I planned to take the day off from blogging but this thought came to me last night so I figured I had to post it.

Indianapolis Public School Superintendent Dr. Eugene White is threatening to take the State of Indiana to court over the possibility of taking over several failing IPS schools.  White’s argument is that the end of course assessments that are used to determine whether schools are failing shouldn’t count at Washington, Howe and Arlington as failing because they have 7th and 8th graders as well as high school students and the failing scores should only apply to the lower grades.

Please note that when these schools were re-organized a few years back White and his administration were touting the “Community School” model as revolutionary for IPS.  More ironic however is the thought that Eugene White would potentially sue the state because he says they aren’t following the law.

Please note this is the same Superintendent who a couple months ago complained about losing students to charter schools and promised that any student who lived in IPS but left the district and wanted to to come back after the official September count date (which is used to compute school funding) could not come back.   Although under state law that is illegal and any student who resides in a school district is allowed to attend that district unless there were expelled for disciplinary reasons.

So let me see if I understand Dr. White’s logic here.  When he was going to break the law that was okay because it benefited IPS, if someone else was “breaking the law” and it hurt IPS he was going to go to court.   Okay, anyone else here think it’s time for Dr. White to retire to the Old Superintendent’s Home?

I wrote a column for the Indianapolis Star a last month regarding Dr. Eugene White, the Superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools.  At the time I wrote he should be fired because of the dismal performance of the school system. Following the news this week by the Indiana Department of Education that out of the seven schools that didn’t make it off academic probation six of them were IPS schools and now the discussion moves to whether the state will take them over I want to amend my call the Dr. White be let go.  White took to the airwaves Friday afternoon to complain about the way the state computed scores at three IPS Schools and by the district’s math (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) Washington, Howe and Arlington should have never made the list.

After listening to him whine and squeal something out of  “Deliverance”, I originally decided the best course of action would be to for Dr. White to do the honorable thing and someone should give him a gun, a bottle of whiskey, put him in a room with a lock on it and wait for him to do the honorable thing after running Indianapolis Public Schools into the ground.  However, with my luck Dr. White would drink the whiskey, shoot off the lock and leave the room drunk and belligerent while continuing to refuse to take responsibility for his actions.  So instead I decided to reprint my original column from June 1.  Enjoy.

*****

Picture this.  A CEO of a company that makes nearly $250,000 in salary and benefits.  His company loses about 1,000 customers annually.  It has a product completion rate of less than 50%.  Facilities are struggling to fill space.  A majority of his board of directors that are mindless automatons that rubber stamp his every decision.  Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he would prefer to blame the competition.  And when the government has warned him time and again that if his company doesn’t get its act together, it will step in and take over he instead tries to cut a last minute deal.   Hard to imagine? Not really when you know that CEO is Dr. Eugene White, commander-in-chief of the personification of Murphy’s Law known as Indianapolis Public Schools.

Since I am incapable of harboring any white, liberal guilt, I have no problem in criticizing Dr. White and IPS.  Dr. White, along with his enablers, are the problem and why the State of Indiana is in the process of taking over several IPS schools. For the past five years, Broad Ripple,  Arlington Community,   Manual, Northwest, Howe and George Washington High Schools, along with Emma Donnan Middle School, have been on academic probation for being failing schools.  Hearings started this week on state intervention and now everyone is freaking out over the possibility that the Department of Education will step in and do the job that should have been done back in 2005.

Locals are trying to organize and tell what they believe is good news about these failing schools or offer their alternatives to a state takeover.    Some Indiana House Democrats are trying to put out a mailer accusing Republicans of wanting to take over inner-city schools (and not include the fact the schools were failing).  Even Democratic Mayoral candidate Melina Kennedy is wading into the topic offering vague, generic, proposals to improve education.   They are about as exciting as mayonnaise on white bread, but I’ll give her credit for pretending to care.

