A National 'Blueprint'?: Indiana Shifts Millions in Taxes To Charters From Districts

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

55% : Legislators in a state considered a leader in promoting charter schools, earlier this month also passed a law mandating the Indianapolis school district, the state's largest and where 60% of students attend charters, work with the mayor and charter officials on a plan to share busing and school buildings.
54% : How much money each charter would receive would be based on the percentage of students living in the district who attend charter schools.
53% : The bill was scaled back before passing -- delaying tax-sharing until 2028, phasing it in over four years and dropping a requirement that districts share property taxes passed specifically for building or updating school buildings.
52% : Lines were drawn early, when legislators filed a bill that would wipe out the Indianapolis district and four others where charter schools educate the majority of students.
51% : The change could give charter schools nearly $4,000 more per student when fully phased in by 2031, advocates said.
50% : Related Few states have created as "robust" a structure for sharing property taxes with charters as Indiana, according to Todd Ziebarth, a senior vice president of the National Alliance For Public Charter Schools.
50% : " The two laws come out of a state legislative session filled with conflict between districts and charter schools.
49% : Charter school parents, the majority in the city, are more likely to vote for property tax increases if they will help their children's schools.
46% : Behning said his plan for the school district and charters to share and coordinate use of old school buildings and bus routes will also help the district pass tax increases.
41% : That bill never received a hearing, but drew an angry backlash from teachers, parents and district officials, particularly in Indianapolis, where charter schools draw increasing numbers of students away from district schools.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.