The State of IPS
Indianapolis Public School Superintendent Dr. Eugene White is unveiling the 2009 Indianapolis Public Schools “State of the District” this week. I got an early copy of the presentation, and while there is some good news, IPS is increasingly becoming a school district that is poor, black and academically challenged.
Here are some of the results…
Enrollment
- Student Enrollment in IPS continued to decline; dropping from 35,325 to 33,824 students.
- The number of students on free and reduced lunch increased by 7% to 84% of the student population.
- IPS is 57% black, 23% white, and 14% Latino. Males make up 51% of the student body, and women 49%.
- The number of students who speak English as a second language has tripled since 2000 to one in 10 students and 20% of the student population is classified as special ed.
- IPS saw decreases in student enrollment in every grade from 2-8, but there was a near 700-student increase in the number of students from grades 8-9, primarily because none of them were ready for the 10th grade.
What’s interesting here is that IPS attributes the loss of more than 1,600 students in grades 1-8 to parents moving out of Center Township and into the surrounding townships and counties and not to charter schools. And as more students leave and the number of poor students increase, this shows me that as parents accumulate more wealth they look for a place with what they believe is a better school system. Because of the student losses, IPS will have closed 14 schools by the end of the 2008-2009 school year and will have to cut its budget by $25 million.
Academic Performance
In terms of academic performance the news is mixed at best. On ISTEP+ test results regarding English/Language Arts and Math, IPS 6th graders made the most progress in English and Language Arts. 5th graders made the most progress in math, but were stagnant in English. Third graders lost ground in English and Math. Fourth and seventh graders only showed progress in math scores, however 7th grade ISTEP+ English scores fell by almost 10%. Eighth grade math and English scores showed more improvement in math than English. Tenth grade ISTEP+ scores showed an increase in math, but a drop in English. In addition, the data also shows Latino students as a whole, performing better than black students.
When broken down by racial groups, black students in other Marion County School districts tended to perform better than those in IPS. The highest performing group of black students were at the 5th grade level; they came in 5th on English and language arts testing as well as 6th on the math. Third grade black students also ranked 6th in the math.
White students in IPS came in last in virtually every grade level in IPS when compared to other districts in areas of English and math. 10th grades white students came in third from the bottom in English and second from the bottom at the 6th grade level. White students came in second to last in 5th and 6th grade math and third from the bottom at the 10th grade level.
Latino/Hispanic students tended to perform better as a whole in all grade levels than their black and white counterparts. They scored in the top half in math in grades 3-7 and grades 4-6 and 10 in English.
Retention & Suspension
While the number of students retained in grades 9-11 is growing smaller and dropped an average of 89% from 2005-2008, the number of students being retained at the 12th grade increased 85 percent.
The news is also mixed in the area of suspensions. The number in-school suspensions went from 2,972 in the first semester of 2007-2008 to 3,753 in the first semester of 2008-2009. Meanwhile the number of out-of-school suspensions went from 4,032 in the first semester of 2007-2008 to 2,473 in the first semester of 2008-2009.
Over the same period the number of expulsions went from 118 to 83.
IPS “Good” News
The 2008 report lists a variety of “good” news items regarding IPS, however looking through the list I noticed a significant portion of the good news concerns IPS’ magnet and specialty schools. This makes me wonder if IPS is turning into a school district where if you are a bright student who can get into a specialty or magnet school, you will do quite well. However, if you are an average student, your chances of success are slim to none at best.
