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An influential Indianapolis nonprofit that has incubated charter schools while advocating for school choice will soon test its strategies beyond the Hoosier State with the help of a federal grant.
The Mind Trust, which has helped launch more than 50 Indiana charter schools since 2006, is primed to more than double the number of students in Connecticut charter schools using grant money awarded by the federal government in September.
The federal grant gives the nonprofit a significant opportunity to replicate its vision beyond Indiana, and raise the organization’s profile and influence. But the move carries risk, because The Mind Trust is pursuing a state far less engaged in charter schools and school choice.
The Mind Trust seeks to increase the number of Connecticut charter schools with about $69 million in funding from the Charter Schools Program. A majority of the money would go to schools through subgrants. Indiana’s Department of Education also applied for and received this grant in 2023.
The Mind Trust created its Connecticut-based affiliate in 2024. The affiliate’s fellows have launched new charter schools through its North Star Fellowship, and more schools are expected to start next year.
CEO Brandon Brown said the organization took its time to expand.
“We feel like there’s a moral imperative to share the lessons that we have learned for two decades now, and to walk alongside other leaders and other communities,” Brown said.
If The Mind Trust succeeds in Connecticut, the organization could expand further, said Christopher Lubienski, an education policy professor at Indiana University.
“A group like The Mind Trust also has an interest in demonstrating impact beyond their home and that’s going to attract further or additional resources from private philanthropies and in this case from government,” Lubienski said. “That increases their policy influence and not just their resource impact.”
The Connecticut Department of Education did not provide comment in response to multiple requests from Chalkbeat.
The Mind Trust Connecticut will seek to add 13,000 seats at 31 charter schools, according to the grant summary. The group estimates that 14 of these schools will be new, and 17 will either replicate or expand current ones.
At least 85% of schools receiving Charter Schools Program money will enroll a similar share of economically disadvantaged students to local school districts.
But Connecticut’s charter landscape is significantly different from Indiana’s.
Indiana has a well-established charter community with over 130 schools and about 56,000 students, while in Connecticut, there are only about 12,000 students in 23 charter schools; recent data indicates the number of children under 18 in Indiana is significantly higher. Enrollment in Indianapolis charter schools, as well as Indianapolis Public Schools, did drop over the past year.
The Mind Trust Connecticut cited lengthy waitlists of more than 5,000 students for charters as a reason to expand seats across the state.
But Connecticut has steps charter schools must take before they open that Indiana does not. First, the Connecticut Board of Education, the state’s sole charter authorizer, must grant initial approval of an application. Then the state legislature must come through with money for the school, or it cannot open.
“Oftentimes a charter will be granted, and then it’s hard to launch that school because the legislature is not willing to fund it,” Brown said.
In Indiana, there are many state authorizers, and approved charters do not require individual funding decisions from the state legislature. However, the Indiana Charter School Board does approve authorizers and step in when there are issues like compliance concerns.
Part of the Mind Trust’s plan in Connecticut “is to create demand to kind of drum up awareness of charter schools as an option,” Lubienski said. But when it comes to Connecticut, he added, “you’re still looking at one of the best states in the country for public education.”
Connecticut’s most recent results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress for reading and math were at or above nationwide averages for public schools. Its state test scores have grown slightly in the last few school years, although they remain below pre-pandemic levels.
Brown said they are aware of challenges to expanding in Connecticut. He called the state “land of steady habits” where the K-12 system has remained mostly the same for decades.
“What we’re primarily doing in Connecticut is working to grow great schools and working to support the existing charter sector,” Brown said, and that compared with Indianapolis, “We are not doing as much advocacy.”
The Mind Trust cites how Connecticut test scores for Black and Latino charter school students are higher than those in traditional public schools as a reason to grow its model. The Mind Trust Connecticut also intends to publish a statewide dashboard with charter school performance data.
“There’s likely lobbying infrastructure already there because it’s going to take some cooperation from the state to pull this off,” Lubienski said.
