AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P1

An Educational
Revolution inIndianapolisDavid Osborne
December 2016

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P2

An Educational
Revolution inIndianapolis

DECEMBER 2016
David Osborne

INTRODUCTION

Our urban school systems
struggle because so many of
their students live in poverty,
but they also struggle because
they were designed a hundredyears ago, for an industrial
society.

In an increasing number of cities, they are being
replaced by 21st century systems, in which
the central administration does not operate
all schools and employ all teachers. Instead,it steers the system but contracts with others
to row—to operate many of the schools. The
steering body, usually an elected school board
and appointed superintendent but sometimes
a mayor or appointed board, uses charters andcontracts to open schools that meet emerging
student needs. If they work, it expands themand replicates them. If they don’t work, itreplaces them. Every year, it replaces the worst
performers, replicates the best, and develops
new models to meet new needs.
The result is continuous improvement. This new
formula—autonomy, accountability, diversity ofschool designs, and parental choice—is simply
more effective than the centralized, bureaucratic
approach we inherited from the 20th century.
Cities that embrace it, by expanding charterschools but also by treating more district
schools like charters, are transforming theAN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P3

lives of their students. New Orleans, which has
92 percent of its students in charter schools,
is the fastest improving city in America.1
Washington, D.C., with 46 percent in charters, isclose on its heels.2 Denver, Memphis, Cleveland,
Newark, and Camden, New Jersey, are all
moving in the same direction.
Thirty districts belong to a network of “portfolio
districts”—so called because they manage aportfolio of traditional and charter schools—
which share what they have learned about whatworks and what doesn’t.
Indianapolis has recently emerged as one of
the leaders. It is sometimes said that cities
other than millennial hotspots such as Boston,
New York, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, andDenver cannot attract the talent necessary tobuild a large, vibrant charter school sector. But,
for the past decade, Indianapolis has given thelie to that argument. It has the only mayor in the
country who authorizes charter schools, thanks
to Democratic Mayor Bart Peterson’s efforts topush through the state’s charter law in 2001.

It is sometimes said that cities
other than millennial hotspots suchas Boston, New York, Washington,
D.C., New Orleans, and Denvercannot attract the talent necessary
to build a large, vibrant charterschool sector. But, for the past
decade, Indianapolis has given thelie to that argument.
Today it is innovating again: Indianapolis Public
Schools (IPS) is authorizing “innovation network
schools”: district schools with performance
contracts and full charter-style autonomy. Someare charters, some are startups, and some areexisting IPS schools that have converted toinnovation network status. All have independent
boards organized as 501(c)3 not-for-profit
organizations; all are outside the teachers’ union
contract; and all use IPS school buildings.
A Midwestern “flyover city,” Indianapolis deserves
close attention from education reformers.
Though other cities have their own versionsof “innovation schools” or “pilot schools,” only
Indianapolis has given them the full autonomy
and accountability charters enjoy.
The city’s charters, which outperform IPS’s
traditional public schools, now educate morethan a third of all public school students inthe district, while innovation network schools
already educate another 10 percent. Within
another year or two, those two sectors
combined will surpass 50 percent.
MAYORAL AUTHORIZING IN INDIANAPOLIS
In 1999, when Bart Peterson ran for mayor,
Indianapolis was a Rust Belt city that had
lost much of its industrial base. A series ofRepublican mayors had pursued creative
economic development efforts, but the city
struggled to keep its middle class. Peterson
knew he needed much stronger public schools
to attract and keep residents, so he campaigned
in support of a charter law. Teresa Lubbers, aRepublican state senator, had introduced six
previous charter school bills, all of which had
failed. She came up with the idea of giving
the mayor authorizing authority, so Peterson
teamed up with her. The combination of a
Democratic mayor of the state’s largest city anda Republican legislator finally broke the logjam.
Peterson put a young staffer, David Harris, incharge of his new charter office, and Harris put
in place a rigorous process to approve charters.
When Republican Greg Ballard defeatedAN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P4

Peterson after two terms, some were concernedthat the political transition would undermine
chartering. But the only Peterson staffers Ballard
kept on were in the charter office. During his
two terms, which ended in January 2016, heincreased the number of charters from 16 to 39,
while closing seven.3

DAVID HARRIS

His successor, Democrat Joe Hogsett,continued the bipartisan support. Today themayor authorizes 35 schools on 40 campuses,with six more authorized to open in the fall of
2017. By last year they served about 13,600
students.4 The Indiana Charter School Board
also authorizes seven schools in the city,5 while
Ball State University authorizes two, one ofwhich is a virtual (online) school, with students
from all across the state.6 Within the geographic
boundaries of IPS—which covers most but
not all of Indianapolis—about 14,000 students
attended charters last year, compared to about
30,000 in non-chartered IPS schools. Another
2,339 attended six charter high schools for
adults. Hence, K-12 charter students made up
close to a third of all public school students
within IPS’s boundaries—or about 36 percent,if you count the adult charters.7 To this day, noother mayor in America authorizes charters.

To this day, no other mayor in
America authorizes charters.
The city council in Milwaukee has authorized
about 10, and the mayor of Columbus has theauthority to authorize but has not used it.

With the exception of a handful of schools,
the charters in Indianapolis are homegrown—
another fact that contradicts the view that cities
lacking millennial appeal cannot build vibrant
charter sectors. A key reason is The Mind Trust,founded in 2006 by Mayor Peterson and David
Harris as a kind of venture capital outfit for thecharter sector, to raise money and recruit talent.
The Mind Trust convinced Teach For America(TFA), The New Teacher Project (now TNTP), andStand for Children to come to Indianapolis, inpart by raising money for them. Since then TFA
has brought in more than 500 teachers and 39
school leaders (the latter through its Indianapolis
Principal Fellowship);8 TNTP’s Indianapolis
Teaching Fellows Program has trained 498
teachers;9 and Stand for Children has worked
to engage the community, to educate parents
about school reform, and to spearhead
fundraising for school board candidates. The
Mind Trust has also raised millions of dollars
and offered start-up space, grants, and otherhelp to eight nonprofit organizations and 17 newschools, with more to come.10
In recent years Indiana’s charter law has beenranked number one in the country by both the
National Association of Public Charter Schools(NAPCS) and the National Association of Charter
School Authorizers.
Last March NAPCS rated the state’s charter
sector—roughly half of which is in Indianapolis—
the second healthiest in the nation, after D.C.’s.11
And the mayor’s office is highly regarded as an
authorizer. It issues annual performance reports
on each school, tracking 27 different measures,
including qualitative evaluations. It does in-depth
reviews when the charter is up for renewal every
seven years and once in between. Since its
founding, it has rejected many more applications

