INDIANAPOLIS — Few people in Southwestern Indiana were likely paying much attention Friday when the mayor of Indianapolis decided to close one of the city's charter schools.
But in the debate over education reform, and especially the role of charter schools in remaking Indiana's school landscape, the development was an important one.
Citing poor performance data for Fountain Square Academy, on the city's south side, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard said the building will close after the 2011-12 school year. The other five charters the Indianapolis mayor has sponsored will stay open.
Ballard is a Republican, but at first glance, his move seems to fly in the face of what party mates such as Gov. Mitch Daniels, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett and Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma are doing. They're pushing for an expansion of charters, while Ballard is closing one.
Upon closer inspection, though, what Ballard has done could provide a real shot in the arm for the efforts of Daniels, Bosma and other legislative Republicans.
Democrats have levied two chief criticisms of charter schools. (Evansville has two such schools — Joshua Academy and Signature School). One is that they divert money away from traditional public schools. The other is that charters do not face the same standards for accountability as traditional public schools.
There are legitimate differences of opinion over the first point. Though Indiana has always funded schools on a per-pupil basis, when you spread the same amount of money over a larger number of school buildings, some of those schools' slices of the financial pie are going to shrink.
But on the second point — accountability — Ballard's decision shows that underperforming charters do, indeed, face consequences.
The legislation Daniels, Bennett and Bosma are pushing includes consequences as well. In fact, lawmakers are proposing to make the standards charters face just as tough, or tougher, than those that exist for traditional public schools.
But Ballard's move to close one of his city's charters gives us something tangible to look at.
"Holding charters to the same high standards we hold traditional public schools should be the bare minimum expectation for charter schools statewide," Bennett said. "Mayor Ballard and his team have upheld a strict accountability system for Indianapolis charter schools that ensures every student receives a high-quality education."
The charter school legislation Indiana lawmakers are considering this year is contained in House Bill 1002. Currently, school boards, public universities and the mayor of Indianapolis can authorize new charters. That measure would expand the list to include a new statewide board, as well as private colleges. Other mayors were originally proposed to be included, but a state Senate committee dropped them from the bill last week.
A study that Stanford University released earlier this year argued that Indiana's charters are, on the whole, outperforming the school districts in which they are located. Charter school advocates called the study a game-changer.
"At a time where there is acute attention to quality in the charter sector, the charter schools in Indiana are proving to be a high-quality option for students and parents," said Margaret Raymond, director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford.
The same center has studied national charter performance and the performance of charters in other states, and has published research that damaged the momentum behind charters in some places. To me, that suggests the study was objective.
All of this information is useful because it seems to focus the conversation about charters.
The debate no longer needs to center on whether extra educational options are good for the individuals who take advantage of them.
Instead, the key question is whether diverting resources to the relatively small number who are taking advantage of those options is worth the cost to the traditional system in which the vast majority of students remain.