The Citypaper in Philadelphia learned that the city’s major foundation (William Penn) is funding the privatization forces, and the foundation didn’t like it. It launched pushback in other media.
What appears to be unquestionably true in the offensive and counteroffensive is that powerful people are mobilizing to turn many public schools in Philadelphia over to privately run charters or even to voucher schools. This move was predictable in the wake of the report by the Boston Consulting Group, one of those big management consulting teams that prefers private management to public government control. Wherever you find the advice of Boston Consulting Group, you will find a plan to privatize public schools.
Despite loud public demonstrations in support of community schools, the wealthy philanthropists and businessmen of Philadelphia do not like to be thwarted. It annoys them when unimportant people who send their children to public schools have the nerve to oppose their plans to “save” those children. How dare they? Who cares what “the little people” say? Why don’t they just listen to their “betters”?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dr. Hite, the new Philadelphia superintendent, is a Broad “graduate”. In Prince George’s County he froze our salaries for three years, 2010-11 we had 4 furlough days, and we have more charter schools in our district than any other district in Maryland. For the last two years teachers were given a $20,000. incentive to retire in an effort to purge seniority teachers. I am curious to see the direction he will take in Philadelphia.
Diane, the July 7th-13th edition of the Economist has two short articles claiming the historical evidence shows charters are essentially the answer to the problems of education. Hope you get a chance to read and comment. One is titled “A 20-year Lesson” and the other, in same issue is “Charting a better course”. Both are short. The first claims the poor are better served by charters while the second article claims that Stanford’s study, while essentially correct, did not compare groups accurately. Hope you get a chance to read and comment.
Will do. Just more reformer spin.