June 8, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS STAR:
Educator Jeffery White continues to give back

By Matthew Tully

In 2006 and 2007, my colleague Andy Gammill spent months working on a fantastic series of articles about Marshall Middle School, a struggling Far-Eastside school with a mountain of challenges.

Day after day, Andy would share stories with me about the school and its principal, a rabble-rousing and energetic man named Jeffery White. He was the kind of guy you'd make a movie about -- the barnstorming principal fighting to save a school and the hundreds of at-risk students in it.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't have a happy ending. While White has a unique ability to motivate students and engage the community, he was often at war with his bosses. His strong personality is a strength but also contributed to heated battles with the Indianapolis Public Schools leadership.

White left the district recently, taking a job with a group that backs charter schools and school choice. He's working on a plan to open his own charter in the Haughville neighborhood.

We talked about Indianapolis schools over coffee last week. As we did, I kept thinking that IPS needs to find a way to hold onto people like White -- even if that means stretching like a pretzel to find roles that best fit them, and putting up with employees who refuse to quietly accept the district's flaws.

At his best, White gave people hope in a district that needs it.

"People just looked at what they saw when they were driving in and thought it was a mess," he said of Marshall, now a high school. "But to me it was a perfect opportunity to bring improvements in."

He did so. His hard-driving style and insistence on strong discipline was chronicled by the series in The Star in 2007. Unfortunately, as Gammill wrote recently, after White's departure, a school that was once a "miracle of rejuvenation" fell "into chaos as discipline evaporated and a wave of teachers quit."

White, 40, is now on the outside looking in. But he still is making noise. He's tired of watching Statehouse Democrats play politics with charter schools and is considering a run for the City-County Council.

"Why are you going to cap something that is benefiting the community?" he said of a proposed charter cap. "Let's have a cap on liquor stores. Let's have a cap on strip clubs. Let's have a cap of letting people get out of jail early. Let's put a cap on things that are hurting families."

He is most disappointed with Rep. Bill Crawford, a fellow Indianapolis Democrat who is chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

"He essentially wants to put a cap on opportunity," White said. "Please, folks. Is anybody out there thinking about all this?"

White is. And he is working on a plan to create a charter school to serve students from preschool through Grade 8. His goal is to use the school not only to educate but also to be an important part of the struggling Haughville neighborhood.

"I'm an educated black man," he said. "I need to give back."

He's giving plenty.