Recent History of the Charter School Funding Issue: Why Parents for Public Education is concerned about this funding:

Shortly before the charter announcement, there was a story in the Star regarding the Superintendent's Association requesting a moratorium on Charter Schools. That is when parents in IPS became alarmed, because this was contrary to all of the information we had received about charter schools up until this point.

December 6th: the Mayor of Indianapolis announced that 4 schools had been chartered. At that point, some of us began researching the situation, contacting both the Mayor's office and members of the IPS Administration in an attempt to understand what seemed to be a disconnect. We were surprised to discover that IPS would take a serious funding hit due to the opening of the new schools, an issue that had not been discussed publicly.

On December 17th, fifteen IPS parents and children attended the City-Council Meeting where the members were expected to confirm the Charter choices. We had contacted the councillors over the weekend; none of the councillors were aware of this issue.

We asked the councillors to postpone the vote long enough to investigate our concern, since it was such recent information. Click here for the text. Some councillors chastised us, saying there had been many hearings - actually, there were no hearings on the fiscal impact to existing families, and the committee hearing which had taken place the week before had not been listed on there website; consequently no public members attended. All hearings had been about "what kind of charter schools should Indianapolis choose?"

Our information came too late, and the vote proceeded as planned. We subsequently met with the Mayor, who indicated that it was never his intent to harm the existing programs of IPS. He accepted our information and indicated that there might be some chance of correcting this problem at a later date.

Several of us then attended Citizen's Lobby Day at the State Legislature in January, (see NUVO article by Maureen Jayne) in an attempt to raise awareness and find a legislative correction for the funding dilemma. We presented our position paper to all Senators and House Reps at that time. Here is the updated text with those same concerns; it also includes a call to action for IPS Families to continue to ask all officials involved in the creation of these schools to be sensitive to the potential harm they may be inflicting on a system that has only recently begun to improve. We continue to ask our elected officials for a correction to the funding problem- so far nothing concrete has been offered.

February 27 - Senatorial offices mentioned having received the many calls and letters from district families. Five IPS parents attended the 2nd reading of House Bill 1315, where an amendment was added to provide funding for the Charter Schools to open next fall. Unfortunately, that amendment would have also caused an additional $3M hit to IPS (in addition to the $6-9M that would have begun being withheld from IPS' operating budget in January of 2003). Senator Lubbers also indicated that there would be an additional school placed in Indianapolis by Ball State (this will also increase the impact, but there is no information yet about how much). Many of the Senators did not understand how school funding works in Indiana--that is, if the state does not provide new money to start the schools, it has to come from somewhere, and that is the operating budget intended for the 40,000 children who are currently in the IPS system. They are proceeding on false assumptions, and if they do not learn the details they will hurt our system badly, even if that harm is unintentional. The amendment passed, 26 in favor, and 22 opposing.

February 28 - The Start stated that contracts for the 4 Indianapolis Charter Schools were signed on Feb 27. The 3rd reading of HB 1315 resulted in an hour-long debate in the afternoon. Ultimately it failed to receive a majority vote and died. Charter School advocate, Derrick Redelman, was quoted on Channel 13 as stating "I guess we'll be going to court."

What now? Nothing has changed, except that additional $3M hit was averted. IPS will still lose an amount proportional to the number of students attending charter schools, even if they come from former Charitable Choice grantees, home schoolers, or converted private schools such as Flanner House. Charter School organizers may go to court in an attempt to force the DOE to interpret differently, the laws under which it has operated for most of the last decade. IPS Families must help all politicians, city leaders and charter school organizers understand one simple fact: in the current situation, the entry of these schools will have an impact to IPS that is far larger than they understand, is not only based on students leaving IPS. These two problems should be discussed and corrected simultaneously.

Week of March 4 - Compromise discussions with the Mayor's office, charter organizers, Dept. of Education and ???? have been proceeding. Sources say they are waiting on an opinion from the Attorney General before moving forward with a suit.

March 7 - Attorney General Steve Carter Issued this Official Opinion on Mar. 7th, stating, "It is my legal opinion that the General Assembly has created dual obligations that the Department must fulfill..." and suggests that the DOE. should fund the charters with new monies rather than taking the money from existing school corporations. "The Department may find in the performance of its ministerial duties that it is impossible to satisfy the State’s financial obligations to all public schools as required by the General Assembly. In such an event, the General Assembly must supply the Department with the necessary funds to satisfy these obligations." This opinion would suggest that the ball is now in the General Assembly's court to find the funding.