Are IPS resources being equitably allocated by race? Let's take a look.....
Each year IPS spends about a half a billion dollars to educate our students; I say ours because if you pay local, state or federal taxes, YOU are chipping in! The question many Black citizens have is how equitable that half Billion is being spent? Increasingly, White citizens are questioning the role of sub-standard education in the increased crime rate, and related social ills.
Publicly available data for the last decade or so has been reviewed and posted on this site. IPS is a large and complex organization. The genesis for this representation was the eviction of Shortridge students by Gambold students. The rationale given for the decision was to improve efficiency. -Unfortunately, many citizens do not trust IPS. -Unfortunately a third of IPS expenses are not associated with a particular school. [most of the expenses associated with individual schools seem to be to support calculations mandated by the Federal government ( prodded by the NAACP)] -Unfortunately graduation rates are declining and dropout rates are NOT declining. - Fortunately, citizens are beginning to question the operations of our failed school system.
On the surface one can look at comparisons of enrollment, total and per student budgets over time to spot patterns of inequality of application of public funds.
cost per student Analysis: The number of IPS students in 2011 was 29,806 this is the federal number, the state number is close total IPS expenses for 2011 were $ 565,152,000 NCES Data The overall cost per student in 2011 was $ 17,085.
Of those 29,806 students in 2011, how many are black, and how much of that $565,152,000 was spent on their education, more or less than the average. Looking at
the 2015 budget of $382,000,000 we notice the following:
| - Debt Service | $ 39,708,000 |
| - Pension Debt | 2,879,000 |
| - Exempt Capital | 17,403,000 |
| - Transportation * | 30,375,000 |
| - Bus Replacement * | 12,565,000 |
| Total | $102,930,000 |
*These can be greatly reduced by having walking schools which will also increase QOL in our neighborhoods.
About a quarter of the budget cannot be traced back to individual schools or students (with publicly available data) and 42,940 is spent taking 30,000 students to school each year (180 trips), that's $8.50 a day!
So, with the 75% earmarked as Elementary or Secondary(that is the General Fund), about 25% cannot be traced back to individual schools (with publicly available data).
Of the remaining $233,500,000 we notice the following:
| - Special Education | $ 5,820,680 |
| - Central Services | 44,384,026 |
| - School Police | 4,487,351 |
| - Warehousing | 589,249 |
| - Facilities Mgmt | 3,299,647 |
| Total | $ 58,580,953 |
| 1. EDGAR H EVANS ACADEMY | |
| 2. OTIS E BROWN SCHOOL 20 | |
| 3. FLORENCE FAY SCHOOL 21 | |
| 4. HAZEL HART HENDRICKS SCH 37 | |
| 5. DANIEL WEBSTER SCHOOL 46 | |
| 6. FRANCIS W PARKER SCHOOL 56 | |
| 7. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE SCH 64 | |
| 8. SUSAN ROLL LEACH SCHOOL 68 | |
| 9. MINNIE HARTMANN SCHOOL 78 | |
| 10. PARKVIEW SCHOOL 81 | |
| 11. JOSEPH J BINGHAM SCHOOL 84 | |
| 12. BOOTH TARKINGTON SCHOOL 92 |
For the 13 schools having expense data, and enrollment data for years other than 2012 will be visualized separately using
the average of all available years.
| 1. T C STEELE SCHOOL 98 | |
| 2. FRANCIS BELLAMY SCHOOL 102 | |
| 3. FRANCIS SCOTT KEY SCHOOL 103 | |
| 4. SPECIAL EDUCATION HOME BOUND | |
| 5. CENTER FOR INQUIRY III | |
| 6. JUVENILE CENTER SCHOOL | |
| 7. HENRY W LONGFELLOW MIDDLE SCHOOL | |
| 8. FOREST MANOR MIDDLE SCHOOL | |
| 9. SHORTRIDGE MIDDLE SCHOOL 5485 | |
| 10. CRISPUS ATTUCKS MIDDLE SCH | |
| 11. GEORGE W CARVER SCHOOL 87 | |
| 12. SHORTRIDGE LAW PUB POL MAG JR HS | |
| 13. CRISPUS ATTUCKS MED MGNT JR HS |
2015 Expenses Budgeted by School Analysis: This analysis simply take the dollars budeted that can be traced to an indiviudal school, then applies the racial makeup of the school, and compares the group. Schools are group by the percentage of Black Students (<25,<50,<75,75+) using 2015 enrollment, not the maximum for the entire period. The results of this analysis is consistent with the Cost Per Student analysis of data of the ten year period ending 2012.
The findings of the 2015 Budget Analysis are as follows: Looking at the data that is traceable to individual schools, 78% of Black students attended 41 schools having percentage of Black students exceeding 50%. These schools only received about half of the operating budget. These 41 schools have 60% of total enrollment yet are only budgeted 54% of expenses and FTE staff! The cost per student analysis confirms the disparity. This condition has persisted over the period reviewed (2003-2015).