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than it has accepted, and it has closed at least
10 schools—usually replacing them with a newschool by a stronger operator.12
State legislation that passed in 2011 allowed
private universities to begin authorizing charters,
which led to rapid growth of low-quality schools.
When authorizers with high standards moved
to close failing charters, the schools sometimes
hopped to a less discriminating authorizer.
(More recent legislation has restricted authorizer
hopping, requiring schools that lose their charterto wait a year before applying to a different
authorizer.) The mayor’s office, The Mind Trust,and others pushed hard for other authorizers toclean up their acts, and Ball State University, thelargest, closed a dozen schools in three years,
many of them in the city.13 Today, Ahmed Young,
who runs the mayor’s charter office, says thestate charter board, Ball State, and the Mayor’s
charter office try to align their work.
Charters receive roughly $4,200 per student
less than IPS schools each year, in large part
because they do not get free buildings or local
property tax money.14 Yet, on average, mayorsponsored charter schools outperform IPS
schools. As schools of choice, they may havethe advantage of more motivated parents, on
average. But demographically, they serve asimilar population: last year, both had about 79
percent students of color; 81 percent of charter
students were low-income (qualifying for a freeor reduced-price lunch), compared to 71 percent
in IPS; 13 percent were classified as special
education, compared to 17.5 percent in IPS; and11.6 percent were English language learners,
compared to 14.7 in IPS.15

Charters receive roughly $4,200
per student less than IPS schools
each year, in large part because

they do not get free buildings or
local property tax money. Yet, on
average, mayor-sponsored charterschools outperform IPS schools.
Like most states, Indiana debuted a new set ofstandards and a new test in 2015, so student
proficiency rates dropped precipitously. The
state then changed test vendors in 2016, andscores dropped a bit more. So there is no valid
way to compare test scores after 2014. On the2014 exams, 71.2 percent of students at the
mayoral charters were proficient in English
language arts (ELA), compared with 60.4 of
IPS students. In math, the difference was 75.4
percent to 65.2 percent. (The same trends
continued in 2015, but at lower score levels.16)
According to the mayor’s office, the charters
outperformed neighborhood schools thatstudents would have otherwise been assigned
to by 17 percentage points in ELA and 16
percentage points in math.
Their median growth percentile, which measures
students’ rates of progress, was about five
percentage points higher in both subjects,
and their graduation rate was 80.3 percent,compared to 71.5 percent at IPS.17
Perhaps because the mayor’s office closes
failing schools, its charters have also shown
more rapid improvement. In 2013, only 35
percent of them received an A or B rating fromthe state; by 2015, 65 percent did. At IPS, only
37 percent received an A or B in 2015.18
In 2012, Stanford University’s Center for
Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO)
released a study of charter performance inIndiana. It compared charter students tostudents in traditional public schools who had
similar demographics, poverty levels, and priortest scores.

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Compared to those counterparts, it concluded,“Charter students in Indianapolis gain an
additional two months in reading and nearly
three months in math,” every year. Those inmayoral charters did even better: two months
in reading and 3.6 months in math.19 In 2015
CREDO published a report on 41 urban regions,
including Indianapolis, which showed similar
results.20
Mayoral authorizing has turned out to be a
surprisingly stable and effective strategy,
enduring through three mayors from bothparties. David Harris believes it is the best
authorizing model, because the authorizer
is accountable to the families served by theschools.21 “They can be thrown out of officein the next election by dissatisfied parents ifthey hand out charters to subpar operators,”
he says. “Because of this, mayors have apowerful incentive to rigorously review charter
applications and shut down underperforming
schools. Under a mayoral authorizer, badcharters won’t be allowed to fail with impunity—
either the school or its authorizer will pay
a price.”22

Mayoral authorizing has turned
out to be a surprisingly stable andeffective strategy, enduring throughthree mayors from both parties.
Given Indianapolis’s success, it is extraordinarythat no other mayor is authorizing charters.
Most mayors understand that keeping a middle
class in their city is critical to its health and that
decent schools are the best way to keep that
population. Perhaps the explanation lies in the
power many teachers’ unions exercise in statelegislatures, which must change the rules toallow mayoral authorizing. Still, other mayors
would be wise to seek chartering authority.

THE NEXT BREAKTHROUGH: INNOVATIONNETWORK SCHOOLSThe rise of charters has put enormouscompetitive pressure on Indianapolis Public
Schools, where nearly half of schools were still
rated D or F by the state in 2015.23 Fifty years
ago, IPS had more than 100,000 students; today,
it has only about 30,000.24 On top of the 14,000
in K-12 charters, more than 3,400 students
within IPS boundaries used state-fundedvouchers to attend private schools last year.25
Until the arrival of a new superintendent in2013, the district was hostile to charters. ThenSuperintendent Eugene White knew he had todo something to keep families in IPS schools, so
he expanded magnet programs aggressively. He
encouraged them to develop unique academic
programs, and he let them hire their own
teaching staffs. Unfortunately, the magnets havedrawn more white, middle-class families than
the rest of the IPS schools, raising suspicion in
the African-American community about a twotier system.
Two things happened that changed the courseof history in IPS. First, The Mind Trust released a
150-page report, Creating Opportunity Schools: A
Bold Plan to Transform Indianapolis Public Schools,
in December 2011. It called for a switch from anelected school board to an appointed one, withthree members appointed by the mayor and twoby the City Council. More important, it urged
that, over time, all Indianapolis public schools
be converted to “opportunity schools,” which
would essentially be treated like charters. They
would have a seven-year performance contract
with the district that would guarantee the kind of
autonomy charters had—over hiring, curriculum,
school design, and how they spent their money.
If they failed to perform as promised, theywould be closed and replaced by a stronger

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school operator. They would all be schoolsof choice; every family in Indianapolis would
choose its school.
The report generated an enormous amount ofattention and controversy. Superintendent White
rejected it, and the new mayor, Greg Ballard,chose not to pursue it. But “it really stimulated
a conversation about what needed to happen
in the district that had never happened before,”says Harris. Putting out an actual vision for what
the district should look like, he believes, inspired
people to think about things differently.
An informal group of elected officials, businesspeople, and community activists tried toconvince the state legislature to allow mayoral
appointment of the school board but failed.
So, with Stand for Children playing a central
role, they turned their attention to electing
reformers to the school board. “We had candid
conversations with current board members andasked them not to run again, that it was time fora change in leadership,” says Sam Odle, a former
health care executive who ran and won a seat in2012. “Those incumbents all stood down. They
knew they were going to be running against
candidates that were well funded and had the
support of the business community. One ofthem had been on the board for 30 years. I thinkthey recognized the winds were shifting.”
The reformers won all four seats that wereup in 2012, creating a majority on the sevenmember board. The new board bought out
Superintendent White’s contract and hired Dr.
Lewis Ferebee, who had been an elementary
school teacher, an administrator, and a deputy
superintendent in North Carolina.
To understand why Indianapolis is creating
charter-like district schools, it helps tounderstand his background. At 25, Ferebee says,
he was a middle school assistant principal in
Creedmore, N.C., when a “radical superintendent”
asked him to become principal of the district’s
worst elementary school. “He gave me thekeys and said, ‘Lewis, you have carte blanche
authority. If anybody comes to you about adecision you made, have them come to me. Thisis so important that I don’t want anything to getin your way.’

