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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Education innovation in Indianapolis is diverse, as it should be

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I remember having my first African-American teacher when I attended IPS School #42. Seeing a Black woman leading students at the front of the class, in a school named for its beloved Black principal, Elder Diggs, made quite an impression on me as a little girl and helped shape me into the person I am today.

Thatā€™s why I applaud the news that five of the eight new Innovation School Fellows announced last week by The Mind Trust, Indianapolis Pubic Schools (IPS) and Mayor Joe Hogsett are people of color. But this sort of diverse representation is business as usual. As the fourth cohort, they join the ranks of 25 other Mind Trust school fellows, 11 of whom are people of color.

These fellows will spend up to two years preparing to lead an Innovation Network School within IPS. Once theyā€™ve fully developed their school design plans, theyā€™ll enter into an agreement with IPS, under which their schools will be given autonomy in exchange for being held to the highest academic standards. The Mind Trustā€™s fellowship provides them with an extensive array of support, including access to local and national education experts and the resources to travel to innovative schools across the country.

While there is no doubt that great, life-changing teachers and principals come from all backgrounds, the diversity of our Innovation School Fellows helps with a problem our city, and indeed our country, has struggled with for decades. Though 80 percent of students in IPS identify as people of color, only 23 percent of their teachers and 39 percent of their principals identify as the same. And, according to a report released last year by the National Center for Education Statistics, our nationā€™s public school principals are only slightly more diverse today than they were 25 years ago. In 1987, only 9 percent of public school principals were Black and only 3 percent Hispanic. In the 2012 school year ā€” the most recent year for which national data is available ā€” the percentage of Black and Hispanic principals stood at 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

With the majority of American public school children identifying as children of color, the representation of principals of color matters now more than ever.

We need educators who share the cultural and personal backgrounds of their students. Their backgrounds will open the lines of communication with students and create a deeper connection to the learning experience because they have an understanding of a studentā€™s real-world experience. This culturally relevant teacher-student relationship will drive academic achievement.

Students look to their educators as role models, and the experience of being taught by a teacher who looks like a parent, uncle, aunt or close family friend, or attending a school led by a principal to whom the students can relate sends a powerful message. Our babies see a person who looks like them in a respected position of authority, and students grow up with the understanding that leadership comes from people of all backgrounds.

Finally, the newest cohort of fellows shows that our cityā€™s education sector knows that a commitment to diversity can fuel innovation. The City of Indianapolis stands to create one of the most innovative learning environments in our country, not only because our leaders are ensuring that our educators of color have a seat at the table, but also because investments from organizations like The Mind Trust are giving leaders within our community the power to design and deliver school models that will meet the needs of our babies.Ā 

Itā€™s easy to talk about the benefits of diversity, but our babies will only see these benefits if we continue to intentionally invest in it.

Letā€™s get to it.

Ā 

Maggie A. Lewis is president of the Indianapolis City-County Council.

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