Indianapolis Moms: Take a Stand for Our Schools

I have three children, and two of them are school-age and attend an Indianapolis Public School. Like most parents, when I first started thinking about public school, I wasn’t thinking about politics. Until fairly recently, I couldn’t have told you much about the politics of the IPS School Board. I suspect many Indianapolis parents are the same way.

Over the past few years, I’ve realized that if we wait until a political decision reaches our child’s classroom before we start paying attention, we’re already too late. Enormous changes are happening in Indianapolis public education right now, and many of them will determine what our public-school system looks like for years to come. As parents, taxpayers, and voters, we need to understand what is happening, who is making these decisions, and, perhaps most importantly, who those decision-makers ultimately answer to.

This Isn’t an Anti-Charter-School Argument

Before going any further, I want to make something very clear. I don’t believe every charter school is bad, I don’t believe everyone involved in education reform has bad intentions, and I certainly don’t believe Indianapolis Public Schools should be protected from criticism simply because it is our traditional public-school district.

IPS has real problems, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone. The district is facing a significant projected deficit and has already made approximately $24 million in cuts. Enrollment has declined over time, families have left the district, and Rebuilding Stronger brought school closures, consolidations, grade reconfigurations, and major disruptions for families throughout Indianapolis. Parents have every right to question those decisions and expect the district to explain them.

What I object to is the idea that questioning IPS should somehow mean we stop questioning everyone else. Our elected school board members should have to answer difficult questions. Charter-school operators should have to answer difficult questions. Education nonprofits, advocacy organizations, politicians, and anyone else influencing how public education operates in Indianapolis should be expected to do the same. When public money, public buildings and public children are involved, transparency shouldn’t depend on which side of the education debate someone happens to occupy.

Who Is Actually Running Indianapolis Public Education?

That question has become much more complicated than it sounds. For generations, the basic premise of a public-school district was relatively simple. Residents elected a school board, and that school board governed their local public-school district. If voters didn’t like the direction the district was heading, they could elect different representatives.

Indianapolis now operates within a much more complicated education system. We have traditional IPS schools, independently operated charter schools, and IPS Innovation Network Schools. We have the Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Education nonprofits and advocacy organizations also have significant influence over education policy. Now, we also have the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, or IPEC.

IPEC was created by the Indiana General Assembly in 2026 following recommendations from the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance, but this isn’t simply another committee created to study education and write recommendations. IPEC has actual governing authority. Significant responsibilities historically held by IPS, including authority involving facilities, transportation, and property-tax levying, are moving to this new organization. The elected IPS board still has important responsibilities, including setting district policies and hiring and evaluating the superintendent, but the balance of power over public education in Indianapolis has fundamentally changed.

What should concern every Indianapolis voter, regardless of how they feel about charter schools, is that we don’t directly elect IPEC. Its nine-member board was appointed by the mayor under a structure established by state law. The law requires representation from IPS, charter-school leaders, and community members with certain areas of expertise. There may be benefits to having those groups sitting at the same table.

But we are also allowed to ask what happens to democratic accountability when substantial authority over a public-school system moves from an elected board to an appointed one. If parents believe IPEC makes a decision that harms their neighborhood school, they cannot simply vote its members out of office at the next election.

That isn’t an anti-charter-school question. It is a question about who should control public institutions and how much influence voters should have over them.

Follow the Money, the Organizations and the Endorsements

School-board elections have traditionally been some of the easiest races to ignore. Most of us know who we’re voting for when it comes to president, governor or senator. Then we work our way down the ballot until suddenly we’re staring at several names running for school board and realizing we know almost nothing about any of them.

That needs to change, particularly in Indianapolis, because organized political and advocacy groups have been involved in IPS school board elections for years. Again, an endorsement does not make a candidate corrupt, and support from an advocacy organization does not mean a school-board member is secretly taking orders from that organization. However, voters deserve to know who is investing time and money into electing the people who will make decisions about our schools. The same standard should apply across the board. If a charter-school advocacy organization supports a candidate, I want to know about it. If a teachers’ union supports a candidate, I want to know about it. If a political organization, wealthy donor, education nonprofit, or business interest is spending money to influence an IPS election, I want to know about that too. This isn’t about deciding that every connection is inherently suspicious. It is about having enough information to decide for ourselves whether those relationships matter.