LEWIS FEREBEE“And I believe that was why I was successful. At
the end of the day, if principals feel handcuffed,
if teachers feel handcuffed, you’re stifling theircreativity. Your best teachers are your mostinnovative and creative teachers, and they know
their learners. So, when you don’t give them thefull opportunity to make informed decisions
about what they know, you’re limiting theopportunity for them to be successful.”
Ferebee also discovered that empoweringteachers “was the best recruiting tool I had. I
had teachers helping me recruit other teachers
to my building, because they were excited. Fromthat I learned the power of teacher leadership, so
now I’m just anointing and empowering teachers
to be leaders among themselves, and then I sit
back and watch this amazing work of teachers
getting better as they’re developing otherteachers.”“What I learned was you can raise salaries—
we can do some of that—but I think there’s
something to be said for creating leadership

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opportunities and for agility and autonomy inschools. That is where teachers feel most valued
and most respected.”
As an elementary principal, Ferebee saw a lot of
his graduates fall back academically in middle
school. So he asked the superintendent if hecould run the middle school. When he turned
it around, the superintendent asked him tosupervise all middle schools in the district. Thena new superintendent came in and made him
regional superintendent of a feeder pattern ofelementary, middle, and high schools that were
all struggling. “We outperformed the district interms of growth,” he says. “We were beginning tocreate a pipeline in that neighborhood.”
When Durham, N.C., hired the district’s chiefof staff to be its superintendent, he brought
Ferebee along as his chief of staff and asked
him to turn around all the low performing
schools. Again, Ferebee empowered his
principals and teachers.

“We outperformed the district interms of growth,” he says. “We werebeginning to create a pipeline inthat neighborhood.”
He and his partners from Duke University were
telling their story at a National Associationof School Boards meeting when some board
members from Indianapolis heard them. The
next thing he knew they were inviting him to
Indianapolis for an interview.
“I didn’t realize, until I got here, the real thick
dividing line between traditional public schools
and charters, the contentious relationship,” hesays. “It was almost as if we were in the sameboat with the same mission and the same goals,
but there was this huge wall and barrier.” There
was “a lot of finger pointing” between IPS andthe mayor’s office, and “no collaboration.” IPS
was “struggling with underutilized facilities,
and charter schools were being incubated inold grocery stores and old factories. The wholefinancial model of that division didn’t makesense to me. We’re still talking about publicschools.”
Ferebee also found an unusual degree ofcentralization at IPS: principals didn’t even selecttheir assistant principals and teachers. On his
listening tour, principals told him their schools
weren’t as successful as they could be because
they didn’t have enough autonomy. So he began
to empower them.
He quickly forged a relationship with the mayor’s
charter office. He and Jason Kloth, then deputy
mayor for education, began to brainstorm.
Clearly, The Mind Trust’s vision informed theirconversations, because they came up with asimilar idea, though they changed the name to“innovation network schools.” With Ferebee’s
help, the mayor’s office wrote legislation giving
IPS authority to create such autonomous
schools to replace failing schools, to convert
existing IPS schools to innovation schools, evento bring charters in to run innovation schools in
IPS buildings.
The state teachers union opposed the bill andattacked Ferebee when he testified about it. But,
in Indiana, a right-to-work state, the union has
fewer members and less power than in otherstates. In 2014 the legislature passed it, and,in 2015, it added new features and extended
the same authority to the state’s other school
districts. When the 2014 elections brought three
more reformers onto the board, Ferebee hadstrong local support for the idea.
Innovation network schools are exempt fromthe same laws and regulations charters areAN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P9

exempt from, and they operate outside IPS’s
union contracts. They have five- to seven-year
contracts with the district, which are much likecharters. If the school fails to fulfill the termsof its contract, the district can end the contract
or refuse to renew it, but otherwise it cannot
interfere with the school’s autonomy.

Innovation network schools are
exempt from the same laws andregulations charters are exempt
from, and they operate outside
IPS’s union contracts.
The principal and teachers are not IPS
employees; they work for the nonprofit 501(c)3
corporation. The nonprofit board hires and fires
the principal, sets the budget and pay scale,and chooses the school design. All the schools
operate in IPS buildings, and IPS handles special
education for those that are not also charters.
There are four types of innovation network
schools:
1. New startups, some of which are also charterschools.
2. Charter schools that choose to become
innovation schools and are housed in district
school buildings.
3. Failing schools the district restarts as
innovation schools, often partnering withan outside operator.
4. Existing IPS schools that choose
to convert to innovation status.
The new schools tend to build up a grade or two
at a time. Some of the restarts (type 3) take on
the entire student body, while others phase in a
grade or two per year.

All but the second type serve as neighborhood
schools, not schools of choice. Ferebee believesin public school choice—indeed, he wrote his
doctoral dissertation on the topic. But he also
wants students whose parents don’t take thetrouble to choose to have access to quality
schools. He’s trying to create a system thatwill provide both. In addition, he adds, “I believe
there is a symbiotic relationship between aneighborhood and a school.” When a school
is abandoned, the neighborhood tends to go
downhill. He wants innovation schools to havethe opposite effect: to revive neighborhoods.
When charter schools become innovation
schools, they pay rent to IPS, but at very
low rates. Different innovation schools
have negotiated different agreements with
IPS, but most get free or reduced-price bus
transportation for students who need it,
free utilities, custodial, maintenance, special
education, and information technology services,
student meals, a nurse, and a social worker.
These advantages add up to an average of about$2,000 per student, according to David Harris—
enough to make becoming an innovation school
more attractive than just opening a new charterschool. “Just having a facility that exists is a$2.5 million fundraising difference,” says Earl
Martin Phalen, who opened a charter school andthen an innovation school in the city.
Though the statewide teachers union opposed
the original legislation, the local union has notinterfered with implementation. Ferebee andhis staff try to communicate with union leaders
regularly, so no one gets blindsided, says Aleesia
Johnson, Ferebee’s innovation officer. She points
out that union leaders know that, if IPS doesn’t
try to turn around failing schools, the state may
take them over.

