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Education & Workforce Development

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Student teachers get taste of urban schools: Ball State lets future educators spend semester in IPS

For many students majoring in education at Ball State University, thinking about teaching in an urban elementary school conjures up images of unruly students, apathetic parents and old, rundown buildings. These and other similarly negative perceptions are generally inaccurate, say BSU educators, but they are gathered in surveys conducted each year. So the BSU Urban Semester Program places students in an Indianapolis Public School for 16 weeks in the hope they acquire more positive-and accurate-images. “We find students have horrible…

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Cleaner diesel fuels growth at southeast-side factory: Former International Harvester plant is a star for Chicago-based parent Navistar International Corp.

Workers at the once-beleaguered International Truck and Engine Corp. plant on the city’s southeast side are thinking expansion following a $300 million plant upgrade and word of an aggressive 2006 marketing campaign designed to clean up the public image of diesel engines. Improvements to the 1.1-million-squarefoot Brookville Road facility were necessary to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates for diesel engines set to take effect in 2007, but the plant’s future seems secure well beyond that. The local subsidiary of…

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Earlier start dates draw criticism: Schools like to get a jump on the schedule, but tourist sites say business is suffering; legislators take notice

A schoolyard brawl is beginning to brew over whether districts are cutting summers short and sending students back to class too soon. For most school districts, the era of starting school after Labor Day went the way of the typewriter in the 1980s. But some Indiana lawmakers and tourism advocates are beginning to clamor for a state academic calendar that would turn the clock back on early start dates. That’s because many school districts in Indiana resumed classes in mid-August….

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Youth, law enforcement pair up to reduce crime: Local companies providing money, rewards and time

One of Marcus Ballance’s cousins is in prison for shooting another man. Another was recently shot after serving a prison term of his own. Ballance, a 12-year-old who attends Margaret McFarland Middle School, lives with his mom, her boyfriend and a baby sister on the city’s east side. He’s been exposed to crime and drugs his entire life. Some would say that means Ballance has a good chance of ending up either a victim of homicide or in prison. But…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Let’s turn our children into assets

Could we reduce some of the major costs in our society if we had fewer children and more immigration from abroad? Think about it. Children, particularly those 15 to 19 years of age, are a major disruptive and expensive aspect of our nation. They establish behaviors that lead to lifelong misery for themselves and expenses for the rest of us. Teens get into all sorts of costly trouble. They lead police on dangerous chases because they will not obey the…

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Special Report: Buying blind: Lack of oversight leaves state in dark on real estate deals The state of Indiana knows how much it’s spending to lease property statewide -nearly $40 million a year. But it doesn’t know if that’s too much.

The state of Indiana knows how much it’s spending to lease property statewide -nearly $40 million a year. But it doesn’t know if that’s too much. State contracts for third-party real estate services give government officials few safeguards to ensure they’re paying a fair price for office, laboratory and storage space outside of state-owned buildings, those in the industry say. And state administrators have no control over seven-figure commissions paid to two Indianapolis real estate brokers in the past decade,…

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Space crunch prompts Indiana to seek help with real estate leasing duties:

Between the Statehouse, the Indiana Government Center and the State Library building, the state of Indiana owns 1.1 million square feet of real estate in downtown Indianapolis. Still, that’s not enough room to house all state government’s agencies and functions-which is why Indiana spends nearly $17 million each year to lease space elsewhere in Marion County. Some agencies, including the departments of education and health, house nearly all their office workers in privately owned buildings near the Statehouse. Other departments…

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TOM HARTON Commentary: Dragging parents back to class

The day he was hired in June, Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Eugene White broached a topic too often missing in the dialogue about public education. White said that parents are among those who will be held accountable for student achievement in Indianapolis Public Schools. The words “parents” and “accountable” might have shown up together on a school vocabulary test sometime in the last 100 years, but they don’t often go together when those of us who aren’t in the trenches…

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Quiet approach drawing criticism: President’s lack of visibility hurts IU, some complain

Never mind the Herculean task of leading the state’s largest college system in a difficult economic climate; he knew that would be hard. But after two years of long weeks and late nights, he’s facing a more surprising challenge-defending himself from critics who question his ability to get the job done. IU seems to be adrift, naysayers argue, and so far Herbert doesn’t seem to be doing much to get it back on course. “It is with great regret that…

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Defining success: Those who’ve tasted it share their thoughts on just exactly what ‘it’ is

How do you define career success? We posed that question to a variety of high-profile women and men in the Indianapolis business community. While the responses did confirm some of our preconceived notions-such as that men would mention financial rewards more often than women-there are far more similarities than differences, regardless of gender or profession. Still, “Career success is defined differently by each individual,” as Alex Slabosky, president and CEO of The Healthcare Group, so wisely put it; and as…

