[ Indiana is a leader among the 50 states in shifting resources
from public education to vouchers and charter schools ]
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RED FOR ED: THE LONG-SIMMERING CRISIS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN INDIANA
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Harry Targ
November 20, 2019
Diary of a Heartland Radical
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_ Indiana is a leader among the 50 states in shifting resources from
public education to vouchers and charter schools _

Tuesday’s statewide walkout of teachers in Indiana could lead to an
illegal strike, (Photo via Facebook / Central Indiana DSA)

 

“Red for Ed” is the slogan that animated 15,000 teachers,
students, and trade unionists to  attend a huge rally at the
Statehouse in Indianapolis, November 19.  147 school districts were
shut down around the state because teachers felt obliged to attend
this statehouse rally, one of the biggest ever in Indiana history.
Core demands involved compensation (incoming teachers earn just
$35,000 in a state where 37 percent of households have earnings below
a livable standard); an end to 15 hour professional training for all
teachers to keep their accreditation; and an end to evaluating
teachers on the basis of questionable test scores of students (which
obliges teachers to teach for the test rather than wholistic
learning).

Teachers marched around the Statehouse and waited in long lines to
enter the Capital building, waiting as much as an hour during
drizzling weather. Once inside 6,000 teachers sitting on the floor or
standing against railings on the second or third floor  listened to
teachers from around the state talk about the lack of compensation
(many teachers have had to take second and third jobs), inadequate
supplies (teachers have to bring pencils, crayons, and paper for their
students), and unmanageable class sizes.

Indiana is a leader among the 50 states in shifting resources from
public education to vouchers and charter schools  embracing what is
called a “Mindtrust” model of education, using a profit/loss
market model to evaluate the educational process. Because public
education has been underfunded (“starving the beast”) performance
often has stagnated. Then privatizers have advocated for charter
schools. However, charters have often had deleterious effects on
teachers, students, and communities. These school policies involving
defunding public schools, investing in charter schools, privatizing,
defunding, and attacking teachers and communities have spread all
across the country. But now Indiana teachers have become the latest to
say “No.” They have been inspired by teachers in West Virginia,
Oklahoma, California, Arizona, Illinois and elsewhere. And this round
of mobilizations is broadly supported by families and communities that
see educational institutions as the anchor of society. In addition,
teachers increasingly see themselves as workers and trade unionists
see teachers as allies. As in the case of Indiana, the trade union
movement supported the November 19 mobilization.

_THE THREAT TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS_

Since the dawn of the twentieth century the anchor of most communities
in the United States, has been its public schools. Schools help raise,
nourish, mentor, and educate the youth of America. Parents, as best
they can, participate in supporting school systems and provide input
on school policy. Teachers and school administrators sacrifice time
and energy to stimulate the talents of young people. And teachers
through educational associations and trade unions organize to protect
their rights in the workplace, always mindful of the number one
priority; serving the children and the community.

Beginning in the 1970s, various special interest groups, many
well-funded, began to advocate for the privatization of education.
Looking at aggregate data showing some failing school performance,
they argued that private corporations, charter schools, could educate
children better. They blamed the lack of marketplace competition for
waste of taxpayer dollars for poor performance. Most often
under-performing schools were underfunded schools: underfunded because
of racism and patterns of segregation_._

The neoliberal answer was to shift public funds, formerly from public
schools, to private corporate charter schools. Along with the creation
of charter schools, voucher systems were established by state
legislatures and school districts allowing parents to place their
children in any school they could find; often difficult to access and
sometimes far from the child’s neighborhood. The introduction of
charter schools and vouchers began the process of shifting resources
from public education to private schools, thus destroying adequately
performing public schools and weakening nearby communities.

The data on the shift from public schools to charters is shocking. For
example in Detroit between 2005 and 2013 public school enrollment
declined by 63% and charter school enrollments rose by 53%; in Gary
the decline in public schools was 47% and the rise in charter school
enrollment rose by 197%;  and in Indianapolis the decline in public
school enrollments totaled 27% and the rise in charter schools was
287%. 

