Tuesday, September 24
6:00 pm
Indianapolis Liberation Center
Public education, one of the last remaining gains from Reconstruction, is under attack nationwide. Privatizers and education “reformers” are working to dismantle public schools and weaken the unions representing school workers. Indianapolis is no exception, with “Innovation Schools” and the expansion of charter schools paving the way for Project 2025-style attacks, all under the guise of progressive change. The Center is proud to collaborate with and host the Indianapolis Education Justice Coalition for a critical discussion about the history of educational privatization in Indianapolis, the current state of our schools, and how local education “reform” efforts, including IPS Innovation Charter expansion, have and are detrimental to our communities.
In 2002, the first charter schools opened up in Indiana. By 2012, IPS was under attack by billionaire-backed “local education advocacy” organizations like Stand For Children, The Mind Trust, and Ed Choice (at the time it was called The Friedman Foundation-yes that Friedman). Although it was easy to trace the funding, the intentions weren’t as obvious. They launched expensive IPS school board and information campaigns, new tactics in the public-school realm. Many of us in Indianapolis, having experienced underfunded and understaffed schools for decades in systematically oppressed neighborhoods, welcomed the influx of interest and promised hope.
Now in 2024, IPS continues struggling to understand who they exist to serve. Is it the organizations that spend millions and millions moving the needle towards a private system? Or is it the neighborhoods full of our children and their families? This seems to be the question all over Indiana and the country as we near the November election. Nationally, we are looking at plans to create a completely private “voucher” system put forth in Project 2025. Statewide, we are facing expansion after expansion of the Educational Savings Account Voucher system, which siphons cash from every single public-school classroom. Locally, we are looking at the last step before the complete elimination of public schools. The implications for democracy, education, and families are unimaginable.
How did we get here? Capitalists targeting education for profit, racism, and right-wing leaders. The fact is that urban areas like Indianapolis, and its muse New Orleans, wouldn’t have been able to be targets for profiteers if we would have fulfilled the promises made in Brown v. Board of Education. Urban communities became targets for carpetbaggers because America leaned into the separate, but not equal. Instead of investing in high poverty urban districts and improving education, scheme after scheme was launched to hide the reality of what was happening.
Families that were able to move did, further exacerbating one of the root sources of education inequity, funding. Adding marginalized and minority families to the previous generations white flight from the urban cores. In the US schools are funded based largely on the incomes of the families, and priorities of the state legislatures. This is no different for Indiana. This is why we see districts like Carmel able to build pro level stadiums, and IPS schools with broken plumbing.
The state priorities place business, and privately run schools above democratically elected school boards and public run schools. Circumventing our democratic processes and local self-governing. At the state level, it’s done by the Republicans but locally, it’s done by the Democratic Party-controlled Mayor’s Office, City-County Council, and School Boards we call neoliberal. What both fail to see is that charters and fancy private voucher schools are a step on the path to a completely private voucher system, with little to no oversight.
In Indianapolis, we have 11 school districts, Including Indianapolis Public Schools. In reality, there are over 100. Most schools in Indianapolis operate outside of the Local District oversight. Over half of the students attributed to the IPS enrollment attend a school operated by a charter, not IPS. These are Innovation Schools that IPS has contracted private organizations to run. The system is confusing on purpose. The bill that created Innovation Schools in Indianapolis came from ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and was supported by Democrats for Education Reform. ALEC also promotes right-wing religious extremists, facilitates the privatization of prisons and schools, including prisons and schools, and has the worst of the worst companies and politicians as its members.
Let’s be clear about what is at stake at the local, city, state, and national level: the public education system itself.
About the panelists
Dr. Gayle Cosby is an Indy east side native, attending IPS schools starting in Kindergarten and graduated from Arsenal Tech High School. As a graduate of IPS, mother of three, a former special education classroom teacher, Education Program Chair at Ivy Tech, and former IPS school board member, Dr. Cosby brings a personal and professional expertise to the Education Justice fight. As an IPS board member she witnessed the takeover of the IPS district and board by well-funded pro-privatization groups first hand. Formerly supported by these organizations she quickly saw through the “savior” facade, to learn their true intention was to privatize the whole district. She believes in the power of equitable public education to support and uplift Indianapolis neighborhoods.
Alan Schoff is a public school advocate who was born in Muncie, Indiana, to two Ball State Teacher College graduates. He has been engaged in IPS schools for the past 12 years along with his wife of 40 years, local artist Becky Wilson, and child, Nilo, who is a pre-service teacher in arts education as a senior at Herron School of Art & Design. Alan’s family’s journey through IPS included two schools that were closed and replaced with Innovation Charter schools because of standardized test scores. It turns out that the alleged Failing schools were more equitable, community focused, and educated the whole child much better than a highly-acclaimed A-rated Charter school.
Noah Leininger, a lifelong Hoosier, is a proud product of, advocate for, and teacher in Indiana’s public school system. After graduating from Tippecanoe School Corporation’s McCutcheon High School in Lafayette, he attended Indiana State University—founded in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War to train educators for the nation’s then-new system of common schools—where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education. In addition to attaining a Master’s Degree in Conducting from Butler University, Noah taught music education and other subjects for years in Decatur County, Tippecanoe, and Indianapolis. He is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and one of the founders of the Indianapolis Liberation Center.
Christina Smith began fighting for education justice when her children attended two IPS schools that were targeted for conversion to charters. She saw the stark contrasts in what was being told to the two schools by officials based on the demographics of each. This led her to be a founding member of the Indianapolis Education Justice Coalition, and fight for equitable, public, community schools for every family. She formerly ran for IPS school board and bore witness to the exploitation of our community for monetary and political gain by billionaire backed so called “education” advocacy groups and their candidates. As a mother of two high school students who previously attended IPS run schools and are currently attending a highly rated charter school, she has a unique perspective on the inequity that exists within the system. Raised in a rural community where the public school was the foundation of the neighborhood, navigating the Indy education system was difficult. She and her partner Geoff, and children, have been westsiders for over 20 years.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn, organize, and take action to protect public education in Indianapolis!
Featured photo: A 2019 Red4Ed demonstration organized by the Indiana State Teachers Association inside the State Capitol. Credit: Liberation News.
