Chalkbeat

Philadelphia’s charter school authorizing process complies with state laws, audit finds

2024-05-07T22:23:19+00:00

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Amid charges from some advocates and City Council members that the Philadelphia school board is biased against Black-run charter schools, Pennsylvania’s Auditor General has found that Philadelphia’s authorizing, evaluation, and renewal process complies with all relevant state laws, regulations, and guidelines.

The audit, released Tuesday, highlighted some areas for improvement, but did not raise concern about discriminatory practices. The purpose of the audit was not to explicitly respond to or investigate the allegations of racial bias.

At a press conference, Auditor General Timothy DeFoor said the audit represented “good news to share” because the Charter Schools Office “complied with all state laws and guidance, as well as its own internal processes regarding new applications.”

He also said that it was “important to note that the school board, not the charter schools office,” approves new charter school applications.

The audit scrutinized the procedures followed by the Charter Schools Office for the academic years 2022 and 2023, a period that saw seven new charter applications, none of which were approved, and four charter closures. Two of those closed had Black leadership. It also reviewed the October 2023 investigative report by the Ballard Spahr law firm into the allegations of racial bias. That report found no “intentional bias” in the authorizing and evaluation process, while calling the rate of closure of Black-led charters “concerning.”

The state audit said the office could make some improvements to its Charter School Performance Framework, such as including the responses of charter operators to its findings in the evaluations it makes public, and better monitoring of charter school admissions practices.

In explaining that recommendation, DeFoor cited the problems with Franklin Towne Charter High School, where an investigation found it had excluded students who live in certain ZIP codes with mostly Black students, “in violation of the charter school law and its own charter.”

While the 80-page audit mentions the Ballard Spahr report, it does not describe any independent investigative findings of its own on the topic of racial considerations or bias on the part of the charter schools office.

On the principle that “the oversight body and management should demonstrate a commitment to integrity and ethical values,” the audit found “no issues.”

Last week, city council approved eight of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s nine appointees to the Board of Education, which has direct control over charter school monitoring through its Charter Schools Office. It declined to vote on the nomination of former board president Joyce Wilkerson after charter school advocates mounted a letter-writing campaign against her. Council president Kenyatta Johnson gave no explanation for refusing to consider her nomination except that she “didn’t have the votes.”

During questioning of the nominees, Council member Isaiah Thomas, chair of the education committee, raised angry allegations about bias against Black-led charters, which he said have been closed at a disproportionately higher rate than others. In response, board president Reginald Streater, who had also briefly been the target of the charter advocates, told council that the charter schools office followed all applicable laws and procedures.

Parker then did an end run around council by declining to appoint anyone to replace Wilkerson and announcing that she would continue serving on the board. In response, Thomas said he will convene hearings on whether the city should move to an elected or partially-elected school board, as is done in several other cities.

Peng Chao, the chief of the charter schools office, appeared with DeFoor at the press conference in Harrisburg Tuesday. He said he was “pleased the Auditor General found that our office complied with all applicable legal requirements … in Philadelphia we have a robust evaluation system that … holds all charter schools to the same set of performance standards to foster high-quality education options and improvement outcomes for all of our students.”

Saying “there is no perfect system,” he noted that “a strong system is self-reflective.” The office will “continue to learn, reassess and develop best practices as the landscape of public education evolves.”

A spokesperson for Thomas said they wanted to study the report more before responding.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia mayor plans to go over City Council’s head, put contested nominee on school board

2024-04-29T21:49:48+00:00

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A power struggle has erupted in Philadelphia between Mayor Cherelle Parker and City Council leadership that could have serious implications for Parker and impact one of the country’s largest school districts.

The person at the center of that tug of war is longtime Board of Education member Joyce Wilkerson. After a public back-and-forth, the City Council voted Monday to pull Wilkerson’s nomination to the school board from its agenda for the second time. Council President Kenyatta Johnson said Wilkerson still did not have the votes to be confirmed.

But Parker is not backing down. She sent a letter to Wilkerson Monday asking her to stay on until a new appointment is made, which Wilkerson has agreed to do. The rest of Parker’s school board nominees were approved by the council April 19 and are due to take their seats Wednesday.

It’s not entirely clear what effect the dispute over Wilkerson will have on the board and the school district. But during a hearing on the nominees, several councilmembers pressed them about their views on charter schools in the city, and indicated that they would like to see the school board approve more charters, especially those with Black leadership. The board hasn’t approved a new charter school since 2018.

If the relationship between Parker and the council deteriorates over Wilkerson’s fate, it could have significant consequences for the school’s budget and the council’s support for long-term education plans from both the board and Parker, who has proposed year-round school for the city’s students.

Wilkerson is the longest serving member of the board, and served as its president from 2018, when the district shifted from state to local control, until 2022. Before that, she spent two years as the chair of the School Reform Commission that ran the district after the state took it over.

A smiling Wilkerson read Parker’s letter to reporters after the vote. The letter called her a “laudable” public official during her time on the board.

A separate statement from Parker’s office confirmed that she had asked Wilkerson to continue serving past Tuesday.

The mayor’s office said it has a legal opinion that spells out her authority to keep Wilkerson on the board, but did not release it. The City Charter requires the City Council’s “advice and consent” on board appointees.

And the council — specifically Johnson and Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas — appears to be signaling that the body will not be a rubber stamp for Parker’s administration.

Some officials don’t view nominee as ‘beloved friend’

Various councilmembers have told Chalkbeat they don’t have passionate positions on Wilkerson either way, but are voting with Johnson and Thomas against the backdrop of important budgetary negotiations.

Despite the role charter schools played during the hearing on Parker’s school board nominees, Councilmember Kendra Brooks denied that her concerns about Wilkerson stemmed from the board’s unwillingness to approve new charters or its approach to charters in general.

“I’ve never been a supporter of charters, so the notion that this is about charters, I push back against,” said Brooks in an interview. She started her public career as an education activist fighting for adequate resources for her neighborhood schools, among other causes, and said she would have voted no on Wilkerson’s nomination: “The years I’ve been doing this education work, Joyce was never our beloved friend.”

Pressed further, Brooks said that if Wilkerson’s presence on the board “is the only thing saving the state of education in Philadelphia, we are doomed.”

Thomas also issued a statement Monday saying he does not support Wilkerson “because our schools have been inadequate under her leadership.”

“This is bigger than one person. This is about the need for change and doing what’s best for our children and families,” Thomas wrote.

Johnson has repeatedly rebuffed questions from reporters about the reasons for the opposition to Wilkerson’s nomination. Critics of the council’s move have noted that Dawn Chavous, who is married to Johnson, also serves as spokesperson for the African American Charter Coalition, which first leveled the allegations of racial bias against the school board regarding Black-led charters.

Chavous did not respond to an email from Chalkbeat on Monday.

Before calling for a vote to remove Wilkerson’s nomination from the agenda, Johnson said that members had heard from many members of the public, including but not limited to charter school supporters, expressing concerns about Wilkerson.

“I will not make those concerns public out of respect for Ms. Wilkerson,” he said.

Councilmembers, by a voice vote, also rejected a motion to make their positions public through a roll call.

Curtis Jones was the only councilmember besides Johnson to speak publicly Monday about the situation and he expressed misgivings about the process by which Wilkerson’s nomination was being held up.

“We are barely past 100 days,” Jones said, referring to Parker’s time in office. “And we’re not allowing the mayor to have the benefit of the doubt.”

“I trust my mayor and trust my leadership,” Jones added. “If you’re asking her to cook the meal, she should be allowed to buy the groceries.”

For her part, Wilkerson said she is “delighted” to have Parker’s support and to remain a member of the board.

“When Mayor Parker announced my nomination, one of the things we talked about is the significance of continuity,” Wilkerson said.

Legality of mayor’s move is in question

Still in question is whether Council will challenge the legality of Parker’s move.

The Home Rule Charter states the nine members of the board “shall be appointed by the Mayor, with the advice and consent of a majority of all the members of the Council after public hearing.”

Parker’s Deputy Chief Education Officer Sharon Ward said the mayor interprets the charter to say Wilkerson can continue to serve until someone is named to replace her, since the council removed her nomination from the agenda but did not reject it. Parker could also choose to indefinitely delay nominating someone else, perpetuating Wilkerson’s term.

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Center, said in an interview Monday there has to be a mechanism by which governmental bodies like the Board of Education can continue to function even in the absence of a traditional confirmation process. Parker is betting her push for Wilkerson to remain on the board would fall under that mechanism, he said.

Philadelphia is the only district in Pennsylvania with an appointed, not elected, school board. The City Council voted in 2018 to amend the City Charter to require the council’s advice and consent for school board nominees.

Donna Cooper, a former aide to Ed Rendell when he was Philadelphia mayor and governor and now executive director of the advocacy group Children First, came to the Council’s chamber to support Wilkerson and later said in a statement: “Clearly the mayor knows how to play chess.”

The newly constituted school board’s first meeting about its long-term goals and strategy is scheduled for May 9, and their first action meeting as a voting body is May 30.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Charter school debate dominates Philadelphia school board nominees’ hearing

2024-04-20T00:10:53+00:00

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Following a heated interrogation by the City Council over charter schools, eight of Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s nine nominees to the Board of Education are moving ahead. But the future of Joyce Wilkerson, the longest serving board member, remains in limbo.

The Council’s committee of the whole voted Friday to approve eight of Parker’s nominees, including current board President Reginald Streater. Those nominees will now head to a full council vote next Thursday.

In addition to Streater, Crystal Cubbage, Cheryl Harper, Whitney Jones, Wanda Novales, Joan Stern, Sarah-Ashley Andrews, and ChauWing Lam all received Council approval. Wilkerson’s nomination was deferred. The new board must be seated by May 1, but it doesn’t have to be a complete slate of nine members.

Leading up to the hearing, rumors circulated that Streater, as well as Wilkerson, would not receive enough votes because of their recent votes in opposition to several new charter schools. Streater and the rest of the nominees, barring Wilkerson, ultimately earned a unanimous voice vote from those council members present to move ahead. However, the overall tenor of the councilmember’s questions and comments signaled many of them would like to see more charter schools — specifically Black-led charter schools — in the city.

After the meeting, the board nominees made it a point to say that they were sticking together as a slate.

“We have unfinished business,” said Streater, as Wilkerson stood beside him, adding that Parker “picked the nine people who she thought could get the job done.”

Wilkerson declined to comment on why she thought there was opposition to her nomination.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson gave no reason for delaying the vote on Wilkerson, and did not speak with reporters after the hearing concluded. But based on council members’ questions and comments, several members seemed to want to send a message regarding the board’s charter school policies.

They apparently focused on Wilkerson since she led the board from 2018 until 2022; during that period, no new charter schools were approved. She was also chair of the School Reform Commission for two years before that when the district was still under state control.

The school board is the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city.

After a six-and-a-half-hour hearing, Isaiah Thomas, the chair of the council’s education committee, told reporters that “we felt like it was best to continue dialogue” around Wilkerson’s nomination but did not give a reason for the opposition. “Once we have more of a consensus, I think that you’ll see a decision being made,” Thomas said.

In addition to the intense questioning about charters, returning board members were grilled about the “deplorable” condition of school buildings and the absence of a promised school facilities plan from the school district. They were also pressed about the new, lottery-based special admissions policy that has contributed to a surge in empty student seats in many of the district’s top schools.

Thomas led a particularly pointed line of questioning directed at the four incumbent board members about what he alleges is a discriminatory charter authorization process that’s resulted in the district closing an outsize number of Black-led charter schools in recent years.

Of the charter schools that board has voted to close, Thomas said 80% of those were founded or led by Black people, even though they comprise only about 25% of the 82 charters in the city.

“Those numbers aren’t racist?” Thomas asked during a particularly intense exchange with Streater.

In fact, from 2010 to 2021, the district’s governing body voted not to renew or revoke the charters of 13 charter schools. Eight of those — a little over 61% — were Black-led.

Political divisions over the treatment of Black-led charters in Philadelphia came to a head last year following the release of an independent report examining alleged bias in the charter school approval process.

The report determined that there was no intentional bias in the authorization process. But the authors did point to inherent flaws in the system that resulted in Black-led charter schools being non renewed or closed in “greater numbers than their peers.”

Several councilmembers and public speakers on Friday chastised the board for what they perceive as a failure to address any of the systemic flaws noted in the report.

Councilmember Anthony Phillips outright asked the board members: “Will you champion public charter schools as vital partners in creating a system of great schools that better serves Philadelphia students and families?”

None of the nominees answered that question directly. But board member Lam said: “Every charter decision made is a difficult one,” noting that while public dollars fund charter schools, the district does not manage them.

Councilmembers hold considerable funding power over the district, determining how much of city tax dollars are allocated to schools. The Board of Education has no taxing power of its own.

Parker never said explicitly during the campaign whether she favored the creation of more charter schools. But her close ties to charter consultant Dawn Chavous — who is married to Council President Johnson and served as chief of staff to state Sen. Anthony Williams, one of the state’s leading charter proponents — has raised eyebrows among traditional public school supporters.

Chavous also serves as spokesperson for the African American Charter Coalition, which first leveled the allegations of racial bias against the school board regarding Black-led charters.

Several public speakers expressed their support for Wilkerson including Loree Jones, the district’s former director of external affairs. She praised Wilkerson’s “brilliant competence and solid balanced approach” to decision-making.

Asked if Wilkerson’s nomination would be considered before the May deadline, Thomas said, “I’m not sure. I mean, negotiations are unpredictable.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia City Council to hold hearing on bias against Black-led charters

2023-11-02T21:27:22+00:00

City Council plans to hold a hearing in December on whether the district has discriminated against Black-led charter schools.

On Thursday, Council approved a resolution, unanimously and without discussion, introduced by Council member Isaiah Thomas declaring that “Black led and founded institutions have been held to standards that are inconsistent and changed regularly, causing a lack of transparency in the School District’s process of reviewing, managing, and closing non-district led schools.” The hearing is scheduled for Dec. 6.

In a report released last month, the law firm Ballard Spahr found what it considered a flawed and problematic charter school authorizing and renewal process that leaves the district open to charges of bias — but uncovered no evidence of deliberate discrimination against Black-led charters. The report was two years in the making and covered the period between 2010 and 2021.

At the same time, the law firm recommended changes, including more transparency in the charter process and anti-bias training for Board of Education members.

The report was commissioned by the Board of Education in response to years of allegations of racial bias from the African American Charter School Coalition, which represents 17 of 21 Black-led charter schools.

Investigators found that during that period eight of the 13 schools whose charters were revoked by the district were Black-led, even though only about 1 in 5 city charters were founded and continuously led by Black individuals or organizations. (The report also noted that this year the Board of Education voted not to renew the charter of another Black-led institution, Southwest Leadership Academy.)

At the time, coalition officials issued a statement saying that the report backed up its charges of discrimination and “shows that the public school charter authorization process needs to be completely overhauled.”

In Pennsylvania, unlike in some other states, only the host district can authorize charter schools, creating an inherent conflict of interest.

Philadelphia has about 65,000 students in 82 charters, educating nearly 1 in 3 children who attend publicly run schools, and making it one of the largest charter sectors in any major city.

