Karega Rausch, the director of charter schools for Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, will leave his post later this month to lead an education lobbying group that recently formed in Indiana.

Rausch will become the Indianapolis director of Stand for Children, an Oregon-based not-for-profit group that tries to advance education reform thorugh grass-roots organizing and legislative lobbying.

Rausch was hired in January 2007 by former Mayor Bart Peterson to oversee the publicly funded charter schools approved by the mayor's office. There are now 22 such schools in Indianapolis, although Ballard decided last month to close one of them next year.

“Karega has led many of the educational initiatives in our city since January 2007 with a passion for improving education in our community," Ballard said in a statement.

Stand for Children began operating in Indiana early this year with the help of Indianapolis-based Mind Trust, an education reform organization headed by David Harris, who preceeded Rausch as Peterson's charter schools director. The group has worked to pass education reform legislation in several other states, including Colorado, Massachusetts and Tennessee.