To summarize,
Description |
Number of Schools |
Having both 2012 Enrollment and 2015 Budget data |
53 |
Using Average Enrollment and 2015 Budget data |
13 |
-subtotal |
66 |
|
|
Cost per Student not derived due to lack of data |
12 |
Total Reported |
78 |
Conclusion: Review of the available data supports the Suspicion that Black students are not provided the same level of resources as Non-Black students. The separation in the Bubble Charts and the percentage of Black Students in schools on the south side of the city demonstrates this assertion.
Looking at the general and student populations of the district, it seems that our Politicians have picked their voters instead of the voters picking the representatives on the School Board and State Legislature.
Are IPS resources being equitably allocated by race? Let's take a look.....
Click the icons to the left to follow our thought process for this project.....
Mostly Separate & Definitely Unequal: Indianapolis Public School's Allocation of Funding by Demographics 2003-2015
Synopsis and Introduction
About the Project and Project Overview
Thesis Statement
Steps taken to prove/disprove disparity assertion
About the Map to the right...
About the Data and Data Resources
Analysis and presentation of the data
Placing the data in context (time and place)
Findings and Conclusions
Reports
Contact Us
Quick Start Guide to the site
This project began with the IPS Board decision to reclassify Shortridge High School to a IB school. Hereafter referred to as the "Eviction" of Black Students to make room for Non-Black students. I attended several meetings where I learned quite a bit about our schools system. As I attended more meetings, I met people who know quite a bit about IPS and it operations, some of these people carried these folders with newspaper clippings and other documents; it seems that most of us had become "radicalized" over similar issues, but over quite a large time span. At one meeting, an attendee, asked for a "Fact Sheet", so they could be better prepared to discuss strategies and tactics to attempt to reverse the eviction of the Shortridge students. I actually helped my wife prepare her comments as she spoke against the eviction . The crux of the eviction issue is: The inequities within IPS is a complex subject, for this analysis, I have excluded the topics of
The data used comes from publicly available sources, primarily, federal, state, and IPS Board Docs website. I requested specific information related to a subset of schools, and was never told no, but never received the data.
Open source software tools were used to access, analyze, and present the data. The map shows how the school district has been configured to meet the needs of students, and given the fact that approximately 25% of the students are Black, it should be possible to have the majority of schools in the district have Black student percentages be around 25%. [please see map, and you decide] Motion bubble charts are used to demonstrate the disparity in funding of schools having a majority of Black students. I was not able to get financial data for individual schools so I used sparse budget data and imputed values for the years that enrollment data is available. I have also advocated having individual school data be included in legislation.
Click the icons to the left to follow our thought process for this project.....
Mostly Separate & Definitely Unequal: Indianapolis Public School's Allocation of Funding by Demographics 2003-2015
Synopsis and Introduction
About the Project and Project Overview
Thesis Statement
Steps taken to prove/disprove disparity assertion
About the Map to the right...
About the Data and Data Resources
Analysis and presentation of the data
Placing the data in context (time and place)
Findings and Conclusions
Reports
Contact Us
Quick Start Guide to the site
Many have few good things to say about IPS, yet seem to think that Their School is ok or even really good. The map is a convenient interface to provide school level data and to show the variation of the allocation of resources in the district. The map has four layers; to see district level information, only select that layer. Initially all layers are selected, so it is possible to select all of the layer data except the District layer.
ZOOM to see an individual school, in some cases multiple schools are in the same location so you need to zoom in the separate them. After clicking on a school dot on the map, re-adjust the ZOOM to see all of the information.
Each school location is color coded by the maximum percentage of Black Students group into quartiles. (<25, >75, etc.), additionally each voting precinct is also color coded by the 2010 percentage of Black Population. By clicking on the School Location dots, operational and financial data for that school, and the Central Office expenses will be presented in a popup screen overlay. The popup screen overlay contains links to additional information related to that school. The links for NCLB Report Card (No Child Left Behind), School Profile, and List of Teachers is generally for 2008 data from the Indiana Department of Education Website. I am not aware of more current data that is available in a easily consumable format. The student performance data for the schools probably has not improved significantly since 2008, and the relative values between schools are still valid. If a portion of the popup screen is obscured by the legend, click the map and drag the mouse over to get a better view of the popup screen.
The control just below the legend is to select map Layers, the control below the layer selection is the Search Control. To find a School, click the Search icon and enter the name in the input box. Unfortunately, searches need to be by the start of the name, not any part of the name. for example Diggs will not be found, but if you enter e, a list of all schools whose name begins with e will be listed and Elder W Diggs can be selected from that list. The financial data presented in the map popup screen is sparse as it is taken from the 2010, 2014 and 2015 budgets, as well as for the construction data, reports presented to the IPS Board. The control below the Search Control is the Zoom Control, which can be used to adjust the detail show in the map.
