Governance

The Future Of School Boards (Commentary, Education Week, 1/10/11)
(This commentary by Gene I. Maeroff was originally published in the online "Education Week" on January 10, 2011. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

Local control of schools implies to many Americans the existence of a small group from the community to oversee elementary and secondary education in order to safeguard and promote the well-being of students. This vision of the school board is synonymous with democracy in the minds of people. Yet, the arrangement does not always optimize learning outcomes and put youngsters on track for fulfilling and productive lives, stirring up questions about whether there are more effective ways to govern schools.

In part, the issue revolves around who sits on school boards and how they attain those positions. There are few tests for service other than the usual requirements that one reside in the district and be a citizen. Members may have doctoral degrees or may not even have completed high school. They may possess detailed knowledge of education or know little more than what they gleaned during their own school days. More than 90 percent gain their positions through school board elections, and fewer than 10 percent are appointed.

The problem—whether elected or appointed—is how to get the most qualified individuals on these boards, where members (usually unpaid) may encounter contention, hard work, and few psychic rewards. Educational quality may be at stake when school board candidates care about only a single issue or have no motivation but to restrain spending. In years past, school boards frequently attracted leading citizens who accepted positions with a sense of noblesse oblige, viewing their service as part of what they owed others. There was more than a hint of elitism to their board membership, and white males disproportionately held these seats.

Today, the nation has grown more egalitarian and diverse and fewer paragons serve, making school boards more democratic, more representative of the population at large. The downside, though, is that some men and women may pursue and seek to retain seats not so much to contribute to the next generation as to wield power and enhance their own standing. Board membership, for some, is the only source of influence and prestige they will ever have.

One touchy issue revolves around the propriety of teachers and other current and former employees of school systems serving as board members. While they provide an insider’s view, which can be valuable, their objectivity and impartiality may be compromised. In some states, they may even be prohibited from voting on certain matters, depriving the board of the full participation of its members.

I joined a board on which I sat with a retired teacher from our school system—whose wife and two sons worked for the district—and a current teacher from a neighboring school system. Another board member was the son of a former teacher in our system and yet another was the husband of a teacher in the district. On top of this, the acting superintendent’s wife worked in our system. Ideally, members would have fewer encumbrances.

Reformers over the years sought to separate school boards from politics by having candidates run without party labels and by conducting elections at a time when candidates would not be swept up by the frenzy of partisan politics. At least
one-third of districts hold their elections on days and times of the year, typically in the spring, when no other elections occur. This practice tends somewhat to insulate school elections, but it contributes to low voter turnout.

School boards, elected and appointed, have a common shortcoming in that many members take their seats with virtually no preparation for the tasks that await them. Even during their continued service, some do not delve deeply into the tenets of governance and the ins and outs of curriculum and instruction, though they vote on the adoption of textbooks and courses of study. Boards might perform better if members had more opportunities for sustained training. Public schools are learning organizations. Board members normally understand the imperative to provide professional development for educators, but do not as readily recognize their own need for growth.

The challenges facing school boards in all locales may have more in common than some people realize. A study carried out by the Institute for Educational Leadership in 1986 found many more similarities than differences, regardless of demographics, when respondents rated boards for effectiveness. All members tended to look similarly on strategies for communicating with their constituencies, capacity of board members to make informed decisions, board-superintendent relationships, and use of time.

The notion that school systems might thrive without school boards, given their various limitations, is not a new one. As long ago as the 1930s, when there were still tens of thousands of boards of education, some prominent educators proposed abolishing school boards and suggested that superintendents assume most of the responsibilities.

Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the former chief executive of IBM and a longtime advocate of school reform, argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed essay in December of 2008 for no more than 70 school districts in the entire country as a way to improve governance. Each of the 50 states would have a school board, as well as each of the country’s 20 largest cities. Yet, consolidation is controversial. Issues of democracy get conflated with questions over differing tax wealth, the value of physical plants, employee pay scales, and contract provisions.

None of the proposals for reducing the number of school boards (now 13,809) or for banishing them altogether is a sure-fire way to bolster student achievement, which, really, ought to be the main reason to favor one type of governance structure over another. There is scant evidence that achievement would rise if there were fewer school boards or none at all. Similarly, little research exists to attest to the value of ceding control of the average school district to a mayor or to a state education department.