The report said that district officials were aware as far back as 2017 that there were “differential” results in the charter authorizing process, but took no action.

The nine-member school board, appointed by the mayor, has no taxing power of its own, relying on City Council to allocate city funds to the district, most of it through property taxes.

Max Weisman, Thomas’s communications director, said in an interview that there is “anecdotal evidence” pointing to a “different set of standards and a different set of processes that Black-led and white-led institutions go through.” He said that constant personnel turnover in the district’s Charter Schools Office exacerbates the problem, and that white-led institutions have more wherewithal to hire consultants and others to contest a proposed charter non-renewal or revocation.

He said witnesses at the hearing would include district officials as well as charter operators who have been making the allegations.

“It is important that we have oversight over our charter school system, so we can ensure that our public dollars are being spent the right way,” said Thomas in a statement announcing his intent to introduce the resolution. “The answer, though, does not lay in unfairly investigating Black-led institutions.”

Thomas, who sits on the council’s education committee, is a volunteer coach at Sankofa Freedom Academy, one of the city’s oldest charter schools. “I’ve seen myself how beneficial this model is,” Thomas said in a statement. “Black-led institutions are vital entities in the city because they open up students to broader perspectives, leadership and learning styles, and curriculums that not only improve tangible results but also make for a more enjoyable learning experience.”

The district’s Charter Schools Office issues annual reviews on each charter school as well as renewal reports every five years. Those reports evaluate the schools in three areas: academics, operations, and financial health. It gives each charter a rating of either “meets standard,” “approaches standard,” or “does not meet standard” on dozens of metrics. It does not make a formal recommendation to the board on whether to renew a charter or not.

Before approving its own budget and taxes, City Council holds annual hearings on school spending, grilling district officials and board of education members about various policies and making known their own priorities and preferences.

The issue of possible bias against Black-led charters has not come up in the mayoral election that will take place next week between Cherelle Parker, a Democrat, and David Oh, a Republican. Parker has recommended increasing the district’s share of the property tax from 55% to 58% as a way to generate more revenue for the schools. Oh has said he would like to elect five of the nine school board members so that they feel more connected to the community – although that would complicate the issue of taxing authority.

But overall, aside from Parker’s proposal for year-round school, which she has not explained in detail, education policy has not been a big issue in the race.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Latino-led charter schools attract Philadelphia families with tight-knit communities and Spanish

2024-03-22T17:23:43+00:00

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All four of Margarita Albino’s children have passed through the halls of Pan American Academy Charter School.

The Northeast Philadelphia resident, who is Dominican, was drawn to the school by its dual language program. Although Albino is bilingual, she says she feels more comfortable with Pan American’s staff, which is made up of predominantly Spanish-speaking Latinos.

“The school knows that it’s needed to keep [the heritage] alive in them,” she said, adding later, “They have no problem assisting me in Spanish.”

Latino families in Philadelphia say they’re choosing charter schools operated by Latino-led nonprofit organizations because the schools are able to fill gaps not filled by the school district. Several Spanish-speaking parents and caregivers told Chalkbeat that Latino-led charter schools are providing more cultural representation, language accessibility, and a tighter-knit community than their traditional neighborhood public schools.

The Latino population in Philadelphia has almost tripled since the year 2000, reaching about 16% of the city’s residents in 2020, according to the census.

Additionally, about a quarter of the roughly 197,100 students in the Philadelphia school district identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to district data. And in the 2022-23 school year, the district reported 17% of students were English learners, a 9% jump from the 2014-15 school year. Almost half of English learners came from Spanish-speaking homes.

Though the majority of Hispanic students in Philadelphia are enrolled in traditional district schools, Hispanic students comprise 18% of total charter school enrollment, according to a report by advocacy group Children First. The group also notes Hispanic students make up the largest number of Philadelphia-based cyber charter students with 1,478 students, or 80% of total cyber charter students in 2023.

In the 1970s, Philadelphia public schools were trailblazers for bilingual education. The district oversaw a pilot program for English as a second language and a Bilingual Institute to train and recruit teachers. It also opened a bilingual school, as well as bilingual programs that reached about half of the burgeoning Puerto Rican student population.

But the programs’ budget, which was supported by federal funding, eventually dwindled. Today, just eight out of 218 district schools offer Spanish-English dual language programs.

There’s also the issue of staff representation and educators’ ability to connect to Latino families. Only 4.4% of teachers in the district are Hispanic, according to a 2022 Research for Action report. A lack of bilingual and culturally competent staff can weaken parent-teacher communication and impact students’ academic success, according to research.

The school district said it’s aware of these gaps and is working to address them by hiring more Spanish speaking bilingual counseling assistants and teachers.

Nathalie Nérée, the district’s head of special education and diverse learners, said there are plans to implement another dual language program in a public school. But she said the district would need more resources and community support, since dual language programs are “costly.”

Diana Garcia, principal of district-run Willard Elementary School in Kensington, said there have been several families that have left her school for Pan American Academy Charter School, which is in Fairhill and is run by Congreso de Latinos Unidos. Thirty-five students whose designated local public school is Willard attend Pan American, according to district data.

Garcia said one reason for this is the convenience of having their children across grade levels attend the same school. But she also said “there is more work to be done” when it comes to district staffing. She said she hired at least eight more staff members to accommodate Spanish speakers at Willard after becoming principal.

“If this school who has a 45% Latino population doesn’t have Latino representation to service those families, then we’re failing them,” she said.

‘You were encouraged to celebrate your child’s success’

There are at least four Latino-led charters in Philadelphia that advertise having a sizable number of Spanish-speaking teachers, as well as dual language programs for students.

The district’s recent enrollment data shows that 91% of students at Esperanza Academy and 84% of students at Pan American identify as Hispanic or Latino. At Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School in Olney run by ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania, 86% of students identify as Hispanic/Latino.

Although the Latino-led charter schools embrace the Spanish language, they do not guarantee if any staff speak Portuguese, which is spoken by Brazilians, or indigenous Latin American languages like Qʼeqchi’ spoken by some Guatemalans; there has been an influx of these groups in recent years.

Glenda Marrero, principal of Hostos Charter School, says that parents are more involved when there’s faculty who speak the same language.

“They tend to come to more activities because they know they’re not going to miss out,” she said. “There’s nothing like sitting in a room and not understanding nothing, but people are clapping around you.”

Cesar Ríos, a bilingual guidance counselor for students in grades 4-8 at Hostos Charter School, said that he witnesses more “parental and familial engagement” at the school.

He said one example of the school’s work with Latino families involves helping undocumented children or family members who need academic or other support.

He also said not all Latino students come from Spanish-speaking families, and that Hostos prioritizes teaching students about Latino “cultural heroes that might not otherwise be addressed let alone highlighted at another school.”

Farrell Elementary school teacher Angelee Rivera said her daughter transferred to Esperanza Cyber Charter School for her junior year of high school.

Rivera, who is Puerto Rican, said she felt the charter school, which is run by the local Hispanic-focused nonprofit Esperanza, embraced the Latino community. She was especially touched by remarks made by the CEO of Esperanza, the Rev. Luis Cortés, Jr., who is Latino, at her daughter’s graduation.

Cortés Jr. encouraged families to “turn up” and loudly celebrate their students’ achievements: “‘Our kids, they go through so much in their life just for being Black and brown and they survived the pandemic. … When your child’s name is called I want you to show out!’”

Rivera said Cortés Jr.’s words reminded her of an incident at the Philadelphia High School for Girls that occurred around the same time as her daughter’s graduation. Officials at Girls High withheld some students’ diplomas during the graduation ceremony because their families cheered loudly as their names were called.

“You have a school like Girls High, if you dance across the stage to show that you’re proud of yourself, you’re kind of punished,” Rivera said. “And yet in a school that is about community and is about the Latino community specifically, you were encouraged to celebrate your child’s success.”

Philadelphia school board denies charter school application for third time

2024-03-01T02:49:54+00:00

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Philadelphia Board of Education members voted to deny an application for a new charter high school Thursday night, citing declining academic performance data and several recent charter school closures in the city.

Board members voted 6-3 to deny the proposed Global Leadership Academy International Charter High School, which sought to enroll 150 students in ninth grade its first year and build up to 600 students in grades 9-12 by year five.

Board President Reginald Streater said the decision was a “hard one” because of the strong community support for the school. But he said he had too many concerns with the details of the application and cited his experience watching multiple charter schools “collapse” in recent years.

The board hasn’t approved a new charter school in the city since 2018. But Mallory Fix-Lopez, the board’s vice president, noted that the board has “expanded the charter sector by over 2,000 seats” since 2018. It remains to be seen whether the board’s stance on charters clashes with new Mayor Cherelle Parker’s vision for public education in the city.

Global Leadership Network CEO Naomi Johnson-Booker, a longtime Philadelphia educator, has tried for years to add a high school to the already existing two Global Leadership K-8 schools. But the board has repeatedly rejected her attempts.

One of GLA’s schools, Global Leadership Academy at Huey, is a Renaissance charter school. The district turned the school over to the network in 2016, but it has since failed to significantly improve student academic performance.

Peng Chao, chief of the district’s Charter Schools Office, presented academic data for GLA’s existing schools which shows sharp declines in the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced proficient in English Language Arts and Math standardized tests from the 2017-18 school year to 2022-23.

Chao also noted the charter group’s proposed curriculum materials for high school English language arts, mathematics, and science “still do not fully demonstrate that the proposed charter school would meet all grade level requirements” set at the state level.

“There is a question there as to whether they would truly be able to achieve all of their academic requirements,” Chao said.

In defense of her schools’ performance, Johnson-Booker cited a flood in one of the school buildings that interrupted testing during one school year and the impacts of the pandemic that affected school performance nationwide.

Several students, parents, and elected officials testified in support of GLA and the proposed high school at the Thursday board meeting, saying the school community provides a safe and positive environment for students in the city.

But ultimately, board members said they had too many concerns with the application.

Board member Lisa Salley, who voted to approve the school, took a different view. She said the charter school office’s “analysis is anemic and needs work.”

The charter school approval process has come under fire in recent months for alleged bias against Black-led schools. However, an investigation found district leadership never deliberately discriminated against such schools.

In a statement following the vote, Ken Kilpatrick, a spokesperson for Global Leadership International, called the board’s decision “myopic and selfish” and said the organization “will be reviewing our legal options and will announce our next steps when prepared to do so.”

Logan Peterson, a spokesperson for the board, said the network can appeal to the state’s charter appeals board or resubmit their application.

Meanwhile, Parker’s assertions that “high quality” charter seats would be valued as much as traditional district seats during her tenure as mayor have raised questions as to whether the school board would begin approving charters again.

The board’s decision could have significant political ramifications. Parker has convened her Education Nominating Panel to consider reappointing or remaking the board to reflect her priorities. She’s given no signal yet whether she intends to replace any of the current members. Parker could decide to replace none, some, or all of them.

The next public meeting of the Education Nominating Panel is scheduled for March 12.

Board approves contracts for parent stipends, nurses

In addition to the charter decision, the board voted to approve more than $230 million in contracts for classroom furniture, payments for substitute nurses, stipends for parents who drive their kids to school, and more.

Here are some of the items included in those contracts:

$60 million for “furniture and classroom fixtures.”
$50 million for “educational resources” including textbooks, gym supplies, science materials, and other items. This does not include core curriculum items.
$10 million for ESS Northeast, LLC for payments to substitute nurses and other school staff.
$10.5 million for a contract with The Home Depot for custodial supplies and equipment.
$36 million for monthly payments to parents who drive their children to school. According to the district, there are approximately 14,000 households or parents that are enrolled in the program for the 2023-2024 school year.
$2.7 million for Catapult Learning, LLC and Littera Education, Inc. for a high-impact tutoring pilot in two middle schools serving grades 6-8 for the 4th marking period. (Less than 1% of students used these programs as of 2023.)
$10 million for furniture and equipment for “Digital Literacy Labs” including computers and “codeable robots.” According to the district, there are 113 elementary and middle schools that offer digital literacy in the city. The district wants an additional 74 schools to have access to these labs by the start of the next school year.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia’s ‘Renaissance’ charter schools did not produce what was promised

2024-02-28T12:30:00+00:00

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On the first day of classes last September, the Philadelphia school superintendent and mayor joined other officials outside of Guion S. Bluford Elementary School to cheer on its 539 students as they entered the building.

The school district’s choice of Bluford for this annual ritual was telling. From 2010 to 2022, Bluford — built in 1972 to serve a growing population in the Overbrook neighborhood — had not been run by the district, but as a charter school operated by Universal Companies as part of the district’s Renaissance Initiative.

Then in the summer of 2022, in a dispute with its board of trustees, Universal ended its contract, and for that academic year the school operated in turmoil. Without its longtime manager, Bluford struggled to hire teachers, convince parents of its viability, and keep up the facility — among other problems, it lost internet access — until the district stepped in to build a new staff and assign a turnaround principal in 2023.

Bluford was part of one of the most sweeping education policy shifts ever undertaken in Philadelphia. The Renaissance Initiative — launched in 2010 under Superintendent Arlene Ackerman while the district was under state control for poor performance — strove to turn around about 10% of Philadelphia’s low-performing district schools by ceding them to charter organizations that promised to do better.

“We will transform historically failing schools and embrace bold new educational approaches with proven track records of success that can transform schools,” Ackerman wrote of the Renaissance initiative in her ambitious reform plan for the district.

At the height of the Renaissance Initiative, 22 former district schools were controlled by charter operators. But district leadership has quietly moved away from the model. Over the past seven years, four schools, including Bluford, have been returned to the district. One, Daroff Charter School, closed entirely. Now 17 schools are part of the initiative — and no new schools have been added since 2016.

“The goal was to prove that charters would work with any kid, not just about parents who were highly motivated to enter a lottery, and to show that a neighborhood school turned over to a charter organization would do better than if run by the school district,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, an advocacy group.

“As far as I can tell, the data didn’t result in that.”

In fact, a Chalkbeat analysis has found that the dramatic turnaround promises of the Renaissance program never materialized.

Some schools made incremental progress over the years that slightly outpaced the district as a whole, but the group of schools overall has not seen meteoric success.

Indeed, in 2023 the Renaissance charter schools as a group mostly performed worse in standardized tests for elementary and middle schoolers than the district averages, the analysis showed. And compared to district schools, a lower share of Renaissance charters exceeded those averages.

“It was a bad idea poorly implemented,” said Chris McGinley, who served on both the School Reform Commission that oversaw the district while it was under state control and the Board of Education, which won back control of the district in 2018.

The program could be under greater scrutiny as Mayor Cherelle Parker takes office. Parker has had a mixed message on charters, continually emphasizing that she would not stand for people pitting district-run and charter schools against each other.

But she hasn’t said whether she would like to see growth of the charter sector, which already educates about a third of the nearly 200,000 students in the city’s publicly funded schools. And she has not yet named new school board members, who could decide the fate of the Renaissance program itself and its remaining charters.

Parker’s 50-member education policy subcommittee includes the CEOs of four of the seven organizations that run Renaissance charters, three of which operate schools that were recommended for nonrenewal due to subpar academic performance while the fourth was denied a new charter application based on the record of its existing schools.

