On March 5, legislators stalled for eight hours to prevent public comment from the masses of people who came to the State House to defend public education from corporate grifters like The Mind Trust. Those who stayed, like Destiny Glover, touched on some of the numerous problems with Senate Bill 518, which would funnel even more public funding to corrupt corporations posing as “educational innovators.” You can watch and listen to Glover’s testimony and read a lightly-edited transcript below.
Oppose SB 518: No corporate theft of public funds!
Transcript
My name is Destiny Glover and I’m here as a proud member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in Indianapolis. I am also the General Coordinator for the Indianapolis Liberation Center, which is a coalition of grassroots organizations who are partnered together for a common goal: to fight for and with all working-class and oppressed communities in Indianapolis.
I want to be very clear and continue to highlight the reality presented today. SB 518 pits working-class people against each other when we all want the same thing: a high-quality, representative education that serves all students of every need and every character. We want schools who pay our teachers and staff, and make education a highlight of all of our life experiences. IPS faces issues precisely because there are areas, those of which are in high proportion low-income Black and brown, that are underfunded.
Our teachers, children, and families deserve fully-funded schools, public schools. Taking our tax money to fund charters, which do not exist to serve anyone who might make their test data look bad, like children who need an IEP; charters that have no teachers unions; charters that have no publicly-elected democratic oversight.
This bill is redundant and unnecessary, as it is a duplication of services and money. SB 518 will divert money to charters’ operations funds to be used to pay administrators for schools just blocks away from public schools, which is a wasteful duplication. We say no to this bill and charters because we know that splitting our money, which is already thin, and funding charters, is not a long-term solution for families; it’s an attempt to pit families against each other while wealthy businessmen make off with our money.
At Christel House Academy, the salary of their CEO, Emily Masengale, increased from $191,500 in 2023 to $324,237 in 2024. That’s a 70% increase in one year to manage 258 students in two buildings.
I could keep going, but I’m going to wrap it up.
We need to fully fund our public schools and create education experience that in practice has the ability to serve all of our families and kids everybody everyone that we heard from today. We all want the same thing and we can do that in a city that prioritizes our children and teachers in education, with no need for the duplication of services. Because our schools are going to be able to achieve what they’re designed to do: educate Inspire and take care of our kids say no to SB 518.
Thank you.
Featured photo: Destiny Glover speaking at the November 2024 Indianapolis Liberation Center fundraiser. Credit: Indianapolis Liberation Center.