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Rising star in GOP recasts job agency: New chief uses secret shoppers, dress code to shake up state’s work force development

Indiana Department of Workforce Development Commissioner Ronald Stiver says the world is flat, with the United States no longer having mountainous advantages over other nations. And Stiver knows Hoosiers must prepare for it to get even flatter. “You’re talking to the converted,” Stiver said. “I believe in the 21st century, the major lever for economic development will be work-force development.” Stiver, 31, is reorganizing DWD with the new flat world in mind. He envisions an agency that moves beyond doling…

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TAWN PARENT Commentary: It takes a village to save a marriage

Divorce is a costly proposition-for families, for the courts, for business and for society. And it’s especially costly in Indianapolis. We have more divorced residents than any other major Midwestern city, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As a result, companies suffer. Nationally, divorce costs companies an estimated $11 billion a year, according to the Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based Grief Recovery Institute, an educational foundation. Employees going through a divorce typically are confronting emotional, financial and legal challenges. In surveys of…

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Event targets greener vehicles: Fleet operators to discuss emission-reduction methods at downtown conference

More sparks have been flying from city garbage trucks lately than a City-County Council meeting over police and sheriff’s department consolidation. Mechanics have been cutting out sections of garbage truck exhaust pipes and splicing in tubes filled with precious metals. When the “diesel oxidation catalyst” heats up, combustion gases blowing through it are cleansed before coming out the tailpipe. So simple and quick is this approach to curbing air pollution that John Chavez hopes the humble trash truck project will…

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NOTIONS: Sex makes us more squeamish than violence

Two decades ago, while creating an A I D S – p r eve n t i o n campaign for Connecticut’s state health department, I became a “sexpert.” No, I didn’t become an expert on sex itself (at least no more than your average married fellow). Nor did I conduct formal sex research (I leave that to the Kinsey Institute). Instead, I became an expert on how we Americans, Puritan descendents that many of us are, resist communicating about…

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Smaller-sized meetings bring in big bucks for city: Hospitality group sees value in events of all scales

Even event planners hire event planners. When Cynthia Howell needed to plan an event in the city for a state health care organization, she called Betsy Ward, a member of the meetings team at the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association. With what Howell calls minimal effort on her part, the Indiana Primary Health Care Association Inc. will stay in 50 rooms for two nights at the Sheraton Indianapolis Hotel and Suites at Keystone at the Crossing this fall. The group…

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University Place getting major makeover: New owner IUPUI investing $13M in renovation of 18-year-old hotel

A hotel built during an era in which Indianapolis first laid claim to its title of Amateur Sports Capital of the World has a new owner that is spending millions of dollars to bring the structure into the new century. University Place Conference Center & Hotel, on the campus of IUPUI, opened amid the fanfare of the Pan American Games hosted by Indianapolis in 1987. Nearly 4,500 athletes from 38 countries converged on downtown, including a throng of media that…

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Bias claimed at Citizens Gas: Black workers: Test limited advancement

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility is battling allegations that a test used to screen employees and outside job applicants was biased against blacks, hindering their chances of getting hired or advancing. The city-owned utility last year reached a confidential settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of applicants who weren’t hired because the test “has an adverse impact on black employees and applicants for promotion, transfers and hire,” according to EEOC documents. Now, that settlement-which included cash payouts…

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VIEWPOINT: Arts education is not disposable

Our forefathers had it right. In planning for the eight symbols of Indiana’s values that grace the high arches of the rotunda in the state capitol, art ranks right up there with commerce, justice, liberty, history, agriculture, oratory and law. Each of these is depicted in 20-foot statues that hold a color palette, a book or a shock of wheat that reveals in iconic form the tools of that particular area. Interesting to note that, without art, none of the…

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Tax credits aid blighted areas: Help open to firms targeting Center Township projects

Federal tax credits supporting roughly $6 million in economic development projects are still available for small-business owners considering expanding or locating in Center Township. The funds are administered through the New Markets Tax Credit Program, which was established by Congress in 2000 to help revitalize blighted areas. In Indiana, the locally based Urban Enterprise Association Inc. helped secure tax credits that can fund $50 million worth of projects, including $12.5 million in Marion County. The tax credits already are supporting…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Brothers set example for today’s execs

Most of us know the fabled heroes of Bean Town. They include the Adams cousins (John and Sam). Paul Revere. The Kennedy brothers (John, Robert and Edward). Ted Williams, Carl Yazstremski, Bobby Orr, Bob Cousey, Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Tom Brady. Yet Boston’s most significant business heroes are not well-known today, at a time when their example could be most useful. Two brothers, Edward and Lincoln Filene, inherited their father’s department store in 1890. They spent the rest of…

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