Don’t believe the hype about charter ”success.” As the Network for Public Education has documented in several reports, the failure and closure rate of charter schools is high. in Philadelphia, the district has battled to close two low-performing charter schools for years and only now is on the cusp of regaining their students.
A state panel on Tuesday upheld the Philadelphia school board’s decision not to renew two charter schools, setting a course for ASPIRA Olney High School and ASPIRA Stetson Middle School to return to district control later this year.
The move comes nearly six years after the Philadelphia School District’s charter schools office first recommended that the district cut ties with ASPIRA Olney and Stetson for academic, operational, and financial reasons. The school board eventually voted against renewing the charters in 2019 over strong objections from the powerful Hispanic nonprofit that has run them since 2010 and 2011.
The charter nonrenewals mark the first time the district will take back control of schools it had turned over under the Renaissance Schools initiative, a school-turnaround approach launched in 2010 that the district has backed away from in recent years. (In 2016, Scholar Academies abruptly surrendered control of Kenderton Elementary, citing the high cost of educating its large special-education population; the district took back Kenderton and still runs it.)
ASPIRA officials said they plan to file court paperwork to overturn Tuesday’s ruling of the Charter Appeals Board, which voted 4-1 in both the Olney and Stetson cases. Among those voting in favor was Jennifer Faustman, CEO of the Belmont Charter Network in Philadelphia. Tom Killion, a former Republican state senator from Delaware County, was the lone no vote…
Olney, a high school that enrolls more than 1,700 students at Front and Duncannon, and Stetson, which educates 860 students in grades 5 through 8 on B Street in Kensington, will remain open in their current buildings, district and board officials emphasized. Students’ educations will not be interrupted…
The old School Reform Commission gave struggling Olney and Stetson to ASPIRA as part of its Renaissance initiative that tapped outside providers to run schools. According to a hearing officer’s report, while ASPIRA made progress in improving the schools’ climates, it didn’t live up to the academic promises it made and had financial shortcomings, too.
ASPIRA has fought to maintain control of the schools, which have been in limbo since their charters expired more than five years ago. In 2019, the company sued the School District, accusing it of unlawfully delaying charter renewal decisions to pressure the company into agreeing to conditions like enrollment caps.
A federal judge ruled in favor of the district last year, determining that while ASPIRA was selected to manage the two schools, there was no contract between the company and the district.
ASPIRA, which manages a total of five charter schools in the city, including a cyber charter, has also faced scrutiny from state officials. It was the subject of an auditor general’s report in 2018 that highlighted significant increases in payments the charters made to ASPIRA as an example of flaws in Pennsylvania’s charter school law.
It has taken the district six years to regain control of these two charters, whose charters were not renewed. And the charters are again appealing the decision to turn over their students and buildings to the district.
It isn’t easy to get rid of a malignant cancer. It often takes years. It is mentally and physically painful and traumatic. Sometimes the cancer wins and the cancer victim loses.
Most if not all publicly funded, private sector charter schools are malignant cancers.
At least cancers don’t commit fraud.
I taught at Olney the year before ASPIRA took it over and was present for the presentation they made to faculty and staff about their plans, trying to persuade us to stay on. They were utter nonsense, full of half-truths, wishful thinking, and outright deception. I objected strongly at the time and left the school, taking my chances with the district’s transfer system, rather than remain and work for ASPIRA. Everything I objected to has been proven to be accurate over their tenure as Olney’s operators. I’m just glad they’re finally goingto be kicked out and the school will return to district control.
It’s sad how the public is hoaxed by bold promises and extravagant claims.
Once a school goes into private ownership communities have a difficult time regaining control of the school. Charter supporters will fight to keep the school under private ownership. People should not be fooled by the ASPIRA title of the owners. Aspira means “hope” in Spanish, but the results in these schools have been rather hopeless. I sincerely hope the city will invest in these schools and consider following the community schools model for them. With a large poor population attending these schools, test and punish is not the way to go. Neither should the city turn them over to another amateur charter schools that seeks to produce more ROI for investors. By the way ASPIRA is under investigation for fiscal mismanagement in other areas where the schools operate as well.
I attended John B. Stetson in Kensington more than fifty years ago. It was a problematic school fraught with racial tensions even then. Since that time the neighborhood has become more black and Latino, and vast the majority of students are poor. This was always a hardscrabble working class area, but it was far less poor. Kensington today is one of the worst most problematic areas in the country for drug abuse. BTW, the school was named after the Stetson hat company that was once a large employer in the city for many years.https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/kensington-drug-boss-convicted-trial-supplying-crack-and-heroin-open-air-drug-market
Olney high school was once one of the higher achieving high schools in the city. Lots of professionals, many of whom were Jewish, lived in the area including Noam Chomsky’s brother who had a dental practice. Today it is 61% Latino, 34% Black, and the remaining white and mixed. Like Stetson almost all the students today are poor. Poor students do better when they have supports to guide them and their families. Both Stetson and Olney are prime candidates for community based schools. It remains to be seen if the school district want to take responsibility for these students, or wash their hands of them and turn the schools over to another profit seeking charter chain for dubious results.
cx: will want to take responsibility for these students
truthful if overwhelmingly sad summation: “wash their hands of them and turn the schools over to another profit seeking charter chain”