Word has been given to The Project School, one of Indianapolis' charter schools, that they will be be having their charter revoked. The revocation will take effect immediately; no classes will begin at the school this fall.
According to an Indianapolis Star story, the charter is being revoked for multiple reasons. The school was one of the worst performing schools not only in the county, but in the entire state. Only 29% of the school's students passed the ISTEP.
Perhaps
just as troubling is the extreme financial issues the school is
having. The school apparently was bouncing payroll checks. The
reports also states that the school misused large amounts of federal
funds as well as accumulating three million dollars in debt.
The
revoking of the charter, at least according to the details of the
Star's story, seems to be a fully acceptable. It also goes to
show one of the benefits of the expansion of charter schools recently
in Indiana: the ability to hold the school accountable with extreme
consequences.
This
is the way schools across our state should operate. If they
fail to meet the most basic requirements then they should be at risk
of being closed. The
growth of charter schools makes this more likely to occur. The
addition of voucher programs makes consequences even more likely, as
parents would be unwilling to allow their children to continue to
attend schools that so horribly fail.
Over
the next days or weeks we will undoubtedly learn more details about
what exactly was happening at The Project School. For now,
though, it seems that some of the safety nets in place with our
charter school system have enabled Mayor Ballard to get rid of a bad
apple before it could do any more damage.
(If
you are interested in learning more about charter schools, voucher
programs, and school choice, The Friedman Foundation for Educational
Choice will be holding the Friedman Legacy for Freedom Day at the
Conrad Hotel in downtown Indianapolis on Friday, July 27th. Please
contact Chris Spangle for more information.)
So, getting a charter, blowing the money on "admin", screwing with the kids' education, flipping the bird to the State, then getting to walk away much wealthier after being "held accountable" is OK?
ReplyDeleteI see a little problem with that model of education "reform".
why didn't you post my comment?
ReplyDeleteI don't have my blog set up to require my approval for comments to post, they should go up automatically. If you posted a comment that somehow didn't end up on the page, I apologize. I encourage you to repost it.
DeleteRe-post from yesterday
ReplyDeleteThis is purely political. Certain Board members have criticized the Mayor and this is how he returns it. It's no surprise to me that he waited until past the appeal date had passed before pulling the plug. He submarined them. Don't believe everything you hear out of the Mayor's office either. The Project School was audited within the last 2 weeks by an independent firm and was given a clean bill of health. As for the test scores, for most of these kids this is their last stop. They are the troubled of the troubled kids in our community. If you look at the scores for kids that have been there for a few years versus the kids that have only been there for 1 year, there is a dramatic improvement. Almost by definition, these kids are not going to do well on ISTEP their first year at the school. It takes time to unwind the terrible education and experiences these kids have had so far in life. The Project School is great school, ask any parent who has kids there.