Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 21

Tassel turned: Selfie with a new Ball State graduate.
4) A public college running public schools
What does this mean in practice? Ball State has long been
connected with the community. Back in the 1880s, the Ball
brothers moved their company to the area from Buffalo because
its natural gas supplies helped in glassmaking. In modern
times, the area has great geothermal potential. More
than a decade ago, Ball State began building one of the largest
geothermal heating and electricity projects of any university
in the country. Under an earlier president, Jo Ann
Gora, Ball State launched a program of " Immersive Learning, "
an American version of apprentice training.
The university also has had a tradition of charitable
giving, and in 2019 it launched One Ball State Day, a fundraising
effort for local causes that this year brought in
more than $1 million.
Mearns's contribution to this tradition has been
spearheading the university's extraordinary involvement
in the city's public K-12 system. The story of the Muncie
Community Schools (MCS) since the 1980s is a familiar
one in urban America: attendance declined; the tax base
shrank; teachers left; the downward cycle intensified. Almost
five years ago, about the time the Mearns family decided
to move to Muncie, the Indiana legislature took the
drastic step of putting two of the state's public school systems,
those in Gary and Muncie, into state-run emergency
receivership.
That is where Ball State stepped in, with a wholly
unfamiliar approach. A few months after taking office,
in a move that had been coordinated within the university
but took many legislators by surprise, Mearns proposed
that Ball State-which had started in the 1800s as
a " normal school, " training teachers, and which still has
the largest teacher's college in the state-assume responsibility
for Muncie's schools. Financing, management, labor
relations, curriculum-everything. The ensuing saga
was complicated and dramatic, and I wrote a whole article
about it soon after it occurred. The closest parallel
was Boston University (a private institution) running the
schools in the Chelsea area of the city.
In Muncie, the essence was a radically transparent
and inclusive way of having a university and a whole community
take responsibility for community schools. This
wasn't the gown bossing around the town. Under the
emergency legislation that Mearns proposed to the legislature,
he and the Ball State board would appoint members
of the new community school board. The measure
passed, and they solicited applications from across the
town. Of the 88 applicants, they invited 20 finalists to appear
at a two-hour televised event, and the seven board
members who emerged from the process were a diverse
sampling of Muncie. They included a special ed teacher
with school-age children, the YWCA's executive director, a
lawyer and former head of the Ball State University Foundation,
a local banker, a Ball State official, a pastor, and a
former state court judge. They were five men, two women;
five white, two Black; six of the seven had attended
Muncie Community Schools. I made notes about the selection
process at the time:
I met with board members for an hour last month in
Muncie and asked each of them why they'd decided to
apply for this post. " I couldn't not throw my hat into the
ring, because the challenge is so important, " the lawyer,
Washington Monthly 21
Courtesy of Anthony Romano/Ball State University

Washington Monthly - September/October 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2022

Contents
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Cover1
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Cover2
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 1
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 2
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 3
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 4
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 5
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 6
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 7
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 8
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Contents
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 10
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 11
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 12
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 13
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 14
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 15
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 16
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 17
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 18
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 19
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 20
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 21
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 22
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 23
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 24
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 25
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 26
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 27
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 28
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 29
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 30
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 31
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 32
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 33
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 34
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 35
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 36
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 37
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 38
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 39
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 40
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 41
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 42
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 43
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 44
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 45
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 46
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 47
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 48
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 49
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 50
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 51
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 52
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 53
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 54
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 55
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 56
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 57
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 58
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 59
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 60
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 61
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 62
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 63
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 64
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 65
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 66
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 67
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 68
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 69
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 70
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 71
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 72
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 73
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 74
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 75
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 76
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 77
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 78
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 79
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 80
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 81
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 82
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 83
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 84
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 85
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 86
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 87
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 88
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 89
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 90
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 91
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 92
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 93
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 94
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 95
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 96
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 97
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 98
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 99
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 100
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 101
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 102
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 103
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 104
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 105
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 106
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 107
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 108
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 109
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 110
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 111
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 112
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 113
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 114
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 115
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 116
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 117
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 118
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 119
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 120
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 121
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 122
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 123
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 124
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 125
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 126
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 127
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 128
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 129
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 130
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 131
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - 132
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Cover3
Washington Monthly - September/October 2022 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20230910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20220910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20210910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20200910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20190910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20180910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20160910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20150910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20140910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/washingtonmonthly/20120910
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com