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 (h91@iga.in.gov), Jordan (h17@iga.in.gov), Carbaugh (h81@iga.in.gov), Clere (h72@iga.in.gov), Cook (h32@iga.in.gov), Davis (h58@iga.in.gov), Goodrich (h29@iga.in.gov), Teshka (h7@iga.in.gov), Thompson (h28@iga.in.gov)
Democrat Representatives Smith (h14@iga.in.gov), DeLaney (h86@iga.in.gov), Klinker (h27@iga.in.gov), Pfaff (h43@iga.in.gov)

Here are all the addresses together if you want to cut and paste:
h91@iga.in.gov, h17@iga.in.gov, h81@iga.in.gov, h72@iga.in.gov, h32@iga.in.gov, h58@iga.in.gov, h29@iga.in.gov, h7@iga.in.gov, h28@iga.in.gov, h14@iga.in.gov,  h86@iga.in.gov, h27@iga.in.gov, h43@iga.in.gov

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

On January 20, 2021, Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County, Indiana Coalition for Public Education, Northwest Indiana Coalition for Public Education, and Northeast Indiana  Friends of Public Education collectively sent a letter to Governor Holcomb and Dr. Box. There are  a number of benefits to prioritizing teachers in the vaccine schedule. One of the most important is that it would show that the State of Indiana values teachers and their safety. 

You can read the full letter below. If you click on the letter, it will allow you to download a PDF that is more legible. 

Now we can divide the year into a clear “before” and “after.” In the before—that stretch of time from January through early March—we met in person. We held a well-attended event about the struggle for school desegregation with historian Elizabeth Mitchell and education professor Stephanie Power-Carter at the site of Bloomington's first segregated school. A friend opened her house to us on a few Sundays so that we could write letters to legislators together. And some members attended the annual Rally at the Statehouse on President's Day. 

In mid-March, that all changed, and like everyone else, we had to approach our work very differently. We met on Zoom and tried to get our bearings. And we did. We accomplished a lot in 2020—despite having a chair who was obsessively checking covid numbers every night.

ICPE–Monroe County members worked on several creative and collaborative projects this past year. 

1. First, Phil and Joan Harris are working on a documentary about so-called “school choice” in Indiana. They have interviewed legislators, researchers, State Superintendent Jennifer McCormick, and teachers, parents, and students. ICPE–Monroe County is proud to support this documentary and we very much look forward to its release in 2021. 
2. The second project is a podcast, School's IN. With some of our normal avenues of communication cut off, our board member Charlie Savage encouraged us to start a podcast. I’m thrilled to say that a fantastic volunteer, freelance writer and audio producer Jen Richler, has spearheaded this project. (One of her recent publications has resonated this year.) The first set of pieces will be about various public schools in Monroe County and what makes them great. We already have an episode out featuring Templeton Elementary.
3. The third collaboration was with a class at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Our board members Tom Duffy and Byron Turner, and our former board member Deborah Myerson, consulted with a class at O’Neill. The class project was to answer several questions: Given the wide range of demographics served by different elementary schools here, would it benefit students to redistrict the MCCSC elementary catchment zones? Is it politically feasible, and could it be done so as to bring greater balance of income and race within the schools? The students did an amazing job with this challenging task, and we want to make their research and recommendations available. Please look for us to be sharing this soon.​

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.