Don’t tear down IPS to give charter schools more money | Opinion

We are fighting the wrong fight if we really want to improve educational outcomes in Indianapolis.

Each time I run into a former student, I ask them an essential question: “Did we prepare you for the life you wanted?”

For three disillusioning years, the answer was consistent: “This school didn’t prepare me for anything.”

At the time, I worked in a state takeover charter school, and I saw how poor management led to intense teacher turnover, shameful academic underperformance and even misreporting of dropouts to improve the school’s letter grade.

Briggs: The IPS-charter school fight puts politics over children

Certainly, there are some successful charter schools in Indianapolis, but this was not one of them and anyone who claimed charter schools were a panacea for the city’s academic underperformance hadn’t spent a day in my school.

I moved to Indianapolis Public Schools in 2018 because I wanted a more professional working environment. I wanted to join the union and to have my contract respected and upheld, and I was drawn to IPS’ International Baccalaureate program. I received an IB Diploma in 2011, and I wanted to provide that same rigorous, internationally minded curriculum to public school students in my community.

For the five years I worked in the IB program at Shortridge High School, when I asked students the same question, the answer changed to a resounding yes. Without fail, Shortridge graduates would come back to visit, telling us how college was a breeze. IB was hard, but yes, indeed, they were ready for what came next.

This was no small feat for a district-run school with a racially and socioeconomically diverse population, and where many of the students would go on to be first-generation college graduates. Its significance was not lost on me, after serving a similar population elsewhere and witnessing the dismal quality of education available to them.

It was this stark contrast that brought me back to teach in IPS this school year after teaching abroad. I have experienced the life-changing power of an education that is focused on critical thinking, literacy skills and global mindedness. As a teacher, I choose to work in IPS because I want to provide this rigorous, high-quality education to any family who chooses it.

Senate Bill 518 endangers this choice. By requiring the sharing of property tax funds with charter schools, it would cost the district tens of millions of dollars and lead to the closure of at least 20 schools, the elimination of hundreds of jobs and a decrease in transportation and program offerings in the district.

I have seen the ways in which IPS serves Indianapolis’ general public, including students with severe disabilities, without transportation, experiencing food insecurity, and students who are incarcerated, hospitalized or unhoused. These students’ education would be in jeopardy, all while specialized programs like IB would experience cuts.

At the same time, charter schools will gain little to make up for this devastating loss. Today, charter schools receive a $1,400 grant to offset the difference in property tax revenue they don’t receive. SB 518 takes this away and gives it back to the state. Paired with the effects of significant property tax cuts included in Gov. Mike Braun’s budget, that means most charter schools will have similar funding as before, even as IPS experiences massive cuts to its staffing and services.

At the end of the day, we are fighting the wrong fight if what we really want is to improve educational outcomes in Indianapolis. Rather than fueling an ideological war over district versus charter schools, we should be working together to call on lawmakers to increase per-pupil and complexity funding and to divert funds away from vouchers and into public schools by increasing the charter school grant.

We don’t have to tear down IPS for charter schools to be able to get more funding. We can be true partners in ensuring students and teachers have access to high-quality options wherever they live in our city.

As a teacher, I choose IPS, and I likely wouldn’t stay in the district if it meant working for a charter school again. If the Indiana General Assembly wants to retain teachers like me, it should oppose Senate Bill 518 and protect the financial viability of IPS.

Sarah TeKolste is an IB Spanish teacher at TC Howe Middle School in Indianapolis. She was the 2022 IPS Teacher of the Year and a finalist for Indiana Teacher of the Year; she is a Teach Plus Indiana alumna.