On the other hand, could it be that school boards would focus more closely on student learning if they were charged with fewer duties? This might happen, for example, if members did not have to worry about such areas as maintenance, facilities, pupil transportation, and food services. County or regional authorities could take on these responsibilities or they could be privatized.

Whatever might occur to alter governance, school boards will not vanish—even if, eventually, consolidation leaves fewer of them. By and large, the public wants local school boards, and state legislators are not about to eliminate them despite the flaws. The idea of governing from the grassroots adds to the appeal that boards have with the public. Too many Americans would consider any other arrangement undemocratic, however questionable their notions of democracy may be.

(Gene I. Maeroff is a senior fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the president of the school board in Edison, N.J. He adapted these comments from his new book, School Boards in America: A Flawed Exercise in Democracy, which Palgrave Macmillan published in December 2010. More information is available at www.genemaeroff.com.)

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Negligent Board Approves School Superintendent's $1M Retirement Package (retitled, Ind'pls Star, 1/29/11)
(This article, by Reporter Bill McCleery, was originally published in The Indianapolis Star on Friday, January 28, 2011 as "$1M Payout To Ex-Superintendent Disturbs Board." Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

In 2007, the Wayne Township School Board and then-Superintendent Terry Thompson agreed to a renegotiated contract that provided a generous retirement package for whenever Thompson decided to step down.

But it wasn't until this month that board members realized just how lucrative that deal was, to the tune of more than $1 million.

Thompson, 64, who retired in December after 15 years with the district, already has received more than $800,000 of his retirement deal, which included a year's base pay at more than $225,000, as well as contract provisions that kicked in hundreds of thousands more.

But that's not all.

The contract also created the position of superintendent emeritus -- a position that has been paying Thompson $1,352 a day since his retirement to advise his successor, among other duties. That amount, over the 150 days laid out in the contract, would pay him more than $200,000 -- bringing the total to more than $1 million.

In addition, the contract called for one other perk -- a onetime $15,000 stipend for "retirement planning."

On Thursday, the board issued a statement asking Thompson to resign from the superintendent emeritus position, but it's unclear whether the board can force him to do so -- or reclaim any of the money in the contract.

"It's just a terribly difficult time because Terry Thompson did terrifically wonderful things for Wayne Township," said board member Shirley Deckard, who was not on the board in 2007.

Five of her colleagues, however, were on the board at the time. They either were not able to be reached for comment Thursday or deferred comment to the district spokeswoman.

Thompson did not return calls made to his home Thursday.

A call placed to Jon Bailey -- the school district's attorney at the time the contract was renegotiated -- was met with a recording that his voice mailbox was full.

Mary McDermott-Lang, the district's spokeswoman, said board members signed off on the provisions of the contract when it was reopened at Thompson's request in 2007. But she said they did so without full knowledge of the information tucked into lengthy documents that she said Thompson asked them to approve at several different meetings.

The board "didn't have the opportunity to get a full sense of the economic impact of the entire contract and the payout in severance," McDermott-Lang said Thursday.

In its statement, the board said: "We are disappointed in what we have learned is the financial impact of Dr. Thompson's contract. We believe that his continued employment is not in the best interest of the school district, and today we asked for his resignation as superintendent emeritus."

In his 15 years as superintendent, Thompson earned board members' respect, McDermott-Lang said. He also was chosen 2010 Indiana Superintendent of the Year by his peers.

"They trusted and believed very much" in Thompson, she said of the board members.

The school corporation has no legal recourse for recouping a severance payout that the board now finds exorbitant, McDermott-Lang said, but board members thought it only proper to ask Thompson to immediately leave his advisory post.

The Westside school district, which has more than 15,700 students, recently has had to eliminate some programs, freeze administrators' pay and reduce some teaching positions through attrition.

During a time of layoffs and cost-cutting, teachers struggle to understand why school districts would dole out such lavish perks to administrators as those given to Thompson, said Nate Schnellenberger, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association.

"That kind of thing is frustrating to teachers in light of the kinds of reductions in staff we've seen," Schnellenberger said. "In some cases, teachers are agreeing to roll back salaries and benefits in order to help schools make ends meet, so when they see something like this (retirement package), it's a little frustrating to them."

