Bold Remake Proposed for Indianapolis Schools

An Indianapolis-based nonprofit organization has crafted a sweeping plan for reworking the 33,000-student Indianapolis school system that would place the district under the control of the city's mayor, pare down the money spent in central administration, and give principals broad authority to hire and fire teachers.

The reform plan created by the Mind Trust organization would transform the district's schools into what the report calls "Opportunity Schools," which would be given "unprecedented freedom over staffing, budgets, curriculum, and culture," as long as they continued to meet high standards. Those schools would compete for students who live within the district's boundaries.

Whether these ambitious plans would come to fruition is still in question. But the state's superintendent of public instruction, whose office funded the bulk of the report, said he would want to see the reform measures outlined in the report adopted not just in Indianapolis,...