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Just having a facility that exists is a$2.5 million fundraising difference,”says Earl Martin Phalen, who
opened a charter school and thenan innovation school in the city.
Union leaders were present when IPS leaders
talked with the first two schools that wanted
to convert to innovation status. In both cases,
an overwhelming majority of the teachers
supported conversion, including the union
representatives—even though it meant leaving
union membership and tenure behind. “These
are the high performing schools,” says Brandon
Brown, who ran Mayor Ballard’s charter office
and is now at The Mind Trust, “and most of theteachers probably feel pretty confident—andrightfully so—that their situation is going tobe fine.”
The Mind Trust proposed that it “incubate”
innovation schools, by providing grants toleaders to support them through a planning
year or two, and Ferebee agreed. The Mind Trust
incubated one of the five innovation schools
launched in 2015, three of which were alreadyexisting charters, and all four that opened in2016. Of those launched in 2015, the one restart
best illustrates what IPS is trying to do.

EARL MARTIN PHALEN

THE PHALEN LEADERSHIP ACADEMYFrancis Scott Key Elementary School 103
had been rated F by the state for five years. In
its neighborhood, nearly of third of residents
had annual household incomes of less than
$10,000.26 The school was one of the mosttransient and violent in the city: in its final year,
73 fights erupted, more than in any of IPS’s otherelementary schools. Enrollment had fallen from
527 to 341, and only 11 students passed thestate ISTEP exams.27 “Every single classroom
was chaotic,” says Earl Martin Phalen, whose
Phalen Leadership Academies (PLA) was asked
by the district to take it over and turn it around.
“Literally 13 of our sixth graders, on the pretest,
were at kindergarten or first grade levels. They
couldn’t spell their names.”
Phalen played basketball at Yale, then graduatedfrom Harvard Law School in 1993, two years
after Barack Obama. He usually sports two
earrings and a three-piece suit, but that’s notwhat makes him so unusual. Earl spent his firsttwo years in an orphanage, then was adopted
by white parents in Norwood, Massachusetts, avery white suburb of Boston.
His adoptive mother’s parents were immigrants
from Ireland, Phalen says. When they went into
Boston to look for jobs, they ran into a lot ofsigns that said “No Irish Need Apply.” “During thecivil rights movement, my mom said to my dad, ‘Iwant to be a freedom rider,’” he explains. “My dad
said, ‘We’ve got seven kids under nine; you’re notgoing to be a freedom rider.’ She read an article
in the Boston Globe that said 70 percent of theblack boys in foster care would end up in prisonby the time they were 21. So she said, ‘Let’s
adopt an African-American boy.’”
His parents gave him the middle name of Martinin honor of Martin Luther King. And they didn’t
stop adopting with Earl. “Now the family has 42
grandchildren and great grandchildren,” he says
with a grin. “Eleven of them are black.”
At Harvard Law School, he started an afterschool tutoring program, which evolved into asummer tutoring program and grew from 20 kids

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to 15,000 in multiple states.In 2009, he applied
for a Mind Trust fellowship to bring his Summer
Advantage program to Indianapolis, where it
eventually served 5,000 kids a summer.
Then Harris asked him to start a charter school.
“If we can do 10 schools and serve 10,000 kids,
we’ll do this,” he and his two partners decided.
The Indiana Charter School Board gave him
a charter for 10 schools, and he named them
the George and Veronica Phalen Leadership
Academies, out of gratitude to his parents. The
first one now includes pre-kindergarten throughfourth grade; year by year, it will grow to eighth
grade. Last year 89 percent of the students were
African American and 78 percent qualified fora free or reduced-price lunch. At the end of thesecond year, 100 percent of third graders passed
the state’s IREAD exam. Even before then, IPS
and The Mind Trust selected him as a fellow torestart a failing IPS school, with all the students,
as an innovation network school.
“We knew it had to be done well, because, if
it wasn’t, the notion of innovation schools
would take a severe hit,” Phalen says. “It was
sooner than we wanted to do a turnaround,and everybody said turnaround is tougher thana charter. The risk is that you’re taking on thewhole school, and you have to believe thatyou can get third graders and fourth gradersand fifth graders who’ve been in a chaotic
environment for five, six, and seven years toactually behave up to your expectations. But
we had done summer programs with kids fromseven different gangs, and we put them on one
campus. So I wasn’t scared about being able toset the culture. We can set culture.”

The risk is that you’re taking on
the whole school, and you haveto believe that you can get third

graders and fourth graders and fifth
graders who’ve been in a chaotic
environment for five, six, and sevenyears to actually behave up to yourexpectations.
Francis Scott Key had 53 teachers. Phalen says
he told them kids were going to grow 1.5 years
per year, academically, and they didn’t believe
it. So he didn’t hire any of them—“Because they
didn’t have the fundamental belief in the kids
they were serving.” He and principal Agnes
Aleobua hired 42 new staff members and had
the dingy old school renovated, with new desks,
carpeting over the old tile, and bright new painton the walls. They assigned a teacher and an
assistant to most classrooms—then let two ofthem go within the first few months. “We cannot
waste a year of a child’s life while a teacher
tries to figure out if they want to do this,” Phalen
explained.28
Phalen had learned from his summer programand his charter school how important it was toengage children’s parents. “We built a processthat was scientifically proven to increase
parental engagement,” he says. “It’s not rocket
science; it’s just common sense. We have all
our teachers call home prior to the start of the
program and say, ‘Your son’s going to be in myclass; what are his interests? What does he liketo read? And, by the way, here are my goals forthe classroom; what do you want to get out of
the class this year, for your child? And here’s myemail; you’re welcome any time in our class.’”“And we send a progress report every fourweeks, so you can’t say, ‘I didn’t know.’ You knowwhat homework is being done, how behavior is,
and you have to sign it. Eighty percent of ourparents sign it.”AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P12“We also have All-Pro Dads. Dads come in with
their kids, for breakfast. At the last one, we
had 67 dads out of 300 families. They startby saying, “My name is ___, my son is ___, andI’m very proud of him because….” Tony Dungy,
the former Indianapolis Colts coach, built the
curriculum. “It creates a special community andvulnerability. It’s built to help dads talk to theirkids more. If you’re a single mom you can comeand do the same. But it’s mostly men.”“We had 267 families of 400 come to an
event at 103. Just by showing that care andconcern, we got that turnout—and people told
us they wouldn’t be engaged. We hired parent
advocates. Their goal is to get to know theparents, build a relationship, visit the house,spend time with them. Get them hooked up with
programs they qualify for.” Enrollment jumped
17 percent in the first year, another 15 percent
in 2016.29
After six months, Phalen told me, “We’ve got
the culture straightened out; now, we need to
get the academic piece fixed.” By the time state
testing rolled around, the percentage of third
graders who passed IREAD (a reading test for
third graders that has not changed) had doubled,from 30 to 61 percent.
While Phalen reinvents the school, the Glick
Philanthropies have launched a comprehensive
effort to turn the broader neighborhood around,called the Far Eastside Success Initiative, inpartnership with the United Way of Central
Indiana, Central Indiana Community Foundation,and IPS. It will involve housing, free pre-school,
college scholarships, a food pantry, adulteducation and training programs, and healthcare and public safety initiatives.
Gene B. Glick was a builder who constructedmany of the homes and apartments in theneighborhood, beginning in the 1950s. His familysays it is prepared to make a 20-year investmentin the area, which also houses a high school.
Already it has purchased an apartment complex
he built and invested $5 million in improving it.
It has given PLA 103 more than $1 million overthe first two years to help with renovation, staff
recruitment and training, parent advocates,and pre-school. And, at the high school, it
has invested $40,000 in college scholarships
and $60,000 to support a restorative justicediscipline program.30

