In my capacity as a speech teacher at Ivy Tech Community College I give my students an assignment for their impromptu speeches.  I tell them to take a situation that started out as a negative and turned into a positive.  It’s amazing the stories that they tell me.  I give them the assignment for two reasons.  First, it helps them with their delivery skills, secondly, it’s a reminded in life that everything happens for a reason and you have to be either smart enough or patient enough to figure it out.  The same applies with yours truly.

As you likely know by now, Friday will be my last day on WXNT-AM in Indianapolis. My morning radio is being canceled (a decision made by my corporate bosses, not locally).  The reasons are simple the economy and the need for cost cutting measures.  I don’t take it personally.  In fact, when I originally came to Indy in 2004 I wasn’t expecting to be here this long.  I figured 2-3 years tops and that would be it.   However during that window, the girl I was seriously dating in Springfield called me to tell me my services as a boyfriend were no loner needed and we broke up.  Of course I was a bit broken up over it, but shortly there afterward a good friend introduced me to the woman who eventually became the Lovely Mrs. Shabazz.   The story of the Abdul life has been a series of turning lemons into vodka lemonade.  Losing my government job back in 2003 gave me the kick in the rear I needed to go into talk radio which eventually led me here.

I don’t regret my time at WXNT-AM.  We weren’t the biggest station in town, but I like to think we helped changed the dynamics of local and state politics.  And I could not have done it without the help of great people like Andrew Lee, Chris Spangle, Gary Hummel, Tom Hervey, Bob Horner, Devon Scott, Scott Sands, Scott Roddy and Jenny Skodjt.   You may not know them, but they were the people who helped make all this possible.  I also have to thank my brother Jamil for all his support for the past 7 years.  And no one tops the Lovely Mrs. Shabazz, the most awesome supportive wife a man could ask for.  Of course after about an hour of consoling me, she started making a list of things I could do around the house in the morning.  God love her.

Unfortunately for her, I plan to stay engaged.  I still plan to continue my work with RTV 6, writing monthly for the Indianapolis Star and writing Indiana Barrister.  I’ve actually got some plans in the works to expand what we do here.  I’m working on a business model that will generate revenue and local content that is really needed in this town.   I will keep you posted.  Most importantly though is that, in the immortal words of my Uncle Richard, “I ain’t goin’ no place!!!!”  So for all the people who thought, or hoped, this would be the end of Abdul, sorry to disappoint you.  I am going to be here for a while.  After all, if I left, where would you go to find out what’s going on this town?

Thanks again for all the support.  See you on the next media platform and thanks for all the fish!

Editor’s note:  August 25 was originally set for our Cocktails & Conversation at Champs at Keystone at the Crossing.  I’m going to turn that into a leaving radio and doing something else party.  Come hang out.

I was out all day yesterday attending funeral services for my wife’s aunt so I did not get a chance to put something together for this morning.  I will have something up this afternoon.  In the meantime, check out my column in today’s Indianapolis Star.  I write about entitlements and how the people who get them need to get with the program if we’re going to turn this country away from financial ruin.  I’ll be back this afternoon.

When I attended Monday night’s meeting between the Indianapolis Public School board and the Indiana Department of Education I expected some fireworks between the board and  Dr. Tony Bennett and his staff regarding state intervention and possible takeover of six schools that did not make it off academic probation.

The meeting overall was pretty tame and uneventful (despite Board President Mary Busch’s inane questions).  However one perpetual theme that carried itself through the meeting was Dr. Eugene White’s whining that IPS was being discriminated against because of its community schools: Arlington, Howe, Broad Ripple and George Washington.  In a community school 7th and 8th graders are mixed in with traditional high school students.  The logic is you an improve graduation rates by getting younger kids acclimated to the high school world.  Although IPS has tried to use that method to improve graduation rates,  Dr. White tried to argue, unconvincingly in my opinion, that the state should not count the 7th and 8th graders test scores because saying they skewed the scores of the high school students and had they been excluded the failing high schools would have made it off probation.

The two problems with Dr. White’s argument are first, there are more than 140 community schools in the state of Indiana and they were all judged by the same standards.  Second, if IPS had a problem with the way its community schools were judged you would have thought the district would have done something about by now.  But according to the Indiana Department of Education, since 2003 the school district has never filed an appeal until now.  IPS says it never bothered to appeal state decisions because it never thought it would be penalized for its community school concept.

