators were so successful in pushing more policy that supports the privatization of public education following their landslide win in 2020, what's on the to-do list for IPS board members? Will this lead to the privatization of IPS? 

Well over $1.5 million was spent in the name of education privatization in the 2020 election in Indiana. It's a drop compared to the giant, leaky bucket of tuition support funding in Indiana. But these elected decision makers will have control over how tax dollars are used.   

Read more on this matter:

"Indianapolis Public Schools for Sale" 
"Dark Money Clouds IPS Election"
"Why Is There So Much Money Fighting in the IPS School Board Race"
"IPS School Board Race Election Results"

–Keri Miksza

P.S. If you have yet to see the documentary Indiana's Choice, please take the time to do so. It is related to the above. And save the dates:

May 10th at 6pm on "Bring It On" on 91.3 WFHB, contributors to the film and members of ICPE will discuss Indiana's Choice. "Bring It On" is Indiana’s only weekly radio program committed to exploring the people, issues and events impacting the African-American community. It is also available on Apple Podcasts,  

May 19th at 7pm there will a film panel discussion on Zoom sponsored by a host of organizations. Stay tuned for more information. 

Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County (ICPE–Monroe County) advocates for all children to have high quality, equitable, well-funded schools that are subject to democratic oversight by their communities.

​We are a nonpartisan and nonprofit group of parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, and other community members of Monroe County and surrounding areas.

Every crisis is an opportunity…for profiteers and privatizers.

During the pandemic, the demands on our public schools have multiplied. Public schools throughout Indiana are now supplying both in-person and online instruction. Teachers are stretched thin as they teach in-person and online students and adjust their curricula accordingly. Administrators are working around the clock helping school nurses contact-trace on top of their normal duties. School bus drivers are doubling up their routes in order to carry fewer students at a time. Districts are spending to improve their HVAC systems. School social workers are trying to track down and provide services to the students who have gone missing even as they give more assistance to the students who are present but whose parents have lost jobs and livelihoods.

In other words, our public schools need more resources—they need more money—to be able to answer the depth of need in our communities. Yet due to Indiana’s funding model, which relies on per-student tuition support, public schools are already expecting lower revenue; in the pandemic, some students have disappeared, and many families have delayed kindergarten entrance.

Let’s be clear: Public schools are the only schools that are legally obligated to educate and serve each and every child regardless of disability status, religion, or family income. We require our public schools to make or find the capacity to serve every child.

Even before the pandemic, the fiscal situation for public schools was grim:

1. Teacher salaries in Indiana were last in the country for salary growth between 2002 and 2017; teachers here make less than they do in all the surrounding states.
2. Teachers routinely pay out of pocket to decorate their classrooms and buy essential supplies.
3. The state of Indiana does not pay textbook costs. It expects school districts to pass those costs along to families.

That sound you hear is the slow sweep of vultures’ wings. The chair of the Indiana House Education Committee, Robert Behning, has introduced a bill, HB 1005, that would give more state education dollars to parents who can already afford private school tuition. It would lift the family income cap for a family of four to $145,000 in 2023 (already, families of four earning up to $96,000 qualify for a 50% voucher) and remove the income tiers within the program so that all eligible families can receive a 90% voucher. This expansion would come at a high cost to taxpayers. Read Vic’s Statehouse Notes #348 to learn more about the fiscal impact.

Were you paying $15,765 per child to send your two kids to Cathedral High School? No problem. The state of Indiana can pitch in. Or $21,795 for your junior at the International School of Indiana? If HB 1005 passes, the state of Indiana has your back.

Educating children well is expensive, and the expense is worth it. But there’s a difference in how money is stewarded. When public money goes to public schools, it’s like investing in our community parks or city fire departments. The investments we make in infrastructure and personnel benefit the whole community for generations. When we send state money to private schools, the money may benefit individual families, but the costs disappear into a private world…a gated community, accessible only according to the values and capability of the school leadership, unaccountable to the whole.

And while money follows children into private schools, their rights do not. Private schools don’t need to serve students with disabilities, or LGBTQ families, or families with different belief systems; they can fire their gay married employees, as Roncalli and Cathedral did at the behest of their Archdiocese; they don't need to adhere to state curriculum requirements.

Vouchers in Indiana are enabling white flight, just like the segregation academies that are their antecedents. Private schools' student bodies may be much whiter than the communities in which they are located. Roncalli High School in Indianapolis has just 7 Black students this year in a school population of 1062. (Nearby public high schools in Southport and Beech Grove have 213 Black students out of 2,326 and 126 of 1005, respectively.) Even with the current voucher income limit, Roncalli received $1.8 million dollars in voucher money in 2019-20.

