A new survey shows that Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate of any of the nation’s 10 largest cities.
28% of the city’s people are poor, as are 39% of its children. The national child poverty rate is 23%.
Now we know from reformers that poverty is no “excuse” for low test scores, but we also know from the reality-based world that low income is highly correlated with low test scores. If you want to learn more, read Richard Rothstein’s “Class and Schools,” or google Helen Ladd’s “Education and Poverty: Confronting the Evidence.”
Thus, it makes no sense to strip the city’s schools of the arts, physical education, librarians, guidance counselors, social workers, and every other support personnel. These children desperately need a good education.
The state of Pennsylvania has a constitutional obligation to educate its children.
And the state thus far has cynically told Philadelphia to extract more taxes from its impoverished population. That is worse than no answer. That is negligence of a high order.
When the next election comes round, the people of Pennsylvania should hold accountable those who inflicted harm on the state’s most vulnerable children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, would you help get the word out on this? Many of these programs and services have already been stripped this past school year in Bridgeport. We need to start working on reversing the wrongs not waiting on appeals. Thank you for any assistance
http://corporateactionnetwork.org/petitions/paul-vallas-is-unqualified-let-him-go
Detroit is in a similar bind with Michigan. Use it up. Wear it out. Make do. Do without. You can have what your daddy can pay for.
Shame on the city of “brotherly love”.
How’s this for public school tolerance and community?
“An angry mother has accused a primary school of denying her child water on one of the hottest days of the year for fear of upsetting pupils observing Ramadan.
Kora Blagden, 32, claimed a teacher at her son Luke’s school refused to let the 10-year old drink from his water bottle because it was unfair to fasting classmates. Many pupils at Charles Dickens Primary School, Portsmouth, Hampshire, are fasting during Ramadan, which means they refrain from taking food or water between sunrise and sunset for around 30 days, depending on the moon. ”
Who wouldn’t want to escape such public schools?
One anecdote does not a good argument make!
And do you have a source for this story? Or, maybe we need to hear “the rest of the story, good day!”
Here’s the link to the UK news site where Harlan got this BRITISH story about a BRITISH school: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-claims-son-refused-water-2048966. Geez, who knew that the British had school this late in the year or was it summer school? The picture of the “mum” is on this site. Check out her facebook site; she’s wearing some sexy outfit and holding up her middle finger: https://www.facebook.com/kora.blagden. She looks like one tough lady, yikes.
And this blog wants to destroy charters and voucher? There is a democracy of voting with one’s feet, i.e. choice, that is less recognized on this blog than I wish it were. Freedom is the fundamental value, democracy a means to keeping it. Voting can be rigged and skewed in favor of administrators who limit freedom.
“And this blog wants to destroy charters and voucher?” Come on, HU, you can do better logic than that. This blog can’t want to do anything because it’s not a human but a blog.
Now many of the people writing on this blog do not want monies intended for the public schools to go to profiteers who suck off the teat of the government nor to religious fanatics of any ilk. Let the profiteers survive in the free market without “gubmint” help and let the religionistas survive with their already “tax exempt” privileges and without “gubmint” help.
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Libertarianism is a cult posing as some kind of rational philosophy. It’s total bunk.
I don’t consider myself a Libertarian but rather a Constitutional Conservative. Is belief that the Constitution should be observed by all as the fundamental law of the land cultish?
The problem with being an Constitutional originalist (which may be near a Constitutional Conservative) is that there was slavery established throughout the land. This reasoning is a serious impediment to helping economically deficient black school children. The Consititution needs to breathe like the people it represents. Is racism cultish?
Uh, Charles Dickens Primary School, Portsmouth, Hampshire is in England as in the UK. How is this a commentary on US schools?
Paul Harvey would say, “And that’s the rest of the story, good day!”
I stand corrected. Great Britain is further along than we are in bowing its craven knee to Sharia.
Joe, thank you for claifying where Harlan took his argument and how he would have liked to have seen it played out.