Throughout the meeting White repeated his claims that DOE’s system was discriminatory and penalized the district.  In fact, as I left the board meeting I could hear him tell a small cadre of supporters that the state was discriminating against IPS.  I think White should get a dictionary and look up the definition of discrimination and he would find IPS is not being singled out, but instead being treated just like every other school district that is similarly situated.   But then again, I guess if a 63-year old black man who was born in Alabama doesn’t know the meaning of the word discrimination, I shouldn’t really be surprised several of his schools are in the condition they are today and on the verge of a state takeover.  And by the way,  throughout this entire ordeal, the IPS board never asked for a formal meeting with the State.

A final decision on IPS’ appeal is expected in two weeks.

Editor’s Note: Indiana officials told me Monday night the state will seek a waiver from No Child Left Behind. Tony Bennett tells me the education reforms passed out the General Assembly can help provide ample accountability for schools.

Believe it or not, every time I hear Melina Kennedy offer up a plan I usually hope it is something that will be rooted in logic and reason.  I mean after all, even a broken clock is right twice a day.  So when I showed up to her news conference Thursday morning (no I did not get an invite) I was hoping this time would be different.   No such luck.

The Democratic candidate for Mayor of Indianapolis offered up a “plan” for public safety which included the following points.

• 100 new police officers on the street. (50 would be reassigned from current duty, another 50 would be new hires).
• Stepped up community policing.
• Going after illegal guns.
• More crime prevention grant money.
• The creation of a crime statistics commission.
• A Drug Czar and Initiatives Director.
• A centralized grants office.
• New technology.

I really want to delve into her ideas but I couldn’t get past the first one.  When asked how she would hire the new officers she said she would look in the budget, apply for grants and dip into the $150 million endowment that she would use by taking away money for roads and infrastructure.

If you go to IMPD’s website you’ll find the starting salary for an officer is right under $40,000 annually.  That number goes up to $58,000 by year 3.  But let’s stick with the lower number.  If she wants to hire 50 new officers at $40,000 a year, she has to find $2,000,000 to start.  And remember it’s not just an officer, it’s benefits, insurance (don’t forget the family), the college incentive pay, the vehicle, the sick leave, the vacation leave, the pension plan and the deferred comp.  So that $40,000 is more like $70,000 easily which means that $2 million is more like $3.5 million.  And that’s just for one year.  The average officer sticks around for 20 years.  So her $3.5 million expense is now $70 million or half the endowment.  And she still wants to pay for early childhood education, crime prevention grants and job training.   And since we don’t have the money for rods the city can’t attempt to levy federal matching funds so there’s another $105 million the city can’t use.

So out of the gate, Melina’s plan has eaten up half the endowment, cost the city $105 million in road money, and we still have to pay for her other programs.  In the coming weeks Melina says she will introduce additional public safety plan elements.  If her early ideas are already costing the city this much money, who knows how much she’ll spend if she were ever able to actually get her hands on it.  This is vision?  Only if your Oedipus Rex or Stevie Wonder.  This public safety plan seemed like it was drafted by someone who wanted to be a county prosecutor who never tried a criminal case and let their law license expire and only renewed it four months before forming an exploratory committee before running for the job.

I hope the next time will be better, but I don’t think so. After all I couldn’t get a straight answer from her as to whether she thought the city was safer now than it was in 2006 when we had a record homicide rate.

My question for Melina on Crime

I hadn’t planned to blog about Franklin Township schools in southeastern Indianapolis but they are turning into the gift that keeps on giving, sorry IPS.  As you know a number of parents are furious that the school district is forcing them to pay for bus service.

Although the school district says its necessary because voters turned down a referendum to increase property taxes, there appears to be a little more to the story.  Franklin Township parents have to pay nearly $500 per child to take the bus.  The buses are run by an organization called the Central Indiana Education Service Center, not-for-profit organization whose mission statement is to “foster collaboration for the success of education and educators in Marion and surrounding counties.”  The district reportedly leased the buses to the CIESC for $1.