Her appointees to the Mayor’s Office on Education, Sharon Ward, an activist and former state official, and Debora Carrera, a former district principal assistant superintendent, declined comment and couldn’t be reached, respectively.

Superintendent Tony Watlington declined to comment on the program.

Peng Chao, head of the board’s Office of Charter Schools, which evaluates existing charters and vets new applications, said that the outcomes for the Renaissance schools “have been mixed.”

“With a sector of over 20 schools over the course of more than a decade, it isn’t surprising that some schools have excelled in certain areas and others have struggled. Every school, Renaissance or not, has a different arc,” said Chao.

Betting on a school turnaround model

Turning district schools over to charters has been a go-to turnaround method in major urban districts for more than two decades. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana took over the New Orleans schools, shut down all but a few that were high performing, and created a Recovery School District that was essentially a system of charters. Chicago had its own Renaissance schools initiative that leaders are rethinking.

In Philadelphia, the movement flourished when the district was under state control and coincided with a push in Pennsylvania to expand the charter sector. Even before the official start of the Renaissance program, under the influence of prevailing Pennsylvania politics at the time, other district schools had become charters.

Charter expansion has long been the favored school reform strategy of Pennsylvania’s Republican governors and legislators as they resisted more spending on education and sought to weaken unions, even though the state had the widest gaps in the nation between high-wealth and low-wealth districts. Only last year did a Commonwealth Court judge rule the funding system unconstitutional.

Ackerman was betting her career on the success of Renaissance schools. She told Pew Charitable Trusts in 2010, “If I can show [parents] what the other side of the rainbow looks like, I don’t care who comes in after me. They are going to force the new superintendent and the new administration to give them what their children deserve.”

Ackerman’s vision for the Renaissance program included two models designed to offer “greater autonomy in exchange for increased accountability,” according to her 2009 reform blueprint for the district, Imagine 2014. Implicit in the entire initiative was to set up a competition to determine which turnaround strategy was more effective — more internal resources and a staff shakeup, or charter conversion. The schools that remained under district control were given more resources and called “Promise Academies,” while those that were handed over to charter organizations were dubbed “Renaissance” charter schools.

“Arlene was very strong on the idea that these programs would run in parallel with a lot of ability to compare the results from the programs,” said former School Reform Commission member Joseph Dworetzky. “I thought it was an interesting idea.” Dworetzky also said the board considered this more efficient and a way to stem the spiraling costs to the district of charter proliferation.

The Renaissance charters had defined catchment areas like traditional district schools, but otherwise operated independent of the district, the same as any other charter school.

At first, things seemed to be going well. An 18-month interim report found “The Year One outcomes for schools in the Renaissance Schools Initiative suggest that something positive is happening.” In 2014, Renaissance charters were doing a successful job keeping students enrolled for the entire school year, another report found.

But under Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, cuts to education spending between 2010 and 2014 put a strain on the entire system. The belt tightening effectively ended the Promise Academy experiment by stripping the schools of extra programs and supports. The Renaissance charters were impacted because, as the district’s budget decreased, their per pupil payments went down.

In 2011, Ackerman resigned.

Her successor, William Hite, continued the Renaissance conversions, but decided to let parents vote, first on who the new operator should be and then whether there should be a conversion at all. This caused conflict, especially at Wister Elementary School in Germantown, where Hite had second thoughts about his initial recommendation. During the 2016 debate over whether the school should become a charter, parents were bitterly split, and the School Reform Commission overruled Hite to approve the turnover.

After that, Renaissance conversions ceased.

In March of 2020, as McGinley was preparing to leave the school board, which by then had resumed control of the district, he proposed a resolution to formally end the Renaissance program altogether — but that resolution was quietly removed from the meeting agenda and never resurfaced.

How Renaissance schools measure up

Determining the impact of the turnarounds is challenging in Philadelphia, since two major events have occurred since the program started in 2011 — a revision of standardized tests in 2015, limiting the ability for apples to apples score comparisons, and the educational upheaval of the pandemic.

But looking at results, most of the Renaissance charter schools do not show high rates of proficiency. According to the Chalkbeat analysis, these schools started out well below district and state averages in English Language Arts and math performance — that’s why they were targeted for this intervention.

The analysis, though, shows that none of the schools are performing particularly well today. For instance, a majority of the Renaissance charters saw less than 10% of students score at or above proficiency on math tests in 2023. By some metrics, a few made incremental progress over the years.

Several schools, including Harrity Elementary and Mann Elementary, operated by Mastery, showed spikes in indicators including test scores for the first several years, said Chao, head of the board’s Office of Charter Schools.

But, he added, “Sustained improvement in student achievement, however, has not been as evident or consistent.”

The saga of Memphis Street Academy@JPJones in Frankford is telling. Once a junior high school with a reputation for out-of-control discipline and general disarray, it is now run as a Renaissance charter for 5th through 8th grades by American Paradigm schools. In contrast to its past, it is calm and orderly, with a solid teaching staff and lots of student activities.

But its achievement scores have remained persistently low — math proficiency is at 1%, and the Board of Education has voted not to renew the five-year charter signed in 2017.

American Paradigm has since sued the district in federal court saying the performance standards they agreed to, based on absolute achievement rather than growth in student scores, are unfair. The school can remain open during the appeals process.

Hite, who was superintendent between 2012 and 2022 and presided over the creation of five Renaissance charters, in hindsight questioned the effectiveness of the initiative.

“What I recall is that they saw climate and culture indicators improve, and in some cases saw growth improve, particularly [in a reduction of] children who scored below basic,” Hite said in an interview. “But we really didn’t see marked improvement in achievement.”

Hite attributed this to the myriad factors besides school quality that affect student outcomes, including the impact of poverty, violence, and the lack of essential services.

“This stuff takes time,” he said.

Bluford and Daroff were not the only schools that exited Renaissance. Two other district schools that became Renaissance charters, Olney High and its feeder Stetson Middle, were also taken back by the district due to both lagging performance and financial problems within Aspira, Inc., to which they had been turned over.

Michael Roth, now Olney’s principal, worked in the school under both models. He is not a fan of charter conversion as a school reform strategy.

“I think it’s offensive,” he said. “A lot of these measures were experimenting with communities of color. I’m not saying some good things didn’t come out of it, but my thought is, why don’t we properly fund the public schools and make sure they have the resources they need and do it right without switching back and forth?”

Tangela McClam, Principal of Bluford Charter School, left, greets students on the first day of school.

Renaissance supporters say look beyond test scores

Scott Gordon, the founder and longtime executive director of Mastery Charter, deems the initiative a success, saying that the Renaissance program brought numerous improvements to schools and their surrounding neighborhoods, even if test scores did not dramatically rise. Mastery has run nine Renaissance charters, and essentially built its brand around the program.

Chalkbeat’s analysis showed that Mastery performed marginally higher on average than other Renaissance charters on the 2023 state tests, the PSSA, but still had overall scores below the district average (with one single exception on the English language arts test).

Gordon said the model showed that a different governing structure could bring more stability to neighborhood schools, improve academic outcomes while serving the same kids, and draw parents back into the building.

Before Mastery, he said, ”These were schools in a never-ending negative spiral, lots of transiency, kids with high needs. As the school struggles, parents begin leaving, it struggles more, and it goes downhill.”

‘We needed a turnaround in a turnaround’

Bluford’s history shows that the initiative both fell short of being transformational and also often sowed confusion for families.

Bluford was one of the original Renaissance charter schools. Formerly the William B. Hanna elementary school (it was renamed for astronaut and alum Guion Bluford, the first Black person in space), Bluford was turned over to Universal Companies. Like the other schools in the program, it had long suffered from poor academic performance.

But the desired turnaround never happened; in 2015, the School Reform Commission voted to revoke the charter because it did not meet its academic targets. “I was struck by the notion that we needed a turnaround in a turnaround,” commissioner Feather Houstoun said at the time. But appeals kept it open — even though the Board of Education’s own Renaissance schools policy was supposed to supersede the state’s charter authorization, evaluation, renewal and revocation process.

Then, in 2022, Universal had its falling out with the board of trustees that oversaw it, leading to its tumultuous year and the district’s decision to return it to district control.

“It was very traumatic,” said teacher Tyshea Tucker. “Everything was so sudden.”

When the upheaval occurred, Tucker had been a teaching assistant at Daroff studying for her degree. She moved to Bluford when it was still a charter, and then applied to stay when the district took over and is now a second-grade teacher.

All the disruption was even more unsettling for her students, she said, many of whom have already had to deal with trauma in their lives. The staff turnover, she feared, reinforced feelings that adults weren’t there for them. She said she had to “go the extra mile” to build relationships and trust with them.

For longtime neighborhood stalwarts like Tamara Keene, who sent two sons through Bluford, the changes have been jarring.

Keene said the school functioned well under Universal at first.

But when Universal left in 2022, along with about half the staff, the board running the school “didn’t have a lot of control. … They spent a year just holding the school down.”

The turnover split parents, some of whom wanted the school to remain a charter, while others, like Keene, wanted a traditional public school option. “I’m still upset that there was no neighborhood school that was not a charter,” she said.

This current tension between charters and traditional schools harkens back to why Ackerman launched the Renaissance experiment in the first place. Despite scant evidence that the Renaissance schools delivered the promised transformation, Ackerman had concluded at the end of her time as superintendent that dramatic educational improvement for traditionally underserved students was impossible within the existing structure of large school districts with many power centers, especially teachers unions.

And her ideas for reform are still present today.

Like Ackerman, Parker is advocating for longer school days and a longer school year, tall orders to make happen within the traditional district structure.

But if it does happen, families like Keene’s will be the ones experiencing it firsthand.

Although Keene’s children are grown, she will continue watching the transformation of Bluford from a new perch — three of her grandchildren now attend the school.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

In reversal, Philly school board votes to renew charter school amid shifting political climate

2024-01-26T03:14:10+00:00

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In a rare move, the Philadelphia Board of Education voted Thursday to reverse its previous decision not to renew a charter school, meaning it can continue operating for another three years — with 19 separate conditions.

By a unanimous vote, the board passed a settlement agreement that renewed until 2027 the charter of Southwest Leadership Academy, a K-8 school with nearly 600 students that had been having academic, operational, and financial problems, according to the board’s Charter Schools Office.

“I expect the school to make progress over the course of the charter term and build on the recent increases in academic achievement we have seen through the most recent data from the 2022-2023 school year,” said Board President Reginald Streater.

Streater noted that the Charter Schools Office recommended that the board vote to extend the school’s charter, although he also said he remained concerned “about the school’s current financial position.”

After the vote, the school’s CEO Leigh Purnell and Principal Christina Green hugged in relief.

Last June, citing operational, financial, and academic problems, the board voted 7-2 not to renew Southwest Leadership Academy’s charter, putting the school’s future in jeopardy. It has continued to educate nearly 600 students as the school’s appeal of the board’s decision has played out.

The board’s latest decision comes amid heightened pressure from lawmakers and advocates who have claimed Black-led charter schools, like Southwest Leadership Academy, face systemic racial bias in the city. An independent report released in October found no “intentional bias” from district leaders against those schools. But it called the rate of closure of Black-led charter schools “concerning” and said a problematic authorizing and evaluation process could lead to the perception of bias.

The decision also hints at a change in the political climate for charter schools under new Mayor Cherelle Parker, who during her campaign repeatedly said she would not tolerate competition between district and charter schools.

“I will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions,” she told Chalkbeat in an interview.

The board hasn’t approved a new charter school since 2018.

Though they don’t outright control it, the mayor and city council hold a lot of sway over the school district. Parker has the ability to appoint all nine members of the school board; that process is set to begin soon. The city also controls local funding for schools since the school board has no independent taxing power.

On Thursday, Peng Chao, the director of the Charter Schools Office, told board members that the school’s trustees and academic team were working hard to straighten out its problems, and said his office would continue to help. He noted that six years ago, Southwest Leadership Academy was one of the highest-performing charters in Philadelphia.

Before the vote, several students urged the board to keep the school open.

“I would not be who I am today” without the education and guidance she got at Southwest Leadership Academy, said Renee Fernandes, who is now a senior at William Penn Charter, a private Quaker high school “I never saw a private school in my future, but SLA made it happen.”

Purnell and other speakers pointed out that the school is a haven for many students from the African diaspora in Philadelphia. Southwest Leadership Academy “is the very first school where I’ve been able to culturally connect with students,” said Arun Arungodade, who said she was a member of that diaspora.

Shirleen Thomas-Moore, who described herself as “guardian and auntie” to a fourth and fifth grader at Southwest Leadership Academy, said they both learned to read in kindergarten. “I am pleased with the education there,” she said.

In advance of the vote, Purnell thanked the board for letting the school continue. In an interview after the vote, she said, “Our proficiency scores are not where we want them to be, however we are able to achieve tremendous growth with our students.”

Charter renewal includes conditions for academics, financial controls

The board identified several serious concerns about Southwest Leadership Academy before members voted last year not to renew its charter.

A 2022 evaluation by the board’s Charter School Office found that the school didn’t meet standards for academics, organizational compliance and viability, or financial health. The evaluation also found numerous problems with enrollment procedures and employee background checks.

A month after the board’s June 2023 vote not to renew the school’s charter, Southwest appealed the board’s ruling to the state Charter Appeals Board. Critics of the board’s move at the time included Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who chairs City Council’s education committee.

The resolution approved by the board on Thursday offers a conditional five-year renewal of the charter. It is retroactive to 2022, so will expire in 2027. With the settlement, the state appeal is rendered moot.

The renewal agreement includes requirements for academic improvement, but the targets include more flexible options if the school can’t meet the most stringent stipulations.

The conditions say that ideally, math, language arts, and science test scores improve enough to be “no more than 5 points below the district average,” or the average for comparable schools based on grade span and demographics.

If the school doesn’t meet that standard, it will be renewed by the board if it meets average growth benchmarks set by the state, or if it achieves “an annual increase in the proficiency rate” in each subject, “year over year.”

According to state data, 24% of students scored proficient or advanced in English Language Arts on the Pennsylvania state test in 2022-23, up from 19% the year before. In math, 10.1% of students scored proficient or advanced, up from 5 % in 2021-22. Its science scores are somewhat better.

The resolution also said that the school must stop its “gender based lottery” process for admitting its students. The school has separate boys’ and girls’ classrooms.

Southwest Leadership Academy must also prove that all teachers and aides dealing with special education students have the proper certification. The school must also hire a consultant to help recruit and onboard new board members and assure that they are properly trained in “financial oversight and governance.” It also specifies that all board members submit all required financial documents to guard against any potential conflicts of interest.

Additionally, the school is under a tight deadline to submit a “financial and internal controls plan” by Jan. 31.

Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools asked the board for more transparency and consistency in the charter authorization and renewal process.

In 2018, shortly after the city regained control of the district from the state, the newly installed Board of Education reversed the decision of the School Reform Commission to close Richard Allen Charter School for poor performance. Instead, the board gave it a renewal with many conditions. The school is still operating.

Larry Jones, the founder of Richard Allen, is a leader of the African American Charter School Coalition.

At Thursday’s meeting, representatives of the African American Charter School Coalition urged the board to impose a moratorium on closing any charters until the renewal and evaluation process is fixed.

