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Survey: Residents outside of IPS want big changes, too
That was a somewhat surprising take-away from a survey unveiled today on attitudes about education — and especially IPS.
The survey was commissioned by Stand for Children, the local affiliate of a national group that advocates for school reform.
MORE COVERAGE: PDF: Stand for Children Marion County results summary. MORE COVERAGE: PDF: Presentation of Stand for Children Marion County results.
a difference that was within the survey’s margin of error.
“That is surprising,” said David Dresslar, executive director of the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning at the University of Indianapolis. “This either means there is a general level of dissatisfaction that pervades IPS and township districts, or that the level of dissatisfaction in IPS isn’t as great as was anticipated.”
Karega Rausch, the Indianapolis director of Stand for Children, thinks it’s the former.
“We all have work to do, at least that’s what we’re hearing from the voices of our residents in the county,” Rausch said. “I think it means residents in our community really are interested in having a real conversation about the future.”
The phone survey asked 600 residents of IPS and surrounding townships such things as how they view their schools and whether they favored certain reforms, including some that last month were proposed by the Mind Trust, another local, education-focused nonprofit that helps fund Stand for Children.
No one is demanding such radical overhauls for township schools. But if township residents also are profoundly dissatisfied, does that mean radical reform is needed countywide?
“Those results,” Dresslar said, “do beg that question.”
Mind Trust CEO David Harris wasn’t surprised that township residents showed concern about their own schools or that they liked some of the reforms his group has proposed. But the first priority has to be to fix IPS, he said, because its test scores lag.
IPS Superintendent Eugene White could not be reached for comment on the survey. The district is on holiday break until Monday.
But the survey didn’t touch on the most controversial aspect of the Mind Trust’s proposal: mayoral control.
The Mind Trust proposal would replace the seven-member elected IPS school board with a five-member board appointed by the mayor and the Republican and Democratic caucuses of the City-County Council .
“We think that has to be a secondary part of the conversation,” Rausch said, explaining why respondents were not asked about the issue. “The first part has to be, ‘What do we want our schools to be?’ Then we can have a conversation about structure.”
Stand for Children invites reform-minded parents, teachers and community members to sign up with the group, fuel conversation about reform in their communities and advocate for change. About 10 percent of the group’s 206 members live in Marion County townships outside IPS.
The survey results, Rausch said, are “consistent with what we hear from some of our members from outside IPS. There are needs that exist throughout our community.”
But one township superintendent said the survey results suggest something different than widespread dissatisfaction with Marion County public schools.
Decatur Township Superintendent Don Stinson said people intrinsically know that schools need to adapt for the 21st century and feel unease that their children still are receiving a fairly traditional education.
“People realize a different type of learning is required,” he said. “We need to go through some transformation.”
What they may not fully appreciate, Stinson said, is how much schools are changing. High school instruction in Decatur Township, he said, is completely different from when he started as superintendent a decade ago.
Decatur isn’t alone in its evolution, Stinson said.
“If you go around the county, there are a lot of neat things going on,” he said, “but the overall view is that there is still a traditional approach to learning.”
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