Last Updated 4 weeks by Amnon J. Jobi | Amnon Front Page
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A bill to convert all of Indianapolis Public Schools to charter schools appeared dead Monday after the deadline for committee votes passed.
House Bill 1136 would have dissolved all school corporations in which more than half of the students living within a corporation’s boundaries attend a charter school. The bill would have affected five school corporations, including Indianapolis Public Schools and Gary Community School Corp. The bill was assigned to the House Education Committee but a hearing was never called for it before Monday’s deadline for committee votes in the chamber in which bills originated. Bills that don’t meet certain deadlines during the legislative session die automatically, though they can be brought back later as amendments to other bills.
Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, who serves on the House Education Committee, said the chair of the committee deserves credit for not calling a hearing on the bill. He said he’s tired of seeing bills targeting IPS being filed by legislators who don’t represent the area. HB 1136’s author, Republican Rep. Jake Teshka, is from North Liberty, in St. Joseph County.
“Look, Indianapolis Public Schools has been used for decades as a whipping boy,” DeLaney said. “So if you don’t like education, you attack IPS. That way, the good folks in Hamilton County and elsewhere don’t have to attack their public schools when they want to attack public education. That’s the underlying game here.”
Although the IPS dissolution bill is now dead, DeLaney said he is still concerned about a Senate bill to require traditional public schools to share property tax referendum revenue with charter schools. That bill, Senate Bill 518, already passed committee and is working its way through the full Senate.
“The idea that we need to punish IPS in order to help the charter schools even more is really over the top,” he said.
Neither Teshka nor IPS responded to requests for comment Monday, nor did Teshka’s office answer whether he plans to try to revive his bill as an amendment elsewhere.
Bills in the General Assembly have until Thursday to pass out of the chamber in which they were filed. After that, lawmakers will take a week off for their mid-session break before returning to Indianapolis so that each chamber can consider the other’s proposals.