In 2022, the board issued a notice of nonrenewal to Laboratory Charter School, which also has Black leadership, but several months later reversed itself and renewed the charter for five years.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania lawmakers ponder big changes to charter school funding

2024-01-24T14:17:15+00:00

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HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering significant changes to the way charter schools are funded as they undertake a monumental overhaul of public education mandated by a court ruling.

More than 160,000 Pennsylvania students are enrolled in brick-and-mortar and cyber charter schools, with the latter’s enrollment having ballooned in recent years.

Tuition for these students is almost entirely funded by the public school districts in which they live. In conversations with Spotlight PA, key lawmakers on both sides of the aisle acknowledged that this arrangement leads to financial losses for districts, which can’t reduce costs enough to offset charter tuition.

For years, attempts to overhaul the more than two-decade-old law that governs charters and their funding have repeatedly failed in Harrisburg.

But as lawmakers begin hashing out their legally mandated overhaul of the commonwealth’s school funding system, they’re also taking a serious look at the charter law.

Democratic- and Republican-authored reports, meant to kick-start the funding conversation, offer a glimpse at possible common ground.

They suggest giving public school districts reimbursements for costs associated with charters. Leaders in both chambers have also said it could be possible to change the way districts pay cyber charters for certain students’ tuition.

To make any changes to the way charter schools are funded, though, lawmakers will have to pick their way through a political minefield.

Status quo is based on district spending

The amount that traditional public school districts pay for students’ charter tuition is based on their own per-student spending, with some deductions (facilities expenses are held back from the total, for instance).

The Scranton School District, for example, spent $15,667 per student during the 2021-22 school year; charter tuition for any student without a disability who lives in that district was based on that number.

If a student has a disability, their tuition is built on that base rate for the district, plus a standard percentage of its spending for all disability services — regardless of the kind of disability the student has.

Public school districts and advocates have criticized these billing practices for years.

For one, the mechanism by which disabled students’ tuition is calculated uses an average that doesn’t take different kinds of disabilities, and their different costs, into account. Because districts’ payments for severe disabilities tend to inflate the total, charters can get more money than a particular student needs.

As state Rep. Pete Schweyer, D-Lehigh, recently told Spotlight PA, “A child with spinal bifida is vastly more expensive to educate than a child with some level of hearing loss.” Schweyer chairs the House Education Committee, which will play a key role in negotiating education overhauls, and he broadly supports changes to charter financing.

Lawmakers also face a challenge inherent to Pennsylvania’s funding structure for charters: When a student moves from a traditional public school to a charter, there is no corresponding level of savings.

Education circles commonly refer to this as a “stranded cost” — the gap between the savings a school can realize when a student leaves for a charter, and the cost it still bears to pay for charter tuition.

In a 2017 study that delved into the finances of six different Pennsylvania districts, the nonprofit Research for Action found that charter enrollment negatively affected traditional districts, and that impact deepened as more students left. While RFA found that these effects decreased over time, public schools never completely stopped losing money under the group’s model. The consequences were bigger in smaller districts.

What’s on the table for charter school changes?

Lawmakers on the Basic Education Funding Commission were tasked with coming up with new overall financing formulas for public education, which Democrats and Republicans unveiled in separate reports earlier this year. Both reports included proposals related to charter schools.

The reports pitched the return of reimbursement for at least some stranded costs associated with charters — an old idea. A previous state budget line item that provided a partial reimbursement was cut under former GOP Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration.

“If charter school reimbursement had remained part of the budget and flat funded since 2010/11, it could have offset districts’ need to pass these costs onto taxpayers by approximately $2.5 billion before adjusting for inflation,” the Democratic report said. “However, charter school costs have more than doubled in the past decade.”

The GOP report also noted stranded costs, though it focused specifically on costs associated with cyber charter schools. It offered two reimbursement options, both of which would calculate payments based on districts’ expenses for cyber charter tuition in particular.

Schweyer, the House Education Committee chair, noted that one reason there’s some bipartisan consensus on the issue is that it could be tied to lowering property taxes — a long-held priority for some Republicans.

“Property taxes make up the majority of districts’ budgets, and many administrators testified [during education hearings] that charter payments are a big reason why property taxes must be so high,” he said during his conversation with Spotlight PA.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the union that represents around 180,000 public school workers, has called for $500 million annually to be devoted to the reimbursement line item. While neither the Democratic nor Republican report made a specific financial commitment, PSEA spokesperson Chris Lilienthal said it’s “promising” that both reports called for the funding to be restored.

The Democratic report also briefly mentions changing the way districts pay charters for disabled students’ tuition. Schweyer said there’s some bipartisan agreement on creating a tiered system in which payments would be tied to a disability’s severity and associated expenses.

Sen. David Argall, R-Schuylkill, who chairs the GOP-controlled upper chamber’s Education Committee, concurred that this tiered system could be on the table, at least when it comes to cyber charters.

“The devil will be in the details, but yes,” he said of the concept.

He also confirmed that some Republicans support bringing back the charter school reimbursement. Because lawmakers are already broadly prepared to make major education investments to satisfy the terms of the landmark 2023 school funding court decision, it’s one of the less politically tricky charter school changes on the table.

“No one’s ox gets gored on that front,” Argall said. “I think we understand that it’s a cost that we need to help school districts.”

A deep well of political challenges

Lawmakers are entering talks on charter school policy with the understanding that areas of consensus are limited.

“We haven’t successfully touched this issue in years,” Argall said. “If we can get a 10% agreement, let’s do 10%, and then we’ll get the other 90%.”

Members largely consider cyber charter schools to lie within that 10%.

Enrollment in these online-only schools has ballooned since the pandemic, making them a particular focus for legislators — especially because despite their lower facilities costs, they’re funded through the same formula that brick-and-mortar charters are.

For instance, some lawmakers, particularly in the GOP, have said they’re open to a tier system for disabled students’ tuition in cyber charters but not necessarily in brick-and-mortar charters. The latter schools are generally larger and more established.

Schweyer, the Democrat, said he favors applying the tiers more broadly, but that “all of this is a hard sell.”

“Sometimes we’ve just got to get as far as we can and measure results before we take a second bite of the apple,” he said.

Charter advocates have agreed to take part in these funding formula discussions, but shy away from any policy change that would lead to a lower tuition share.

Anne Clark, who heads the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said she agrees that the current charter law “doesn’t serve anyone well.” But she thinks cyber charter schools are being used as a scapegoat because “it’s an easy attack,” and said her fundamental position is that charters should get the same share of funding as any traditional public school.

“What I would like to see is a discussion about what it takes to fund students well,” she said.

Inextricable from any conversation about charter school policy is the political and financial pressure it puts on lawmakers. Public school unions exert significant influence on lawmakers via campaign donations, as do charter advocates, particularly ones tied to large, well-established brick-and-mortar schools.

For instance, Vahan Gureghian, who heads Chester-based for-profit charter operator CSMI, doled out nearly $800,000 in the 2022 election season alone. The money primarily went to top legislative Republicans, including state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (she got $125,000 that cycle) and state House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (he received $50,000). Gureghian also gave prodigiously to legislative Republican campaign committees.

Gureghian isn’t the only big charter operator who gives hundreds of thousands to politicians, and the donations are not dictated by party alone. Philadelphia-area Democrats in particular have long had close ties with charter school operators. And though the party has in recent years cut down on the cash it takes from these groups, charter boosters and their allies still have influence.

Education Opportunity PAC, a group focused broadly on school choice — which includes championing state support for private and parochial schools along with charters — gave to a long list of Democrats in 2022. Big names include House Majority Leader Matt Bradford ($15,000 in 2023), Senate Appropriations Minority Chair Vincent Hughes ($30,000 in 2022), and longtime Sen. Anthony Williams (another $30,000 in 2022). Gov. Josh Shapiro also took $10,000 from the committee in 2022.

Education Opportunity gets a significant portion of its funding from other PACs that are funded almost entirely by billionaire Jeffrey Yass, Pennsylvania’s single biggest school choice donor. In 2022, nearly 40% of the PAC’s funds for the cycle came from Yass’ PAC, Students First.

Public sector teachers’ unions like PSEA, meanwhile, concentrate most of their spending on supporting Democrats. Legislative leaders are the biggest beneficiaries of that money — House Speaker Joanna McClinton received $123,500 in the 2022 cycle, Bradford got $90,500, and Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign got the lion’s share of the union’s spending, with $775,000.

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Report finds no intentional bias by Philly against Black-led charter schools

2023-10-06T21:09:51+00:00

Philadelphia district leadership never deliberately discriminated against Black-led charter schools in decisions relating to authorizing, expanding, and closing the independently managed, publicly funded schools, according to a report released Friday.

At the same time, the law firm Ballard Spahr concluded in its 132-page report that what it considered a problematic authorizing process could lead to worries about bias. It called the rate of closure of Black-led charter schools “concerning” and said complaints from charter leaders interviewed “raised issues that corroborated systemic reasons” that could explain the perception.

Based on the firm’s review, “Black-led charter schools have been subject to nonrenewal proceedings and/or closure actions in greater numbers than their peers.”

The board commissioned the investigation two years ago after allegations of racial bias from the African American Charter Schools Coalition, which represents 17 of 21 Black-led charter schools. It was conducted pro bono by Ballard Spahr, with a data analysis by the Center for Urban and Racial Equity at a cost to the district of $55,000.

“The investigation has not revealed any evidence of intentional [sic], overt racially discriminatory acts by any [School Reform Commissioner], Board of Education member, or [Charter Schools Office] employee against a charter leader,” the report said.

But the charter coalition said in a statement that the report actually backs up its claims of discrimination.

“Our limited review of the document substantiates our assertions that the charter renewal process is flawed and broken — contrary to the Philadelphia Board of Education’s assertions. What we’ve learned thus far is that the report, coupled with the data initially presented by our organization related to disparate outcomes for Black operated schools, shows that the public charter school authorization process needs to be completely overhauled.”

The report itself said that “not all the charter leaders interviewed alleged intentional discrimination,” but some “opined that the charter authorizing system suffered from systemic bias and other flaws.”

Board of Education President Reginald Streater said in an interview that board members are “pleased, not a happy pleased, but pleased [that] the investigation has not revealed any evidence of intentional or overt racially discriminatory acts by the board or charter office against any charter leader,” and that there is “no finding that any charter closure was done improperly.”

The investigation found that district leaders themselves became concerned about this issue as early as 2017, but that there is no “evidence that the district took meaningful steps to address or investigate… Nor did the district otherwise characterize the matter as one of urgent concern.” It did not focus on the issue until the Black charter coalition raised it, the report said.

The report recommends that district leaders petition the state to revise how charters are authorized. Currently, under state law, charters are authorized by the host district, which creates an inherent conflict of interest. In other states, universities and other entities can establish charters. Pennsylvania’s charter school law has not been meaningfully amended since 1997.

Investigators also recommend that the district split its charter support operation from its charter evaluation function, also as a way to minimize any potential conflict. Now, both are done by the Charter Schools Office.

It also says that the charter renewal process should be more transparent, with more opportunities for public input. It suggests the district do a periodic “equity audit” of its charter authorizing and renewal practices — looking at such factors as staff diversity, anti-bias and racial training for employees, and communication with stakeholders.

And while not finding intentional acts of discrimination on their part, the report recommends that Board of Education members undergo anti-bias training.

The charter coalition’s response also cited the inherent conflict of interest in how charters are authorized in the Commonwealth and said it doubts the district’s ability “to act in good faith with any remediation processes.” The statement said coalition leaders will have a more detailed response to the report once they have reviewed it in its entirety.

From 2010 to 2021, the period covered by the report, the district governing body — either the state-dominated School Reform Commission, or the Board of Education, which resumed control of the district in 2018 — voted not to renew or to revoke the charters of 13 schools, eight of which were Black-led. (It noted that the district in June 2023 voted not to renew Southwest Leadership Academy Charter, another Black-led charter.)

A Black-led charter is defined as one that has a Black founder, board, and current leader, said Lawrence Jones, who was a founder of Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School. Those charters that may currently have Black leadership, but were not founded by African Americans and focused on educating Black children, are not part of the coalition, he said.

Jones and other Black charter leaders met with Streater Friday to go over the report. In an interview after that meeting, Jones questioned the finding that there was no intentional bias. “We want to dig into what the report shows,” he said. (His school, which opened in 2001, was recommended for nonrenewal in 2018 but has not been closed.)

The investigators said that the issues around this are myriad and complex. Some charters, like Walter D. Palmer Leadership Academy, which was founded in 2000 and closed in 2014 due to poor test scores and financial problems, were established by known or legendary Black leaders in the city. Several of the closed charters specifically promised African-centered education, including Wakisha (closed in 2014), Khepera (closed in 2019), and Imani Education Circle (closed in 2016).

Others, like Bluford and Daroff, were former district schools turned over to Black-run charter management organizations. Both these West Philadelphia elementary schools were long operated by Universal Companies, founded by music entrepreneur Kenny Gamble. But after a series of internal problems that led to the schools’ boards breaking the relationship with Universal, Bluford returned to district control this year and Daroff closed entirely.

Streater noted that in some of the cases of charter revocation, the decision was upheld by the state-run Charter Appeals Board or by court decision, bolstering the argument that the votes to revoke their charters were justified and not the result of bias.

At the same time, he said there is room for the district leadership to review its practices around charter evaluation, renewal, and closure.

“The board is looking forward to…continuing the evolution of charter practices in Philadelphia” that will maintain and increase “quality seats and a student-centered approach to education.”

There are now 82 charter schools in Philadelphia, which educate about 65,000 students, or more than a third of those who attend publicly funded schools. Proportionally, it is among the largest charter sectors in any big city.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

How charter schools work in Philadelphia, and why they’re controversial

2023-10-02T18:04:20+00:00

The issue of charter schools is one of the biggest ongoing debates in Philadelphia and the education landscape nationwide.

On the rise across the U.S. since the 1990s, charters have added fuel to the question of how to allocate school funding and whether parents should have more options for where to send their children.

The influx of charters, which now constitute about a quarter of schools managed by the School District of Philadelphia, has complicated the decision-making process for parents choosing between the public neighborhood schools nearby, magnet public schools with citywide admissions, and tuition-based private schools.

Local policymakers have long sparred over how many charter schools should operate in the district, how oversight of their administration should work, and how they should be funded relative to public schools. The Philadelphia Board of Education has not approved a new charter since 2018, the year it regained authority over the district from the state, which had temporarily taken control of Philly schools.

In partnership with The Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting and Chalkbeat Philadelphia, Billy Penn is launching a series examining how charter schools are impacting educational disparities in Philadelphia. We’ll explore how charters are managed, how they stack up against the city’s public schools, how equitable their admissions are, the politics behind their funding, and what the experience of teaching at a charter is like, among other topics.

To kick off, we’ll address 10 key questions about charters and how they differ from other school models.

What are charter schools?

Charter schools are best understood as a hybrid between public and private schools. They receive a good amount of government funding and are held to some of the same operational standards as public schools, but are managed privately. In Pennsylvania, they’re managed by nonprofits.