Glick Philanthropies has given
PLA 103 more than $1 millions
over the first two years to help withrenovation, staff recruitment andtraining, parent advocates andpre-school.
This year Phalen took a second innovation
school under its wing, but on a slightly different
basis. School 93 is run by a group of teachers
who call themselves Project Restore. This is“an incredible group of teachers who, eight
years ago, were at another school,” he says, andsaid, ‘You guys keep handing us down all these
initiatives; you don’t have any idea what works
or doesn’t work because your feet have been so
far from the ground. Let us run the school.’” Theprincipal, who believed in distributed leadership,
agreed. So the group of teachers put together
seven principles. “It’s nothing revolutionary,”
Phalen says: weekly tests; guides for whatshould be taught every week; showcasing
results; coaching teachers; recognition forgood teachers; and so on. “With the exact sameteachers, they took the school from an F rated
school to an A rated school in one year. So thesuperintendent, Dr. White, said, ‘Why don’t you
try that again?’” They turned that school from an
F to a B in one year, and an A the next year.

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P13

Ferebee encouraged them to bring their model
to school 93, which they moved from an F toa C in their first year, 2014-15.31 When theydecided to pursue innovation network status,
through a Mind Trust Educator Empowerment
Grant, they didn’t want to spend time buildinga 501(c)3 organization and a board. “Theywere passionate about teaching, improving
teaching and learning—not administration, notstarting a 501(c)3,” Phalen says. So they joined
his organization, under his board. “We will beoverseeing school 93 and 103, but we will be
accountable to the IPS school board.”
GLOBAL PREPARATORY ACADEMY
Another interesting restart is the first duallanguage immersion school to be chartered inIndiana—a K-2 school that will gradually growto be K-8. Called Global Prep Academy, it was
launched in August 2016 by Mariama Carson, aformer teacher and principal in Pike Township,
one of ten other districts within Indianapolis’sborders. It offers instruction in both English andSpanish, to native speakers of both languages.

MARIAMA CARSONAs she grew up in Indianapolis, Carson always
wanted to be a teacher. Her schools in Pike
Township were high-poverty schools, withan increasing number of Spanish speakers.
She became passionate about dual-language
immersion, because, when Spanish speakers
began showing up in her classrooms back in
2002, her high school and college Spanish was
not enough. She went to Cuernavaca, Mexico,
for a six-week immersion program during thesummer, then returned every other year to brushup. “That’s why the passion for immersion as theway to learn another language,” she says. “It’ssink or swim, make it happen.”
As a principal, Carson raised her school’s testscores, improving its state rating from a D toa B. But she grew frustrated. “I could makeincremental progress, not drastic progress,”
she says. But, if the district would let her dowhat she wanted—a dual-language immersion
school—“we could blow the doors off. But the
district said, no, we’re not doing that.”
Her sister worked at The Mind Trust, so she
approached David Harris, said she thought
she might want to teach in a charter school.
“He said, ‘No, you need to create a charterschool,” she laughs. The Mind Trust gave her an
Education Entrepreneur Fellowship, paying her
for two years to create her school. She returned
to Mexico for six weeks and also traveled to visit
outstanding dual-language immersion schools
around the United States. The Mind Trust
helped her recruit a board and create a backoffice support system, and she began to recruit
teachers, an assistant principal, and a duallanguage coach.
Originally, she intended to create an independent
charter school, but, when the innovation path
opened, it was financially more attractive. So
her school is both a charter, authorized by
the mayor’s office, and an innovation network
school, located in an IPS building. “I thought I
would never again work inside a district,” shesays, “but I think this way of working inside a
district will work for us.”

Originally she intended to create
an independent charter school, butwhen the innovation path opened,
it was financially more attractive.

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P14

So her school is both a charter,
authorized by the mayor’s office,and an innovation network school,
located in an IPS building.
The school she is replacing was one of theworst in IPS. Only one teacher applied to stay,
and Carson hired her as an assistant in the
behavior room. “Kids are easy to change,”
Carson says; “it’s adults that are hard.” She had
to recruit teachers worldwide, to get 50 percent
native Spanish speakers. One came from Spain,
another from Mexico.
In the neighborhood, she says, a third of thehomes are abandoned, a third are rented, and athird are owned. “Failure is what they know. They
keep asking, ‘What are you going to do when
you fail? How long before you fail?’” At the firstsix parent meetings, before the school opened,
only 23 people showed up. So she held a family
movie night, a magic show, an outdoor movie,
and a block party with carnival games.
Then she began doing home visits, as she didin Pike Township—where she says they were
frowned upon. Enrollment rose by 20 percent.32
She’s confident that what worked in Pike
Township will work in her new school. “The heartand soul of our program is hands-on learningand experiential learning,” she says. The teachingis project based, so kids do explorations withineach unit. They develop expertise on a topic,
and, every 12 weeks, they do a presentation to
showcase what they’ve learned. The need topresent gives them a reason to learn, as well asteaching them how to speak in front of a group.
There are six interdisciplinary units of study,
on topics such as family, science, money, and“who am I?” “That’s how I’ve always taught,” shesays. “There’s tons of research: when you makeconnections for kids, it has more meaning and it
sticks with them.”