The head of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents said the "superintendent emeritus" title was unusual.

"I've never heard of another one," said Jon Ellis, who served as Noblesville Schools' superintendent before taking over the professional association.

However, there is nothing unusual, Ellis said, about school districts tapping former administrators to perform management tasks when they need outside help.

"It would depend on what the duties are," he said. "The process is fairly typical where a retiring superintendent that's been there a long time will often come in on a contract to help advise or direct some project. What services are they getting for that money?"

A memorandum dated Jan. 5 outlines Thompson's duties as superintendent emeritus.

The memo states Thompson will "serve as an adviser" to new Superintendent Jeffrey Butts "on all facets of leadership"; oversee renovation of two buildings that house special education programs; and conduct a "lifecycle evaluation" of all the district's buildings. A phone message Thursday to Butts, 40, who had served as assistant superintendent since March 2006, was not returned.

McDermott-Lang said the board believed so strongly in Thompson that no one involved with renegotiating his contract 31/2 years ago foresaw any problems.

"You had a board back in 2007 who believed very strongly in Dr. Thompson's leadership and wanted to ensure at that time that he would stay with the district until his retirement," she said. "When (he) asked for some revisiting of some of the aspects of his contract, they were certainly willing to talk to him about that."

No one on the board at that time, she said, understood the financial impact that decision would have on the school district.

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Ex-Schools Chief To Quit $1,352-A-Day Job, Move Follows Criticism Of Retirement Package Worth More Than $1M (Ind'pls Star, 1/29/11)
(This article, by Reporter Bill McCleery, was originally published in The Indianapolis Star on Saturday, January 29, 2011. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

Former Wayne Township Schools Superintendent Terry Thompson is negotiating an early resignation from his $1,352-a-day job as "superintendent emeritus," an attorney for the Westside school district said Friday.

The five-month position, considered unusual if not unprecedented among Indiana school administrators, was part of a $1 million retirement package that has drawn protest from township School Board members -- even though most of them voted to approve it four years ago.

Thompson, who retired in December after 15 years as superintendent, did not respond to calls made to his home Friday. In a written statement provided to The Indianapolis Star, he did not directly mention the board's call for his resignation as superintendent emeritus, saying only that "it is time for me to take on a different role" in Wayne Township Schools.

School district attorney Jon M. Bailey said he expects Thompson's resignation Monday, adding, "We've exchanged proposals with his counsel, and I anticipate agreement."

None of the seven School Board members -- five of whom were in office and voted for the renegotiated contract in 2007 -- responded to telephone messages.

Like other districts in this time of reduced revenues, Wayne -- which has more than 15,700 students -- has had to eliminate some programs, freeze administrators' pay and reduce teaching positions through attrition. So why did board members approve Thompson's lucrative retirement package in the first place?

They probably neglected to calculate the actual amount they would be promising Thompson, Bailey said, adding that he now regrets not doing more to inform them.

"Did they fully understand how much money was in that package? No, I don't think they did," said Bailey, who represented the school district at the time of the renegotiation. "I was asked to approve it as to form and legality, and that's what I did."

The contract showed Thompson received more than $817,000 in lump sum severance payouts, including annual base pay of $225,000 as well as accrued vacation and sick pay and other considerations, all paid when he retired last month.

The superintendent emeritus position, which included advising his successor, would have paid Thompson an additional $202,000 over the 150 days specified in the contract -- and pushed the total retirement package to more than $1 million.

"It was a very lucrative contract," Bailey said. "With benefit of hindsight, rather than just doing the narrow task I was assigned to do, the board would have been better served had I grabbed them by the lapels and said, 'Let's slow this down.' ''

But, Bailey added, he doubts it would have made much difference. Thompson, the 2010 Indiana Superintendent of the Year, was considered among the area's strongest school administrators, and other districts were trying to lure him away.

"It came at a time when he was deciding whether to finish his career at Wayne or go somewhere else to finish his career," said Bailey, an attorney at Bose McKinney & Evans in Indianapolis. "He possesses a package of skills that were very unique, and I think the board was quite frankly afraid to lose him."

In his written statement, Thompson said the contract was "mutually negotiated" and was "based in part on my record of service." He touted the district's accomplishments during his tenure, such as launching all-day kindergarten and a college-credit program for high school students.

