BackgroundIn January 2020, a faculty member from the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs approached the Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County to see if we might be interested in being a “client” for a capstone course for master’s degree students. We were thrilled to participate and proposed three questions as possible areas for the students’ research. The O’Neill capstone team, led by Dr. Ashlyn Nelson, selected our most local and concrete question, which dealt with Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC) school attendance zone boundaries and their impact on segregation of students by race and income. The capstone team launched an examination of the MCCSC school catchment zones with two questions. (1) Are there significant differences across schools in the distribution of students by race or income? (2) If so, would it be practical and plausible for the school district to redraw these zones with the goal of achieving a more equitable demographic balance of students within our schools? They concluded their work in July and presented a report over Zoom to our board Sunday, July 26, 2020. How does the question of redrawing school catchment zones overlap with the ICPE–Monroe County mission? Our group’s vision is for all children to have high-quality, equitable, well-funded schools that are subject to democratic oversight by their communities. At their best, public schools bring students from myriad backgrounds together and provide environments where children get to know, respect, and learn along with others of diverse races, family incomes, religions, and worldviews. We believe that integration by income and race can help realize the full potential of our public schools. Schools’ standardized test scores mirror free and reduced lunch rates (a proxy for family income); this holds true across all school types, whether public, charter, or private voucher school. In Indiana, schools that serve low-income populations are routinely penalized for low test scores by the A-F system. Mixing student populations more by income has the potential to protect our schools and neighborhoods from the state’s punitive school grading system. The drawing of school attendance zones can only be undertaken by the school system itself, led by the superintendent and our elected school board (in consultation with experts/experienced consultants and the MCCSC community). The capstone report makes recommendations to ICPE–Monroe County, but we ask that when you read it you consider these as recommendations to the Monroe County Community School Corporation. Summary of the O'Neill capstone reportThe O’Neill capstone report begins with a summary of research supporting integration of schools by income and race (page 6 of the report):  The capstone project sought not only to evaluate the current school boundaries’ impact on equity but also to determine if alternative boundaries could be drawn to provide more equitable representation in each school. The team made extensive use of geographic information system (GIS) and census data. An examination of enrollments in MCCSC schools indicates high and middle schools are reasonably well balanced in terms of race and poverty. However, there is considerable disparity across the 13 elementary schools. The team found the percentage of black and Hispanic students ranged from 25% to 0% and the percentage of free or reduced lunch ranged from 84% to 9%. Importantly, it was not just one extreme school creating this wide range; rather, the schools are spread out along a continuum. The following charts are from page 8 of the capstone report.   With this disparity established, the team looked to explore alternative school boundary lines. They interviewed almost 20 citizens of Monroe County, including school board members, business leaders, representatives of organizations serving those in poverty, and individuals involved in the 2005 redrawing of the MCCSC boundaries. Some key groups of stakeholders were not among those interviewed: Due to delays in obtaining evidence of exempt status from Indiana University’s Institutional Review Board, the capstone team was not able to interview MCCSC administrators or teachers, and they were not able to make contact with students (because of FERPA) or PTO members. Overall, interviewees identified challenges the district would face in redrawing boundaries, but indicated the benefits would justify the effort. The team also looked to strategies used in other parts of the country to achieve equity. Using input from the interviewees and examples from the literature, the team used GIS and census data to examine alternative approaches to redrawing boundaries with an eye to bringing poverty rates and Black and Hispanic rates closer to the district average across schools. They proposed new boundary maps and compared the poverty rates and Black and Hispanic student rates with those in the current maps. Because of limitations in the data available to the capstone team, the team’s proposed new maps do not reflect accurately the poverty rates at the different schools, and therefore should not be perceived as a starting point for actual boundary proposals, but rather as indicative of a strategy for redrawing boundaries. The capstone team emphasized that MCCSC, should it embark on redistricting, would have access to all the relevant street-by-street student data. The model the capstone team recommends as most effective in producing equity is one in which some school boundaries are not contiguous. Allowing noncontiguity was a powerful tool that significantly increased the ability to achieve more economic and racial balance because the students receiving free and reduced lunch tend to live in concentrated locales. The team also examined transportation time, an issue identified by several interviewees, and found that the boundaries they proposed did not increase transportation times significantly for most students. Other political factors: How school choice changes the equation In Indiana, privatization efforts that were marketed to voters as “school choice” have defunded public schools and made it harder for them to undertake difficult tasks such as redrawing school attendance zones. State vouchers for private school tuition were introduced in 2011, and have been steadily expanded by the Indiana