White has been trying to negotiate with the State to avoid a takeover of the failing schools.  Just this past Monday he begged to officials that he should be allowed to operate his failing schools under the new changes in state law regarding collective bargaining and teacher evaluations.  This is the same person, who according to state officials I spoke with, never took advantage of current state law to make changes in his low-performing schools.  If anything he acknowledged that up to 60% of the teachers in some schools were “pedestrian”.  And while White can blame collective bargaining rules on not being able to eliminate bad teachers, there’s no excuse for taking administrators from one failing school and sending them to another failing school.  White has done the equivalent of putting the Captain of the Titanic in command of the Andrea Dorian.

This is just a series in a long line of events that has brought IPS to this point.  White has vowed to break state law and deny enrollment to students who leave the district for charter schools and try to return at a later date.  He has refused to give board members detailed copies of the budget; I had to file an open records request to get one.  And while he is part of a group that supports mayoral control of IPS, I argue it is not because he cares about accountability it is because he thinks it the best way he can save his skin and not have to deal with any real accountability.

So what is the moral of this story?  Over the next few weeks, as these hearings over the possible state takeover of several IPS schools get underway, don’t believe a word Eugene White tells you.  He, his administration, and the board members who rubber stamp his every move are the epitome of the decline of modern public education.  Behind closed doors they blame the state for IPS’ problems on the Governor and Superintendent of Public Instruction.  IPS’ own attorneys have told them what’s coming, but the District doesn’t want to listen.   If they had been doing their jobs, we wouldn’t be here right now.   My only regret is that the state doesn’t take over the entire school district and send White and his minions to the unemployment line where they belong.

Six of seven Indianapolis Public Schools that were on academic probation could be taken over by the state of Indiana next month. The results are in for seven IPS schools that have been on academic probation for the past five years and six of them failed to make adequate progress under state law. The list of failing schools is as follows…

Emma Donnan Middle School
Broad Ripple Magnet High School
Arlington High School
Howe Community High School
George Washington Community High School
Emmerich Manual High School

The only school to show improvement was Northwest High School. Under state law schools must show at least three percent growth in order to be taken off probation. Northwest showed an improvement of 8.7% over last year. The other schools actually backslided. Arlington and Broad Ripple’s performances dropped an average of 5%. Manual saw a 3% decrease. Howe and Washington had a 1% and 1.7% drop in test results, respectfully. The school that had the worst performance was Emma Donnan, which saw a nearly 6.5% drop in test scores.  A total of 19 schools were on probation, 11 made it off, two have since closed.

Under state law, the Department of Education can invoke a number of measures from taking complete control of the failing school and hiring a private company to oversee it, offer technical assistance to the school, adopt the school district’s plan to improve its performance, or take whatever other steps are necessary to improve school performance. Those decisions won’t be made until the August State school board meeting.

I am told Dr. Eugene White was livid with the results and actually plans to file an appeal with the State. His argument is that Broad Ripple, Arlington and George Washington and Howe have 7th and 8th grades and that skewed the results of the schools so those should not be taken into account in deciding whether the state should take over the schools.

My early guess is that Howe and Washington will avoid a complete takeover and maybe get technical assistance. The other schools are ripe for takeover. And by the way, although Northwest managed to avoid a takeover because it showed an 8.8% improvement this year, its test scores are still down 6% from three years ago.

Friday at 10:30 a.m. the Indiana Department of Education will release the names of schools that made it off academic probation and will not be taken over by the State.   I’ll have a post up tomorrow. In the meanwhile I thought it would be interesting to post some excerpts on education by the two main candidates for Indianapolis Mayor, Republican incumbent Greg Ballard and Democratic challenger Melina Kennedy.   The words come from their submissions to Hoosier Ed, an education blog launched by the Center of Excellence in Leadership and Learning at the University of Indianapolis.  (Full disclosure, I am on the faculty there in the Graduate School of Business).   You can go there and get their words in their entirety.

Republican Greg Ballard

The city has a stellar record of overseeing charter schools. My administration has added charter schools and is increasing opportunity for the 2,000 students that were on waiting lists to attend Mayor-sponsored charter schools. In 2011, Stanford University found that charter school performance in Indianapolis outpaced the traditional public schools in learning gains. We set high standards, demand results and hold accountable schools that don’t measure up. It’s difficult to argue with the fact that 90% of graduates from Mayor-sponsored charter schools enroll in college.