Most of the money promised Thompson has been paid, and board members as well as Bailey were drawing criticism Friday.

"I am so upset with the School Board members' lack of integrity and lack of knowledge of what their job is. . . . The School Board attorney was not looking out for the best interests of the taxpayers and families in Wayne Township," said Julie Volbers-Klarich, a parent and former teacher in the district.

"My plan is that I hope to speak at the next School Board meeting and ask the five board members who were there in 2007 to resign. . . . We entrusted them to do a job that they failed to do."

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"...School Boards Are Elected To Serve The Public, Not The Superintendent Or Even The School District" (retitled, Editorial, Ind'pls Star, 2/2/11)
(This editorial was originally published in The Indianapolis Star on Tuesday, February 2, 2011 and titled "School Board Caught Off Guard." Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

It was quite a retirement gift. In December, Terry Thompson stepped down after 15 years as superintendent of Wayne Township schools and stepped into a newly created superintendent emeritus position that would pay him $1,352 a day for five months.

The emeritus job, essentially a consulting gig, was only one part of Thompson's retirement package. He also received more than $800,000 in severance pay, including compensation for unused vacation and sick days.

After news of the former superintendent's platinum parachute broke in The Star last week, Thompson hastily announced that he would quit his post-retirement job with the district.

Wayne Township School Board members, meanwhile, expressed shock that Thompson's retirement plan was so lucrative. Their outrage might have been justified except for the fact that five of the eight current board members voted to approve the plan, as a part of Thompson's renegotiated contract, in 2007.

The school district's attorney, who negotiated the contract, now says the board members likely didn't understand what they voted for at the time.

He's probably right.

Too often, school boards in Central Indiana have acted as rubber stamps for whatever superintendents have put before them. The boards also frequently have bumped up superintendents' pay and perks beyond reasonable levels, even as districts have cut academic programs and teaching positions.

Confronted by its own weakness, the Wayne Township board has belatedly asserted its authority.

Two broader points are worth underlining. One, school boards are elected to serve the public, not the superintendent or even the school district. Although it's not board members' job to micromanage operations, neither should they shy from holding superintendents accountable. Two, school board elections matter a great deal, even though they typically draw little attention. One change that would elevate their profile would be to shift board elections from May (they now coincide with partisan primaries) to November when other general election races are decided.

Everyone, even high-performing school superintendents, needs a boss who demands accountability. More school board members need to take that responsibility seriously.

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Turning Spotlight On School Boards (editorial, Ind'pls Star, 4/27/11)
(This editorial was originally published in The Indianapolis Star on Wednesday, April 27, 2011. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

Wayne Township School Board members said they were shocked to learn in January that they had presented the district's former superintendent with an $800,000 retirement package as well as an emeritus consulting job that paid him $1,352 -- a day.

The heat of publicity about the lucrative contract moved the retired superintendent to resign his new consulting job. The board is now paying an investigator by the hour to figure out how the retirement package came to be so cushy.

If such an expensive and embarrassing legal contract can get past an elected board that was supposed to review it carefully, what other ill-advised decisions are school boards in Indiana making?

House Bill 1074, now on the governor's desk, could help bring more transparency and accountability to school boards. The bill, which moves school board elections from primaries to the general election in November, has the potential to strengthen boards by bringing more attention to the candidates running for these important community positions. School board races now get short shrift amid partisan primary battles and historically low voter turnout in May.

Better oversight could help in Indianapolis Public Schools as well. In January, when the School Board voted 4-3 to delay Superintendent Eugene White's plan to shift 20 administrators, the superintendent admonished board members and threatened to leave. Later, after a private meeting with White, the board approved his request, with only a small change.

Most of the IPS board also has not supported some members' simple plea to see details of the district's budget before passing it. White contends that they need only a summary. Meanwhile, board members have been reluctant to cut down on their own meals and travel expenses

Superintendents generally are given considerable leeway, as well as lucrative compensation, to operate districts as they see fit. But it's a primary job of school boards to hold administrators accountable. They also need to be careful stewards of public money.

Indiana has attempted in recent years to improve education through various reforms. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, in a meeting Tuesday with the Star Editorial Board, said matching fiscal responsibility with good educational policy should be another piece of the reform effort. School boards need to be vital partners, not rubber stamps, in making those decisions.

