What Has André Carson Done On Public Education?

Indianapolis Public Schools Are Struggling. The Congressman With 18 Years of Seniority Has Been Largely Silent.

Tuesday, April 28

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Indianapolis, IN — Indianapolis public school students deserve better.

 

Indianapolis Public Schools serves approximately 30,000 students—the majority of whom are children of color, children from low-income families, and children who depend on public education not just as a path to opportunity but as one of the few stable institutions in their daily lives. The district has faced chronic underfunding, high teacher turnover, crumbling facilities, and the compounding effects of poverty that make teaching and learning harder every single year.

 

Indiana ranks among the bottom tier of states in per-pupil education funding. The school funding formula—set at the state level but shaped by federal policy—systematically disadvantages high-need urban districts like Indianapolis in favor of wealthier suburban districts with lower concentrations of students living in poverty. Title I funding, which exists specifically to direct federal resources toward schools serving low-income students, is chronically inadequate relative to the scale of need in Indianapolis classrooms.

 

André Carson has represented this city for 18 years.

 

He’s voted for the right education bills when they came to the floor. He’s expressed support for public education in statements and interviews. He’s not made Indianapolis's education crisis a defining public fight of his congressional tenure.

 

What serious federal education advocacy looks like is fighting to expand and strengthen Title I funding so that Indianapolis schools get the resources they actually need rather than the minimum the formula provides. Pushing for full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal commitment that has never been fully honored and leaves Indianapolis schools absorbing costs that Washington promised to share. Advocating for federal investment in school facilities modernization so that Indianapolis children aren’t learning in buildings that are decades past their useful life. Building the coalition that makes universal pre-K a reality for Indianapolis families who can’t afford private early childhood education.

 

None of that has been a visible, sustained priority from this office.

 

Beyond funding, the federal role in education includes oversight of civil rights compliance, enforcement of desegregation requirements, and protection of students from discrimination. Indianapolis has a complex and painful history with school segregation and educational inequity that has never been fully resolved. A congressman with 18 years of seniority and relationships across the Department of Education has the tools to force these conversations at the federal level.

 

Those tools haven’t been visibly deployed on behalf of Indianapolis public school students.

 

The children sitting in underfunded Indianapolis classrooms today—in buildings that need repair, with teachers who are underpaid and overextended, in a system that is asked to compensate for every other failure of public investment—deserved a champion in Washington who treated their education as a personal mission.

 

"Indianapolis public school students deserve a congressman who fights for them in Washington the way their teachers fight for them every day in the classroom," Hornedo said. "Title I is chronically underfunded. IDEA has never been fully honored. Indianapolis schools are absorbing costs that federal policy promised to share. 18 years of seniority is enough time to have made a visible, lasting difference for Indianapolis students. That difference hasn’t been made. These children and their families deserved better. They still do."

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This is part of the Hornedo campaign's daily accountability series, What Has André Carson Done?, running through May 1st. Learn more at georgehornedo.com.

 

Indianapolis deserves more than a vote in Washington. It deserves a congressman who uses the full platform of the office to fight for federal resources, to force the conversation at every level of government, and to show up for this community before the cameras arrive. That's the standard. That's what's been missing.

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RECORD CHECK: The Center for Effective Lawmaking ranks Congressman Carson 197th out of 220 House Democrats in legislative effectiveness. Of his claimed 22 bills signed into law, 2 are standalone enacted bills—the Ariel Rios Federal Building naming and the Kennedy-King National Commemorative Site Act. 

 

73% of Congressman Carson's campaign funding comes from PACs, much of it from corporate PACs including AES Indiana, BlackRock, and defense contractors. Only 7% comes from small-dollar donors.

 

When Julia Carson held this seat, Indianapolis was a competitive Democratic stronghold that helped power statewide wins. Under André Carson, the 7th Congressional District has become the worst in Indiana for voter turnout and Democrats haven't won statewide since 2012.