Pennsylvania blogger Yinzercation reports that parents and concerned citizens are pressing their legislators to reverse Governor Corbett’s policy of defunding public schools.
Philadelphia has been under state control for a decade. Now parents and activists are demanding the restoration of a democratically elected board. The School Reform Commission “passed a draconian budget, wiping out public education as we know it. The plan cuts 3,000 more employees (including teachers); completely eliminates counselors, librarians, and secretaries; provides only one nurse for every 1,500 students; and gets rid of athletics, music, and art. [Philly.com, 6-4-13] As Philly parents have pointed out, this is a plan to warehouse students, rather than educate them. [Philly.com, 6-2-13]”
“Allentown has just proposed a plan to cut over 150 employees – nearly all teachers, and most of those in art, library, and physical education.”
Districts across the state are reeling because of Corbett’s ALEC agenda of cutting the schools while bestowing generous tax breaks on corporations.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter seems to be deeply concerned that state funds are not available to permit charters to expand their enrollment, even though many existing charters are either failing or under investigation for corruption. Nutter has not spoken up for public schools, which most of his city’s children attend, only the privately-managed charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The gov and the ALEC sentiment for children seems to be, let them work in factories.
Philadelphia’s mayor is aptly named. As a Pennsylvania resident and teacher, I am glad to see the pushback. Our governor is firmly in the pocket of his corporate cronies. He could have saved many teaching jobs 2 years ago by taxing Marcellus Shale. I have several former and current colleagues whose lives were in upheaval during that time. He has not care for public education, or students. I think he tried to slip a voucher bill through during the summer, in a sly fashion, but I could be remembering wrong. At any rate, voucher bills keep getting rejected, but he keeps trying.
Earlier closing of the Delaware loophole see here: http://www.rockthecapital.com/04/13/its-time-to-close-the-delaware-loophole/ would have helped, too. Our state House recently voted to close this, which will help bring more revenue to the state. Not sure how much will get to schools, though.
Philadelphia’s Democratic Mayor Nutter’s role in these events should be noted. Nutter, currently the President of U.S. Conference of Mayors http://www.usmayors.org/about/orgleaders.asp,
is Mayor of a city whose public schools are in crisis. After ten years of starvation budgets to build up charter schools http://tinyurl.com/kphmwmm, last week the School Reform Commission passed a Doomsday budget which will devastate an already struggling School District cutting school staff to only a principal and classroom teachers.
It is in this situation that Nutter on Tuesday held a special press conference in Harrisburg with charter school operators to lobby for Corbett to fund schools….so that Philadelphia can expand charter seats! His only prescription for the struggling public schools has been that there must be “shared sacrifice” in the new contract of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers started September 1st, with wage and benefit concessions of $133 million.
Nutter is hoping to capitalize on Corbett’s ALEC inspired agenda of privatization of public schools. The Philadelphia School District was taken over by the state in December, 2001. The School Reform Commission which runs the District has brought in the Philadelphia School Partnership and Boston Consulting Group to oversee the privatization of public schools. In FY09, charters were 15% of the District budget. In FY14 they will be 30% of the budget.
The charter management companies have come into conflict with the SRC over the last few months. The SRC in March called a moratorium of expanded charters at this time because of the budget crisis. A number of charters defied this moratorium and enrolled students even though it violated the contractual enrollment caps in their charter. When the SRC refused to pay for this over enrollment, the charter companies went to Corbett’s Secretary of Education and he took the money out of state funds that had been approved for the Philadelphia School District. It is in this situation that Mayor Nutter is in Harrisburg lobbying for more money for charter schools. 21 charters want 15,000 new seats which the District estimates would increase charter costs to about $110 million annually.