The non-contiguous precincts shown as being in the IPS District appear to be at odds with the Map published by the City of Indianapolis, however, those precincts shown in our map are included in the population totals used from the 2010 Census Data. The value of the map is it visually conveys the dispersal of IPS resources in the context of the general population, as it related to the Black Population. The map is intended to be a school specific tool, the analysis tab () to the left has comparisons of various groups of schools.
This resource was created to help concerned citizens understand the issues within IPS and disparities regarding fund distribution, access to resources by Race. Reporting and analysis of disaggregated data by school should be provided by IPS even if not mandated by our state legislature. We are calling for school level data to be provided; keeping two things in mind "In God we Trust, all others bring data" and "Follow the money".
Of the twenty or so data sources, hundreds of data files were captured, and the data was aggregated and summarized for analysis. Much of the data was scraped from websites or downloaded as pdf files and converted to data tables. The bulk of the data manipulation was done using open source R, or manipulation was accomplished in excel. Online tools were employed to convert pdf data into usable form.
The data used in the Motion Bubble Charts includes imputed financial data, and the data tables may be seen by clicking the Data Button in the display. Budget data for 2010, 2014, and 2015 were the only source for school level expenses.
We have advocated for mandatory reporting of school level expense data to our State Legislators.
The text in these icons if printed would use twelve pages; consider this as a twelve page executive summary. To fully explore the links referenced in this twelve page summary could easily take months to read.
The issue is a simple one; preference. None of us wants to admit it exists; hopefully reading through this report will allow us to admit that racial preference exists.
Click the links below for printer friendly versions of the report (aka the twelve page report summary)
Printer friendly Summary Report with viewable links
Printer friendly version with viewable links of site pages
Please click on the icons to the left to explore the data related to the operation of our school system and how it relates to the education of Black students. Or click the icon for a video guided tour of the site.
The primary statistic we will use to analyse the disparity between races is Relative Cost per Student (RCPS) by School. Relative Cost per Student is derived as the operating budget plus Capital project cost, divided by enrollment. Centralized budgeted costs are included in each school.
The percentage of Black population in the IPS district is 27% while the population of Black IPS students is 55%. With equal family size, non-Black students are opting for private or charter schools
Why Indiana has charter schools and Kentucky does not. Given the composition of the School Board Charter/Innovation Schools are in our future; maybe. Now is the time to intervene!
Given this disparity, the leaders of our district may feel the need to continue to appease the White families still making use of IPS.
As the IPS District continues
to lose population and the related funding from the state; doing more to appease fewer White students with less funding is making a bad situation worse for Black People.
Of the twenty or so data sources, hundreds of data files were captured, and the data was aggregated and summarized for analysis. Much of the data was scraped from websites or downloaded as pdf files and converted to data tables. The bulk of the data manipulation was done using open source R, or manipulation was accomplished in excel. Online tools were employed to convert pdf data into usable form.
The data used in the Motion Bubble Charts includes imputed financial data (missing is 98% of the next value), and the data tables may be seen by clicking the Data Button in the display. Budget data for 2010, 2014, and 2015 were the only source for school level expenses.
We have advocated for mandatory reporting of school level expense data to our State Legislators.
We will continue to request data from IPS.
1) nces data individual schools
2) nces data district level data
3) Indiana Department of Education
4) State Board of Accounts Audits
Indiana audits of IPS
SBA 2013 audit
5) Fraud-Waste-Abuse
Reforms sought after IPS audit
indianapolis-finance-report_cgcs
8) International Baccalaureate
9) Physical Plant Baseline Scores
10) NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
11) 2010 Census Data
census_2010/04-Summary_File_1
census2010_data_by_vtd
pct_black_population_in_ips
14) campaign_funds
15) The Racist History of the Charter School Movement
17) List of Teachers
18) IPS Documents
FOIA Request
https://www.boarddocs.com/in/indps/Board.
https://www.unols.org/sites/default/files/201206cncap06.pdf
20) Other Sources and References
Glossary-
CCD – Common Core Data
CFI – Center for Inquiry School
IB – International Baccalaureate School
NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NCES – National Center for Education Statistics
Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about our site or content. This is a work in progress, so we welcome your comments.
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Conclusion: Review of the available data supports the Suspicion that Black students are not provided the same level of resources as Non-Black students.
The bottom Line Looking at the general and student populations of the district, it seems that our Politicians have picked their voters instead of the voters picking their political representatives (on the School Board and in the State Legislature).
Changes recommended in the audit at the beginning of the current Superintendent’s term have still not been implemented.
Reforms sought after audit confirms IPS budget surplus
https://tinyurl.com/indianapolis-finance-report-cg
How to navigate this site (3:49 Minutes)
Conclusions reached after reviewing financial and demographic data (3:22 Minutes)
Complete Site overview (24:54 Minutes)