There are six interdisciplinary unitsof study, on topics such as family,
science, money, and “who am I?”
Kids have an English teacher in the morning anda Spanish teacher in the afternoon, or vice versa.
So every student has two teachers. With both
English and Spanish speakers in the classroom,
she says, “Kids help each other a lot. That’s why
the two-way language immersion is so powerful.”
The school will run year-round, with seven weeks
off in the summer, two in the fall, two in thewinter, and two in the spring—10 more days thana normal IPS school. Any child not at grade level
will stay for an additional week during the spring
and fall breaks, to work in a small group.
THE FUTURE OF INNOVATIONNETWORK SCHOOLSThe Mind Trust is incubating seven innovation
network schools, several of them foundedby successful charters that have decided toreplicate as innovation schools.33 Earl Martin
Phalen is creating a new middle school, built on
its Phalen Leadership Academies (PLA) model.
And Purdue University is developing the Purdue
Polytechnic High School, to create a bridge
for inner-city kids to the university. Using a
project-based approach, it will focus on science,technology, and engineering. “We are reallytargeting those students who might be in that
middle range, who today are not thinking about
going to college or maybe aren’t being prepared
to go to college,” says future head of school
Scott Bess, who formerly ran Goodwill Education
Initiatives, which oversees a charter high schooland six charters for adult drop-outs in the city
(and five more outside Indianapolis).34

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P15

According to Bess, his high school graduates
who meet Purdue University’s admissions
criteria will be automatically accepted into the
Purdue Polytechnic Institute, one of Purdue’s
10 colleges, while others may pursue associatedegrees or certifications in well-paid technicalfields.35
As of today, about 10 percent of IPS students
attend nine innovation network schools, fiveof which are also charter schools.36 As thesenine build out their grade levels and four or five
more innovation schools launch next year, thatpercentage will increase. Another year or two ofthat and a full quarter of IPS’s students will bein innovation schools.

As of today, about 10 percent of IPS
students attend nine innovation
network schools, five of which arealso charter schools.
Meanwhile, Superintendent Ferebee hasannounced a three-year plan to close several
existing IPS high schools. In his first three years,
Ferebee estimates, IPS has weeded out 56
percent of its failing schools—one of the nation’s
most aggressive efforts to address failingschools.37 “My philosophy is this,” he says: “Youcan have a bad year, but we know those schools,
and they exist all across the nation, where every
year is a bad year. The outcomes and challengesof those situations are very steep to overcome
for the students and their families. It’s typicallythe neighborhood schools, where students are
required to attend. That’s a social justice issue,
an equity issue. I am of the belief that we get
students out of those situations by any means
necessary.”
There are constant problems that need to beworked out, acknowledges Aleesia Johnson,

a former KIPP principal who oversees theinnovation network for Ferebee. Will there
be enough money to support the growing
number of innovation schools, for instance?
As the first restart school, Phalen negotiateda generous deal, which included a 10 percent
management fee, on the theory that much of
the administrative work would be done by theschool, not central headquarters. Later, Ferebee
and Johnson realized how expensive that wouldbe, with multiple schools, and quit offering it.
“But, if there’s no management fee built in, howwill the schools support the services that areneeded to make sure the schools are great?”
Phalen asks. “If you have a break-even deal
today, just by the very nature of the cost ofpurchasing, you’re going to be down by 1.5
percent a year; and, just by the nature of talent, if
you want to retain people,” you have to give themraises. “I’m seeing some upside-down deals,”with fixed revenue streams for seven years andno management fees. “So I worry about this nextclass.”
And what does IPS do with teachers theinnovation schools don’t want? The teachers’
contract doesn’t let the district lay people off
if their school is closed and replaced by an
innovation school. Most of them have foundpositions at other IPS schools, so far. But, when
IPS gets to 20 innovation schools, what will it
do with all those surplus teachers? Right now,
if principals still have vacancies the first day ofschool, they are forced to take surplus teachers.
Unless that policy is changed, the expansion of
innovation schools could undermine other IPS
schools.
Johnson has confidence that they’ll figure it out.
Dr. Ferebee, she says, has “created the mindset,

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P16‘Figure out how we can do it.’ It’s never, ‘No, we
can’t do that.’ It’s, “Oh, we’ve never done that,so let’s talk about it and figure out how to get it
done’”“This is all so new,” she adds. “We believe we canbe a proof point for the country, quite honestly,
but we’re still new.”
OTHER INITIATIVES TO CREATE
A PORTFOLIO SYSTEM
Dr. Ferebee and the board are rolling out a seriesof other initiatives designed to create a portfolio
of different kinds of schools. They have createda category of “autonomous schools,” which get
more control over their budgets and hiring than
traditional IPS schools but remain within theteachers union contract—which means they
can’t extend their school day or year, among
other things. In the first year, Ferebee chose sixof the eight schools that applied for the new
status, all of which already perform well, and fiveof which are magnet schools, which already had
more autonomy than traditional schools.38 He
sees autonomous status in part as a transition
for principals before they pursue innovation
status. He won’t force autonomy on principals,
he says, but he’ll give them all they want. His
long-term goal, supported by the board, isto convert all IPS schools to autonomous or
innovation schools.

“Transformation Zone.” These schools were all at
risk of state takeover, according to School Board
President Mary Ann Sullivan. Ferebee has given
them some degree of autonomy, and they aredeveloping teacher leaders who teach part timeand coach other teachers in their subject matterand grade levels, through a national initiative
called the “Opportunity Culture,” run by
Public Impact.
IPS is also planning a unified enrollment system
for all public schools in the city, including theindependent charters—as Denver, New Orleans,
Washington D.C., and Newark have. Caitlin
Hannon, a former school board member, is using
a fellowship from The Mind Trust to develop the“Enroll Indy” system, with a proposed launchin November 2017.39 The IPS board voted in
November to move ahead with it. This will makeit far easier for parents who want to choose
the best schools for their children. They will nolonger have to fill out multiple applications atcharter and magnet schools. It will also increase
the competitive pressure on schools, because
everyone will know which ones are in demand
and which aren’t.

IPS is also planning a unified
enrollment system for all publicschools in the city, including theindependent charters—as Denver,
New Orleans, Washington D.C., andNewark have.

They have created a category of“autonomous schools,” which get
more control over their budgets andhiring than traditional IPS schools
but remain within the teachers
union contract.

In 2017-18 IPS plans to shift to weighted student
budgeting, in which most of the money allocatedfor children will follow them to the school, andthe principal and staff will decide how to use it.

