IPS Is Failing
Six of seven Indianapolis Public Schools that were on academic probation could be taken over by the state of Indiana next month. The results are in for seven IPS schools that have been on academic probation for the past five years and six of them failed to make adequate progress under state law. The list of failing schools is as follows…
Emma Donnan Middle School
Broad Ripple Magnet High School
Arlington High School
Howe Community High School
George Washington Community High School
Emmerich Manual High School
The only school to show improvement was Northwest High School. Under state law schools must show at least three percent growth in order to be taken off probation. Northwest showed an improvement of 8.7% over last year. The other schools actually backslided. Arlington and Broad Ripple’s performances dropped an average of 5%. Manual saw a 3% decrease. Howe and Washington had a 1% and 1.7% drop in test results, respectfully. The school that had the worst performance was Emma Donnan, which saw a nearly 6.5% drop in test scores. A total of 19 schools were on probation, 11 made it off, two have since closed.
Under state law, the Department of Education can invoke a number of measures from taking complete control of the failing school and hiring a private company to oversee it, offer technical assistance to the school, adopt the school district’s plan to improve its performance, or take whatever other steps are necessary to improve school performance. Those decisions won’t be made until the August State school board meeting.
I am told Dr. Eugene White was livid with the results and actually plans to file an appeal with the State. His argument is that Broad Ripple, Arlington and George Washington and Howe have 7th and 8th grades and that skewed the results of the schools so those should not be taken into account in deciding whether the state should take over the schools.
My early guess is that Howe and Washington will avoid a complete takeover and maybe get technical assistance. The other schools are ripe for takeover. And by the way, although Northwest managed to avoid a takeover because it showed an 8.8% improvement this year, its test scores are still down 6% from three years ago.