Moving the election to the fall, when voter interest is at its peak, is likely to create higher-profile school board races with more rigorous debate. That in turn should result in candidates who are better qualified to watch over schools. Voters, pay attention.

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School Board Culture Is Issue, Not Time Of Election (Opinion, Michael R. Cohen, 5/7/11)
(Mr. Cohen was Indianapolis Public Schools Commissioner At-Large 2008-2010. This was originally published in the Ind'pls Star on Friday, May 6, 2010. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

It is difficult to imagine that the Indianapolis Star Editorial Board thinks that changing the election of Indiana school boards from the May primary to the November general election will bring more transparency and accountability as well as greater participation by voters. What needs to be changed is the culture of the school boards.

As a newly elected school board member in 2008, I was stumped by the prime question asked during the Indiana School Board Association's orientation session for novices. They asked, "What is the one job of a school board member?" The answer, which surprised me was, "Hire and fire the superintendent." Is that all? Don't we have numerous meetings and vote on a diverse number of issues? If I had only one job, why spend all this time and money meeting several times a week?

This "one job" question was meant to keep board members from "micromanaging" the school district. I appreciated the need to avoid telling schools what colors to paint their walls. What I could not comprehend was the implied notion that active board participation, especially probing questions or disagreements between board members or with the school administration, was considered "dysfunctional." And the term "dysfunctional board" was used several times during my time on the school board.

The district's new board member orientation was very thorough, but limited to one way communication. We had a series of pleasant but overwhelming lectures for several hours a day covering the various offices within the central administration. We were also informed, regularly from school staff and other board members, that no board member has any power. Only the majority of the board can make decisions. This was interpreted, as far as I could tell, to mean that curious, analytical, and exploratory questions were only acceptable if you did not expect complete answers. Again, the idea of dysfunctional board was obviously lurking in the background.

I hope I am incorrect in not seeing any chance for "better oversight" in the change of date for the election. This is because the editorial's question about, "what other ill-advised decisions are school boards in Indiana making?" can be addressed only by changing the culture of school boards.

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NEW (Rochester) School Board Expands Its Public Record (The Rochester Sentinel, 12/11/11)

BY CHRISTINA M. SEILER
Managing Editor, The Sentinel

Rochester School Board will begin taking minutes of its study sessions and making them available to the public.

During Monday’s study session there was lengthy discussion about whether minutes should be taken.

Since they were started by former Superintendent Deb Howe about five years ago, study sessions have been considered discussion and information gathering sessions, but not regular board meetings. The board does not take votes during study sessions. It did not record minutes.

The issue of study session minutes was brought up by board member Bob Poffenbarger, also the former superintendent. He realized there was no record of study sessions after he was elected and was trying to catch up on what he missed since leaving the corporation.

School board attorney Ted Waggoner said Monday study sessions could be considered a committee, and committee members could take their own notes.

“Minutes shouldn’t be maintained for a meeting where there are no decisions made,” to he said.

Poffenbarger disagreed.

“We owe the public the opportunity to follow our tracks,” he said. “I am concerned about blanks in the tape.”

The Sentinel has contended a quorum of the board, which by definition in the Indiana Open Door Law, is considered a meeting and all other aspects of open door and open records laws should be followed accordingly.

Memoranda of meetings, not necessarily minutes, are required.

Waggoner said that if the board records minutes it’s bound to making them part of the public record.

After some quick research on his cell phone, Waggoner read the board the open door law section about meeting memoranda. It states: “The Open Door Law requires the following memoranda to be kept: date, time and place of the meeting; the members of the governing body recorded as either being present or absent; the general substance of all matters proposed, discussed or decided; and a record for all votes taken, by individual members, if there is a roll call.”

Board member Don Meyer said he agrees with Poffenbarger. Even though no decisions are made during study sessions, there’s still discussion about important matters.

Jim Dillinger said he didn’t care either way. He said there’s a myriad of things discussed in study sessions without decisions being made. “I don’t know how much we should record our personal opinion,” he said.

Tom Schwenk wondered how the board could discuss “delicate, sensitive” situations. Board President Joe McCarter reminded him there are allowances in the open door law for meeting in private.

There are 12 reasons why public boards or commissions may meet in executive sessions.

