TNTP and others, it is clear that Superintendent Eugene White is aware of the problem. Commenting in a article in The Wall Street Journal on urban education, Dr. White said, “If you are truly going to be fair to urban students, you have to provide them with the best teachers they can have. You shouldn’t have a mandate that says you are untouchable because you have been here longer.”6 Lofty language aside, it has been more difficult to actually improve the quality of the teaching force. White estimates that with a notable exception, 60% of IPS high school teachers performed at questionable levels.7 The Indianapolis Star reporter Matthew Tully, who has investigated IPS staffing, wrote “the district has exacerbated the problem by failing to aggressively push problematic teachers through that [teacher dismissal] process or implement an effective teacher evaluation system.” Tully was told by IPS administrators that “it will take three to five more years before they can seriously tackle the issue of bad teachers.”8 The lack of urgency is concerning, as three to five years means that entire cohorts of IPS students may be subject to underperforming teachers.
Responding to the Cambridge Education report’s findings on the need for improved human capital, White and IPS School Board President Michael Brown had this exchange with Fox59 reporter Gene Cox:9
Reporter Gene Cox, Fox59: “Are there some teachers you would like to
replace?”
Dr. Eugene White: “Yes. There are, and there are some administrators
we probably need to replace and we’re working to do that.”
Despite the new report, White said the situation is better than five years ago, and graduation rates are up.
Part of the resistance to changes in teacher hiring and retention comes from the Indianapolis Education Association, on record as defending seniority rules.10 But the deeper problem is that IPS leadership sees its current reform program as a sufficient response to the problem. Commenting on the Cambridge Education report, White said:
These reviews don’t take into account the significant progress the district has made in the past several years. The district’s focus has been on improving the school environment and getting all the schools on the same page. The next step is to work on teacher quality. Most of
6 Tully, M. (2009, Sept. 4). “Indianapolis Tests Out Education Reform.” The Wall Street Journal. 7 Tully, M. (2010, Mar. 28). “Will State Take Over Manual?” The Indianapolis Star.
8 Tully, M. (2010, Mar. 28).
9 Cox, G. (2010, Apr. 13). “New Report Reveals Problems in IPS Schools,” Fox59. Available: www.fox59. com/news/education/wxin-ips-problems-041310,0,1673004.story
the problems in teaching are among teachers who aren’t willing to step beyond lectures to make learning interesting for students who have already tuned out from that way of learning. The kids just don’t do lectures.11
Put another way, White and others believe IPS is solving the teacher quality problem incrementally: first addressing school organization, then teacher quality in the next three to five years. This incremental approach is likely to lead to fragmentation rather than fundamental change. Replacing a few bad teachers with better ones or transferring a few principals to different buildings is not enough. IPS must fully address the TNTP recommendations, starting with the recognition that the talent development pipeline for IPS needs to be rebuilt, not just repackaged. If the central office maintains the staffing status quo, it will continue to produce poor results.
Unfortunately, there is little indication that change is coming. For instance, the first accomplishment listed in the State of the District 2010 report under Administrative Supervision is: “Elementary administrators continue to do a very good job of enforcing the student dress policy.”12 While school uniforms are a politically popular and visible reform, their effects on student achievement are unclear.13 Moreover, the district believes “central administration has demonstrated effective district leadership and support this year.”14 This is problematic because of the poor performance: How can leadership that fails to meet its strategic objective be deemed effective? Also troubling is the uncertainty of how effectiveness is measured. There seems to be little consideration of capacity and little alignment of evaluation with strategic goals.
Given the inability of the administration to develop such measures after five years in office, one is skeptical of the current proposed School Board Action Plan, which lists as its first goal: “Create a process to decentralize district control in a systemic progression with accountability and performance benchmarks.” While partners TNTP and TFA have demonstrated positive results and produced talent development plans, nowhere does the Board Action Plan suggest:
❋
❋ Collaborating with TNTP to adopt innovative talent development strategies.
❋
❋ Collaborating with TFA to recruit more TFA teachers to IPS. ❋
❋ Restructuring workforce incentives.
11 Gammill, A. (2010, Apr. 13). “Review Shows Serious Problems at Some IPS Schools.” The
Indianapolis Star.
12 Indianapolis Public Schools (2010). State of the District 2010, p. 40. Available: www.ips.k12.in.us/ fileadmin/Assets/AboutUs/pdf/State%20of%20the%20District%202010.pdf
13 Yeung, R. (2009). “Are School Uniforms a Good Fit? Results from the ECLS-K and NELS.” Educational
Policy 847: 23; Brunsma, D. L., Ed. (2006). Uniforms in Public Schools: A Decade of Research and Debate. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.
114 Creating Opportunity Schools: A Bold Plan to Transform Indianapolis Public Schools
IPS needs both improved teachers and better school leaders. In a
foundation proposal to fund a new principal pipeline, TFA pointed out that: This past year, several administrators were released or reassigned as a result of failure to meet expectations. Furthermore, a significant percentage of Indianapolis Public School (IPS) administrators are reaching or are past the retirement age. More than 34 percent of licensed administrators are over the age of 60, and 68 percent are past 50. Given the rate of expected turnover, it is critical that the district establish a pipeline of new leadership. While the need for this pipeline is immediate, the school leadership education programs state-wide, including a new MBA principal certification program at Notre Dame, are several years away from being robust enough to prepare the next generation of school leaders to face the challenges of the schools they will lead.15
IPS should embrace substantive reform of its principal pipeline. Rather than shuffling principals from school to school, or pushing bad principals into administrative roles, IPS should aggressively replace poorly performing school leaders.
IPS administration must also diversify leadership, expand schooling options, and accelerate the use of rigorous evaluations to help improve or remove less effective educators. Equally important is a comprehensive audit on the effectiveness of the central office staff in meeting the goals of the district’s strategic action plan.
15 Teach For America (2009). A New Generation of Leaders: Building a School Leadership Pipeline in