While exempt from a lot of the Pennsylvania School Code, charters must maintain the same employee criminal history checks, open meetings, health and safety regulations, special education programs, civil rights, and open records as public schools do. Charter schools also have to follow the same statewide assessment system, including administering the PSSAs and the Keystone exams.

Charters must offer core courses (think math, science, and English) that are aligned with state and federal standards, but can design their own curriculums. Charters are also allowed to offer their own electives and academic programs or “tracks,” such as Spanish immersion programs or programming around the arts or sciences.

Of the Philly School District’s nearly 200,000 students for the 2022-23 academic year, about 58% were enrolled in public schools, 33% in charters, 7% in cyber charter schools, and the remainder in alternative schools.

How are charter schools funded?

Charter schools are different from private schools, which receive no public funding and charge each student tuition.

In Pennsylvania, local school districts follow a state formula to send charters a per-student payment from their taxpayer-funded budget. Exactly how much depends on each district’s per-student expense, so it varies widely across the commonwealth.

For non-special education students, the per-student amount allocated to charters in the 2023-24 academic year ranged from about $8,600 in Luzerne County to over $26,500 in Bucks County. Philadelphia falls on the lower side of the scale at about $11,500 per non-special ed student.

The special education expenditure is much higher, usually at least double the per-student amount. In Philadelphia, the district sends charters more than $36,000 per special education student enrolled.

How do charters get started?

To open in Pennsylvania, a nonprofit must first apply to and obtain a charter from its local school board that outlines a set of requirements and standards for the school to operate. (Cyber charter schools obtain their charters directly from the state.) The board must hold at least one public hearing on the application.

If a charter school is rejected during the process, the nonprofit behind it can revise and resubmit the application locally or appeal the decision to a state board composed of the Pennsylvania secretary of education and six members appointed by the governor.

Charters must be renewed by the school district at least once every five years. The local school board can choose to renew the charter for just one year if it has questions about the school’s performance, with the idea that it will use the additional year of academic data to determine whether to renew the charter for longer.

What are the arguments in favor of charters?

Since their inception in Minnesota in 1991 and their arrival in Philadelphia in 1997, charter schools have been a hotly debated topic.

Proponents argue that they improve student success in the long term. They often believe the public school system in place doesn’t serve all students well for various reasons, ranging from systemic inefficiencies to intrinsic biases. Those in favor of charters say their existence creates needed competition between schools, increasing the overall quality of education by forcing schools to innovate in curriculum and approach.

Some charter schools perform exceptionally well; some do not. In 2023, 21 of U.S. News and World Report’s top 100 high schools were charters (none is in Pennsylvania). The list ranks schools based on performance on standardized tests, college preparation, and graduation rates, among other factors.

What are the arguments against?

Opponents of charters believe they harm public schools by funneling money away from an already underfunded public school system to privately administered institutions with less oversight than the district at large.

Past charter school CEOs and other administrators in Philadelphia and elsewhere have been accused of mismanaging or even embezzling millions of dollars in funding.

Opponents also argue that charter admissions can be inequitable due to bias or bad management, or too selective based on the sensitive information an applicant may have to give when applying. For example, in 2012, Philadelphia’s overseer of charters found 18 schools imposed “significant barriers to entry,” with one school requesting a typed book report and proof of citizenship.

A significant proportion of charter schools don’t survive. Nationwide, more than 25% of charters close within five years, and 40% close within 10 years of opening, according to a 2020 analysis by public school advocacy group the Network for Public Education.

Between 2013 and 2020, Philadelphia saw 16 charter schools close, according to the school district. The district currently has 87 charters in operation, versus 217 district-run public schools.

How do charter schools perform versus public schools?

On average across the country, there were “no measurable differences” found between reading or math scores at either the fourth grade or eigth grade level, according to a 2017 U.S. Dept. of Education report.

In Philadelphia recently, there were minimal differences between the lowest state test scores for charters and public schools. In science, about 33% of charter school students scored “below basic” compared to 34% in public schools, according to an analysis of 2022 PSSA data for schools in the district.

In English, about 25% of charter school students scored below basic versus 30% for traditional public schools. Math scores were similar, with roughly 65% of students in both charter and traditional public schools scoring below basic.

Philly charter schools had an average 85% four-year graduation rate in 2021, while traditional public schools had a 75% average graduation rate, according to an analysis of district data.

How do students get into charters?

Charter schools, like all other schools, are legally not allowed to discriminate against race, religion, gender, and other forms of identity. But while any student can enroll in a charter, if more students apply than the school can teach, students are put into a lottery system.

These charter school lotteries are not overseen by the district and have at times faced criticism of discrimination.

Last spring, for example, a top administrator at Philadelphia’s top-rated Franklin Towne Charter School alleged that the lottery was manipulated to keep certain students from being enrolled and that most of the students denied were from predominantly Black ZIP codes. The school district investigated and found enough evidence to recommend the charter be revoked. The Philadelphia School Board voted in August to send Franklin Towne official notice of this, kicking off a process that could take years to resolve.

Who teaches in charter schools?

Pennsylvania law says at least 75% of charter school professional staff must hold appropriate licenses and certification.

Principals, vice principals, or assistant principals at charters must hold administrative certificates. Special education teachers, school nurses, school psychologists, speech and language pathologists, and any positions defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, must also hold appropriate and valid certifications.

Unlike at public schools in Philadelphia, regular teachers at charter schools are not required to be certified.

Charter school teachers can be a part of a union. The Alliance for Charter School Employees in Philly, organized by the PA-AFT, allows individual employees of charter schools to join its union even if other members of the school choose not to.

What are Philadelphia Renaissance Schools?

Back in 2010, Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman launched a “Renaissance Schools Initiative” aimed at improving the lowest-performing public schools by turning them over to charter nonprofits.

These schools became charter schools with one difference: Instead of open enrollment, they are required to continue to serve students in their “catchment areas,” or neighborhoods.

At first, seven district schools were turned over to charter providers, and more were converted under Superintendent William Hite. But since their inception, four of these schools have either closed or been returned to the district as public schools. In the 2023-24 academic year, there were 18 Renaissance charters in operation.

Where does Cherelle Parker stand on charters?

Cherelle Parker, the Democratic nominee for Philadelphia mayor who is heavily favored to win the race to succeed Jim Kenney in November, has been guarded in her comments on the district’s current charter school system. (Philly mayors do not have direct oversight over schools, but do appoint school board members.)

Parker has said she supports “good seats” no matter what kind of school they’re in, “but we can’t get there if there is a battle between charters and traditional public schools,” she told Chalkbeat last spring.

To reduce the criticism that charters suck funding out of the public school system, Parker said she would advocate for state reimbursement to districts for any student that switches from public to charter. This used to exist, but was rolled back in 2011.

“Reinstating this will grow the pot of funds and allow for more opportunity for Philadelphia’s students no matter what type of school they attend,” Parker said.

Aspira to repay Philadelphia district roughly $3.5 million to settle charter enrollment dispute

2023-09-22T14:26:52+00:00

A leading community development organization that runs two charter schools will repay the Philadelphia school district more than $3.5 million, according to a settlement approved Thursday by the Board of Education

The payment from Aspira, Inc., ends a yearslong legal dispute between the district and Aspira over whether the district can be required to pay charters for students that exceed their agreed-upon enrollment caps. Antonio Pantoja Charter School and Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School both enrolled more students than they had been authorized to for several years between 2016 and 2021 — when they did not have active charter agreements with the district.

In addition, Aspira has agreed to withdraw its application to open two new charter schools in the city, one a K-8 and one a high school. It also agreed not to file a new application to open a K-8 school for five years, but can reapply as early next year to open a new high school.

This is the latest chapter in Aspira’s turbulent history of running charters in the district. Several years ago, the organization had to relinquish charters for two formerly district schools it ran. The schools, Olney High and Stetson Middle School, are now back under district control.

De Hostos and Pantoja, both K-8 schools, have separate boards of trustees, but both are operated by Aspira. The resolution says that de Hostos, which is on North Second Street and enrolls 510 students, will repay the school district $3,163,986 in installments over five years. Pantoja, which is in Kensington and enrolls 700 students, will repay $371,537, also over a five-year period.

It is unclear whether these repayments represent the full amount under dispute or a compromise.

As part of the agreement, both schools have new charters through 2028, with predetermined enrollment ceilings that they signed last week, Peng Chao, head of the district’s charter school office, said in an interview.

The board’s vote on the settlement was 8-1, with Lisa Salley voting no. Calls to Aspira’s office asking for comment were not returned. Aspira Executive Director Alfredo Calderon could not be reached for comment.

Chao did not make a presentation at the meeting explaining the resolution that included the settlement. No board members asked questions or commented on the resolution before voting on it. And no one from Aspira came to speak during the meeting’s public comment period. Board members didn’t respond when Lisa Haver, co-founder of the advocacy group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, asked for a fuller explanation of the resolution.

According to an explanation provided by the Board of Education in its meeting materials, the disagreement centers on the 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years “regarding the number of students permitted to be enrolled under the Hostos Charter and the Pantoja Charter, respectively.”

De Hostos has been in operation since 1998 and its charter was renewed in 2003, 2008 and 2013. Pantoja opened in 2008 and its charter was renewed in 2013. Both their charters expired, and they refused to sign charter renewal agreements in 2018. Under Pennsylvania’s charter school law, schools can continue operating without an active charter.

During the dispute over enrollment, Aspira and the boards of both schools appealed to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, arguing that the district should give them additional funds for the students above their caps. The agency initially sided with the charters, even though the district “filed multiple objections” and demands for hearings, which led to the negotiations that resulted in this settlement.

As part of the settlement, Pantoja and de Hostos have also agreed to withdraw from a lawsuit now in Commonwealth Court brought by several charter schools over whether the district is paying them the proper amount. The district disputes the way charters account for federal aid, some grant funds, and prekindergarten expenses, saying these practices result in overpayments to them.

Other Philadelphia charter schools still involved in that lawsuit include Esperanza Charter High School and two cyber charters.

Aspira is also withdrawing its applications to open two new charter schools: Aspira Bilingual College and Career Preparatory Academy and Aspira Dr. Ricardo E. Alegria Preparatory Charter School. It will also end any legal appeals related to enrollment at de Hostos and Pantoja that are still pending.

Aspira proposed Alegria as another K-8 school — which the group said would eventually enroll 1,000 students — and the Bilingual College and Career Preparatory Academy as a 1,200-student high school. Aspira agreed not to file another K-8 charter application for five years, but could propose another high school as early as next year.

According to their academic evaluations, based on test scores and other factors, Pantoja and de Hostos perform comparably to — if not slightly better than — district schools.

In 2017, Aspira was forced to surrender the charters for Olney High School and Stetson Middle School. These were formerly district schools ceded to charter organizations in 2011 under the Renaissance school turnaround initiative.

But the School Reform Commission, which then governed the district, cited myriad financial and organizational flaws with how the schools were run. It also determined that Aspira had used state and local per-pupil subsidies to guarantee a $15 million loan to Aspira Community Enterprises, Inc., which had acquired the former Cardinal Dougherty High School building.

At Thursday’s meeting, the board also voted to extend the charters for five years of two schools run by KIPP — KIPP DuBois and KIPP North Philadelphia.

The vote was 8-1, with Salley again the lone vote in opposition. Board member Chau Wing Lam, who voted in favor of extending the two KIPP charters, said that while the academic performance at the schools are “disappointing,” she noted that the decision is based on incomplete information, namely the absence of testing during 2020 and 2021.

The last new charter school approved to operate in the city was Hebrew Public in 2018, when the state controlled the district. Since resuming control of the district that same year, the school board has not approved any new charter schools.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philadelphia district seeks to revoke Franklin Towne’s charter over discrimination allegations

2023-08-14T21:24:03+00:00

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A highly ranked Philadelphia charter school is in danger of losing its charter following allegations of discrimination within their admissions process.

The Philadelphia School District is recommending the city’s Board of Education begin the process to revoke Franklin Towne Charter High School’s charter, citing evidence that the school’s lottery admissions process was allegedly “influenced” by “nonrandom factors” for several years, according to a memo released Monday.

The school, in the Bridesburg neighborhood, is accused of systematically excluding students from certain city ZIP codes where Black families are in the majority.

According to the memo to the board authored by Peng Chao, the district Acting Chief of Charter Schools, the district charter school office “received initial outreach” from the chief academic officer at Franklin Towne in April alleging that the school “implemented discriminatory lottery practices.”

The district conducted an analysis that revealed, for the 2020-21 through the 2023-24 school years, the racial composition of the admitted students versus those who applied “raises questions about the selection process and suggests potential factors influencing the acceptance outcomes,” Chao wrote in the memo.

In an email statement on Monday, Franklin Towne CEO Brianna O’Donnell said her office “ordered an investigation through an impartial reputable outside agency” to look into the allegations when she took over the position in February. “That investigation is still under way,” the statement said.

In February, months before the discrimination allegations surfaced, Joseph Venditti, Franklin Towne’s CEO since 2004, resigned.

The allegations were first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer in May and Chao told reporters on Monday his office would provide evidence supporting the revocation recommendation at the school board meeting on Thursday.

“Our families, and our students need to have faith that the charter schools in our city are implementing fair and open enrollment processes,” Chao said Monday. “This is also about making sure that the adults who have the privilege of operating and governing this charter school directly are also held accountable for what has occurred over the course of time.”

Chao noted Franklin Towne “is not a new school,” as it opened in 2000, and therefore “the individuals in charge of the school…need to be held accountable.”

The school’s student demographics haven’t reflected those of the wider city in previous years. According to its 2014 application for a National Blue Ribbon Award, which the school won, Franklin Towne’s student demographics were 2% Asian, 8% Black/African American, 14% Hispanic, and 76% white in a city where the population was 42% Black and 36% white at the time.

According to the district’s charter school office website, a charter school operating in Philadelphia “must be accessible to all students within their district” and “must enroll and support all students, including those with special needs and limited English proficiency.”

The high school serves 1,300 students in grades nine through 12 and is currently operating under a charter agreement effective July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2024, according to the district memo.

In a statement on the Franklin Towne website, O’Donnell said the school’s leadership was “blindsided” by the district’s decision to initiate the charter revocation process.

“The data used to prepare our renewal application over the summer gave us no reason to believe the school is in any violation that would prohibit our charter from being renewed,” the statement read, cautioning that charter revocation processes “often take years to complete,” hinting at future action: “Especially if appeals are involved.”

The charter office’s investigation revealed a section of the school’s admission data, that included a yellow highlighted note labeled, “Do not take” with a list of 11 students as well as a note labeled, “Not in good standing” with another list of 11 students.

The investigation also highlighted five majority-Black city ZIP codes where, over the course of four school years, fewer than 10 students were accepted to Franklin Towne despite 88 students applying.

The charter school office does not regularly complete admissions analyses like this one, Chao said, but he did not rule out expanding this process to other charters operating in the city.

“We certainly hope that the outcomes here that we’ve seen in the analysis are unique to this scenario…in terms of whether or not this type of evaluation gets expanded into other scenarios, that’s something that we’re looking into,” Chao said.

If the board votes in favor of revoking the school’s charter on Thursday, their action would “kick off a hearing process,” Chao said.