legislature ever since. Charter schools were also expanded in 2011 and garner increasing amounts of state funding. Legislation also allowed students to leave their own public school district for another (so-called “public-to-public transfer”). The choice environment casts families as consumers. They can turn away from the public school system to charter or voucher schools, or leave their own school district for another, and state tuition funds will follow them. The job of school boards is therefore more complicated than before. We now have two brick-and-mortar charter schools in Monroe County, as well as a number of online charter options, and seven local private schools accepting vouchers. School board members have to weigh the likely gains for students of school populations that are more equitably balanced by race and income with the potential fiscal impact (whose brunt would also be felt by students) of a redistricting process that could, at least in the short term, make some families unhappy and lead them to flee the public school system. Conclusion We share the O’Neill capstone report in the spirit of contributing to ongoing discussions regarding diversity and equity in MCCSC schools. We hope the thoughtful and methodical work by this team of talented master’s degree students can help spark a larger conversation about how we as a community can best address racial and economic disparities in our community schools’ populations. We believe the data they have gathered and analyzed to be powerful, and that they have made a strong case for the benefits and plausibility of redistricting school attendance boundaries with the goal of reducing those disparities across schools. At the same time, we recognize the challenge of a process such as redistricting amid the likelihood of funding shortfalls related to the pandemic and a state legislature that continues to find more ways to funnel taxpayer money out of the public school system and into private hands and privately managed schools. Any process undertaken by the school district would need to establish common ground and clear goals, and engage the full community so as to be understood broadly to be worthwhile and fair. NB: Please note that the report is the work of master’s students in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. We are grateful to them for their intense and valuable work. Any practical maps will need to be based on fuller, more specific data than what was available to the capstone team. P.S. Why did we wait until 2021 to share a report which was given to us in July 2020? As coronavirus cases mounted in July, the question of whether our schools should open in person during the pandemic was being contested and negotiated throughout the nation. Our community was no exception. Our school board members were besieged by heated demands from all sides. Our district was working around the clock to figure out the safest and most effective way to deliver both in-person and online instruction, and our group called on the state to issue science-based metrics and guidance for school districts. Once school started in early August (all online for about a month), parents were frantically trying to figure out how to use the technology to ensure that their kids were able to access their online classrooms. With MCCSC’s superintendent search put on hold by the pandemic, our long-serving superintendent had postponed her retirement in order to see our district through until they could complete the search. Additionally, a school board election was underway, and our group held two school board forums. We are all volunteers working with finite amounts of time. We wanted to present the report with adequate context in a more stable environment, both of pandemic understanding and of district leadership. 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.
As Indiana’s legislators look to make school vouchers for private school tuition accessible for even wealthier families, they are also considering another form of vouchers called “Education Scholarship Accounts” (ESAs). These would be equivalent to debit cards loaded annually with $5,000 to $7,000 (plus up to $9,100 for some special education students) that parents/guardians could spend on educational services in lieu of sending their kid(s) to a public school. House Bill 1005 would make ESAs available for special education students, foster students, and active military families, but just as voucher eligibility has been expanded over the years, we can expect the same for ESAs.
Here’s how ESAs grew in Arizona between 2012 and 2020: 
Source: EdChoice
While the ESA amount could be spent on private school tuition, it could also be used for therapy, transportation, school uniforms, and likely music lessons and sports camps. The language in HB 1005 is “qualified school, public school, or participating entity,” (p. 27, line 12), and the participating entities would be approved by the state treasurer. So what’s the hitch? If you are already homeschooling or paying private school tuition, free money probably sounds nice.
What are the problems with ESAs? 1. Diversion of funding from public school programs. Creating ESAs is like waving cash in front of families to incentivize them to leave their public schools. It also gives state money to families who were already homeschooling or already in private school. Removing money from public school programs will weaken the public schools and charter schools on which 94% of Indiana’s students depend. 2. High costs for à la carte education. As parents of high-need special ed students testified in education committee hearings (also here), the amount of funding the state proposes to provide through ESAs would be insufficient to purchase comprehensive services in the private education marketplace. Some children receive full-time one-on-one aides in public school, for instance, because public schools are required to provide a free appropriate public education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Private schools have no such responsibility, and neither would a for-profit or nonprofit “participating entity.” Private entities could pocket state funds without fully meeting kids' needs, while public schools, which already don't get enough money for special education*, would be expected to provide full services with less. 
