Archives for category: Philadelphia
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Hugh Bailey on Vallas: Don’t Believe in Miracles

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2013 //
9

Hugh Bailey is tired of the oft-told tale of the miracle district and the “savior” who comes in on a white horse, turns around a low-performing district, then rides off into the sunset. He is writing in this case about Paul Vallas, but he is looking at the repeated stories of miracle districts (think Houston) and miracle-makers (think Rod Paige, Paul Vallas, and the list could go on.)

If only the people with access to the big media would acknowledge how hard it is to improve schools and districts. Anyone who says that it can be done easily, quickly, and on the cheap is not telling the truth. Change comes slowly or it isn’t real and doesn’t last.

Categories Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Vallas, Paul

NBC Station in Philly Echoes Corbett Line

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2013 //
11

Journalist Daniel Denvir calls out Philadelphia’s local NBC station. Its coverage parroted Governor Tom Corbett’s claims without doing a fact check.

Denvir shows how little investigative reporting the local media does.

When they say that the teachers’ union is not “sacrificing enough, ” what they mean is that the union should okay the layoffs of teachers of the arts, sports, counselors, security guards, etc.

It would be nice if the various parties could set aside politics and focus on Philadelphia’s students.

Categories Budget Cuts, Philadelphia

Camika Royal Tells the Truth to TFA Recruits

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2013 //
12

In this remarkable speech to a large gathering of Teach for America recruits, Dr. Camika Royal laid out the details of the disaster in Philadelphia and laid the blame on the state, where it belongs. She told the recruits that Philadelphia is a microcosm for urban districts across the nation, where public schools are under attack and are folding. She questioned why young people like those in her audience should replace experienced educators who had been laid off. She warned that cities like Philadelphia need “servant leaders,” people willing to listen and learn, not “self-serving saviors.” She repeatedly said, “Examine yourself.” Her message, which refuted the TFA party line, was greeted with wild cheers.

This is a woman of intellect and character. Independent thinkers like Camika Royal and Gary Rubinstein represent the best hope for the future of TFA, the hope that it someday escape its heritage as corporate tool, as helping to privatize high-poverty schools.

Categories Philadelphia, Teach for America TFA

Duncan Urges Pennsylvania Officials to Act to Save Philly Schools

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2013 //
40

Secretary Arne Duncan publicly urged Pennsylvania officials to take action to save the public schools of Philadelphia.

 

 

Categories Philadelphia

Corbett to Philadelphia: Fix Your Own Schools

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2013 //
9

Governor Tom Corbett’s poll numbers have been sinking, and based on his latest budget, he doesn’t deserve another term as governor. His budget abandons the desperate Philadelphia public school system, which has been under state control for a decade.

The governor has no trouble building new prisons or cutting corporate taxes, but his message to Philadelphia is simple: Tough luck!

As Daniel Denvir reports:

“Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed public school “rescue package,” currently making its way through the legislature, is a destructive joke with troubling long-term implications. The $140 million, pledged just before the governor signed the state budget last night, falls far short of both the $304 million budget gap and the $180 million the School Reform Commission requested from city and state government.

“It’s also a shell game, so make sure to watch closely: the plan shifts the burden for funding city schools onto those who can least afford it. Much of the funding comes from optimistic projections of increased collections from city tax delinquents, and from an extension of the city’s “temporary” 1-percent sales tax hike. The latter is simply the state giving the city the power to further tax its own disproportionately low-income population. This is patently regressive taxation, meaning that it takes disproportionately from the poor — in a city that already has a regressive wage tax, and in a state that has one of the most regressive tax structures in the nation.

“There is only $47 million in new state funding for city schools (less than half of what adds up to just $127 million in new funding, according to this Notebook/NewsWorks analysis, since $13 million Corbett had proposed previously was already included in the school district budget). Critically, $45 million of that is a one-time-only expenditure — and it actually comes not from Corbett but from the Obama administration.”

Denvir writes that Corbett’s “brave new formula requires Philadelphians and teachers to pay more than we can afford while wealthy businesses and nonprofits contribute basically nothing to solve the crisis. This is supported by Corbett, the SRC, Superintendent William Hite, business leaders, “reform” advocacy groups and, apparently, city leaders.”

Let it be remembered and recorded by historians that Governor Corbett, the state legislature, the state-controlled School Reform Commission, the Broad-trained superintendent, the city’s foundations and its business leaders decided to walk away from their responsibility to the children and public schools of Philadelphia. They knowingly, consciously, callously turned their backs on the children. Remember their names.

Categories Budget Cuts, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Randi and I to Arne: Please Intervene to Save Public Schools in Philadelphia

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2013 //
58

Last Friday, Randi Weingarten and I wrote a letter to Secretary Arne Duncan, urging his immediate, public intervention to save public education in Philadelphia and to protect the children from massive budget cuts. We hope and believe that the Secretary’s actions might persuade Governor Corbett and the legislature to do what most Pennsylvanians want them to do: save the schools and save the children.

The letter was delivered to the Secretary at the end of the day on Friday and released to the media this morning.

This is what we wrote:

June 28, 2013

The Honorable Arne Duncan Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary Duncan,

We are writing to ask for your urgent intervention to preserve public education for the children of Philadelphia.

Due to draconian budget cuts, the public schools of Philadelphia are being starved to the point where they can no longer function for the city’s children. Philadelphia is in a state of crisis. We believe your direct and public intervention is required to ensure the existence of educational opportunity in that city.

The cuts imposed on the schools by the School Reform Commission and the state have led to layoffs of nearly 4,000 educators and school employees. This will have a permanent, crippling impact on a generation of children.

