What if I told you there was a type of public school that produces superior academic outcomes, is wildly popular with Black and Latino families and continues to grow in enrollment while the rest of the public school system shrinks?
What if I also told you that Indianapolis Democrats have spent over two decades supporting the growth of this type of public school to the point where these schools now serve the majority of public school students within the boundaries of our state’s largest school district?
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I’m talking about charter schools — arguably the single most successful education reform in the modern era. Ushered in by the leadership of former Mayor Bart Peterson, and accelerated under both Mayor Ballard and Mayor Hogsett, charter schools have revolutionized public education within Indianapolis’ old city limits.
Today, 59% of public school students within the boundaries of Indianapolis Public Schools attend charter schools or contractually autonomous innovation schools. The premise is simple: When you combine great educators with school-based autonomy and rigorous accountability, students benefit. A growing body of research proves this theory to be true even while charters receive $7,900 less per student than traditional public schools.
For instance, Stanford University found that Black students who attend Indianapolis charter schools make the equivalent of 144 more days of learning in math and 86 more days of learning in reading in a given school year when compared to their traditional public school peers.
A recent national study from the University of Arkansas found that for every dollar invested in an Indianapolis charter school student’s education, that student is estimated to earn $4.75 more than their traditional public school peers throughout their lifetime. This return on investment was the largest out of any city studied.
Charter schools are also popular, with polls consistently showing that the public as a whole strongly supports them. This support is particularly strong among Black and Latino families. White progressives tend to be the only group that opposes charters even though they often exercise school choice for their own children by sending them to private school or moving to an expensive neighborhood to secure a seat in an exclusive public school.
Notwithstanding this public support, the popular narrative is that charter schools are opposed by Democratic elected officials and only supported by Republicans. But the reality is much more complicated. As the last two decades in Indianapolis have shown, local Democrats in the mayor’s office and City-County Council consistently support the growth of high-quality charter schools.
When I was director of charter schools for the mayor’s office, the mayor’s recommendation to grant a new charter required a vote by the City-County Council for the charter to be granted. The council, which has been controlled by Democrats since 2012, routinely voted overwhelmingly (sometimes almost unanimously) to support the mayor’s recommendations.
More recently, when a public fight broke out over whether to approve a rezoning request for an all-girls STEM school to open in Washington Township, it was Black Democrats on the council who staunchly supported the rezoning and successfully brushed back an attempt by white progressives to thwart the school's efforts.
Some Statehouse Democrats represent districts where the majority of public school students attend charter schools. Why, then, do these same legislators consistently vote against their own constituents and support anti-charter school policies that disproportionately impact their Black and Latino constituents?
One obvious hypothesis is that the Indiana State Teachers Association is the single largest contributor to Democrats in the Statehouse, and ISTA is opposed to charter schools and school choice in general. ISTA generally does not financially contribute to local races, which provides locally elected officials more latitude to vote their conscience in alignment with their constituents.
Perhaps this is why local Democrats consistently lead on this issue while Statehouse Democrats do the opposite.
You will often hear excuses from Democratic legislators, such as the claim that charter schools “cherry-pick” students and primarily serve wealthy, white students. This is simply untrue. In the 2023-2024 school year, 86% of Indianapolis charter school students were students of color and 76% qualified for free or reduced lunch. Additionally, Indianapolis’ unified enrollment system, Enroll Indy, guards against biased enrollment practices.
Another critique is that charters are undemocratic because they don’t have elected school boards. What this argument fails to mention is that the elected mayor of Indianapolis oversees the vast majority of charters in our city. I would venture to say that the average Indianapolis resident would be much more likely to name the mayor than be able to name even one member of their local school board.
The fact-based debate about whether charter schools work is over. They unequivocally do. They also have the support of the families who have historically been the most marginalized by our traditional public education system and who form the Democratic Party’s most loyal base of support.
Democrats in Indianapolis have shown that you can be “pro-public school” while supporting high-quality charter schools. It is time for their colleagues in the Statehouse to do the same.
Brandon Brown is CEO of the Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based education nonprofit.
