After 20 years under state control, the citizens of Philadelphia were thrilled that state control was ending. At last, they thought, Philadelphia would have local control.
But the Mayor picks all the board members, and they were chosen behind closed doors, with no transparency.
Is this an improvement? The board members reflect charter school interests, corporate interests, and political ties.
Philadelphia continues to be the only district in the state without an elected board.
The mayor announced his board selections, which pointedly excluded any well-known education activists.
Mayor Kenney picks his starting nine for new Philly school board
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s just one dirty trick and lie after another from these things that call themselves reformers. Do we even know if they are humans?
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One does begin to wonder. It is hard to understand how they live with themselves.
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Chris McGinley has brought disruption to Cheltenham and Lower Merion School Districts. It is interesting how these strong, suburban public school districts were infiltrated once he lead them. Both have fairly new strategic plans that are opening the doors to corporate ed reform ideas. He is one of the reformers who claims this is all for racial equality and civil rights. The plans are very similar: https://www.cheltenham.org/strategicplan, https://www.lmsd.org/all-forward
Also, he was on the SRC and it seems that knowing the other members would win anyway, he voted against them many times. This gives the appearance of him being on the “good” side of reform. My heart hurts for the families of Philadelphia.
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So disgusting when agents of privatization claim to be acting on behalf of “civil rights” and “equity.” Propaganda. They are destroying the schools that belong to the public.
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Thanks, Diane.
From: Diane Ravitch’s blog To: lmhaver82@yahoo.com Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 1:01 PM Subject: [New post] Philadelphia: The New, Unelected School Board #yiv1995914599 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv1995914599 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv1995914599 a.yiv1995914599primaryactionlink:link, #yiv1995914599 a.yiv1995914599primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv1995914599 a.yiv1995914599primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv1995914599 a.yiv1995914599primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv1995914599 WordPress.com | dianeravitch posted: ” After 20 years under state control, the citizens of Philadelphia were thrilled that state control was ending. At last, they thought, Philadelphia would have local control.But the Mayor picks all the board members, and they were chosen behind” | |
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Kenney, a Democrat, is continuing the saga of top down, anti-democratic leadership that is the hallmark of “reform.” They operate in the shadows and hand pick members of the board that represent the interests of privatization. The people of the city have no voice or representation on the board, Philadelphia, which has dug itself into a $1 billion dollar deficit hole, will continue to fund parallel school systems and continue its reckless, inefficient spending on education. The mayor will raise property taxes by 6% to offset his wasteful spending. Kenney represents the same flawed thinking and blind trust in “reform” exhibited by many other corporate Democratic mayors and governors.
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Exactly why mayoral control of education should not happen, especially in large metro areas.
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THE only hope in some places is that the citizens could become outraged enough to finally vote a clearly pro-Public Education mayor into office.
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The story is similar to what happened in public higher ed in Tennessee, but on a much larger scale: the Governor has appointed all Boards for the “independent” 6 public 4 year universities 2 years ago, and now he is about to appoint the Board for the largest and best public higher ed system in TN: the University of Tennessee system . The beauty of this latest legislative victory is that he explicitly forbids faculty to serve on the board, and the one student member will be nonvoting.
Higher ed is now the playground of the Governor and his friends.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/26/university-tennessee-board-focus-act-senate-haslam/460456002/
Of course, such boards are prone to lead to corruption, both giving away public money to private companies via “outsourcing” and corrupting university research to serve private interests. Here is a story about corrupt research (for a ridiculously small amount of money) at TN Tech which made national news, involving TN representative Diane Black and reaching all the way up to the EPA Chief. The story is about truck engines which apparently has caused multiple times the pollution of the scandalous Volkswagen engines.
http://blog.ucsusa.org/jonna-hamilton/scientists-glider-vehicles
It seems that K12 has been mimicking what’s a general principle in higher ed in the US: boards are appointed not elected, and consist of businessmen and managers, completing the the first 50% of the steps needed to completely privatize public education, higher or not so high.
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