IPS also has a contract with a school turnaroundorganization called Mass Insight to work with
two failing high schools and their feeder middle
and elementary schools, in what they call aStudents living in poverty will bring greater
resources. And those running schools will havemore room to line their spending up behind
their educational strategies—whether blendedAN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P17

learning (using educational software), projectbased learning, dual-language immersion, or any
other strategy.
IPS is also working with the mayor’s charter
office and state charter board to develop a“common performance framework” by which
all schools will be measured. Aleesia Johnson
explains that not all schools will be held
accountable for the same things, but there will
be a common measuring stick. Her goal is tohave a performance framework for IPS in placeby 2017-18, while continuing to work on the
cross-sector version.
And, finally, The Mind Trust, IPS, and the mayor’s
office are working on “Equity Reports,” which
will measure how public schools serve different
types of students, by gender, race, poverty levels,and special education. They will be modeled
after Washington D.C.’s Equity Reports, and they
will cover all charter, innovation, autonomous,and traditional schools. If they follow D.C.’s
format, they will give people information aboutschools’ attendance rates, suspension andexpulsion rates, midyear entries and departures,standardized test scores, and graduation rates,
broken down by subgroup.
CONCLUSION
If all these plans are realized, most publicschools in Indianapolis will have the autonomy
they need to succeed, parents will have many
choices and good information with which to
make those choices, and schools that lag behind
will be regularly replaced by stronger models.
Like New Orleans and Washington D.C.’s charter
sector—two of the fastest improving systems
in the country—Indianapolis will have a selfrenewing system, in which every school has
incentives and the autonomy to continuously
innovate and improve. That is the goal of“portfolio” or “21st century” systems, in which
the district and/or authorizers contract with
operators rather than operating schools, givethem autonomy, ask them to compete based
upon their performance, close failures, andreplicate successes.

If all these plans are realized, mostpublic schools in Indianapolis will
have the autonomy they need tosucceed, parents will have many
choices and good information
with which to make those choices,and schools that lag behind will
be regularly replaced by stronger
models.
Indianapolis’s charter sector is almost there
already. It’s too early to judge the performanceof innovation network schools, but they are themost promising of the in-district autonomous
schools around the country, because they startwith true charter-like autonomy rather thanwaivers from rules, as in other cities. If IPS holds
them accountable for performance, closes thosethat fail, and replicates those that succeed,
they could change the district’s performancedramatically. And, if they prove to be a viable
alternative to independent charters, they might
have enormous impact nationwide. In mostplaces, it is far easier politically to create indistrict innovation schools than independent
charter schools.The risk is that the independent
charter sector in Indianapolis will stop
expanding, because charter operators can get
such a better deal as IPS innovation schools.
Then, after the political winds shift or there issome kind of scandal at an innovation school,
the board could try to nibble away at theirautonomy. Each school has a contract, which
will protect it for a few years. But a hostileAN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P18

board could refuse to renew contracts or allow
continued use of its buildings. It would take achange in state law to undermine independent
charters, but to undermine innovation schools
all it would take is a reversal of the school board
majority.
Still, the current majority for reform is solid. Not
many cities can boast bipartisan support forcharters and a portfolio district, but that support
is strong in Indianapolis. The Mind Trust hasdone an enormous amount, creating an entire
network of non-profit organizations and schools.
And the business community has been a steadysource of support and funding.
With millennials being more geared to urban
living, says Chamber of Commerce President
and CEO Michael Huber, we realize “we can’tturn schools around fast enough in urban areas
where millennials want to live.
It’s not by accident that companies like Eli
Lilly—through their corporate foundationand other major corporate players—havebeen significant funders of this work. They’reconcerned about their talent pipelines, theirability to recruit the best talent.”
Charters are no longer controversial; it has beena dozen years since they were a political issue.
And less than half of public school teachers are
members of the statewide or local union. The
statewide union almost went bankrupt about
five years ago, which limited its activities, andthe local union is so weak it has done little toorganize opposition to the local reforms.
There are a few headwinds, however. The local
branch of the NAACP has long been anti-charter.
Though it doesn’t have much of a following, itsleaders, plus one outgoing school board member
who opposes the innovation network and two

local professors, staged a series of forums thisfall, called “Rise Up Indy Against The Mind Trust.”
Other African-American organizations havesupported reform, however.
A lot of her friends are against charter schools,
says Mariama Carson. “They say, ‘Oh, they’retrying to privatize education.’ A lot of it isorganizations like Stand for Children and whitemoney that came into the elections. That’s why
people are against it: they see it as outside whitemoney.” In addition, she says, the teachers union
spreads misinformation. “They lie to parents,
and parents tend to believe their child’s teacher.”“There’s a small set of voices,” Earl Martin Phalenadds, “that are saying, ‘When has a Republicanadministration in recent history done anythingfor poor black, Latino, and white folks? If you
want me to believe that this charter thing,which is largely being led by Republicans, isfor the good of blacks—I’ve lived long enoughthat I don’t think it’s for good intent.’ And thenthose who say, ‘I actually think we’re just the
crumbs to the voucher program. They reallywant the voucher program, but they’ve got tohave something that says, What about the poor
folks?’”“There were active KKK members on the IPS
board back in the seventies, right? So thecommunity says, ‘I don’t trust you guys at all.
I’ve seen what you’ve done to our kids. I’ve seen
what you’ve done to our schools. So I don’t
trust you to do anything that’s right by our kids.
Yes, our school may be in trouble, and 103 hasbeen a nightmare for a decade, but I don’t trust
this privatization, this Republican thing that’s
going on.’ So they’ve been putting more politicalpressure on Dr. Ferebee to say, ‘Stop privatizing
our schools; stop giving away our schools tocharters. You don’t know, because you’re an

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P19

out-of-towner, Dr. Ferebee, what the history has
been here, and this isn’t going to be good for our
kids at the end of it; there’s some ulterior motive.’
I think that has the potential to possibly slow
down some of the things we’ve been trying todo, to be honest with you.”
Anti-reform activists from two groups,
Concerned Clergy and OurIPS, ran candidates
for all four board seats up for re-election thisNovember, but they fell far short. Reformers
backed by Stand for Children, who support
Ferebee, won three of the seats, and a former
board president who falls somewhere between
the two camps won the fourth.

Anti-reform activists from twogroups, Concerned Clergy andOurIPS, ran candidates for all fourboard seats up for re-election thisNovember, but they fell far short.
The key will be producing results, and thenext few years will be critical. Indianapolis is
fortunate to have a superintendent who knows—
from his personal experience—the value ofgiving principals and schools autonomy andholding them accountable for results. He is arare commodity in the world of superintendents.
His presence, and the board that hired him, makeIndianapolis a city to watch.