Any hearing officer assigned would then work with the board to consider whether or not to actually revoke the school’s charter “at some point in the future.” After that, a potential appeals process could begin depending on the outcome, Chao said.

O’Donnell said in her email statement “given the voluminous work,” an investigation of this type requires, “we are puzzled as to how the Charter Schools Office could conclude in far less time than a reputable outside agency needs to complete its investigation.”

As to whether the current admission process took place under Venditti or continued after O’Donnell became CEO, Chao said, “it’s our understanding” that Venditti “was still in place for at least part of it,” but that there wasn’t “one set point in time at which there was a handoff” to O’Donnell.

“Acceptance processes and enrollment processes tend to span the course of multiple months from the winter through basically now and families are finalizing their schools for the new year,” Chao said.

Still, O’Donnell said in her statement on the school website, “regardless of how the [board] votes on Thursday, we will continue to educate students, enroll new students, and hire new staff.”

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

As Philadelphia mulls year-round schooling, a charter school network shows what it can look like

2023-08-07T11:30:00+00:00

Mikayla Woody and Aniyah Brown-Johnson are spending part of their summer doing things that might make their friends jealous: crafting a social media strategy and setting up a TikTok account.

A few hallways over, other kids are studying African dance, growing basil and lavender, and constructing London’s Big Ben clock out of clay.

These students are not at summer camp, or stuck in a cubicle completing a marketing internship. It’s all part of their year-round school program at Philadelphia’s Belmont Charter School.

Belmont’s model might soon attract more attention. Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker — the city’s Democratic nominee for mayor and therefore the favorite to assume the office next year — has made year-round schooling part of her education platform. And Superintendent Tony Watlington included a pilot for year-round school in his five-year-plan adopted by the district in June. They’ve said it would be a worthwhile idea to explore in response to concerns about the pandemic and student safety.

But they have yet to release further details about their vision. And there are a host of questions and potential challenges linked to whether district schools have the funding, staffing, and desire from teachers and parents to adapt something like Belmont’s approach to more than 113,000 students in traditional district classrooms.

So parents and students have been left to wonder: Would year-round schooling mean academics for 12 months? Shorter and more frequent breaks around holidays? Or something akin to an educational camp during the traditional summer recess?

Officials at Belmont Charter Network schools in West Philadelphia say their long-running summer extension program could be an option for policymakers to consider. But making it work has required Belmont to be flexible and listen to parents.

A young Belmont student during a summer activity. Belmont students say they want a year-round program that puts a focus on outdoor projects, field trips, and team-building activities.

Keeping school buildings open to ‘expand community’

Belmont charter schools educate over 1,200 students in pre-K-12 across three campuses, and their summer programming adds about seven weeks to the traditional 180-day school year.

Their buildings are open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday during July and August, as well as the latter part of June; the school district’s last day for students was June 13.

This year, Belmont’s school buildings were closed for as few as four business days between the last day of the 2022-23 school year and the start of summer programming. But some campuses closed for six days. When it comes to putting breaks on the calendar for a year-round schedule, Belmont prioritizes flexibility.

Teachers working in summer learning programs were given a few weeks off between the end of the regular academic year and the start of summer programming. During those breaks for teachers, the charter network ran more camp activities and field trips. Those teachers will also get two weeks off before they go back to Belmont in the fall.

Belmont’s July and August programs offer 255 students the chance to participate in a combination of camp activities like swimming, sports, and crafts. There are also lessons on everything from Greek mythology and undersea biology to Egyptian mummies and European currency exchanges.

Though small, the summer programs are highly individualized, in terms of activities as well as scheduling. Younger children participate in camp-related activities during the day, while older students have more opportunities for work-study programs, job training, and classroom learning in small groups.

The network also offers paid internships for high school students, flexible schedules for those with jobs, field trips, and college tours. And it has community service requirements.

The Philadelphia school district also offers free academic programs during the summer, including special education programs, workforce training, and a “full day school-meets-camp experience,” at locations across the city. But not every district school building is open for these programs.

Beth Dyson, chief of staff for the charter network, said she thinks Belmont’s programming has been responsive to parents, students, and teachers. Belmont’s summer extension program has been running for nearly two decades, Dyson said, though it’s mostly “flown under the radar.”

Morgan Schrankel, a reading specialist at Belmont, put together the summer lessons on foreign currency exchanges and is leading arts activities for students.

She said working during the summer has allowed her to “expand her community” at Belmont by working with new students. It’s also given her an outlet to experiment with lesson plans.

“When I’m following a curriculum, when I’m worried about testing, when I’m doing all those things, I kind of have to do things one way. But this allows me to do things I’m passionate about,” she said.

The opportunities outside regular coursework at Belmont during the warmer months are also crucial. Woody said her summer internship has helped build her resume and prepared for life outside of and after high school.

“You’re actually gonna take these skills and apply [them] to something,” Woody said. “Build references, build your resume, and different things too because that can be hard. We don’t get a lot of chances. So it’s just like, work with what you’ve got, and know what’s being provided to you.”

Dyson said Belmont surveys parents and students continuously to learn about what’s working and what’s not.

For example, families reported wanting more child-care coverage for older students earlier in the summer and for young children later in the summer.

As a result, Belmont staggered starting dates for their middle school and high school programs and extended their early education summer programs further into August to accommodate family needs.

Year-round school is far from a panacea

When they’ve discussed year-round schooling, Parker and Watlington have said it’s one way to address learning disparities, provide child care for working parents, and give kids places to go during the summer.

For example, they’ve touted it as a way to help students who are struggling academically after COVID’s disruptions. Lagging state test scores have underscored worries about their progress and the district’s ability to meet its long-term goals.

Just 19% of all Belmont students scored proficient or advanced on state English language arts exams for the 2021-22 school year, an 11 point decrease from the previous year, and 4% did so in math. Belmont’s scores are lower than the traditional district schools’ results during the same time period.

There are other acute concerns beyond academics that Belmont tries to address. In recent years, people under the age of 18 have made up a growing number of gunshot victims —as well as perpetrators — in the city. Simultaneously, school climate ratings in the district have dipped. There are also city curfews and age restrictions limiting where young people can gather, and these can feel especially constraining in the summer.

That desire for students to feel “cared for and appreciated,” Dyson said, and that they feel like they’re making good use of their time, are big factors in how Belmont’s leaders have designed the year-round schooling program.

“The number one goal is for our kids to have a safe, consistent place to be,” said Jane Lawson, Belmont’s managing director of out of school time.

The first Belmont charter school started in 2002 following the state’s takeover of the district as the city’s first “turnaround school” in what was originally a district-run school. The network has grown to include five schools across three locations in Philadelphia.

Belmont has its critics. There’s been resistance to its attempts to grow over the years. And just before the pandemic, it attracted controversy regarding the sale of its district-owned building.

Dyson said Belmont has not been contacted by the Parker campaign or anyone from the school district to discuss their summer programming and how it fits into the network’s approach to year-round school. A spokesperson for the Parker campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Belmont students spend the summer participating in a combination of camp activities like swimming, sports, and crafts, in addition to academics.

Getting funding, avoiding teacher burnout are key

Then there are hurdles related to dollars, cents, and staffing.

The pilot in the district’s five-year plan doesn’t include a cost or other details about potential year-round programming. Watlington has admitted the district lacks the funding to accomplish all of the goals in his strategic plan as the district faces long-term fiscal worries.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union hasn’t commented on any year-round school proposal yet. But in order to make such a big shift, the district and the union would have to renegotiate the district’s teacher contract, which expires in August 2024. Such talks could be daunting.

A related issue: teacher burnout and turnover, which has become a national crisis. Philadelphia has faced significant staff turnover recently, and Pennsylvania as a whole faces a teacher shortage.

That was the backdrop for a simple question Woody had for Philadelphia education leaders: “Are y’all gonna be paying teachers more?”

She added that, in her experience, teachers are already “worn out” from expectations during the regular school year, and many may not be eager to keep working during the summer.

At the same time, to Dyson’s surprise, she said Belmont hasn’t really experienced challenges finding some regular classroom teachers willing to sign on for summer programming.

That also provides continuity for students, Dyson said, even if they work with teachers who aren’t their regular classroom teachers, because seeing someone familiar in the hallways helps students with feelings of anxiety about the next school year.

Tara Quinn, a former district teacher who is in her fifth year teaching at Belmont, said having sufficient break time for teacher “rejuvenation” is non-negotiable, something Woody and Brown-Johnson said is also necessary for students.

Without that time off, Quinn said, she would have seriously considered not teaching during the summer: “I need some kind of break.”

Then there’s the financial incentive. Quinn said having the opportunity to earn extra money during the summer was also a big motivator — she has a son in college and the extra income has been helpful.

Woody and Brown-Johnson said if they could advise Watlington and Parker, they would encourage the city to set up a year-round program that puts a focus on outdoor projects, field trips, and team-building activities for students.

Woody said the priority should be “something inspirational, educational, and fun. You don’t want to have busy work and boring work.”

Internships, work-study programs, or other job-related activities are also a must, they said.

But Brown-Johnson’s advice about the nuts and bolts of a good year-round program comes with a general caveat: She encouraged policymakers to think about making year-round school optional, not a mandatory one-size-fits-all solution.

Many students might not adjust well to being in classrooms year-round, she said. Rather, “everybody should have a say” in what their school’s program should look like.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Philly board of education votes again to deny three charter renewals

2023-01-27T23:03:23+00:00

The Philadelphia Board of Education Thursday voted for a second time to deny renewal to three charter schools — including one that has been operating for 20 years and enrolls 1,800 students — citing concerns about potential conflicts of interest regarding their legal representation and management practices.

The nine-member board had voted nearly unanimously at its October meeting not to renew the charters of the three schools — First Philadelphia Prep Charter, Tacony Academy Charter, and Charter School for the Arts and Sciences at HR Edmunds — but made no comments at the time as to their reasons.

At Thursday’s meeting, the newly elected board president Reginald Streater made a lengthy statement outlining his objections, saying he had received feedback on the October meeting “from some members of the public, including from representatives of the impacted charter schools, suggesting I wasn’t clear. Tonight I want to elaborate.”

He didn’t say why a repeat vote was necessary, other than that his comments should be addressed to items that were on the agenda of that meeting.

“When charter schools and their charter management companies have overlapping board members or have the same legal counsel, I can’t help but question whether management fees, services, and termination provisions in these management agreements can be negotiated at arm’s length,” Streater said. “Ultimately, how are public funds being spent and what impact does this have on the educational services provided to students? Are adequate protections in place?”

Other board members didn’t speak, but the vote to deny the renewals was 7-1, with only Cecelia Thompson indicating she favored renewal. Julia Danzy was absent.

At the board’s October meeting, the votes against renewing First Philadelphia and Tacony were unanimous; the vote against renewing Edmunds was 8-1.

First Philadelphia and Tacony are managed by the charter management organization American Paradigm. Edmunds, a former district-run school converted to a charter under the Renaissance Schools initiative, is run by String Theory.

Although Streater didn’t name the firm, the law firm Sand and Saidel represents both the boards and the management companies at the three schools. All three schools also get financial services from the consulting firm Santilli & Thomson, which works closely with Sand and Saidel.

“I become concerned when I perceive charter schools’ losing autonomy to their charter management companies,” Streater said in his statement at the board meeting.

Lawyer: Charters ‘violated no law’

Sand and Saidel managing partner Daniel Saidel said in an interview with Chalkbeat that neither he nor the charter schools have violated any law or ethical principle and defended the arrangement as saving the schools money that can be applied to the children’s education.

In addition, he said, the schools signed a charter agreement given to them by the district, which subsequently sought to impose conditions.

“There’s no substance or evidence or findings of fact to show that somehow these kinds of relationships are nonviable” he said, or “illegal, immoral or unethical … Nothing was said that we did something wrong.” The denial was based on “opinion, not facts,” he said.

He pointed out that the charter schools, which are all in the northeast section of the city, can continue to operate under an expired charter.

The charter office had proposed that First Philadelphia and Tacony Academy be renewed for five years with conditions, and Edmunds for one. None of the schools fully meets academic standards set by the district, according to their most recent charter evaluations.

The summary of the charter agreements for all three schools, released as part of the meeting’s agenda before the vote, required “the submission of a conflict of interest policy that is in compliance with the Nonprofit Law and the Ethics Act and the submission [of] conflict waivers if legal counsel for the Charter School also represents the management organization for the Charter School.”

The charter office recommended First Philadelphia for a five-year renewal with conditions including the more explicit conflict of interest policy, clarity around student rights regarding expulsion, and the conduct of its admissions lottery. The K-12 school was founded in 2002 and has 1,800 students, making it one of the largest in the city, district or charter.

According to its most recent evaluation by the charter office, First Philadelphia approached academic standards for grades K-8, but failed to meet academic standards for 9-12

At the meeting, Teeona Crumpton said several of her family members who attended First Philadelphia over the last 20 years went on to college and successful careers. Her daughter is now a sixth grader there.

“This school gives youth a foundation in education that prepares them for a successful future,” she told board members. She said teachers have high expectations and students have access to arts programs, computers, tutors, and other resources.

Tacony, a K-12 school that opened in 2009, has 1,000 students. According to its evaluation, it meets academic standards for K-8, but not for 9-12. Its five-year renewal conditions were similar to those at First Philadelphia.

String Theory Edmunds, which the management company took over in 2012, is a K-8 school with 1,000 students. Its evaluation concluded that it did not meet academic standards, with scores on the Pennsylvania Performance Profile that fell below both the charter and district average.

District officials have expressed frustration that under Pennsylvania’s charter law, which has not been significantly revised since its adoption in 1997, charters can continue to operate under an expired charter unless the authorizing body moves to revoke it. By voting not to renew the charter, the board Thursday took a step in that direction.

Under the charter law, the school can appeal, with the final arbiter being the Charter Appeals Board based in Harrisburg. The cumbersome process can blunt incentive for schools and the district to reach agreement on many policies, especially complex and controversial ones around legal representation and admissions policies.

The three schools are already operating under expired charters, as Saidel pointed out. The School Reform Commission, which ran the district when it was under state control, did not act to renew these charters in 2017, when the last charters they signed in 2012 technically expired.

“This is not a new issue for the schools,” said one district official who spoke on background. “They are well aware of our issue. They have chosen not to resolve it.”

In his opening remarks, Streater also responded to criticism by elected officials to another controversial board action: its decision earlier this month to file a lawsuit against the city regarding a new ordinance that district officials say could delay the opening of school in September. The ordinance sets stricter occupancy standards for school buildings regarding asbestos and other potential environmental hazards.

After the lawsuit was filed, city officials said the district should have sought to resolve the issue through collaboration, not a lawsuit. Streater said Thursday that the district had done just that to no avail.

“This lawsuit was filed because our concerns have not been addressed,” he said.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in the city. She is a former president of the Education Writers Association. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Philly’s Black charter school leaders vow to push back after board votes

2022-06-27T22:39:55+00:00

Editor’s note: This article was updated to reword material that appeared verbatim in a Philadelphia school district press release.

The movement to preserve Black-operated charter schools won’t be deterred by the Philadelphia Board of Education’s votes last week to begin the process of closing two such charters, say members of a coalition who believe certain schools face racial bias in how they’re regulated.

