INDIANAPOLIS —Those interested in opening new charter schools would have more ways of getting the green light under a measure that won the state Senate’s approval Wednesday.
Despite opposition from Southwestern Indiana senators who argued that unbridled charter school growth would undermine both traditional schools as well as charters that now exist, the chamber endorsed House Bill 1002 on a 29-20 vote.
The vote provided a boost to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels’ efforts to overhaul Indiana’s education system on the same day that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced he will visit an Indianapolis charter school on Friday.
Duncan, the former Chicago Public Schools chief, will go with Daniels to the Charles A. Tindley School, a near-northside charter that has won accolades for its high percentage of students who attend college.
Expanding the number of charter schools is one of several measures that make up Daniels’ education reform agenda. Others include private school vouchers, new rules that would limit teachers’ collective bargaining rights to wages and benefits, and a measure that would link teacher evaluations and, to some extent, their pay, to student performance.
The bill that moved Wednesday would add a new Indiana Charter School Board, as well as private colleges, to the list of authorizers that for the last decade has included public universities, school districts and the mayor of Indianapolis.
Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said charter schools fill gaps that exist when school districts do not adapt to the needs of all of their students.
He cited Tindley where students from middle school through high school wear uniforms and are pointed constantly toward college. Last year, 99 of 102 Tindley graduates went on to seek higher education, Kenley said.
He also cited a charter called The Hope Academy, which is run by a Noblesville hospital and serves students with drug and alcohol addictions.
“I guarantee you that these kids would not last three days in traditional public schools,” he said. “We need these alternatives.”
All four of Southwestern Indiana’s state senators – two Republicans and two Democrats – voted against the charter school expansion.
Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, said 73 percent of those who responded to a survey she sent to her constituents earlier this year said they opposed the unlimited growth of charter schools in Indiana from the current 62.
She said she is worried that spreading education funding dollars too thin among traditional public schools, as well as new and existing charters, could damage schools that already exist.
“There’s only so much money in the pie,” Becker said.
Those concerns were echoed by Sen. Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, who argued on the Senate floor that expanding charter schools could “destroy the public education system that we have today.”
“We do not know what the total effect of this is going to be, and we will not know until it is too late,” he said.
Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, and Sen. Richard Young, D-Milltown, also voted no.
Tomes said those in his district, based in Posey County and western Vanderburgh County, are satisfied with their public schools as they are now, and are already worried about losing money through tweaks to Indiana’s education funding formula.
He said there is no need to tinker with a system that “is already working pretty well.”
Other Republicans, including Kenley and Sen. Brandt Hershman, R-Lafayette, argued that charters are intended to provide an extra option, not to undermine traditional public schools.
“Good parents with good teachers in good schools aren’t going to leave. They’re going to stay right where they are,” Hershman said. “And you know how much it’s going to cost the school system? Nothing, because the money is with the kids.”
The charter school expansion bill has already passed the House. It now moves to a joint House-Senate conference committee, which is one of the final steps in the legislative process.