McCarter agreed with Poffenbarger.

“I think it’s a huge gap,” he said of not having study session minutes. “It’s an open hole for the public. I think it’s important for the public to know what we talk about.”

He suggested the board should record as much of its business as it can for the public. “I think the bottom line is, the board wants the public to know what we’re thinking and we want to know that the public’s thinking,” McCarter said.

Starting next month, study session minutes will be recorded. The board, at its Dec. 19 meeting, will talk about policy regarding study sessions.

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Proposal To Radically Reorganize Indianapolis Public Schools - Including Loss Of Elected School Board - Could Spread To Other Systems (retitled, Ind'pls Star, 12/18/11)
(This article, by Reporter Scott Elliott, was originally published as "Nonprofit's Proposal Would Radically Reorganize (Indianapolis Public Schools)" in The Indianapolis Star on Saturday, December 17, 2011. Links to related information will be found at the original article. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

An Indianapolis nonprofit has unveiled an ambitious 160-page reform proposal to completely overhaul Indianapolis Public Schools.

If it came to fruition, the sweeping proposal offered by the Mind Trust would create one of the nation's most radical new organizational approaches to public education.

"If we're going to be serious about doing something transformational, we need an aggressive plan," Mind Trust CEO David Harris said. "Incremental reforms haven't worked here, and they haven't worked in other parts of the country."

The proposal features four key changes:

IPS' elected board would be replaced by a board appointed by the mayor and the City-County Council -- a proposal that would require approval from the state legislature, which the Mind Trust will pursue, but not until 2013. The Mind Trust report also calls for a new management structure that almost certainly would remove Superintendent Eugene White.

The report calls for freeing up millions of dollars that would be used to phase in free preschool for all 4-year-olds in the district.

A new Talent Development Office would be created for the specific purpose of recruiting teachers, administrators and charter school operators.

IPS' central office would be greatly reduced, cutting roughly 450 positions and whacking 80 percent from the current $53.3 million. Millions would then shift to individual schools that would have more power to select programs and services either from the district or from an outside provider. Schools that meet certain performance standards -- what the report calls opportunity schools -- would receive even more autonomy.

The overhaul is on par with the radical redesign of schools in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans and borrows heavily from ideas pioneered there and in New York.

The city would be transformed into a total choice system in which traditional neighborhood schools, charter schools and specialty magnet schools would compete for students and make their own decisions about how to allocate resources formerly managed by IPS.

White, who is aware of the plan, declined to comment on the Mind Trust's proposal.

IPS Board President Mary Busch, however, said promises in the plan are not to be believed, especially the notion that the central office could be cut so deeply.

"It's so easy to just throw those ideas out without knowing the ramifications of it," she said. "There has to be someone left to do the administrative jobs for the district. In some cases, the numbers were just unrealistic."

Taking away the right of voters who live within IPS to pick the School Board, Busch said, is an unfair and outrageous idea: "Voters need to have a voice in selecting board members."

IPS Board member Annie Roof, a frequent critic of White and the majority on the board that supports him, likes the Mind Trust's plan.

"I agree it's time for a radical change in IPS," she said. "I thought they proposed some great ideas that, if implemented, could do wonders for the children of this city."

Although the plan places Mayor Greg Ballard at the center of IPS' management, he issued a statement Friday that stopped short of endorsing the Mind Trust's approach. Ballard didn't say whether he would support mayoral takeover, and he declined to be interviewed.

"The Mind Trust report offers some very interesting ideas, such as the opportunity schools, that merit further study," Ballard's statement reads. "It is my sincere hope this report jump-starts a much-needed discussion about the future of education in our community."

That's somewhat different than what Ballard said during the recent mayoral campaign, when he called talk of mayoral control premature.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, whose office funded most of the $700,000 report, said he liked the idea of giving more control to schools. He said the state would like to see how such a system would work, with an eye toward exporting any success to other struggling Indiana school districts.

"I have a keen interest in how that report can be used within a statewide context," Bennett said.

Most lawmakers had not yet seen the plan, but some Republican leaders, including House Speaker Brian Bosma of Indianapolis and Senate President Pro Tem David Long of Fort Wayne, said they were open to it.