The school board unanimously voted June 23 not to renew the charters of Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School and Laboratory Charter School, which both have Black leadership. Those votes followed the recommendation of the district’s Charter School Office.

The board also voted to proceed with requiring Memphis Street Academy at J.P. Jones, which is managed by American Paradigm Schools, to surrender its charter. Though Memphis Street is not considered a Black-operated charter, 96% of its students identify as Black, Hispanic, or multi-racial.

Officials said poor academic performance and other oversight issues drove their decisions, and board member Reginald Streater called charges that racial bias influenced the votes “factually false.” However, supporters of Black-led charter schools—including state and local politicians who led a protest outside district headquarters before the votes—say they’re not done fighting what they called the board’s unfair approach. The dispute comes amid an investigation into the city’s charter authorizing practices.

“We’re going to continue to stand up against any type of systemic bias, whether it affects charter schools, Black-operated district schools, private schools, bodegas, or car dealerships,” said Larry Jones, the CEO of the Richard Allen Charter School who also a member of the African American Charter Schools Coalition.

Southwest and Laboratory will remain open for now and in the fall. Charter schools can appeal to the State Charter Appeal Board if local boards vote to repeal their charters, and they can remain open during the appeals process. However, that process can take many months, or up to a year in some cases.

Leigh Purnell, the CEO and principal of Southwest Leadership, said the school plans to appeal the board’s vote. Purnell said the city’s charter schools office failed to work with Southwest Leadership to develop an improvement plan.

“I do not believe the school board received a well-rounded picture, a holistic picture, of our school,” Purnell said.

Ashley Redfearn, CEO of American Paradigm Schools, which operates Memphis Street, said in a statement that the school is currently open for summer programming and plans to be open for the 2022-2023 school year. Redfearn said her organization plans “to pursue every legal channel to continue to provide quality, well-rounded education and support” for the school’s students and community.

Closing Black-operated charters a thorny issue

The votes against the three schools come six months after the board authorized the law firm of Ballard Spahr to probe whether racial bias is a factor in the charter school authorizing process. These allegations came from the charter schools coalition, which represents 22 schools and has called for an overhaul of the district’s charter office, as well as new ways for the district to evaluate the schools.

Ballard Spahr is expected to release the results of its independent investigation this fall.

In a report to the board about schools whose charters are up for renewal this year, acting chief of the Charter School Office Pen Chao said Southwest Leadership failed to meet generally accepted standards of fiscal management and audit requirements related to short-term and long-term financial sustainability. For instance, the school was unable to provide documentation for 14 of 40 identified financial transactions, a 43% error rate, Chao noted.

Meanwhile, Laboratory Charter did not have a fully compliant enrollment process. It also failed to timely identify students as English learners; and failed to maintain and obtain FBI background and Pennsylvania criminal background checks for employees.

And Memphis Street Academy failed to meet the required academic standards set out in its charter. Chao said the school had previously agreed that if it did not meet any of those academic standards, it would voluntarily forfeit its charter.

Students, parents, and teachers spoke on behalf of the schools before the board votes.

Steven Bilksi, assistant principal and ESL coordinator at Memphis Street said that families served by his school have benefited from the “transformative initiatives” his school has put in place, in accordance with its charter.

“These initiatives have allowed us to provide all of our scholars and families with the necessary work to succeed academically, socially and emotionally,” Bilksi said.

And Jae Strothers, who works at Laboratory Charter, said that she loves “the work that we do at Laboratory, as well as the children’s parents.”

Local and state politicians, including members of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, addressed the board in support of the three schools before the votes. In addition, state Sen. Anthony Williams and City Councilman Isaiah Thomas denounced the anticipated votes during a protest outside district headquarters.

“If they decide to ignore the state legislators who fund the school district, and to ignore the city council members who fund the school district, and still move in the way that they want to, it’s time for us to wage war,” Thomas said.

Bureau Chief Johann Calhoun covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. He oversees Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s education coverage. Contact Johann at jcalhoun@chalkbeat.org.

With COVID surge in Philly, educators call for temporary return to remote learning or stricter health protocols

2021-12-21T22:15:49+00:00

Amid a rise in COVID-19 cases, eight schools in the Philadelphia school district have closed temporarily because of positive cases.

The closures come amid an outcry over the recent death of an unvaccinated student at Olney Charter High School and data showing only about 21% of eligible children in Philadelphia have received the vaccine. Some educators are pushing for classes to go remote ahead of the holiday break, which begins Dec. 24, and for stricter health and safety measures for schools.

Before the recent closures, the district had only temporarily closed five schools this school year, said district spokesperson Monica Lewis. She told Chalkbeat the district has no immediate plans to go virtual amid this recent COVID spike. “We remain confident in our efforts to keep positive test rates relatively low considering the size of our student population,” she said.

Five schools, which serve early learners, have closed for a 10-day period, including Ethan Allen, Abram Jenks, John Welsh, Pennypacker, and Sullivan. Allen’s 10-day period ends Dec. 24, while Jenks, Welsh and Pennypacker’s ends Dec. 27. And Sullivan’s period ends Jan. 4, a day after district staff are scheduled to return. (The schools will reopen after the scheduled winter break.)

Three more schools — Kenderton Elementary School, Waring Middle School, and Penn Treaty High School — also have been closed for 10-day periods, according to the health department. They will reopen Jan. 4.

Another school, Randolph Technical High School in Nicetown, closed for a 48-hour investigation due to positive COVID-19 cases. The closure affected all classes and grades, though its ninth grade was already under quarantine until Jan. 4. The 48-hour closure ended Dec. 21, according to the school district.

“We are very much aware and encouraging people to be mindful to take care of themselves and loved ones, wear your masks and get tested,” Lewis said, adding that the district encourages eligible people to get vaccinated for “an additional layer of protection.”

The district also has six schools where COVID testing is offered to families, she said.

To date, 2,260 students and district staff have contracted the virus this school year— with 258 since Dec. 5, according to the district’s COVID dashboard. The district has more than 120,000 students and about 20,000 staff members.

Under district guidance, whole schools are only closed if 3% of the school population tests positive for the virus. That’s less strict than the previous guidelines, which closed buildings when there were six COVID cases regardless of the size of the student population.

The city health department released numbers Dec. 20 showing a spike in COVID cases. Philadelphia has averaged 641 new cases of COVID-19 per day over the last two weeks, an increase from about 254 per day around the Thanksgiving holiday.

The spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus has some educators in Philadelphia questioning whether students should continue learning in person ahead of the holiday break, which starts Dec. 24 and runs until Jan. 4.

Robin Cooper, president of Local 502/CASA, the principals union, told Chalkbeat that all schools should be virtual for the remainder of the week.

“We’ve been polling members, and about 80% are for virtual,” she said, adding that the omicron variant and a lack of cleaning in some schools has caused concerns.

“It’s just a mess,” she said.

Though he disagrees with the prospect of schools going remote, Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, raised concerns about contact tracing of positive cases in schools.

“The teachers are very concerned and the contact tracing seems to be taking a longer period of time. And as a result of that, that causes a tremendous amount of anxiety among the members in our schools,” he said. “The nurses are so overworked that they cannot do the contact tracing.”

Some districts across the country are adjusting winter breaks or considering remote learning in January amid the omicron wave. But James Garrow, communications director for Philadelphia’s health department, said in an email that the city wants to keep schools open. “In-person education is beneficial to students in so many ways, we are committed to keeping students in school.”

He also said there are no imminent plans to alter school health protocols. “We believe that, so long as everyone follows the guidance of getting everyone vaccinated and boosted, wearing a mask whenever they aren’t eating or drinking, and staying home if they feel the slightest bit sick, we can help keep cases down,” he said.

Teachers at Olney called out of work Dec. 20, causing the school to go virtual, after the death last week of senior Alayna Thach from COVID. Educators at the charter school have been protesting what they say are inadequate health and safety protocols. The charter high school is run by ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania, which operates in primarily North Philadelphia communities, including Hunting Park, Olney, and Kensington.

The school has offered vaccine clinics, and Thach’s family said she had planned to get vaccinated in January.

After long road, Philly board renews Universal Audenried’s charter

2021-12-10T22:36:19+00:00

Months after Philadelphia’s Board of Education vowed to investigate allegations that Black-led charter schools have been targeted for closure, the board voted to renew Universal Audenried Promise Neighborhood Partnership Charter School’s charter.

Though the board voted 7-1 in favor of the popular Black-led charter school in South Philadelphia, it came with pushback that may affect the process in the future of how charter schools will be reviewed for renewal.

Board member Mallory Fix Lopez, who voted against the renewal, raised an issue about the actions of the former chief financial officer for Universal, who was placed on administrative leave in May 2019 yet continued to sign and authorize checks. She also spoke of the high number of suspensions and expulsions at the school compared to the district. “I felt they were too egregious to overlook,” she said.

There was a formal objection made by members of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, or APPS, stating in a letter that the board did not disclose the full terms of the agreement and violated Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act. “The board has denied the public to be heard on this agreement as the public has no knowledge of what it contains,” the objection said.

At last month’s meeting, the board voted unanimously to approve the renewal application for Universal Vare Promise Neighborhood Partnership Charter School in South Philadelphia, which is part of the same charter network, but delayed a vote on Audenried.

On Dec. 6, the school board was notified that the Board of Trustees for Universal Family of Schools approved the terms and conditions and executed the renewal charter agreement issued by the charter school’s office. The agreement is for a five-year term through June 2026.

The agreement included conditions related to expulsions, employee background checks, financial issues, and a surrender provision if Audenried fails to meet the conditions. The action item to exercise surrender of charter was withdrawn from Thursday’s agenda and was replaced with an action item for renewal.

“We will continue to perform at high levels and serve our scholars and community over the next five years,” said Penny Nixon, superintendent and CEO of Universal Family of Schools after Thursday’s decision.

Past revocations of Black-led charters have drawn criticism from the 20-school African-American Charter Schools Coalition, which has raised concerns about the treatment of schools with Black leadership. The coalition called for an overhaul of the district’s charter office, demanding fairness, transparency, and equity on evaluations, oversight and expansion of charter schools.

If a charter agreement is revoked, the charter is dissolved, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Students attending a dissolved charter school can then apply to another school in their district, regardless of application deadlines. Charters, however, have a right to appeal to the Pennsylvania Charter Appeal Board before being dissolved.

City Council member Isaiah Thomas criticized the board’s presentation in the spring, saying, “it was like a gloomy cloud came over when Black charters came up,” with talks about accountability reports and “making sure you bring the hammer down” when the board’s expectations are not met.

Philadelphia has 85 charter schools, with a total enrollment of more than 75,000 students, or about a third of those enrolled in the city’s publicly funded schools. The school district, through its charter schools office, is the sole authorizer.

Black and Latino charter leaders operate 19% of the charters in Philadelphia, according to the coalition, but account for 87% of those recommended for closure or nonrenewal over the past several years, according to the coalition.

The district says it evaluates charter schools based on academic, operational, and financial measures and that charters recommended for closure or nonrenewal often have not met state standards for student proficiency in reading and math, mostly measured by standardized test scores. Graduation rates also are considered for high schools.

In May, board members pledged to address the allegations made by the coalition and hire an independent investigator.

The board hired Philadelphia-based law firm Ballard Spahr LLP to lead the investigation. The firm, which is working pro bono, might hire a third-party consultant with experience in racial equity analysis to assist the investigation. If it does, the school district will pay for the consultant.

The results of the investigation are expected in the fall, according to the board.

Philly board hires firm to investigate racial bias in charter school authorizations

2021-12-01T23:05:52+00:00

Months after the Philadelphia school board vowed to look into allegations that Black-led charter schools have been targeted for closure, the board announced Wednesday that it’s hiring a local firm to investigate racial bias in how charter schools are authorized.

The board has tapped Ballard Spahr LLP, a Philadelphia-based law firm to lead the investigation. The firm, which is working for free, might hire a third-party consultant with experience in racial equity analyses to assist in the investigation. If it does, the school district will pay for the consultant.

The results of the investigation are expected in the fall, according to the board.

“The board takes allegations of racial bias seriously, and we want everyone to know that we are looking transparently at what we do in order to continuously improve our work on behalf of Philadelphia’s students,” Board of Education President Joyce Wilkerson said in a statement. “We also want our minority founded and led schools to know that we recognize the value their voices bring to the table as we continue to strengthen charter authorizing practices.”

The announcement comes after the school board delayed a vote last month on whether to close Universal Audenried Promise Neighborhood Partnership Charter School, a popular Black-led charter school in South Philadelphia. That vote now is scheduled for Dec. 9.

At last month’s meeting, the board voted 7-1 to push back the vote. The dissenting vote was from Mallory Fix Lopez.

At the same meeting, the board voted unanimously to approve the renewal application for Universal Vare Promise Neighborhood Partnership Charter School in South Philadelphia, which is part of the same charter network.

Universal spokesperson Devon Allen said the school has no comment about the upcoming vote.

Past revocations of Black-led charters have drawn criticism from the African American Charter Schools Coalition, a group of 20 schools, which has raised concerns about the treatment of schools with Black leadership. The coalition called for an overhaul of the district’s charter office, demanding fairness, transparency, and equity when it comes to evaluation, oversight and expansion of charter schools.

City Council member Isaiah Thomas criticized the board’s presentation in the spring saying “it was like a gloomy cloud came over when Black charters came up” with talks about accountability reports and “making sure you bring the hammer down” when the board’s expectations are not met.

Philadelphia has more than 80 charter schools, with a total enrollment of more than 75,000 students, or about a third of those enrolled in the city’s publicly funded schools. The school district, through its charter schools office, is the sole authorizer. According to the coalition, Black and Latino charter leaders operate 19% of the charters in Philadelphia, but account for 87% of those recommended for closure or nonrenewal over the past several years.

The district says that it evaluates charter schools based on academic, operational, and financial measures and that charters recommended for closure or nonrenewal often have not met state standards for student proficiency in reading and math, which are mostly measured by standardized test scores. Graduation rates are also considered for high schools.

In May, members of the board pledged to address the allegations made by the coalition and hire an independent investigator.

In the case of Audenried, charter officials are discussing provisions under a “surrender clause,” meaning the school must meet certain conditions for renewal or it will forfeit the school’s charter. According to the school board, if Audenried fails to comply with two of the conditions for renewal under the surrender, then board may vote for closure by June 30.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, if a charter agreement is revoked, the charter is dissolved. Students attending a dissolved charter school are then able to apply to another school in their district, regardless of application deadlines. Charters, however, have a right to appeal to the Pennsylvania Charter Appeal Board before being dissolved.

Racial allegations thrown over provision given to one Philadelphia Black-led charter high school

2021-06-05T00:33:20+00:00

More than a month ago, the African American Charter Schools Coalition accused the School District of Philadelphia of discriminating against Black-led charter schools by targeting them for closure at a disproportionate rate.

Now the coalition is pointing to the treatment of one charter high school as the latest in what they say is a pattern of discrimination by the district’s Charter Schools Office.