We do have some outstanding public schools in our community, but we also have too many schools that are failing our children. That’s why I strongly supported the education reforms of Governor Mitch Daniels and Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett. I strongly encourage every administrator, teacher and parent to fully understand their rights under these new reforms and use them to the betterment of our children.

Unfortunately though, after six years of failing to meet the state’s minimum standards, some of our schools face the prospect of being taken over by the state. At my request, the General Assembly this year passed a law giving the Mayor the ability to ask the state to regain local oversight of state takeover schools as early as next year. Once the state determines which schools to take over, I will bring together Dr. Bennett, IPS Superintendent Dr. Eugene White, local community groups, education experts, parents and teachers to develop a local, community-based and accountable management system for each school. We will present our plan to the state next year. These would not be charter schools; however I believe we can and should build a charter-like model that incorporates local leadership, partnerships with local community groups and the flexibility to make long overdue changes.

Democrat Melina Kennedy

The evidence that we need to improve our schools surrounds us, and in the past few years we have taken steps backward, not forward, in many regards.

In May, I unveiled my five guiding principles for improving education in Indianapolis. My goals focus on advocating for better schools, focusing on early childhood education and literacy, maintaining high standards for local charter schools, attracting talent to our educational system and increasing collaboration with the city and among school districts.

Since then, I’ve met with and listened to teachers, parents, students, school administrators, community leaders and others involved in local education. Their message has been clear: We must work together to build a public education system that serves all students and makes our city a destination for innovation and job creation.

For the past four years, there has been a lack of sustained leadership on education in Indianapolis. Simply put, to learn, students have to be engaged in the classroom, and to lead, a mayor has to be engaged in education.

We can’t afford to see our community be divided and lose sight of the most important goal: making sure our schools focus first and always on the students and communities they serve. There’s no issue that touches more residents, whether they have children in the system or not, as the quality of our schools is directly tied to our property values, our crime rate, our ability to attract new employers and our faith in the future of our city.

U.S. Senator Dick Lugar is hitting the airwaves for 10 days with an ad attacking the President on job creation.  Lugar himself has come under fire from the Club for Growth.  The nice thing about having nearly $4 million in the bank is that you can respond to such attacks.

Now that we’ve cleared the Indiana Black Expo hurdle, I can post about some other things that have been going on. So here is all the gossip, rumor and political innuendo fit to print.  Take it for what it’s worth.

• The Decatur Township Small Claims Court has made the Wall Street Journal, and not for a very good reason.  The WSJ shows how  the Court is basically a creditor’s dream because of forum shopping.  In English that means if you’re suing someone on Marion County in Small Claims Court the rules allow you to sue basically anywhere, even if there’s no nexus between the forum and the parties.  For example, if I buy a car from you and the check bounces and you live in Washington Township and I live in Warren, you can sue for damages in Perry. Exactly.  The only exception to the rule is when it comes to landlords. And since there’s no easy way to get to the Small Claims Court in Decatur, it’s easy to sue someone who doesn’t drive and get a default judgement.  I heard about this at a candidates forum I moderated back in October of 2010 but never got around to following up on.  Thank goodness the WSJ did.
• The City of Indianapolis has started the budget process.  Agency budgets were submitted on Friday.  Due to declining sales and income tax disbursements from the state, budget officials are trying to fill an estimated $30 million shortfall. We’ll be following this one closely to see how it pans out.
• Former U.S. Attorney Susan Brooks is expected to announce today she is getting in the race for the 5th Congressional District against Dan Burton.  John McGoff is already in and former Congressman David McIntosh is expected to get into the race.
• Indiana Democrats are not having the best of luck in finding someone to run against 9th District incumbent Republican Todd Young.  Former candidate for State Auditor Sam Locke announced via Twitter he was not getting in the race.  And State Representative Peggy Welsh says she’s not running either for the seat.
• The race for Governor may be getting testy and not between the candidates, but between the Mike Pence campaign and the Statehouse media.  I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints lately from my brothers and sisters in the press about Pence’s media apparatus and how they have been doling out information.  From what I’ve been able to gather somebody better get on the ball and start healing those relationships soon.  Pence is a former broadcaster and he off all people should know that you never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel or have access to broadcast towers.
• Although she made the rounds at Indiana Black Expo this past weekend Democratic Mayoral candidate Melina Kennedy has a couple bumps in the road.  At a ceremony honoring outgoing State Representative Bill Crawford, Kennedy  apparently was not too thrilled that noted activist Jesse Jackson took a photo with Republican incumbent Greg Ballard and told the Mayor he wanted to work with him on some initiatives and she left in a huff.   Kennedy apparently didn’t tell anyone because when Crawford tried to acknowledge her publicly she was already gone.   In addition, Kennedy raised several eyebrows when she appeared (unscheduled) on stage at the Friday night free concert being promoted by Jeffrey Johnson of Eastern Star Church.  Johnson did not have permission from convert promoter Amp Harris to do that. In addition Kennedy staffers reportedly made several older women give up their seats in the VIP section so Kennedy could have a spot.
• Speaking of Mayor’s race, the two major candidates have both penned pieces on education at the the University of Indianapolis’ new website Hoosier Ed.  Give it a read, I think you will agree with me that there is a stark difference between the ideas being offered by the candidates.
• And speaking of education, hundreds of parents have signed up to get more information on Indiana’s school voucher program.  So what, you might say.  Well, the registration took place at Expo and most of them lived in the Indianapolis Public School District.  That ought to say quite a bit.