Rep. Bill Crawford and Rep. Greg Porter, both Democrats who represent parts of the IPS district, also were interested in the plan, though they worried about their constituents losing control over the School Board.

Both would prefer a voter referendum before any such proposal goes into effect.

"People from outside of IPS will control the mayor," Porter said. "That is a concern of mine."

Winning support from key players in the city and state, the Mind Trust's Harris said, will be critical.

"We need elected leadership of the community to embrace this," he said, "or we don't think it's going to happen."

Paul Hill, an expert in school district design at the University of Washington, has advocated for market-style reforms for troubled, big-city school districts. He said Indianapolis would be smart to follow the example of others that are having success.

"It's something New York and New Orleans discovered they had to do," Hill said. "This is one of those movements now where the people in the trenches are making the discoveries."

But where Hill sees an organic revolution, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sees a deliberate effort to turn public education into a privately run business, with for-profit charter school companies and service providers seeking an ever-bigger share of public education dollars.

The AFT, one of two national teachers unions, has battled school privatization efforts and market-style reforms in New York and Washington, D.C.

"This notion of a system of schools has meant there is no support from anyone in power for schools," she said. "There is no infrastructure to support schools in New York anymore. They divested responsibility for schools by saying the schools themselves have that responsibility."

But critics of IPS say the district has failed too often and for too long. Something, they say, has to change.

Harris cites the district's own goals, and its failure to meet them, as evidence of the need for bold action. The report details how IPS in 2010 fell short of its own five-year goals for ISTEP scores, graduation rate and honors diplomas.

At the rate the district is progressing, the Mind Trust calculated it would take at least 20 more years to meet the 2010 goals.

"We have been frustrated as a community by what the IPS School Board has failed to deliver," Harris said. "There is a sense of momentum around education reform and a sense that now is our moment, not just in Indianapolis but nationally."

The Mind Trust was founded by former Mayor Bart Peterson along with Harris, who previously headed Peterson's charter school office. The group works to bring successful school reform ideas from across the country to Indianapolis and incubate new ones.

It was a key player in bringing alternative teacher training programs such as Teach for America to Indiana, along with well-regarded programs that boost summer learning and help lead students to college.

The Mind Trust is nationally known for its education entrepreneur fellowship, which funds new ideas in education reform. Earlier this year, it announced an $18 million fundraising campaign and plans for a charter school incubator that would seek to place more charter schools in the city.

The Mind Trust hired Public Impact, a North Carolina-based school reform consulting firm, to prepare the report on IPS.

While the structure and leadership proposals are nothing short of a complete overhaul, the educational solutions the Mind Trust proposes for IPS are not new.

In fact, White, who was a Mind Trust board member until he resigned in May when talk of mayoral control surfaced, already is moving in the same direction as the Mind Trust in many instances.

He is seeking to shrink the central office. He also is creating more specialty schools, giving those schools added freedom and making them competitors, with the goal of winning back students from charter and private schools -- though not as quickly or as grandly as his critics would like.

Since the state in August announced plans to take over four failing IPS schools, White has accelerated plans to create more magnet schools in an effort to compete with the takeover schools and charters. In October, he said he was crafting a plan to reorganize -- and shrink -- the central office. White repeatedly has lobbied for state aid to expand preschool, too.

"In talking to David Harris, so many of the things they were saying, we're already doing," said Busch, the IPS Board president. "But we don't get credit for it. That's disheartening."

Even so, there is a persistent feeling among IPS critics that the district is resistant to change, overly bureaucratic and that it wastes money that could be used to benefit kids.

David Suess, an Indianapolis attorney whose children attend IPS School 2, a Center for Inquiry magnet school, said he's not sure the structure being proposed is the best way to manage the district. But he's convinced the current structure isn't working.

The three CFI schools, for example, should have more autonomy, he said.

"I think it has tremendous building-level leadership and a very strong vision," Suess said. "To the extent we can replicate the building-based strong leadership and strong vision with teachers who are empowered, those are good changes. For whatever reason, IPS hasn't been able to take that districtwide."

Karen Barajas, mother of a freshman at Shortridge Magnet High School for Law and Public Policy, said she has lost faith in the School Board and in White to the point that she is considering moving to the suburbs and enrolling her child in school there. She said an overhaul of the administration is a good idea.