We should be asking candidates who has endorsed them, who has donated to their campaigns, whether outside groups are spending money to support them, where they currently work and which education organizations have employed them in the past. Most importantly, we should ask what happens when the priorities of those organizations conflict with the needs of the families the board member was elected to represent.

This November Matters More Than Most Parents Realize

On November 3, Indianapolis voters will elect five of the seven members of the IPS Board of School Commissioners. That means a majority of the board is on the ballot during one of the most consequential periods Indianapolis public education has faced in years.

This is also the first election under Indiana’s new system, which allows school-board candidates to identify with a political party on the ballot. That change may make these races feel easier for voters who are accustomed to voting along party lines, but I would argue that it makes researching the candidates even more important.

Please don’t let the letter next to someone’s name make this decision for you.

The 2026 candidate field includes IPS parents, educators, incumbents and longtime community members. It also includes people with direct connections to charter-school organizations, education-advocacy groups and the political history of charter schools in Indiana. One candidate currently works for a charter management organization. Another previously worked for RISE Indy. Another played a role in creating Indiana’s original charter-school law. Other candidates are parents with children currently attending IPS, former public-school teachers and educators who have raised concerns about IPEC and the growing influence of outside organizations in Indianapolis education.

None of those facts automatically tell us who deserves our vote. What they do is tell us what we need to ask before casting one.

I Want Local People Making Local Decisions

This is where I will readily admit my own bias. I want people who are deeply invested in Indianapolis making decisions about Indianapolis children.

I want parents, teachers, former students, and neighborhood advocates involved in these conversations. I want decision-makers who understand that when a neighborhood school closes, it isn’t simply a dot disappearing from a map or an inefficient building being removed from a spreadsheet. It changes routines, relationships, neighborhoods and children’s lives.

That doesn’t mean parents are automatically better school-board members, nor does it mean someone with professional experience in charter schools or education policy should automatically be disqualified. However, to me, lived experience matters. Independence matters. Accountability matters. When someone sits down at that board table, I want their first obligation to be to the children and families of Indianapolis, not to an advocacy organization, political party, employer, donor, or ideology. I don’t think that is an unreasonable standard. I think it should be the bare minimum.

Our Kids Don’t Have Lobbyists. They Have Us.

Public schools are one of the few institutions in our communities that truly belong to everyone. They belong to families who have lived in Indianapolis for generations and families who arrived here last month. They belong to children whose parents attend every school-board meeting and children whose parents have never voted in a school-board election.

Our children don’t understand property-tax levies, governance structures, political endorsements, or education advocacy organizations. They don’t know what IPEC stands for, who donated to a campaign, or which lobbyist supported a piece of legislation at the Statehouse.

They shouldn’t have to know. That’s our responsibility.

So, this November, don’t skip the school-board section of your ballot. Don’t vote for someone simply because there is a D or an R next to their name. Research them. Look at where they work and where they have worked before. Look at their campaign-finance reports and endorsements. Find out whether they have children in public schools and what they believe about the future of IPS. Ask what they think about IPEC, charter-school expansion, neighborhood schools, public-school buildings, and the role outside organizations should play in local education policy. Most importantly, ask who they believe they are accountable to when the interests of different organizations collide.

Then vote.

Something much bigger than one school-board election is happening in Indianapolis. We are deciding what the word “public” will mean in Indianapolis public education and how much of a voice ordinary Indianapolis families will have in determining its future.

I know where I stand: with candidates like Lindsey Cornett and Sacha Sharp, who are local moms without any special interests outside of helping our children.

Indianapolis moms are exceptionally good at fighting for our own children. It’s time we paid attention, showed up, and fought just as fiercely for all of them.