That’s all for now.  Enjoy your day.

I thought I was pretty much done on Expo for this year, but I forgot to mention two things.  First there were 26 arrests, 13 traffic tickets written and 5 curfew violations that second Saturday night, which is not bad for thousands of kids downtown.

Secondly, listen for this to be the new spin from the critics. They are going to argue that thousands of people stayed away from Expo this year because of the heavy police presence and the media overplayed the threat of violence.

Whatever!

Had it not been for the effective policing and coordination with real community and faith-based leaders Expo wouldn’t be here.  I can assure you had something went down Saturday night we’d be talking about the end of Indiana Black Expo, not a potential new beginning.

Okay, I think I’m done now.

If Friday night was dress rehearsal, the Saturday night was a command performance. The combined efforts of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Department, State Police, Capitol Police, the Ten-Point Coalition and faith-based community, Indiana Black Expo, parents who acted like parents and teenagers who didn’t act like knuckleheads all came together to make that dreaded “second Saturday night” of Expo a success. Last year police were responding to nine people being shot. The suspect in that case entered a plea of guilty to most of the charges.

I spent several hours in the area, from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m; playing bouncer at Nicky Blaines and walking around checking out the crowds. The heavy police presence was there. About 8:45 p.m. police and mall security started closing down Circle Center Mall and getting the young people to exit. In addition, officers kept pedestrian traffic moving to prevent loitering and they blocked off several streets to better direct and control the vehicular traffic. I also think the construction helped as well. And in a lot of places, the faith-based folks took the lead in engaging young people while police stayed in the background ready to assist if needed.

To the best of my knowledge, the biggest offense was a individual who had a weapon in his car, but no permit. And even he would have been fine had he complied with police when they told him his stereo was too loud. And two guys did get arrested for fighting near Washington and Capitol, however if you’re stupid enough to get into a brawl with eight officers nearby, you deserve to locked up. There were some other minor arrests, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The crowd did seem about a third smaller this year than last. Some attribute that to parents actually paying attention and not allowing their kids to go downtown unsupervised at that hour of night. And while curfew began at 11, police started enforcing it at 10 p.m. for kids who were 12 and under. One incident I did recall was a parent who had to pick up her son near Steak N’ Shake. The boy was late and his mother was livid. At that point, if I were him, I would have done something to get arrested because I would have probably been safer in jail than at home. And some young people who left downtown did head over to the canal area, but guess what? Law enforcement was already there to greet them and make sure they were safe.