So what, you might say.  I said the same thing until I went and looked at their board of directors and discovered that Franklin Township Superintendent Dr. Walter Bourke is the chairman of the board.  Call me crazy, but that just doesn’t seem right.  The Superintendent of the school district that doesn’t have enough money for bus services, leases the district’s buses to an organization that he’s the chairman of, really?   This raises a number of questions, does he get paid or reimbursed for any of his work?  Was any of this disclosed to the public before a board vote was taken?  By the reaction on my facebook page, I don’t think so. The folks of Franklin Township are already furious and this little bit of news is only going to make them madder.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if this arrangement doesn’t end up on the Indiana Attorney General’s radar screen.

There are already discussions of boycotts and backing up traffic on the first day of school.  And while I’m not one to advise people on how to conduct their revolutions, but if it were me I’d organize the families of about 500-600 kids and tell Dr. Bourke and the District that if they don’t straighten up and fly right the kids may not show up for school on September 16.  Why is that date important?  That’s the official count day for school districts in Indiana.  The state counts the number of students in school that day and determines the funding formula from there.  So assuming Franklin Township gets $5,000 per child from the state, if 500 kids stay home on count day the district will lose $2.5 million.  I know it sounds like exercising the nuclear option, but you don’t take a knife to a gunfight.

Of course all this wouldn’t be necessary if Dr. Bourke, the school board and Franklin Township school administration would do a much better job of engaging their community, however as you sow, so shall you reep.  Let the reeping begin.

Every once in a while my sense of civic responsibility requires to me play moderator at local town hall forums; Tuesday night took me to Franklin township in southeast Indianapolis.  Parents had a meeting to discuss being charged nearly $500 per child per year for bus service.  School officials say the fee is necessary because residents voted down a referendum last fall which would have allowed for a property tax increase.  Since state law prohibits school districts from charging for bus service once it’s been offered at no charge, Franklin township gave its bus service to a private company for $1 and now the private company is levying the fee. As you can imagine, the natives were not happy.

What struck me the most was the air of bad blood between the school board and the citizens.  Only one board member showed up, Aaron Sullivan, two were out of town and the other two declined.  In addition, Walter Bourke, the Superintendent declined to show up as well.   I understand tough times call for tough measures but this is the classic case of school administrators taking a bad situation and making it worse.  There are already questions regarding the legality of the school district’s plan and there is an even bigger overriding issue of whether the district can charge the families of students on free and reduced lunch for bus service.

If the district were smart, it would dip into its surplus and provide bus service for another year while it works with the community to reach a workable solution.  But to do that requires trust and if there is one thing that does not exist between the Franklin Township school district and its citizens is trust.  There is a lot of anger though.  And next year is a school board election.  Those two items always make for interesting results.

I’ll be watching this one closely.

Six of seven Indianapolis Public Schools that were on academic probation could be taken over by the state of Indiana next month.  The results are in for seven IPS schools that have been on academic probation for the past five years and six of them failed to make adequate progress under state law.  The list of failing schools is as follows…

• Emma Donnan Middle School
• Broad Ripple Magnet High School
• Arlington High School
• Howe Community High School
• George Washington Community High School
• Emmerich Manual High School

The only school to show improvement was Northwest High School.   Under state law schools must show at least three percent growth in order to be taken off probation.   Northwest showed an improvement of 8.7% over last year.  The other schools actually backslided.  Arlington and Broad Ripple’s performances dropped an average of 5%.  Manual saw a 3% decrease.  Howe and Washington had a 1% and 1.7% drop in test results, respectfully.  The school that had the worst performance was Emma Donnan, which saw a nearly 6.5% drop in test scores.  A total of 19 schools were on probation,  11 made it off, two have since closed.

Under state law, the Department of Education can invoke a number of measures  from taking complete control of the failing school and hiring a private company to oversee it, offer technical assistance to the school, adopt the school district’s plan to improve its performance, or take whatever other steps are necessary to improve school performance. Those decisions won’t be made until the August State school board meeting.

I am told Dr. Eugene White was livid with the results and actually plans to file an appeal with the State.  His argument is that Broad Ripple, Arlington and George Washington and Howe have 7th and 8th grades and that skewed the results of the schools so those should not be taken into account in deciding whether the state should take over the schools.

My early guess is that Howe and Washington will avoid a complete takeover and maybe get technical assistance.  The other schools are ripe for takeover.  And by the way, although Northwest managed to avoid a takeover because it showed an 8.8% improvement this year, its test scores are still down 6% from three years ago.