The Indianapolis Star

November 1, 2005

Students to study charter schools

IUPUI graduate class aims to help with financial,
academic aspects of ventures

By Staci Hupp

Indiana educators have joined a national effort to bolster charter school leadership at a time when shaky management has forced some to shut down.

In what's believed to be the first class of its kind, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis graduate students will study the nonprofit, business and academic elements of charter schools. The students also will be dispatched to help Indiana's 29 charter schools with fundraising, transportation and other potential problem areas.

MORE ABOUT THE IUPUI CLASS

IUPUI graduate students in philanthropic studies, nonprofit management, public policy and education can enroll next semester in a new charter schools leadership class, which is a joint effort of the university's schools of philanthropy and education.

The class, "Charter Schools in Policy and Practice," will use classroom lessons, online schoolwork and field experience to teach students about the history, organization, theory and debate over charter schools. IUPUI officials say students also will work with charter schools on various projects. The class, which has a special focus on urban school reform, was spurred in part by interest from students who want careers in the nonprofit sector, said Leslie Lenkowsky, an IUPUI professor and former head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal group that oversees the AmeriCorps national service program.

Charter schools can take innovative approaches to teaching because they operate free of many regulations that bind traditional public schools.

"I think certainly, and you've seen some evidence of that locally, there are serious challenges in getting people trained," said Leslie Lenkowsky, an IUPUI philanthropy and public affairs professor who will lead the first class next semester along with an education professor. "Typically, people who
are going to start charter schools are people who are well-meaning, they're committed to educating young people, they have vision for what kind of school they want to create. But they may or may not have the prior experience on how to run an organization."

Experts say more states have focused on charter school leadership at a time when 11 percent of the nation's charter school efforts have failed, a slight jump from previous years. This month, an Indiana charter school became the second to close in as many years. Indianapolis city officials shut down Flanner House Higher Learning Center, a mayor-sponsored charter high school for nontraditional students and dropouts. The Near-Northside school had several unqualified teachers, inflated attendance numbers and other problems.

The Flanner House decision comes more than a year after Ball State University officials closed Urban Brightest Community Academy, an elementary charter school in Fort Wayne. That school had low enrollment and money problems, including a $649,000 debt.

Indiana's charter school enrollment has more than tripled to 4,300 since the first schools opened three years ago.

Whether the public school alternatives educate children any better than traditional schools is up for debate. So is the effectiveness of the groups that form them. In Indiana, that list includes parents, attorneys and business leaders.

Administration "is probably the weakest area of charter schools," said James Auter, a charter school critic who teaches education leadership at Purdue University. "Anybody can serve as a leader of charter schools."

IUPUI's class marks at least the second local effort to improve charter school leadership. Building Excellent Schools, a Boston nonprofit group that trains people to start up successful charter schools, opened an Indianapolis office three years ago.

Donna Knowles turned to Indianapolis Metropolitan Career Academy 1, a high school on the city's Near Westside, two years ago to help her daughter. Knowles said the decision couldn't have worked out better for Felisha, 15, whose interest in both her grades and marine biology have soared.

"My child wouldn't miss a day," Knowles said. "I have never seen such great support for my child, and even myself, in any school system."

Call Star reporter Staci Hupp at (317) 444-6253.