I am going to refer Harlan to Malala and what I wrote in the blog spot on her. Remembering that it was England who received and nurtured her back to health.
“I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same.”
Malala speaks for every child the world over. She speaks for the children of Philadelphia! She speaks for the children of Detroit! She speaks for the children of Chicago! She speaks for the children of Los Angeles! She speaks for the children of Appalachia! She speaks for the gifted learner child, the average learner child, the learning disabled child!. She speaks for the poor, middle class, and wealthy child!
In her own words… “Let us pick up our books and our pens,” Ms. Yousafzai told young leaders from 100 countries at the United Nations Youth Assembly in New York. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.”
Here is where the Rheeformers lose! Here is where those that believe they can sort the children in this world into the boxes called Charter/Private/Voucher Schools and invade the public schools with tests to measure and measure and measure their potential for the use of a future workforce fail. In finding the unlimited favored value added few and believing they can discard what they see as the many valueless children beyond their own ambitions, hopes, dreams and ideas of what they may like to be or do, these entrepreneurs of their own lofty greed and power ambitions will lose. Why!! Because as long as there is Malala her words will ring in the minds, ears, hearts and live in the souls of the survivors.
We are a country of survivors and dreamers. We are the immigrants and the generations of children of those immigrants who risked their lives for Freedom, for Education, for Choice, for Life.
Tee shirts, banners, flags, should be worn and raised throughout the land. All they have to say is MALALA and the words “I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same! Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.”
You don’t abandon some for a few. You make better and invest more in the whole, no matter their station or circumstances in life. You don’t dismantle your gift to yourself such is the gift of Public Education within a Democracy within our Republic but you further invest, invest, invest in your children your ultimate gift to yourself. Children are only silent until they find their mouths and minds. It is their mind a few would like to claim ownership of….but only the minds of who they perceive as worthy. That is not who we are and that is not what we should become.
Thank you ronee groff…….beautiful, powerful, inspiring. I needed that today.
Amen. I watched the video. These are words I am going to memorize.
“Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.”
I admire Malala’s integrity greatly and understand that she in her personal life makes a very strong argument that every society “ought” to provide education for all. Her luminous example is as persuasive as anything I know of the value of good, universally accessible public education.
Of course, I’m not sure that in the USA we have good public education, but surely the concept of equal access has to be respected. My question is whether vouchers (i.e. publicly funded ‘school fees’) wouldn’t qualify. Why does the government, state governments in this country, have to have a monopoly on an organization? The state police, yes. Quite clearly, each state can choose to fulfil its mandate to provide universal access to an education in different ways. Why must municipalities have a monopoly? If the answer is efficiency, then lets see how efficient such institutions have been in their expenditures of public funds. The local superintendent in my town has just resigned. Did she see a disaster for the district coming down the road?
The bottom line, pragmatically, is that you can have what your daddy can pay for, whether it’s private school tuition (like Obama) or a house in the suburbs. How does the government do as a daddy? Look at the Washington D.C. public schools? Highest per pupil expenditure in the nation, broadest achievement gap. You explain it. I can’t.
HU,
Corruption and inept leadership (the Rheeject and her crony successor) explains a lot.
Looking to the state my be meaningful to some, but the city government has fascilitated this march of poverty for the last 50 years. It is a travesty.a drive or stroll down broad street toward the suburbs will show the bewildering mismanagement of the city that is now a meal for globalists as gates is throwing money to deluded greedsters for smart growth and common core. The legacy welfare state bestowed on the black community is outdated and unfathomable but is fed by those that keep it isolated, poor, unedicated and inflamed, ripe for votes and are now hellbent on taking their methods out to
the suburbs. Where i escaped to get away from my welfare roots. Some of my family got out, got educated and see it for what it is. It is 50 years of using people by a corrupt local govt working to serve themselves and their masters. The education piece is just anothrr plank in the control game to tear it all down.
