When my book “Reign of Error” was published, my first presentation was in Philadelphia to an audience of parents, teachers, and community leaders. There were musical presentations before I spoke, and one was the marching band from a celebrated high school fabled for the musicians who got their start there. The marching band cane charging down the center aisle in somewhat tattered uniforms. Their leader explained that they had no musical instruments because the school’s budget couldn’t pay for them. I was aghast that the city would allow this to happen.

A reader wrote:

“On yesterday’s Vice News there was a story about music in the Philadelphia Public Schools. As a product of this school system, I was both angry and sad at this news. The story was about a music teacher that could no longer have an orchestra because the amount of damage to the instruments. In order to raise money to repair the instruments, the students were giving “concerts” with their broken instruments. What was upsetting was that the reckless, irresponsible leadership of the city and state has left the district a shell of its former self. They allowed the barbarian horde of “edupreneurs” loot the public schools with all their lies, waste, fraud and kickbacks for the so-called representatives.

“Developers have been allowed to make a fortune by rebuilding and resegregating neighborhoods with selective charters for middle class white families and cheap charters or crumbling public schools for the poor minorities. The misguided, blind acceptance of “market based solutions” makes money for a few at the top at the expense of many at the bottom. It is anti-democratic, rascist and sickening.”