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PAULEY: Indianapolis is an education epicenter

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PauleyA few years ago at a dinner in Washington, D.C., with some of the nation’s leading education reformers, one of them asked if I knew about The Mind Trust.

I’ve had a long interest in public education and care deeply about the city, so you can imagine how excited I was to learn about a nationally recognized model in education reform in my hometown.

About the same time, I interviewed Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and asked if she’d heard about the group. Her response was as positive as that of my dinner companion. I came to Indianapolis—bringing my son, Ross, a high school teacher, to see about The Mind Trust.

It didn’t take long for me to understand why people were enthusiastic. I eagerly accepted an invitation to join The Mind Trust’s board.

Everything I’ve seen in the last three years has convinced me that Indianapolis is poised to dramatically overhaul its K-12 system so that every student has the opportunity to succeed. And Indianapolis is uniquely positioned to be a national model.

The city now has a greater concentration of key organizations and talented people who are working to improve education than any its size.

The Mind Trust was founded on the big idea that innovators drive major change. To be sure, there are talented innovators to be found in the existing education community, but The Mind Trust’s idea is to bring innovation to Indianapolis in critical mass by recruiting some of the nation’s best, established education groups to the city. The Mind Trust also has started two unique incubators—one for launching ground-breaking education initiatives and one for starting excellent schools.

Through these efforts, The Mind Trust has created in Indianapolis a robust network of 14 of the nation’s best education reform groups. Those include Teach For America, Summer Advantage, Stand for Children, Teach Plus, The New Teacher Project and College Summit, to name a few.

Because of this network’s transformative scale and effect, ambitious innovators, excellent teachers and policy experts are flocking to Indianapolis. The city is becoming the Silicon Valley of education innovation—a place talented people are empowered to develop and execute innovative plans for improving schools.

The city also boasts a thriving sector of public charter schools in which this rich pool of talent can put the best new ideas to the test. Former Mayor Bart Peterson and his former charter schools director, David Harris, built the nation’s first mayor-run charter-authorizing office before starting The Mind Trust. The office has become a national model, having won Harvard’s Innovations in American Government Award in 2006, and its legacy of producing great schools has continued under Mayor Greg Ballard’s strong leadership.

A study released in December by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes showed students in Indianapolis charter schools gain an additional two months in reading and three months in math compared with peers in traditional public schools.

Indianapolis is poised for education change, and it didn’t take a catastrophe like in New Orleans or an economic collapse like in Detroit to catalyze it. What it took was strong leadership, focused work and a big idea: Innovators drive change.

I have discovered my hometown has a unique history of strong leadership and community-driven buy-in to innovation. This is a historic moment for Indianapolis. To paraphrase a familiar refrain, if we can do it here, it can be done anywhere.

I have never been prouder of my hometown—or more optimistic about its future.•

__________

Pauley, a former journalist at WISH-TV in Indianapolis and co-anchor of NBC’s “Today Show,” lives in New York. Send comments on this column to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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  1. these guys only skill was to steal from other's hard earned savings.

  2. I voted for him last time and it WAS the LAST time. He needed to to quit running around the world on useless trips, and giving our $$ away to sports teams. I'll vote for anyone but Ballard next time. BTW...we gave $40M to the Pacers and cannot even watch the games on TV.

  3. For the people concerned about traffic, you should know that mixed-use projects (like the one being proposed), actually allows for and encourages more people to walk and bike, thereby mitigating additional automobile traffic. If we continue to design and build suburban-type projects in the City (i.e. automobile-oriented projects), we are not offering anything different from what the suburbs offer, which means we will continue to lose jobs/people to the suburbs. The reason Broad Ripple is somewhat successful today is that people want to live in a place that offers the convenience of being able to walk/bike to restaurants, retail, nightlife, the Monon, etc. Why would you not want to support a project that is complimentary to what already makes the area desirable? The real argument with this project should be its lack-luster design and layout, not the density.

  4. It is unfortunate that there is a perception that celebrities validate an event. The Indy 500 stands on its own, especially for those coming in from out of town. It was always so disturbing to read the gushing descriptions of Ashley Judd threaded throughout the local coverage. Very happy that era is at an end.

  5. Good ole' Obamacare. Thanks liberals and those who didn't bother to vote.

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