This historic transfer of public funds for education to privatization
would often be sped up by local crises. The biggest crisis in an
American community in decades occurred in New Orleans when Hurricane
Katrina struck that city in August, 2005. In its aftermath 100,000
citizens were forced to leave the city because their homes were
demolished. Over 100 public schools were destroyed in the disaster.
Subsequently virtually all those schools were replaced with charter
schools, run by private corporations for a profit, devoid of
teachers’ organizations and parental participation in the
revitalization of educational institutions. Commenting on the New
Orleans experience Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in the Obama
administration suggested that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to
happen to the educational system of New Orleans. 

The human tragedy of Katrina was also a metaphor for what was to
follow all across the nation: powerful forces swept away vibrant
publicly controlled and accountable educational institutions,
replacing them with new profit-driven, non-transparent, non-union,
corporate schools that did not serve the needs and desires of the
remaining members of the community. Public education is being
uprooted, transformed, and destroyed all across the United States.  

To facilitate the privatization of schools cities everywhere have
begun to close public schools. Detroit, New York, and Chicago closed
over 100 schools per city in recent years. In Philadelphia, municipal
funds for a prison came from the closure of 50 schools. The impacts of
school closings is reflected in the essay “Death by a Thousand
Cuts,” produced by the Journey for Justice Alliance: “Closing a
school is one of the most traumatic things that can happen to a
community; it strikes at the very core of community culture, history,
and identity and…produces far-reaching repercussions that negatively
affect every aspect of community life.” 

_RECENT IMPACTS_

First, the shift of scarce state budget funds from public to charter
schools has meant a significant decline in resources to maintain and
improve public schools. If funds for new charter schools and increased
money for vouchers are transferred from adequately performing public
schools to under-performing charter or religious schools the changes
in educational policy lead to a decline in the quality of education
provided to all students. For example, in the 2014-2015 Indiana
budget, $115 million was diverted by the state legislature from public
education to the growing voucher program.

Therefore, as money is withdrawn from K-12 public education the
traditional schools have reduced resources with which to do their job.
This leads to declining performance. Then privatization advocates call
for further reduction as well as school closings, rather than
increasing resource allocation to public schools. 

Second, a high percentage of school closings occur in poor and Black
communities. These closings create what the Journey for Justice
Alliance calls “education deserts.” Parents have to find adequate,
affordable schools elsewhere in the cities in which they live.
Oftentimes charter schools refuse to admit particular students because
of biased estimates of their probability of success, disabilities they
may have, insufficient English language proficiency or other reasons.
“Charter schools use a variety of selective admissions techniques,
such as targeted marketing strategies, burdensome application
processes, imposing academic prerequisites, and the active
discouragement of less-desirable candidates.” (Journey for Justice
Alliance, _Death By a Thousand Cuts,_ May, 2014, pp.11-12). In some
cases, parents cannot find adequate schools for their children
anywhere near their community. 

The closing of schools, the struggle for admission to new schools, the
increased class sizes of new schools, the adjustment to a new school
culture, along with the inexperience of new teachers, all impact in
negative ways on the educational experience of children. Education
writer, Scott Elliott reported that of the 18 charter schools
operating in Indianapolis in 2015, half of them had test scores in
2014 that registered a “fail” in state examination of their
children. The failing charter schools served children from poorer
backgrounds and/or were children with special needs such as language
training. Several of these failing charter schools had been operating
for several years and some had been part of national charter networks.

The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability summed up studies of the
impacts of voucher programs on educational performance: ‘None of the
independent studies performed of the most lauded and long standing
voucher programs extant in the U.S.--Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cleveland,
Ohio, and Washington, D.C.--found any statistical evidence that
children who utilized vouchers performed better than children who did
not and remained in public
schools.” [link removed]
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Third, as parent and student protests in Chicago, in various cities
and towns in Indiana, and elsewhere suggest, there is an inverse
relationship between the spread of charter schools and voucher systems
and citizen input into educational policy-making. Historically, while
many parents chose not to participate in school board decision-
making, the prerogative existed for parents, and even students, to
provide input into educational policy. It was assumed that members of
communities had the right and the responsibility to communicate their
concerns to school administrators, elected school boards, and
teachers. Most school districts have active parent organizations. 

The documentary _Education Inc_. demonstrated cases in which the
frequency of public school board hearings was reduced and meetings
were summarily adjourned to avoid debate on controversial issues. And
legislatures, such as in Indiana, have prohibited state executive or
legislative bodies from regulating the “curriculum content” of
private schools that accept vouchers.

