There are 116 Charter Schools operating and teaching students in Indiana.
Charter Schools are a free, public schooling option is becoming a popular choice for families.
Current Indiana law allows for charter schools to operate.
Despite the political back and forth about the topic, this type of schooling is likely here to stay.
Charter Schools Structure
There are several public charter schools in our area.
Purdue Polytechnic High School opened in 2020.
Career Academy High School, Career Academy Middle School and Success Academy Primary School are established public charter schools in South Bend.
The Excel Center is a High School for adults run by Goodwill Industries has multiple locations around Indiana including in South Bend.
These charter schools operate under a contract, called a charter. It’s an agreement between the school's organizer and the charter school authorizer.
For example, The Excel Center’s organizer is Goodwill Education Initiatives, Inc.
According to state law, organizers must be a nonprofit entity.
It is the authorizer that holds the organizer accountable.
The Indiana Charter School Board is the authorizer for Goodwill Education Initiatives, Inc.
Charter schools can be authorized by a board, a state educational institution, a city, the Indiana Charter School Board, or a nonprofit college or university.
There are nine charter school authorizers overseeing charter schools in Indiana including the Indiana Charter School Board, Ball State University, and Trine University.
Oversight
“We could close a school tomorrow -- authorizers can and they have,” says James Betley.
Betley is a former attorney who is now the Executive Director of the Indiana Charter School Board.
The Indiana Charter School Board authorizes 32 of Indiana's 116 charter schools including the Excel Center and Purdue Polytechnic.
Betley explained to WSBT how the ICSB’s accountability works.
“There are statutory rules that say we make renewal decisions, closure decisions, based on performance. It says we need to monitor their financial performance, we need to monitor their academic performance, but it is not super specific as to what that means. So, most of us, have adopted national standards for authorizing which include more specific definitions of what we are supposed to look at,” says Betley.
The ICSB has an accountability system that measures schools in dozens of areas.
You can view each ICSB’s authorized charter school’s and get a link to their data online.
All of the state's charter school authorizers have their own system. Many follow similar framework. Some aren’t as robust.
Charter schools are also required to get a private audit every year.
In Indiana, charters are usually for five to seven years.
“Then, there is a formal review process. You go through a renewal process. Then we, as a staff, make a recommendation and our body says, yes, we are going to renew you or no we are not,” says Betley, “if they are not renewed, they are closed. However, that being said, under the law, any authorizer can close any school, at any time. For any reason.”
And charter schools in Indiana have been closed.
Betley says in his time at the Indiana Charter School Board the board has voted to close several charter schools for various reasons.
Other authorizers have also closed schools.
In 2019, Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy in southern Indiana were closed after being accused of inflating enrollment numbers and defrauding the state of millions of dollars.
https://apnews.com/article/54ff2851231f412ba57c8127e7839038
https://apnews.com/article/05f115d9390a4c589d1e36d492e11374
https://cbs4indy.com/in-focus-indiana-politics/lawsuit-seeks-150-million-from-closed-indiana-online-schools/
Those schools were never authorized by the Indiana Charter School Board and Betley can't speak to what happened but he does say it was a failure on all levels.
What should parents know
“So, as a parent, a lot of this data is available to you. There were a lot of red flags in that situation,” says Betley of Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, “for example, the performance data was on IDOE compass at the time. As a parent, you can go look at it. It was abysmal. Objectively abysmal.”
Betley argues that while charter schools are exempt from some state regulations, financially and academically, charter schools are held to higher levels of accountability than some traditional school districts.
“The question is, is there real measurable accountability for the schools performance,” says Betley, “I would argue that yes, for both, but it is far more present, active, real for charter schools. Because charter schools really do close when they perform poorly.”
But, if you look at the data, not all charter schools are the same.
“I’ve spent probably the last 10 to 15 years looking at charter schools and other forms of school of choice,” says Mark Berends, the director of the Institute of Education Initiatives at Notre Dame.
He says, his research has shown, charter schools and their authorizers are different and in some cases, have a negative impact on student achievement.
“There is a lot of variability. There is variability in the charter sector just like there is in traditional public school sector where you have some high performing schools you have low performing schools and a bunch in the middle,” says Berends.
Berends says, his research has shown virtual charter schools, schools that are educating students in a virtual environment, are not a good idea for children.
“For example, Indiana has a lot of virtual charter schools where students spend their entire day in a virtual environment. What we found was that students who switched from a public school to a charter school – they experienced significant drop in their math and reading and that achievement stayed at a low level for years,” says Berends.
Berends says part of the issue is that not all authorizers are the same.
“It just calls for further research on what are these authorizers actually doing to support school improvement for them,” says Berends.
Who oversees the authorizers
Charter authorizers are required to submit an annual report for the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Board of Education. https://www.in.gov/doe/files/authorizer-memo-re-annual-report-2019-2020.pdf
State law says the state board can suspend an authorizers ability to authorize new charter schools.
The legislature has passed laws over the years to guide authorizers but Betley says, historically, authorizers have policed themselves. http://iga.in.gov/legislative/laws/2017/ic/titles/020/#20-24-2.2-1.5
“All we can do is say, it behooves all of us, to be good authorizers,” says Betley.
Betley says authorizers do collect an administration fee but most authorizers collect less than the 3 percent maximum guided by law.
Education experts on all levels says parents can check in on their child’s school and they should.
“The onus is on parents to make the best choice they can for their child,” says Berends, “we are getting better in the education landscape of having schools reporting information that parents care about. Which is a really good thing. But parents also need to dig a little deeper if it is a charter school and figure out what kind of accountability pressures are on the school to help their students learn well.”
“I am school agnostic. I don’t care where you go. Just go to the school where your kids is safe. Where your kid gets seen and heard and gets the help they need,” says Betley.