Like I said overall, much of the evening was fine and a complete 180-degree turn from last year. And it demonstrates with coordinated efforts that second Saturday night of Expo doesn’t have to become New Jack City. One major criticism I do have is for the critics; the people who complained that there were “too many” police and law enforcement was turning downtown into a police state and trying to equate Black Expo with crime. These people obviously have no clue. Instead of getting mad at law enforcement, they should get mad at the conditions that made it necessary for that much law enforcement to be there in the first place. Get upset because a cop lost his night off with his family. Get upset because the downtown establishments lost money because the usual paying crowds stayed away. Get upset at the employees who lost money in tips or because they places of work shut down early because they were worried about their safety. And if you really want to get mad at someone, get mad at yourselves for not volunteering with the faith-based community to help patrol the streets and keep things moving smoothly. By the way, I was looking for you and didn’t see any of you? Maybe you were at the “White Party”.

Once again, much credit to all parties involved. As someone who writes about controversial matters on a regular basis, I am happy to report that last night was pretty much uneventful.  I always say for for nine and a half days with Expo everything is fine. Maybe next year I can change that to ten.

Let me start this by giving major kudos to the men and women of law enforcement in Marion County.  The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Department, Indiana State Police and State Capitol Police all did an excellent job Friday night working downtown for the second weekend of Indiana Black Expo.

I did my usual working of the door the Nicky Blaine’s Cigar Lounge and between scotch and waters and gin and tonics I made my usual rounds.  The officers were generally in a very good and positive mood, despite the fact a lot of them had to work and days off were cancelled this weekend.

At most I counted two arrests, one juvenile and one drunk.  And officers had to break up a minor skirmish, but that was no different than any other Friday night in downtown.  The merchants I spoke with were cautiously optimistic, however some did close up shop early.   Also, the 10-Point Coalition and other members of the faith-based community and volunteers were out as well.   And they reported no major problems either.

One thing law enforcement did this year as opposed to previous years was station 3-4 officers near major restaurants and intersections.  And where there weren’t officers there were police cars, so that very heavy police presence, I thought, acted as a real deterrent to potential knuckleheads.

Of course the true test will be tonight when the young people are out en masse.  However I do think if Friday night was a test run, things should run pretty smoothly tonight.  I plan to report back in the morning.  You can also follow me on Twitter. My tweets will start about 9 p.m.

I know you were probably expecting some kind of blog post on Expo today. Don’t worry, I will put one together  this weekend.  Right now, I want to share with you an experience I had Thursday evening downtown.  I was walking back to my car from a meeting (Nicky Blaines) when I heard someone call my name.  Well, they didn’t call my name directly they yelled out “radio man”.  Now seeing how Garrison and Amos weren’t around, I figured they were talking to me.  So I walked over and it was a rather large woman who appeared homeless.  She was engaging two out of towners and asked me if I believed there were homeless people in Indianapolis? I told her I believed there were homeless in Indianapolis and there were also people pretending to be homeless and were trying to pull a scam.

At that point she asked for money, I told her I don’t give to individuals, I give to charity.  That was when she proceeded to lecture me.  And somewhere in the inane banter I thought to myself “how does this ‘homeless’ woman know I’m on the radio?  So I started going down the list.   She has a radio which means she has an outlet which means she has electricity which means she has an apartment or a house. But then I thought you can’t see me on the radio so she either has a television and has seen me on RTV 6 or she has a computer and logs on to our station’s website and has seen my photo.  Or course it could also be she’s read my column in the Indianapolis Star.  I’m not quite sure what it was but it was pretty obvious this woman was not homeless.  If anything, she was a prime candidate for type-2 diabetes, but homeless, I don’t think so.

I am all for helping people.  I give to charity, my wife volunteers and gives at her church.  But I don’t give to street beggars, especially the ones not smart enough to know how to really pull a scam and then have the nerve to get an attitude when you tell them no.  So hopefully the woman who was begging will listen to me on the radio, watch me on television or read my work in the newspaper or on the Internet and take a hint.  Or who knows, I might just see her downtown this weekend during the Expo festivities and I’ll tell her myself.