INDIANAPOLIS — Every few months, Indianapolis debates test scores. Are our schools getting better? Are we falling behind? Are the charter schools outperforming the traditional schools? Are the traditional schools finally catching up?
These conversations have their place. But they crowd out a more fundamental question: Are we actually investing enough in Indianapolis children's education to give them a real chance?
I've spent 15 years studying urban education in Indianapolis and elsewhere. And the honest answer to that question, in 2025, is no.
Indianapolis Public Schools serves approximately 26,000 students. The median household income in a significant number of IPS neighborhoods is below $35,000. These are kids growing up in concentrated poverty, with all the documented effects poverty has on cognitive development, mental health, and academic performance.
What do we know works for educating students in high-poverty environments? We know that small class sizes matter. We know that experienced, well-compensated teachers matter. We know that wraparound services — mental health support, nutrition, after-school programming — matter enormously. We know that stable, safe, well-resourced school buildings matter.
Now let me ask you: Does Indianapolis fund these things at the level that research says they require? It does not. IPS per-pupil spending ranks in the bottom third of Indiana's large urban districts. Teacher pay, while improved in recent contracts, still fails to compete with suburban districts, which is why IPS loses experienced teachers to Hamilton County and Hendricks County every year.
What Real Investment Looks Like
Real investment in Indianapolis schools would mean full-day prekindergarten for every Indianapolis child, not just the ones lucky enough to get a slot through the limited public program. It would mean counselors at every school — not one counselor for 400 students, but meaningful support ratios. It would mean school buildings that don't leak, that are properly heated, that have functioning technology.
These things are possible. They require choices. They require Indianapolis — state government, city government, the business community, and individual residents — to decide that children in our poorest neighborhoods deserve the investment that children in our wealthiest suburbs receive as a matter of course.
Organizations like Project Brilliant are working to support educational and community development initiatives in Indianapolis neighborhoods that need investment. Community-based support matters. But it cannot substitute for adequate public investment in the schools that serve all our children.
The test score conversation will continue. But I hope we can start having the investment conversation at equal volume and with equal urgency.