Fourth, the neoliberal design referred to above is based upon the
proposition that institutional and policy success is best measured by
the profit accrued to the corporate bodies involved. In the field of
education, neoliberal policies seek to shift accountability from the
public to the private sector; from professional skills to market
skills; and from participation by the professional and union
organizations of teachers, parent groups, and engaged students to
corporate executives of private corporations. The neoliberal design
regards educational professionalism and training _and_ teachers
advocacy associations as impediments. 

Therefore the full force of state educational policy includes
transferring status, respect, adequate remuneration from long time
public school teachers to marginalized, under-trained new workers in
charter schools. Also, the charter school movement is avowedly an
anti-teachers union movement. 

Documentaries on education such as _Rise Above the
Mark_ and _Education Inc._ illustrate that career teachers find
demoralizing the repeated and dysfunctional testing of children,
declining resources for their schools, and repeated public statements
devaluing and demeaning teachers. Educational spokespersons in these
films speak in the most glowing terms about the passion to teach,
commitment to children, and talent of staffs under their leadership.
School superintendents in these documentaries also speak about the
contributions which teachers unions make to the enhancement of school
performance.   

The sum total of the thirty year effort to transform the educational
system under the guise of “reform” are the following: the
tradition of public education is being destroyed; access to quality
education is becoming more difficult and more unequal; transparency
and parent input into policy making is becoming more difficult; and
the attack on professionalism and teachers unions is making it more
difficult to teach.

_HOW TO RESPOND?_

Other issues need to be discussed including testing, evaluations based
on dubious metrics, charging parents for text books, inequitable
access to school supplies by district and by public versus private
schools, inadequate funding, the development of curricula appropriate
for a twenty-first century educational agenda, and the need to combat
the “school to prison pipeline” that seems to undergird much of
urban education. Responses to protect and enhance the quality of
educational life for children require the following:

Creating an educational movement in the state of Indiana that says
“enough is enough” to those advocates of so-called education
“reform.” That means developing _inside strategies_ that include
running and electing legislators and executives who believe in public
education. It means lobbying at the State House during the legislative
season. It means launching litigation when politicians and educational
privateers violate the Indiana constitution’s guarantee that all
children have a right to a quality education.

The educational movement must also embrace an _outside strategy_,
building a social movement. It should include education, agitation,
and organization. Pamphlets, speakers, videos, and other public fora
need to be organized all around the state. Educators and their
supporters need to rally and protest so that the issue of quality
education is discussed in communities and the media.

And organizationally, an educational movement should draw upon the
militancy, passion, and expertise of educational organizations around
the state that are already engaged in this work. Strengthening the
movement for quality education is more about bringing existing groups
together than creating new ones. That is the vision of Indiana Moral
Mondays and the idea of “fusion politics.” Assemble those who
share common values and a vision and build a mass movement such that
as the old slogan says: “The People United Shall Never Be
Defeated.” 

The huge rally of November 19 suggests that such a movement has been
born. Or as this new movement in Indiana proclaims: “Red for Ed.”

_WHAT SPECIFIC POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO SUPPORT?_

1.Increasing, not decreasing, federal, state, and local funding of
public education.

2.Prioritizing the funding of traditionally under-funded schools in
economically disadvantaged communities. Resources should include
salaries to encourage experienced teachers to remain in disadvantaged
communities. Funds should provide equal technologies, including
libraries, computers, and other tools, for schools in lower income
communities equal to those provided for wealthier communities.
Resources should provide for language training, math education, and
programs in the arts.

3.Policy-making bodies in all branches of government should be open
and transparent so that parents, teachers, and students can observe
and participate in decision-making.

4.In school districts where teachers choose to form unions or other
professional associations these organizations should be recognized
partners in the policy-making process.

5.Assessments of school performance should be determined by teachers,
school administrators, and parents, not politicians or educational
corporations. Teachers should not be forced to “teach to the
tests.”

6.The goal of the educational process should be the full development
of the potential of each and every student irrespective of race,
gender, class or other forms of discrimination.

_Harry Targ's blogs can be accessed
at [link removed]
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