The proposed cuts represent about 5 percent of Indianapolis Public Schools’ current budget. IPS Superintendent Eugene White will detail his spending-reduction plan on May 24 at the IPS’ central office building.
The planned layoff of about 80 teachers by Indianapolis Public Schools will be among the first under a new state law that allows teacher performance to be considered in deciding who will be let go.
Some proponents of the Mind Trust plan to restructure Indianapolis Public Schools are looking to advance its key principles the old-fashioned way: by electing pro-reform members to the IPS board.
Indianapolis Public Schools chief Eugene White projected a defiant tilt toward the status quo.
In an hour-long defense of Indianapolis Public Schools, Superintendent Eugene White outlined plans to streamline administrative staff, create more choices for parents, direct more resources to the district’s most challenged schools and give more autonomy to its highest performing schools.
IPS superintendent Eugene White had been among the finalists for the top jobs at schools systems in Mobile, Ala., and in Greenville, S.C. But both districts chose this week to appoint internal candidates to lead their school systems.
Eugene White, superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, is now a finalist to lead a school system in Mobile County in Alabama, and he is interviewing for another superintendent’s post in South Carolina.
Just 62 percent of the students at four IPS schools being taken over by turnaround operators have chosen to remain at the schools, a situation that could shrink funding. The operators say the district has stymied their ability to inform students and their parents about their plans.
The Mind Trust plan for transforming Indianapolis Public Schools calls for turning the district into a network of charter-like schools and giving them 15 percent to 25 percent more dollars to spend than Indianapolis charter schools currently enjoy.
There’s a pitched battle under way in K-12 education as reform advocates and charter schools challenge traditional institutions such as teachers’ unions and education schools.
By gutting its central office, Indianapolis Public Schools could free up $188 million to provide universal preschool, to pay key teachers more than $100,000 a year and to transform itself into a network of autonomous “opportunity” schools.
Charter Schools USA, the Florida-based company tapped by the state government to turn around Howe and Manual high schools in Indianapolis, also wants to launch two charter elementary schools to help feed students into those schools.
Christine Collier, the longtime leader of the Center for Inquiry elementary and middle schools, is designing a high school within the Indianapolis Public Schools system that officials hope will draw students who now attend some of the highest-achieving K-8 schools in the IPS system.
Community leaders are coalescing around a three-prong strategy to attract residents and capital to neighborhoods from just outside downtown to the borders of Interstate 465. It’s not yet clear whether all the initiatives will have the full support of Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard.
The Indianapolis Public Schools superintendent wants the state to investigate charter schools that he claims break federal and state laws by turning away homeless and disabled students, a charge the president of the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association denies.
Indiana's two largest school districts both say they've seen small enrollment drops, with No. 2 Fort Wayne Community Schools inching closer in size to No. 1 Indianapolis Public Schools.
Indiana Schools Superintendent Tony Bennett used his second annual assessment of the state's education system to promote a sweeping overhaul approved this year.
The buyers of former IPS School 64 stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars if they manage to flip the property they bought for just $20,000.
Indiana's public schools chief wants two outside organizations to take over operation of four troubled Indianapolis schools.
High expectations set tone for Indianapolis Public School’s Harshman Middle School overhaul.
