David Osborne’s eyes light up when he talks about proof.
A nationally renowned public policy reformer who is most well known for writing the New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector, and who now serves as a director of the forward-thinking Reinventing America’s Schools project at the Progressive Policy Institute, his animated tone and the sparkle in his eye suggest this particular proof is especially compelling.
And not just that, it’s living.

David Harris, founder and CEO of the Mind Trust, stated that without the current governance model in Indianapolis with mayoral control and autonomy for schools outside collective bargaining agreements, it would’ve been “inconceivable” for the Mind Trust to be making the sorts of the investments they’re making in school incubation and turnaround.

In a little over four months, twenty students, two teachers and I will leave for Thailand, where we will live through mid-April of 2018 with support from Thrival Academy: Indy, a free pilot program at Arsenal Tech High School this year (which will hopefully open its doors as a free public charter school for the 2018-19 school year).

Indianapolis Public Schools has a unique approach to sparking innovation in its low performing schools. IPS tries to identify opportunities where innovative charter school operators can restart, reinvent, and reinvigorate some of its low performing schools.

The school year has already begun, and Principal India Hui only has 12 students. She spent the entire summer recruiting, but convincing parents to let their kids be a part of her school’s unique and unfamiliar model—which includes flying the students to Thailand and Laos for several months for a study-abroad program—is more difficult than it seems.