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P20

Endnotes
Any quotes not attributed with an endnote are from interviews with the author.
1

See David Osborne, “How New Orleans Made Charter Schools Work,” The Washington Monthly, June-July-August 2015, at
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaugust_2015/features/how_new_orleans_made_charter_s055905.php?page=al;
and Douglas N. Harris, “Good News for New Orleans,” Education Next, Fall 2015, Vol. 15 No. 4, at http://educationnext.org/good-newsnew-orleans-evidencereform-student-achievement/.

2

See David Osborne, A Tale of Two Systems: Education Reform in Washington D.C. (Washington, D.C.: Progressive Policy Institute, 2015),
at http://www.progressivepolicy.org/slider/tale-of-two-systems-education-reform-in-washington-d-c/.

3Interview with Brandon Brown, former director of charter office for Mayor Greg Ballard, April 4, 2016.

4

A list of mayor-sponsored charters can be found at http://oei.indy.gov/mayor-sponsored-charter-schools/. Their enrollment data
is from the Indiana Department of Education, at http://compass.doe.in.gov/dashboard/overview.aspx?type=corp&id=5385.

5“ICSB Charter Schools,” Indiana Charter School Board website, https://www.in.gov/icsb/2448.htm. The board plans to open four morecharters in Indianapolis in the fall of 2017.

6“Charter Schools Authorized by Ball State University,” Ball State University website,
http://cms.bsu.edu/academics/collegesanddepartments/teachers/schools/charter/charterschool/charterschools.

7

Data provided by The Mind Trust, Sept. 30, 2016:2015-2016(INCLUDING ADULT HS)

2015-2016(EXCLUDING ADULT HS)

INNOVATION NETWORK SCHOOLS (W/O A CHARTER)

571

571

INNOVATION NETWORK SCHOOLS (W/ A CHARTER)

864

864

INDEPENDENT CHARTER SCHOOLS

13,86911,530

STATE TAKEOVER SCHOOLS

1,623

1,623

IPS

29,01229,012

TOTAL

45,93943,600AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P21

8“National Organizations Recruited by The Mind Trust to Indy,” The Mind Trust, 2016, at http://www.themindtrust.org/recruiting-talent/
nonprofits-recruited-to-indy/.

9“Teach Grit: Indianapolis Teaching Fellows,” TNTP Teaching Fellows, at http://tntpteachingfellows.org/indianapolis.

10 “The City of Indianapolis: Quality, Innovation, and Autonomy,” The Mind Trust, May 2016(prepared for a Progressive Policy Institute conference in Denver).
11

Todd Ziebarth and Louann Bierlein Palmer, The Health of the Charter Public School Movement: A State-by-State Analysis(Washington, D.C.: National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, March 7, 2016).

12

Interviews with Ahmed Young, Brandon Brown, Scott Bess, and others, April 2016.

13

Interview with Brandon Brown, former director of the Mayor’s charter office in Indianapolis, April 4, 2016.

14

Interview with Brandon Brown, former head of the Mayor’s charter office, April 4, 2016.

15

Enrollment data from Indiana Department of Education website, http://www.doe.in.gov/accountability/find-school-and-corporation-datareports.

16

It may be unfair to compare the two sectors on the first year of a test that was unfamiliar to students and teachers, but the percentages
achieving proficiency at mayoral charters were 11.2 points higher in ELA and 8.4 points higher in math in 2015. “The City of Indianapolis:
Quality, Innovation, and Autonomy,” The Mind Trust.

17

All data in this paragraph is from the Mayor’s Office of Innovation in Education, Indianapolis.

18

Mayor’s Office of Innovation in Education.

19

Charter School Performance in Indiana (Stanford, Ca.: Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, December 2012), pp. 15, 35.

20 Urban Charter School Study: Report on 41 Regions (Stanford, Ca.: Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, 2015).
21

Interview with David Harris, December 1, 2015.

22

David Harris, “Let Mayors Authorize Charter Schools,” Real Clear Policy, Dec. 22, 2014, at
http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2014/12/22/let_mayors_authorize_charter_schools_1159.html>.

23

31 of 65 IPS schools were rated D or F in 2015. Jason Weeby, Kelly Robson, and George Mu, The U.S. Education Innovation Index: 		
Prototype and Report (Washington, D.C.: Bellwether Partners, Sept. 2016), p. 43.

24

Arianna Prothero, “Indianapolis Superintendent Enlists Charters as Allies to Improve City’s Schools,” Education Week, February 24, 2016,at http://leaders.edweek.org/profile/lewis-ferebee-superintendent-charter-district-partnerships/.

25

Weeby, Robson, and Mu, The U.S. Education Innovation Index: Prototype and Report, p. 42.

26

Eric Weddle, “Investing For The Long Haul On The Far Eastside,” WFYI, June 29, 2016, athttps://wfyinews.atavist.com/chasingthedream#chapter-1141664.

27

Adam Wren, “The Mind Trust Is… A) Revolutionzing the City Schools B) Swaying Elections C) Enabling Gentrification D) All of the Above,”
Indianapolis Monthly, Sept. 2016, p. 178.

28

Ibid., plus interview with Earl Martin Phalen, April 4, 2016.

29

17 percent: Weddle, “Investing For The Long Haul On The Far Eastside,” pp. 178-9; 15 percent: data provided by Phalen Leadership

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P22

Academies, Nov. 15, 2016.
30 Glick investments: Glick Philanthropies, “Far Eastside Success Initiative: Update to the IPS Board of School Commissioners,” Sept. 27,
2016, at http://www.boarddocs.com/in/indps/Board.nsf/files/AE7S8F716F13/$file/Far%20Eastside%20Success%20Initiative%20
Update%20-%20September%202016.pdf.
31

The Mind Trust, “MY IPS” email blog, June 23, 2016.

32

Mariama Carson, via email, Nov. 17, 2016.

33

David Harris, via email, Sept. 30, 2016.

34

Interview with Scott Bess, April 6, 2016; “Locations,” The Excel Center website, http://www.excelcenter.org/locations; and “About,”
The Excel Center website, http://www.excelcenter.org/about.

35

Interview with Scott Bess; and Dylan Peers McCoy, “Two New Charter High Schools Get a Boost from The Mind Trust,”
Chalkbeat Indiana, August 17, 2016.

36

Dylan Peers McCoy, “Indianapolis Public Schools Adds Schools to ‘Innovation’ Program, Reshaping District,” Chalkbeat Indiana,
March 17, 2016.

37

Interview with Dr. Ferebee, April 6, 2016.

38

Dylan Peers McCoy, “IPS Picks Six Schools To Try Out More Freedom For Principals,” Chalkbeat Indiana, Feb. 8, 2016.

39

Adam Wren, “The Mind Trust Is…”, Indianapolis Monthly.

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN INDIANAPOLIS · P23

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