The problem with waiting for the next election to solve the crisis in Philadelphia is that there is no one to vote for. Most of the Democratic establishment in Philadelphia is on board with corporate education reform. Mayor Nutter, who is President of the Conference of Mayors, is a major promoter of charter schools and is going along with Corbett and ALEC to attack the teachers union and promote privatization.
http://tinyurl.com/qbx8hzx
We need a party with a program that represents the needs of the 99%!
An investigative reporter is an essential is this battle for the minds of children. FOLLOW THE MONEY!!! Have all the mayors been indoctrinated with Eli Broad Academy of finance and power mongering? The mayors are only pawns and one of the pieces of this picture puzzle. If they didn’t think so much about their ego’s and their pocket’s, they just might think to seek Truth in their actions and their mission (at least they think it is their mission but again they are pawns in a very ugly game of human chess). And then they came for………..
MAHLALA awaken their minds and their souls!!!
The Republican Party cares not a rap for the poor, for public education, or for citizens’ rights. Its leaders care only for profits, charter schools, diversion of public funds to private schools. Americans who do care for children and fundamental rights needs to vote these rascals out.
You right! The only problem is the rascals are on both sides of the isle! What all of them need is to be held accountable and exposed in a very public forum.
edd,
thats hilarious because there are like 2 in philly. you perpetuate propaganda and are a dupe for your masters as they take you down, but you refuse to see it and they laugh and laugh because they have you and so many by the nuts. thank you for illustrating this.
not just republicans i am a democrat and i know that it is corruption on both sides, these 10, 20, and 30 year politicians. what has changed in 30 years, only their pockets. Senator Kitchen once said when she was the only one who stood up against Bush I quote ” I can’t believe the citizens of the US are letting this happen’ every one votes for the same ones. Do your what politicians are on the gas commission, and PGW is just as corrupt. Know your politicians, know what committees they are on. Know who voted on what issues. when you educate yourselves on what politician is fighting on our side or against us, than educate others so we can get more honest ones. I only know Senator Kitchen and State Legislator Rosita Youngblood to be honest. They live like us.because they choose not to be bought.
Read: weteachpublicschools.com-for more information about Philadelphia public schools.
Thanks. I’ve really come to rely on local blogs. God knows media could care less, busy as they are chasing national “reform” celebrities.
Corbett has cynically told the cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg to “go to hell”, while rewarding his cronies with tax breaks. He knows that the average Philadelphian would likely not support him in the next election.
jack,
does the name ED RENDELL ring a bell ? He set all this up with years as mayor toady and then as governor for 8 years, your blame it all on Corbett is typical. never any due diligence just propaganda. those cronies if you read any documents were courted and promised well before Corbett, classic method. set it all up to crash after you go.
I have to agree with you on that although I am a democrat Dwight Evans was the head of the procreation committee Ed’s buddy
I’m really pleased that people are focusing on the abandonment of public schools by leaders who claim to “reform”.
It is neglect. What’s crazy about it is, we’re talking about the vast majority of kids!
If we continue to elect people who push
a market-oriented “choice” reform,
public school kids will continue to be abandoned.
Please don’t forget to add that they’re trying to take away (a lot) more from teachers and principals – who are already grossly underpaid compared to their suburban counterparts – rather than ask the state to accept responsibility for the school district it took over ten years ago and made worse. Why is the state allowed to control us without being responsible for us?
I just sent an email to about 7 city council members on this and other things, than i came across this site afterwards. it feels so good to know I am not the only one who is not afraid to put it out. everyone who reads this send an email to every city council member state legislator let them know we know the truth.
get rid of the SRC who each has a salary over 100 thousand dollars, and all they do is sit and vote twice a year when the politicians are paid to do just that. so what is the reason why the SRC is in existence wasting tax payers money when it can go to the Public Schools. and the
Phila School District states they need x amount of millions. how much of that will go to the for profit charter schools. since they were giving 60 millions each to most of the charter schools in the past and how much less will go to the Public Schools.
Some of the charter schools are building million dollar gyms while public schools are struggling
New York built over 300 Public Schools and some of their new High schools are giving college scholarships to their students. Phila closed how many.