There’s time to stop this bill, but it will take many voices. Email the House Education Committee (addresses are below). You can use the talking points ICPE has compiled. Do it today or tomorrow. The committee meets Wednesday. If you are on fire, consider signing up to testify in person at the committee meeting in Indianapolis on Wednesday. Rumor has it that privatization/school choice advocates will be there in force.
 
Jenny Robinson and Keri Miksza
 
P.S. Guess what? There’s an even worse part of HB 1005, a foot in the door for the blandly named “Education Savings Accounts,” which are like vouchers on steroids. More about that in another post.

PPS. Contact Indiana’s House Education Committee to oppose HB 1005:

Republican Representatives Behning ([email protected]), Jordan ([email protected]), Carbaugh ([email protected]), Clere ([email protected]), Cook ([email protected]), Davis ([email protected]), Goodrich ([email protected]), Teshka ([email protected]), Thompson ([email protected])
Democrat Representatives Smith ([email protected]), DeLaney ([email protected]), Klinker ([email protected]), Pfaff ([email protected])

Here are all the addresses together if you want to cut and paste:
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],  [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

And Indiana PTA has created a quick form letter that allows you to send a quick email. 

As promised, we have been updating the list below as we make our way through this election season. The next report will happen after the election as that is how the filing deadlines work. 

But we're closing in on $1 million from privatizers to our state candidates in one way or another (I mean, we've got PACs giving to PACs). 

To catch yourselves up, read this blog entry first. 

A few things to dig in on in this post: Hoosiers for Great Public Schools, Reed Hastings, John Arnold, and RISE Indy. But first, the chart. 

Recall from the previous post, Hoosiers for Great Public Schools is "a PAC created by former mayor of Indianapolis, Bart Peterson in May 2020. Bart Peterson is currently president and CEO of Christel House International. PAC was registered by Caryl Auslander on April 30, 2020. She is director of Advanced Energy Economy. Her consulting firm is Torchbearer Public Affairs. She was formerly vice president of Education and Workforce Development Policy, and Federal Relations for the Indiana Chamber." 

They only have two major donors (so far) totaling $400,000: Reed Hastings (Netflix) and John Arnold (turned his Enron millions into billions as a hedge fund manager). The PAC has dished out $451,000 so far this election cycle, with $200,000 going to another newbie PAC called RISE Indy. 

Per the Indianapolis Recorder, RISE Indy is a PAC that wants to "bypass controversy." Well, it didn't take too long to get controversial and the article highlighted why. Its board of directors include Al Hubbard (recall him from the last post) and Bart Peterson (who created the PAC Hoosiers for Great Public Schools). A quick search of contributions shows that Hoosiers for Great Public Schools PAC gave $200,000 of money (from Reed Hastings and John Arnold) to the RISE Indy PAC. In addiction Alice Walton has donated $200,000. Yes, that's on top of the $225,000 she has donated to Hoosiers for Quality Education PAC. And Mike Bloomberg donated $100,000 as well. In total RISE Indy has almost $700,000 in its coffers. 

And if you're wondering what Great Public Schools for Indy is in the table below, that organization shares the same address as RISE Indy, and its registered agent is Jasmin Shaheed-Young, the founder and CEO of that group (and formerly the VP of a national real estate and construction company). 

Where is this money going? Some is going to candidates running in the IPS school board race. Yes. School board races are being funded by PAC money to the tune of over $200,000. ​RISE Indy alone has contributed $100,000 so far to school board candidates. (You can do your own digging here.) 

For more on this matter, read our state-level organization's blog post that speaks about the graphic below. 

Now for a bit of a yay for the people. ICPE–Monroe County took our yard sign donations and donated it to a PAC. A pro-public education PAC run by Indiana Coalition for Public Education--Hoosiers for Public Education. $1,800 is heading to honest-to-goodness pro-public education candidates that have been properly vetted and endorsed by the folks operating the PAC. ​No corporations were involved. No hedge funds either. And we hope to continue these donations because this fight to protect public education, our children, and public school teachers is never over. 

In the end, lots of money may not buy lots of votes. Being an educated voter is powerful. Unsure of who to vote for? Check out the endorsements from Hoosiers for Public Education.

Join us.
Donate.
Vote for Public Education. 

- Keri Miksza

Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County (ICPE–Monroe County) advocates for all children to have high quality, equitable, well-funded schools that are subject to democratic oversight by their communities.

​We are a nonpartisan and nonprofit group of parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, and other community members of Monroe County and surrounding areas.

If you are interested to see what big names are donating money to candidates or state-level PACs, you can search the following names in the “contributor” field.