"IPS, in general, has been top-heavy for a long time," Barajas said. "I think the value for what you spend on that is not worth it."

Schools such as Shortridge, she said, would benefit from less bureaucracy.

"It would be better if they are not being micromanaged by a central system that often doesn't know what it's doing," Barajas said.

Care should be taken, however, to protect the schools and programs that are working well in IPS, Butler University Education Dean Ena Shelley said.

Shelley hopes the Mind Trust proposal will prompt a big conversation about the future of education in Indianapolis. But it should not be forgotten, she said, that the district is improving under White.

"IPS has made strides," Shelley said. "I've seen growth and change. You can not turn a system around as quickly as maybe people want. The decline was a long, slow decline. We didn't get in this mess overnight, and won't get out of it overnight."

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Ex-Wayne Township Schools Chief Files Counterclaim In Dispute: Accused Of Defrauding Wayne Twp. District, Thompson Says In Counterclaim That He Is Owed Money Under Contract (Ind'pls Star, 1/30/12)
(This article, by Reporter William J. Booher, was originally published in The Indianapolis Star on Thursday, January 26, 2012. Bold type and highlighting have been added by the Webmaster.)

Former Wayne Township Schools Superintendent Terry Thompson went on the offense Wednesday, filing a long list of answers, defenses and counterclaims in a dispute in civil court in which the school district claims he defrauded the district of millions of dollars in salary and compensation.

In a 60-page filing in Marion Superior Court, Thompson instead maintains it is the district that still owes him money under a 2007 employment contract that provided upon his retirement that he would be compensated for service as "Superintendent Emeritus" through June 30, 2012.

His counterclaim notes he retired Dec. 31, 2010, and was serving as superintendent emeritus in January 2011 when the School Board "without any legal basis, demanded that Thompson resign his employment effective January 31, 2011."

The counterclaim added that the board "instructed that no further payments of any kind would be made to Thompson" after that date and demanded that he repay much of the compensation and benefits he was paid for services rendered during the previous three years of that contract.

Thompson seeks unpaid salary, severance pay, attorneys' fees and compensation for any other loss or cost due to the early termination of that contract and the expense of defending against the district's complaints against him. No specific amounts are listed in the counterclaim. He also accuses the district of violating the Indiana wage payment statute.

The district filed its 33-page lawsuit in January, claiming Thompson committed an "elaborate, complex, and deceitful scheme" to increase his income while superintendent.

The lawsuit claims Thompson, superintendent of the district on Indianapolis' Westside from April 1996 to December 2010, used false statements, elaborate contractual formulas and multiple complex contractual changes never discussed or properly explained to the School Board to increase his taxable annual income from about $218,000 in 2003 to $2.2 million in 2010.

Those increases caused Thompson's retirement benefits, severance pay and deferred compensation to dramatically rise, too, the complaint said.

The School Board faced a public outcry in 2011 when it became known that the board had granted Thompson a retirement package of more than $800,000, which Thompson maintains represented just a collection of deferred benefits paid in one year but earned over a long career.

Thompson's counterclaim, filed by attorneys Daniel Trachtman and Michael Rabinowitch, chides the seven-member School Board on the contracts over the years, stating, "It is important to note here that any high school student in the Wayne Township District is old enough to tell the Board that: 1) You read legal contracts before you sign them; 2) You do not sign contracts that have terms you do not understand; and 3) If you enter into an agreement, you honor it."

The counterclaim also notes the district has spent more than $200,000 in an investigation of Thompson's contracts and an estimated $200,000 in ongoing legal fees in efforts against him.

"Rather than acknowledging that it had negotiated and signed a series of contracts with its Superintendent that brought significant benefit to the District, the Board has instead, individually and collectively contended that it did not read the contracts and has pretended that it did not have a well-qualified attorney representing it who also executed the contracts along with the Board," the counterclaim reads.

The district hired outside attorneys Linda Pence, David Hensel and Julie Smith to file its suit against Thompson.

In reaction to Thompson's counterclaim, Pence said Wednesday night that Thompson in his role as superintendent had a fiduciary duty to the district.

She argued that the 2007 contract under which Thompson is seeking compensation "is void because it was induced by fraud." The lawsuit, she said, maintains "he misled the board through a period of years as to his contract and concealed information from them."

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