“We are attacking the cynics and the oligarchs who are trying to drive wedges into our community. This is not new. This is what they do.”
Last night at the IPS School Board meeting, the Central Indiana Democratic Socialists of America, in collaboration with concerned parents, teachers, union members, students, and citizens, spoke on behalf of our public schools and against the privatization of this most valuable civil asset.
Billionaire-backed private interests are working to sabotage public schools in our city in order to sell them back to us for a profit. They have used millions of dollars, funneled through organizations like the Mind Trust, RISE Indy, and Stand for Children. Through cynical payoffs to people and politicians alike, these billionaire donors are defunding our public schools to the point of breaking, removing oversight, and creating a system where the community’s only choice is to try to make a broken system work. CINDSA demands our elected IPS Board Members remember that they are elected to represent IPS, not charter schools or the shadow money that supports them, and fight for a system that is pro-child, pro-teacher, pro-union, and pro-community.
We demand our schools be fully funded, fully public.
We called for the following:
- The repeal of IPS School Board Resolution 8020, which will have the effect of creating a moratorium on new charter schools.
- A return to the School Board’s original, unambiguous and emphatic rejection of SB518 as a whole – NOT an attempt to moderate this wholly unacceptable bill.
- Stop accepting and return campaign money already received from RISE Indy, the Mind Trust, Stand for Children, or other such pro-charter organizations.
- All commissioners to follow the courage of Dr. Gayle Cosby in rejecting the influence of corporate money and standing behind the call for Fully Funded, Fully Public education.
- NO expansion of transportation to charter schools, NOR the sharing of property taxes, especially with charter schools already using IPS facilities.
- Charter school teachers to organize with local and state teacher unions.
We also raised the following concerns:
- Lax hiring practices in charter schools, which not only lead to instructional problems but also risk child safety.
- Obfuscated financial paper trails both in the form of shadowy campaign contributions and incomplete or inaccessible non-profit funding documentation.
- Opaque processes guiding changes in our public schools that occur behind closed doors instead through open, democratic processes that are accessible to all in the community.
- The abuse of executive work sessions for making decisions out of the public eye.
CINDSA needs your help to continue the fight! Join us on March 10 at 6:30 PM at 1915 W. 18th St. to learn how you can improve our community’s education system, or join us March 15 at 12:00 PM to help us shed light on the dark money in local politics.
For more information, please check out https://www.centralindsa.org/events and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Bluesky.
To learn more about so-called “education reform” that is privatizing public schools for profit, take a look at the following resources:
- Profit-Making: Report: How A Non-Profit Charter School Can Be Run For Profit, Forbes
- Mind Trust – The Mind Trust is a Trojan Horse That is Destroying IPS, kheprw.org
- Stand for Children – The Corporate Raid on Public Schools in Indianapolis, Ravitch
- Teach For America – TFA is Bad for America, T. Ultican; How Teach for America Evolved into an Arm of the Charter School Movement, Pro Publica
- ALEC – ALECs Influence in Indiana Education, Dr. Gayle Cosby
- Democratic Party Beginnings – Blame the Democrats for The Mind Trust Model, Ravtich
- Shock Doctrine – The K-12 Takeover: Charter Schools in New Orleans, Harpers
- ‘The Mind Trust’ exploits Black & Brown students in Indianapolis Education Fight., Wildstyle Pascall, Black Indy Live
Solidarity forever!
CINDSA – Fully Funded, Fully Public Campaign Committee