Philadelphia’s children will lose art, music, physical education, libraries and the rich learning environments they need and deserve. Everything that helps inspire and engage students will be gone. The schools will lose social workers, school nurses, counselors, paraprofessionals and teachers. Classrooms will be more crowded, denying children the attention they need. Sports and extracurricular activities will be gutted as well as after- school programs that help keep kids safe and engaged. And children will be denied the social, emotional and health services they need. All of these cuts, on top of the mass school closings, have a disproportionate effect on African-American students, English language learners and students from low-income families.

Third-grade teacher Hillary Linardopoulos told us that her school, Julia de Burgos, a North Philadelphia K-8 school, is getting an influx of 250 students due to the mass school closings, while at the same time the school is being forced to lay off a third of the staff.

The Andrew Jackson School, a vibrant neighborhood public school, is losing school aides, its counselor, its secretary, its security monitor, several teachers and even its music teacher, who worked tirelessly to find resources and seek donations for the school’s celebrated rock band. And they won’t have money for books, paper or even the school nurse.

The Kensington High School for Creative and Performing Arts has a beautiful dance studio, but it is losing its dance instructor, plus nearly a dozen other staff.

The budget bludgeoning of these schools and the gutting of their programs are likely to cause students to drop out. When public officials send students the message that they don’t matter, that their education is of no concern to those in power, students get the message and give up on themselves and their dreams.

Right now, the Pennsylvania Legislature is set to pass a budget that fails to adequately fund schools while at the same time dedicating $400 million for a new prison and pushing through a set of tax breaks for corporations. This is on top of $1 billion in education cuts over the past two years.
The Legislature is prepared to ignore the pleas of thousands of students, teachers, parents and community members who have called on the governor and Legislature to fairly and adequately fund Philadelphia’s public schools. A group of Philadelphians are so concerned about the impact of these cuts that they’ve been on a hunger strike, having exhausted every other option to get the attention of the governor and state Legislature.

The people of Pennsylvania do not support the abandonment of the children and public schools of Philadelphia. According to a recent poll by Lake Research, voters want the governor and Legislature to increase the funding of public schools.

Secretary Duncan, both you and President Obama have spoken numerous times about the importance of investing in our schools, teachers and students. The children of Philadelphia need your support now.

On behalf of the students, educators and families of Philadelphia, we ask you to publicly intervene. Reach out to Gov. Corbett and the state Legislature to seek additional funding for Philadelphia’s schools. Do not let them die. The children of Philadelphia need your help. Do not let them down.

Sincerely,

Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers

Diane Ravitch
Historian, New York University

Categories Budget Cuts, Duncan, Arne, Philadelphia

The Vallas Record in Philadelphia, Revisited

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2013 //
6

Although Paul Vallas is often credited by the mainstream media as having “saved” Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, these districts remain unsaved. Of the three, Philadelphia is in the worst shape today, its finances in shambles, desperately underfunded, nearly 4,000 teachers and other staff laid off, schools under threat of closure or privatization, students with little or no access to the arts and the other essentials of a basic education.

Here is a report on Vallas’ time in Philadelphia.

Vallas launched the nation’s most extensive experiment in privatization, which was evaluated by the RAND Corporation.

Here is RAND’s report on Vallas’ foray into the “diverse provider model.”

In sum,

“The major findings of the analysis of achievement effects under the diverse provider model in its first four years of operation are as follows:

• Sweet 16 schools: There were no statistically significant effects, positive or negative, in reading or math, in any of the four years in which they received additional resources.

• Privately managed schools (as a group): There were no statistically significant effects, positive or negative, in reading or math, in any of the four years after takeover.

• Restructured schools: There were significantly positive effects in math in all three years of implementation and in reading in the first year. In the fourth year, after the Office of Restructured Schools had been disbanded and the additional resources for the schools had ceased, the former restructured schools maintained a substantial (though only marginally statistically significant) effect in math.

In short, after four years of intervention, achievement gains in privately operated schools and sweet 16 schools, on average, are no different from Philadelphia’s districtwide gains.”

Categories Philadelphia, Vallas, Paul

Jon Pelto: A Historic Victory Over the Education-Industrial Reformers

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2013 //
12

In this post, Jonathan Pelto assembles a timeline of the stunning court decision to remove Paul Vallas as superintendent of schools of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He includes Vallas’ tenure as superintendent of schools in Chicago, where he was hailed for “saving” the schools and in Philadelphia, where he installed the nation’s most sweeping privatization plan (to that point). Philadelphia and Chicago are now in crisis. Vallas then went on to New Orleans, where he oversaw the almost total privatization of that city’s schools after Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans is hailed by the media as a success but the Recovery School District is the lowest performing district in the state of Louisiana, its top schools skim, and it is propped up by infusions of millions of philanthropic dollars.

Categories Chicago, Corporate Reformers, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Vallas, Paul

Who Should Save the Philadelphia High School Orchestra?

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2013 //
3

A reader explains why the Philadelphia All-City High School Orchestra is being closed and who should rescue it:

“Actually, philanthropy wouldn’t help. The orchestra is endangered because classroom instrumental music instruction has been eliminated from the budget (hence, no musicians to play in it). The cut was among those made to close a $300 million budget deficit caused largely by state cuts that fell particularly hard on the poorest districts. This is precisely the kind of problem that does not have a private solution but requires a public commitment to public education. (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a raft of charter applications for schools specializing in instrumental music).”

Categories Arts Education, Budget Cuts, Philadelphia

Philly Student Orchestra Plays Last Concert?

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2013 //
16

Watch this video of the Philadelphia All-City High School Orchestra.

Because of the budget cuts, this might be their last performance.

The governor, the legislature, the business leaders, the foundations of Pennsylvania should hang their heads in shame.

Will this be the year the music died in Philadelphia?

Categories Arts Education, Budget Cuts, Philadelphia
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