Philadelphia has been under state control since 1998, imposed in the midst of a financial crisis. A School Reform Commission was created to govern the schools. The city schools have been in financial crisis ever since, with the state providing little financial support. Under the current administration of Governor Tom Corbett, the Philadelphia public schools have been stripped to the bone, lacking essential resources. Corbett has slashed the state budget for education while lowering corporate taxes and refusing to tax the corporations that are hydrofracking across the state.
At one point, the state-appointed superintendent was Paul Vallas, who launched an experiment in privatization. The district’s public schools outperformed the privately run schools. Currently, the business and civic leaders of the city have advocated for more charters, even though several of the city’s charters have been investigated for financial misdeeds. They seem sure that privatization is the cure, despite the absence of evidence for their belief.
The School Reform Commission, trying to close the deficit created by Governor Corbett, canceled the teachers’ contract unilaterally. This follows on thousands of layoffs. The SRC will increase teachers’ payments to their health care and phase out benefits for retirees. Salaries will not be cut. State and city officials defended the action, saying it would save money and help balance the budget. It is not clear whether the SRC has the legal authority to cancel the contract unilaterally.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Penny wise: pound foolish.
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Idiots are in charge.
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This is absolutely maddening! The District and SRC say this will save money, yet they refuse to disclose how much money the freeze in step increases and the elimination of educational attainments bonuses has saved the district. They talk about shared sacrifice, yet 6-figure earners, like the CFO Stanski, have yet to take their promised paycuts. The district also fails to point out or explain what they did with the 30 million dollars they already borrowed from the PFT’s Health and Welfare Fund.
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and this shows the true goal of all “reformers”…
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Absolutely maddening to claim that the teachers have not sacrificed for the ongoing school financial crisis. They have sacrificed in salary (19% less that suburban counterparts), in class size (60 in a ninth grade algebra class), school climate ( much-reduced counselors, nurses, assistant principals, noontime aides, other support workers), having to buy their own copy paper, pencils, tissues, toilet paper, etc., no money for books for 2 years. How much more can you expect from a human being?
http://teacherslessonslearned.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-game-is-on-our-contract-is-revoked.html
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It is sickening to hear this as I owe my formative education to the Philadelphia Public Schools. I started my teaching career as a French teacher in Pennsylvania, but I am fortunate that I left and that my pension is from New York. While New York has its problems, it’s still not the same level of insanity as in Pennsylvania. I hope Pennsylvania is unable to cancel its contract with the employees as this is a dangerous precedent to set for other states drinking the same Kool-Aid and trying selling off their public schools and sell out their employees.
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S-T-R-I-K-E
If the contract has been cancelled, you are not under contract and do not have to report to work! Maybe at least that would rush the courts to place an injunction on the cancelled contract until this can be work out legally!
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I wouldn’t advise that.
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Act 46 which enabled the state takeover of Philadelphia schools prohibits teachers from striking. Philly is the only district in the state where teachers are legally prohibited from striking. It would be an extraordinarily risky thing to do. SDP teachers are quite literally in a bind.
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Yes, I read that but not only is it a take over but the contract is cancelled. I agree that a strike is the last thing anyone wants BUT there comes a point when it is necessary. One cannot take a contract and just change the parts they want to and expect it to be still a binding contract. If they are revoking the contract then the Teachers have nothing to hold them there, they are basically fired but they really don’t want to fire them because they have no replacements.
It is time to stop lying there and being stomped on!
One would think that the courts would not let them get away with this nonsense but who knows nowadays!
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I’m much less sanguine about in whose favor the courts are likely to find than you are apparently. Teachers do have “something holding them there”. The need for a job and the income that comes with it. I’m not a teacher, but I do have children who depend on my income. If one end up losing one’s teaching license in PA over a strike, you are likely unemployable in public education anywhere in the US in perpetuity. As I said they’re in a bind.
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How can we (PFT) go to court and say that the SRC has violated ACT 46, and then we do the same thing? They want us to strike! Then they can tell everyone that we don’t care about the kids, blah blah blah. Corbett wants us to strike. It’s his “Hail Mary” pass to drive up his numbers. We have to be smart about this. We CAN NOT act on impulse, but we must act TOGETHER. Be patient. Something will be done-and we will do it in solidarity.
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Are the charters magically cheaper? Does not the same per pupil expense go to the charters, plus the cost of rent? Yet, they make profits (at the expense of the kids and the non-union teachers and “teachers”? Now there is some secret sauce. How do they manage to swindle all those public taxpayer dollars, with nary a peep from the politicians. Nay, MORE, say the politicians; more of that!