• DeVos - Betsy and Dick DeVos are billionaire heirs to the Amway. They are proponents for school choice. They have financially supported the American Federation for Children, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the Alliance for School Choice.
• Fred Klipsch - Founder of speaker company Klipsch. He is an advocate for school choice and has served on the Board of Directors of EdChoice (Indiana-based nonprofit devoted to the privatization of schools through the promotion of an educational voucher system, founded by Milton Freeman). He founded pro–school privatization PAC, Hoosiers for Quality Education. Close friends with Betsy DeVos. 
• American Federation for Children - Pro–school privatization group. Supports school choice, vouchers and tax credits. Helps ALEC create model school privatization legislation. The group was organized and funded by the billionaire DeVos family. Betsy DeVos was chairman until she became the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. 
• Oberndorf - William and Susan Oberdorf are billionaire supporters of school choice. William Oberndof succeeded Betsy DeVos as chairman of the American Federation for Children.
• Walton - The family that owns Wal-Mart, has a foundation (Walton Family Foundation) that advocates and donates to education reform efforts. The foundation has supported the charter school movement. Billionaire Alice Walton makes her own personal donations and has done so to American Federation for Children and Hoosiers for Quality Education over the past few years. 
• K12  - A for-profit online education company. The company was started with $10 million from convicted junk-bond king Michael Milken and $30 million more from other Wall Street investors. It is a member of ALEC and lobbies for virtual education. It generates large annual revenues at the expense of taxpayers. In 2019 it generated over $1 billion in revenue. 10.7% increase from the previous year. K12 operates multiple schools and online programs in Indiana. 
• Allan Hubbard -  Assistant to President George W. Bush for Economic Policy and former Indiana Republican Party chairman, who played a role in major 2011 education reform legislation in Indiana. He has supported efforts by Indianapolis Public Schools to partner with charter schools and outside groups to open new school models or turnaround failing schools. Hubbard donated to school board candidates who back this reform.
• Red Apple Development - Develops and manages the facilities operated by Charter Schools, USA. Makes money buying, selling, and building charter schools. Based in Florida. 
• ​Christel DeHaan - Former owner of RCI (timeshares) and founder of Christel House, she was a school privatization supporter. When her charter school received a C in 2012 under the state’s new grading formula, the former state superintendent, Tony Bennett, scrambled to make the grade an A. 
• Charter Schools USA - For-profit management organization based in Florida that manages schools in Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, and North Carolina. It managed three schools in Indianapolis until last year when IPS cut ties and the state did not renew the contracts. While it was against IPS policy to work with for-profit operators, the three schools were under state takeover and the state chose Charter Schools USA as manager.  
• Hoosiers for Great Public Schools - A PAC created by former mayor of Indianapolis, Bart Peterson. Bart Peterson is currently president and CEO of Christel House International. PAC was registered by Caryl Auslander on April 30, 2020. She is director of Advanced Energy Economy. Her consulting firm is Torchbearer Public Affairs. She was formerly vice president of Education and Workforce Development Policy, and Federal Relations for the Indiana Chamber. 
• ​Hoosiers for Quality Education - is an education reform PAC founded by businessman Fred Klipsch. It is the political arm of the Institute for Quality Education and is formerly known as Hoosiers for Economic Growth. It supports private school vouchers and charter school expansion.

​For example, here is a DeVos result, which suggests we should ask the question: Who have Indiana’s past three governors worked for?

And here is a more specific result using “Hoosiers for Quality Education” as the contributor and “Rogers” as the recipient. State Senator Rogers was the author of the controversial “share referendum dollars with charter schools” amendment in 2020 HEA 1065. $51,500 from Hoosiers for Quality Education is a significant amount for a legislator who has only been in office since 2018. See the second image above. You will see she is near the top in terms of campaign amounts received. Again, we should ask the question: Who does Linda Rogers work for? ​

As we citizens ask questions such as

• Why does our district need a referendums?
• Why do parents and caregivers have to pay for textbooks and technology out of pocket when this is not the case in almost every other state?
• Why is my local public school closing?
• Why hasn't the state recovered the millions of dollars from Indiana Virtual?
• Why is my child's class so large?
• Why doesn't my child's school have a nurse or librarian?
• Why does my child's curriculum feel test-driven?
• Why is there a teacher shortage? 
• Why is teacher pay behind surrounding states?

and so on, we all need to ask: Who do our elected government officials work for?

When you head to the voting booth or complete your ballot by mail, be sure to do your research. Be an educated voter and vote for public education.   


Sources: Brendan Fischer, “Former Indiana Superintendent, Lauded by ALEC and Education Privatizers, Cheats on School Grading Formula for Top Donor,” PR Watch, July 30, 2013, https://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/07/12198/former-indiana-superintendent-lauded-alec-and-education-privatizers-cheats-school; Wikipedia.com, Sourcewatch.com,  K12.com, accessed September 16, 2020 ; and Eric Weddle, “Indy’s Al Hubbard Bows Out of Consideration for No. 2 U.S. Education, Job,” WFYI.org, June 4, 2017, https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/indys-al-hubbard-bows-out-of-consideration-for-no-2-us-ed-job.