Source (for average public school special ed expenses per pupil): Center on Reinventing Public Education report, “Ensuring All Students in Indiana Receive Their Fair Share of Funding.”
3. Lack of oversight. The program would be overseen by the state treasurer rather than the Indiana Department of Education, and the bill expressly forbids government regulation of the schools/entities participating: It specifies that a state agency “may not in any way regulate the educational program of a nonpublic school that accepts money from an account under this article,” (p. 38, line 13).** The public has an interest in the quality of the educational environment provided for children through state dollars. This begins with physical environment and infrastructure. Do the buildings meet the fire code and are they free of hazards such as lead paint or accessible toxic household cleaners? Is the drinking water clean? It extends to the psychological environment. Are children in safe and positive spaces free of manipulation and abuse? Under HB 1005, no state entity would have the responsibility to inquire. Most centrally, though, the quality of the educational environment is bound up in curriculum. With HB 1005, no state entity would have the right to ascertain whether children are receiving a developmentally appropriate, challenging curriculum that adheres to state academic standards. The language of the bill appears to guarantee that state funds could be used for conversion therapy or religious instruction. 4. No requirement for a certified teacher. In fact, HB 1005 prohibits the state from making any teacher or staff hiring requirements for participating schools or entities (page 38, line 17). So it sounds like the state could not even require nonaccredited schools to verify that a potential hire does not have a record as a child sex offender. 5. An environment ripe for scammers. Because parents would be making the decisions about how to spend this money, service providers and vendors of curricular materials would advertise directly to parents. Many parents lack the knowledge and training to assess the quality of such programs and could be vulnerable to unscrupulous operators. 6. Incentivization of year-to-year rollover of dollars. Parents could roll over as much as $2,000 per year. This means parents could spend as little as $3,000 on a child’s education in one year. What kind of education would a kid be getting for that sum? 7. Excessive administrative costs, or an invitation to fraud. How will the state treasurer ensure that the money is actually spent on kids’ education? Either the treasurer will spend lots of time and money to ensure that participating entities are operating responsibly and that invoices are accurate for services truly rendered, or not. In the first case, taxpayers will be paying a huge amount for inefficient administration even as public schools are under pressure to consolidate and reduce administrative costs. In the second case, we will see an explosion of a free-for-all which will deplete state coffers while encouraging fraud and exploiting children. Given Indiana’s record of lax oversight of charter schools, especially the virtual charter schools that have proven lucrative for their operators, a proliferation of fraud seems likely. And while legislators are the ones who will vote for HB 1005 (or the form of it included in the budget bill), it’s Indiana’s taxpayers who will foot the bill, and Indiana’s children who will pay. "What special education students most need is for their public school special education services and general education classrooms to be adequately funded, to allow the time and attention and teacher expertise they need to be successful."
To improve education in Indiana, we need to reject ESAs and instead invest in the essential community infrastructure of public schools. As parent and attorney MaryAnn Schlegel Ruegger says, "What special education students most need is for their public school special education services and general education classrooms to be adequately funded, to allow the time and attention and teacher expertise they need to be successful."
–Jenny Robinson and Keri Miksza
*Appendix A of the 2020 CRPE report shows how Indiana's special education funding lags that in Ohio, South Dakota, and New Orleans:
See also the Education Commission of the States' 50-state comparison of special education funding from March 2019.
**HB 1005 prohibits the state from regulating participating entities. An excerpt:
Chapter 5. Participating Entities Sec. 1. It is the intent of the general assembly to honor the autonomy of nonpublic schools that choose and are authorized to become participating entities under this article. A nonpublic eligible school is not an agent of the state or federal government, and therefore: (1) the treasurer of state, state board, department, or any other state agency may not in any way regulate the educational program of a nonpublic school that accepts money from an account under this article, including the regulation of curriculum content, religious instruction or activities, classroom teaching, teacher and staff hiring requirements, and other activities carried out by the nonpublic school; (2) the creation of the program does not expand the regulatory authority of the state or the state's officers to impose additional regulation of nonpublic schools beyond those necessary to enforce the requirements of the program; and (3) an accredited nonpublic school that is a participating entity may provide for the educational needs of students without government control.
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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:
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. For Indiana’s economy, the safety of teachers and students, and to allow in-person schooling to occur across the state with fewer interruptions, we ask that you adopt the CDC guidelines for COVID-19 vaccination, which indicate that teachers, support staff, and daycare workers should be vaccinated after frontline healthcare workers. Doing so will support families and show our educators that the State of Indiana values the work they do educating the next generation of Hoosiers. 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. 
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