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If it was about saving money, they would go after charter fraud! Since 1997, $30 million lost.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/02/1333858/-Charter-school-fraud-has-cost-Pennsylvania-at-least-30-million#
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Unilaterally telling a group of people their working conditions and pay has a vocabulary term….common core people help me out!
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Genocide?
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Shock Therapy
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Pennsylvania’s situation in general, & its Philly Public School system issues in particular, are very messy without clear black-&-white answers. Unilateral cancellation of teacher contract: bad precedent, probably illegal, no info on details of months of negotiations, so it’s hard to tell whether such an extreme measure was even partially justified by frustration or just a blatant power grab. I shudder to think of how the benefits fund $ will be spent if they just turn it over to principals… yet kinda hard to weep for Philly teachers beginning to pay something toward benefits, our local NJ teachers have been doing so for ages & so have other Pa teachers.
The bigger question to me in Pa is the overall tax picture: tho Corbett engineered a nice per-well fee & has hi corp-tax rate, he has refused to capture taxes on the rise in production (they have now beat out La. as #2 producer)– and here he is trying to patch together the Philly schools w/sales tax, cigarette tax, & now a grab for retirees’ scrip/ dental/ vision benefits, how regressive can you get. The whole state should have great roads, trains, schools, sitting on the Marcellus Shale– like the Scandinavians with their offshore oil.
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This is a power grab. The district was supposed to be turned over in its entirety to Edison at the same time that the SRC came into existence, but local politics intervened. The goal, especially at the state level, since the late 1990s has been to dismantle the district and the PFT. It’s taken those in power longer to dismantle the district than they would like. This is really a case of not letting a good crisis go to waste.
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Denver has done this and I think some are taking them to court. The did it more discreetly by knocking out long term teachers for alternatives and finally adding there is not contract on the employment agreements.
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Two years ago the SRC sought an amendment to the law which created it in 2001 which would have clearly authorized the action taken today to void the teachers contract. That amendment was never enacted, yet the same SRC has gone ahead anyway. So even the SRC recognized that its right to void the contract and impose different terms is not plainly within the terms of the legislation. Likewise, it is by no means clear that the provision in the law permitting the state to pull the licenses of striking Philadelphia teachers is constitutional. How can this be valid when the right to strike is recognized in every other Pa. School district by law. And since public school teachers have the right to collectively bargain under Pa. Law, how can it possibly be legal for the SRC to impose a contract?
It is noteworthy to me that a former executive and member of NEA-PSEA, Pa. Secretary of Education Carolyn Dumaresque, supports the SRC’s action, and that SRC member Marjorie Neff, former PFT member and principal of the Masterman School, voted for the canceling of the teachers contract. I guess solidarity or honor never really meant very much to either of them. They could have, as former teachers and union members, used their positions to speak out for full and fair funding of Philadelphia’s schools, and for the teachers, but they chose to dishonor themselves by joining the chorus of teacher bashers who are rejoicing tonight, including Mark Gleason (the real superintendent of schools in Philly) and Ed Rendell (Hillary’s friend).
Last, did the SRC know they were doing wrong this morning? If they didn’t, why then did they not give the normal public notice of their meeting and allow hearings before the vote? Instead, the only public notice was a tiny add in the Phila. Inquirer classifieds on Sunday which contained no agenda. At the meeting this morning there was no hearing or discussion before the vote and hardly any representatives of the public were present. Corbett and his SRC have no shame. My hope is that their action today will only strengthen the teachers union and the teachers unions all around the state, and strengthen our resolve to elect Tom Wolf in November.
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The SRC might be anticipating PA’s republican governors defeat to the, apparently, more pro-public school candidate, Tom Wolf. If this happens, Wolf has the power to appoint 3 of the 5 SRC members, possibly changing the current governors corporate reform appointees to a more pro-public trio. Also, if I’m not mistaken, there are parent action groups, and other organization in Philadelphia that have fought to get a referendum on this spring’s election ballot to do away with the SRC altogether.
So, as a tool for corporate reformers, the SRC has to be used now. From their point of view they have little to loose by rashly striking out at the PFT. So what if it doesn’t work.
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http://www.philly.com/philly/education/A-stunning-act-of-political-cowardice.html
A stunning act of political cowardice. This article sums up the situation in Philadelphia quite well.
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Denver Public Schools has slowly moved most contracted teachers to leave through the RIB process gotten rid of the contract too. Starting this fall you can’t apply without agreeing to work with no contract.
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