State plans takeover of 4 IPS schools

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Four Indianapolis schools will be taken over by groups chosen by the Indiana Department of Education, state officials announced Thursday.

Tony Bennett, Superintendent of Public Instruction, made the announcement Thursday afternoon in Indianapolis. His recommendations will go before the State Board of Education on Monday.

Arlington Community High School, Emma Donnan Middle School, Emmerich Manual High School and Thomas Carr Howe Community High School will all have full takeovers by outside agencies, under Bennett's recommendations. DOE officials say two other high schools — Broad Ripple Magnet High School for the Performing Arts and George Washington Community High School — will have partners assigned to them to help them improve.

"Our children deserve better," Bennett said.

Bennett stressed his desire as schools chief to pursue accountability for schools throughout the state.

"We have never been shy about holding people accountable," he said.

Charter Schools USA has been selected to turnaround Manual High School, Emma Donnan Middle School and Thomas Carr Howe Community High School. EdPower will work with Arlington Community High School.

Broad Ripple and Washington high schools will become part of The New Teacher Project to work with them to improve, but those schools won't be taken over.

The takeovers come after the schools ranked for six consecutive years as failing under a state accountability model. Under Public Law 221, the schools were on Academic Probation. Under what will become the new ranking system for schools, all of the schools would have received a letter grade F.

All six schools have a majority of students enrolled in the free or reduced lunch program — a measure of poverty in schools. The schools all have 73 to 86 percent of their students in the program.

In 2010, the schools’ graduation rates ranged on the low end from 60 percent, for Manual High School, to 78 percent, for Howe Community High School.

Indianapolis Public Schools is expected to comment Thursday night.