District officials renewed all charter schools this year, but attached a “surrender clause” to the renewal for Universal Audenried Promise Neighborhood Partnership Charter School, a predominantly Black school in South Philadelphia. The provision gives a charter school the opportunity to improve rather than face non-renewal for being out of compliance with their charter agreement, officials said. But the school typically has to agree to close, without going through the state’s appeals process, if it doesn’t improve.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, the Charter Schools Office said the provision creates a “path forward for the charter school.”

But the coalition, and other charter supporters, say the “surrender clause” would allow the district to close Universal Audenried without appeal — and they questioned why it was the only school to receive such a provision this year.

“When a surrender clause is a condition of renewal, the school district violates the law and subjects the charter school to its findings without the due process of appeal,” said Penny Nixon, superintendent and CEO of Universal Schools. “The Board of Directors of Universal Schools will not agree to a charter renewal agreement containing a surrender clause for Universal Audenried or any of the Universal Family of Schools.”

Nixon said Universal Schools plans to seek legal counsel on the provision.

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the national charter advocacy organization Center for Education Reform, said the clause is a “poison pill in the renewal process, which in effect gives districts the upper hand to close a charter regardless of its quality, facts or demand.”

But the Charter Schools Office said Universal Audenried already had such a provision in its current charter, which was for a period of five years ending this month. Officials said they decided to extend it because the school was out of compliance in several areas, including its expulsions process, background checks for employees and some financial practices. Both sides must agree to the “surrender clause.”

Out of the thirteen charter schools listed in this year’s cohort of schools renewed by the district, there are six Black-led charters: Global Leadership Academy at Huey; Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School; Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School; Universal Charter School at Audenried; Universal Charter School at Vare; and West Philadelphia Achievement Charter School.

Three of the 13 schools’ current charters had a “surrender clause,” including Universal Audenried. District officials, through their review process, decided that two of the three met the conditions for renewal with conditions but without the surrender provision. Universal Audenried didn’t, they determined. (The Charter Schools Office didn’t name the other two schools.)

Board President Joyce Wilkerson defended the Charter Schools Office’s determination and said the surrender provision gives Universal Audenried “another chance.”

“Universal Audenried’s renewal report clearly outlines the many ways it is out of compliance with its charter and the law,” she said. “Most importantly, these include the expulsion of over 30 students, many of whom were not provided with basic due process rights. This is particularly concerning as Universal Audenried is a Renaissance charter school that should be aligning with district policies that promote restorative justice and restorative practices for students.
Additionally, the charter school’s own independent audit found material weaknesses in the charter school’s financial practices in multiple years. The Charter Schools Office’s recommendation is a path forward for the charter school and would allow Universal Audenried another chance to fix these significant problems.”

The African American Charter Schools Coalition called for an overhaul of the district’s charter office more than a month ago, demanding fairness, transparency, and equity when it comes to evaluation, oversight and expansion of charter schools.

The group’s call to action came after the majority of the school board voted to follow the recommendation of a hearing officer to not renew Universal Bluford and Universal Daroff schools in West Philadelphia. Only board members Lisa Salley and Cecelia Thompson voted against the non-renewals.

Board members later agreed to look into claims of systemic bias made by the coalition. Some city council members also have called for a review.

City Councilman Isiah Thomas, who agreed with calls for an investigation, said the surrender clause is “another example of an added level of scrutiny for Philadelphia’s Black institutions.”

“It is unacceptable that the only district school to receive renewal with a surrender clause is a Black-led school,” Thomas said in a statement to the district. “We cannot use terms like ‘racial equity lens’ and ‘anti-racism curriculum’ while putting discriminatory clauses on schools that are created by and for the Black community.”

Audenreid’s Principal Joshua Anderson told Chalkbeat the provision was a surprise.

“I’ve been at Audenreid since 2011. I was a history teacher there and I’ve sort of seen the transformation and the improvements that have happened over the past 10 years. Based on the school performance report that the district publishes every year Audenreid is often the highest performing neighborhood school in the city.”

Kenny Gamble, music mogul and founder of Universal Schools, said Universal has done an excellent job of providing a high-quality education to students. He said they will “vigorously fight against any injustice that seeks to violate the rights of an appeal or, more importantly, educate our children.”

David Hardy, who is a member of the coalition and founder of Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia Charter School, called the provision “an attack on charter schools which are serving the least advantaged students and which parents have depended on as long as the District schools have failed them.”
It was announced on Thursday that the head of the Charter Schools Office, Christina Grant is leaving Philadelphia to become the state superintendent in Washington D.C. Peng Chao will lead the office in an interim position. Grant declined to comment on her departure.

‘Should kids get vaccinated?’: Philadelphia students ask questions about COVID-19 vaccine during town hall

2021-05-22T01:22:42+00:00

Speaking Friday to a group of students at Mastery Charter School in West Philadelphia, Kamau Stanford’s message was clear: “Don’t get medical information from your friends. Don’t get medical information from Instagram influencers.”

Stanford, the guest speaker at a vaccine information event held at the charter network’s Shoemaker campus, urged students to look to medical professionals and reputable sources online for information about COVID-19 vaccines. He cited the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, among them.

The Germantown native is a graduate of Central High School, a former 12th grade dean of students at Shoemaker, and the current chief operating officer for the Philadelphia Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium.

He fielded a barrage of questions from a group of socially distanced students. Questions included “What’s the vaccine made of?” and “If you had COVID, can you get vaccinated?”

Stanford emphasized that he’s not a medical doctor, but spoke to students to raise awareness about the vaccine. He explained that Pfizer is the only vaccine currently approved for emergency use in children 12-17.

Unlike the Philadelphia school district, which chose not to offer in-person learning for 10th to 12th graders this school year, Mastery has tried to bring back as many students as possible to its 18 schools across the city. The charter network, which enrolls about 14,000 K-12 students, started hybrid learning back in March and April, meaning students learn in person on some days and at home on others.

Multiple schools in the Mastery network will host vaccination clinics on campus. They will be open to eligible students, their families, and members of the community.

Meaghann Lawson, the principal at Shoemaker, said the event was important for the students because they have been disproportionately affected, with some having contracted the virus. She noted: “Our ability to have them come back in the building and to feel comfortable so that they’re able to be successful is critical.”

Lawson said approximately 40% to 50% of all grades have returned to Shoemaker since the network opened its doors this semester.

Superintendent William Hite of the Philadelphia district said low and declining rates of COVID-19 cases in the city, relaxed pandemic restrictions, growing vaccination rates, and the ability to vaccinate students 12-15 would enable the district to reopen fully in the fall.

“Most importantly, the rate of positive COVID cases within our district has remained well below 1%,” he said, citing rates from in-school testing.

The city’s health department recently suggested that students over the age of 12 consider getting the Pfizer vaccine before returning to school. City officials have yet to announce its policy on face masks for summer and fall sessions.

In Philadelphia, children 12 and up do not need the consent of a parent or guardian to be vaccinated, according to the city’s health department.

Stanford noted a lot of colleges and universities are making it mandatory for on-campus students to get the vaccine. “It doesn’t affect sixth and seventh graders, but for kids who are graduating, it definitely affects them because it determines what their college is going to look like.”

Khaira Nahl, a dean at Mastery Shoemaker, said Friday’s event was beneficial for students.

“They need to know what’s going on,” she said. “I did enjoy the students kind of like asking questions and trying to find out more information on their own. I think the pandemic helped to bring health to the forefront of their minds.”

Stanford’s sister, Dr. Ala Stanford, founded the Philadelphia Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium. Community and political leaders have praised her organization for outpacing the city in vaccinating Black residents.

School board will investigate claims of bias against Black-run charter schools in Philadelphia

2021-05-12T21:09:21+00:00

Less than a month after the Philadelphia Board of Education decided not to renew two Black-led charter schools, its members said Tuesday they will look into claims of systemic bias made by a coalition of Black charter school leaders.

Some members of the board, along with city council members, pledged Tuesday to address the allegations during the school district’s annual budget hearing before council. The board will be seeking an independent entity to investigate the claims, a board representative told Chalkbeat Tuesday.

The African American Charter Schools Coalition is calling for an overhaul of the district’s charter office, demanding fairness, transparency, and equity when it comes to evaluation, oversight and expansion of charter schools. The group’s call to action comes after the majority of the board voted to follow the recommendation of a hearing officer to not renew Universal Bluford and Universal Daroff schools. Only board members Lisa Salley and Cecelia Thompson voted against the non-renewals.

“While we believe that we do this in a fair and equitable manner, concerns have been raised that our practices have discriminated against African American founded and led charter schools,” said school board member Salley. “We take all allegations of discrimination seriously and are working now to provide these schools with an independent entity who can unpack and investigate these allegations.”

Attorney Rudy Garcia, whom the school board hired to review the two schools, cited low proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and science, and failure to comply with other applicable laws, such as maintaining Pennsylvania child abuse clearances, and state and federal criminal backgrounds.

Black and Latino charter leaders operate 19% of the charters in the city, but account for 87% of those recommended for closure or nonrenewal over the past several years, according to the coalition.

Board member Julia Danzy said the board has high expectations for all schools. “Many of our charter schools, which serve approximately one-third of the public school students in Philadelphia, are doing phenomenal work; but for schools that are not serving students well, it is our responsibility to hold them accountable.”

But Councilmember Isiah Thomas criticized the board’s presentation saying “it was like a gloomy cloud came over when Black charters came up” with talks about accountability reports and “making sure you bring the hammer down” when the board’s expectations are not met.

“That’s the exact issue we’re trying to communicate, the tone, the perception,” Thomas said. “The statement made today is another example exactly of what we’re talking about.”

He pointed to the schools’ role in promoting “equity and inclusion,” as well as acknowledgement of the importance of “the images young people see every day,” the importance of role models, and opportunities for international travel.

Thomas also raised the issue that the Black-led institutions have suffered from some kind of “retaliation,” which he did not explain in detail.

School board president Joyce Wilkerson denied Thomas’ accusations thrown at the board.

“I know of no effort made to retaliate against any institution that spoke to this alleged discrimination,” Wilkerson said. She requested any specific allegation to be forwarded to her office.

State Sen. Anthony Williams and Council members Maria Quiñones-Sánchez and Curtis Jones Jr., were also a part of the virtual news conference held by the coalition Tuesday. They expressed concerns over the allegations made by the coalition.

The district evaluates charter schools based on academic, operational, and financial measures. Charters recommended for closure or nonrenewal often have not met state standards regarding student proficiency in reading and math, which is mostly measured by standardized test scores. For high schools, graduation rates are also considered.

Bluford Principal Crystal Gary Nelson appeared on WURD 96.1 FM Tuesday and said the board’s renewal process is flawed and her office “did not have any input in the final charter renewal report.”

Penny Nixon, superintendent and CEO of schools at Universal, said students at Black-led charters are learning. “This notion that we cannot educate our children is false and must be addressed.”

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, if a charter agreement should be revoked, the charter is dissolved. Students attending a dissolved charter school are able to apply to another school in their district of residence and normal application deadlines will be disregarded, the department’s website states. Charters, however, have a right to appeal to the Pennsylvania Charter Appeal Board before being dissolved.

“If you look in terms of diversity and equity of staff, the Black-operated charter schools almost double the percentage of minority teachers compared to traditional charters and the school district,” said Larry Jones, the CEO of Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School in Southwest Philadelphia.

Studies have shown that having just one Black teacher between third and fifth grade significantly improves a child’s chances of graduating high school and attending college.

Ninety seven percent of the students at Daroff are Black and less than 1% are Latino. At Bluford, 98% of the students are Black and the remaining 2% is split between Latino and Asian American students.

“But the real impact is the impact having leaders and teachers and decision makers of color have on students,” Jones said. “If you see all of the schools operated by Blacks and educating Black students being closed, it’s a difficult situation that is hard to explain.”

Southeast Pennsylvania superintendents call for charter funding reform

2021-05-06T17:09:24+00:00

A group of Southeast Pennsylvania school superintendents said Wednesday that the current funding model for charter schools is unfair and outdated, and that it diverts needed dollars away from their districts.

Payments to cover the cost of charters, especially cyber charters that are fully virtual, are forcing school systems to cut programming or push for tax increases in their districts, school leaders said during a press conference over Zoom.

“We’re maintaining maximum tax effort just to keep our programs going,” said Sam Lee, superintendent of the 6,000-student Bensalem Township School district in Bucks County. “If something doesn’t change relating to charter funding, options and opportunities for our students will be severely compromised.” About 100 Bensalem students are enrolled in cyber charters.

Superintendents said there are two main problems with the charter school funding system: Cybers receive the same amount as brick-and-mortar schools, even though they do not have the expense of maintaining a building. And charters get one amount for general education students and an additional sum for students with disabilities, which is the same regardless of the severity of their needs. Those payments can be double or even triple the regular education amount, and often exceed the actual cost of educating the students with disabilities enrolled in the charters, most of which have mild impairments.

Although Pennsylvania cyber schools have consistently performed poorly in state and national studies of effectiveness, about a quarter of the charter students in Pennsylvania are enrolled in cybers. And charter cyber enrollment increased during the pandemic by about 25,000 students.

“This is not just an urban issue,” said Jim Scanlon, the superintendent of the West Chester Area School District, which has about 12,000 students and a $270 million budget spread across small towns, suburbs, and farms. “In all school districts in the Commonwealth, tuition dollars are sent to poorly run charter schools.”

Under the Pennsylvania charter school law, which has not been significantly revised since it was first enacted in 1997, the reimbursement formula considers the district’s prior year per-student cost for general and special education students. For West Chester, the amount allocated for students with disabilities is more than double that of general education students — $34,000 compared to $16,000.

He said that providing speech and language therapy costs his district an extra $1,500 per student, not $16,000, which would be the cost of educating a student with complex medical needs or who is enrolled in a life skills class. Charter schools enroll very few students with severe disabilities.

“It’s like going into a restaurant and buying a hamburger, but being charged for a five-course lobster dinner,” Scanlon said.

State law does not require charter schools to spend the special education funding on those students.

In his proposed 2021-22 budget, Gov. Tom Wolf is recommending a uniform payment of $9,500 per student to cyber charter schools and a three-tiered payment system to all charters for students with disabilities, depending on their needs. While similar to the funding formula used to allocate state special education money to school districts, it will likely face opposition in the Republican-controlled legislature.

Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite had a conflict and was unable to join the Wednesday press conference, but said Thursday that he agrees with his fellow school leaders. Changing the special education funding formula alone would safe Philadelphia $52 million a year, he said.

About half the 170,000 charter school students in Pennsylvania are enrolled in Philadelphia schools. Both Hite and members of the Philadelphia Board of Education have long sought changes in the charter funding formula and are urging support of the governor’s proposed changes. More than $1 billion of Philadelphia’s $3 billion budget goes to charter school payments.

Lenny McAllister, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, a lobbying group, said the governor’s changes would cost charters $229 million. He said the proposal “only further highlights where the governor ranks the needs of Pennsylvania’s neediest students and their families: as second-class citizens.” Charter advocates say this because the regular education formula gives a smaller amount to charters than the host district’s full per-student cost.

He said that the governor and “special interest groups” are scapegoating charters for budget problems that are actually caused by rising teacher pension costs.

Scanlon and the other superintendents said they weren’t trying to end school choice.

“This is not about the competition” said Daniel McGarry, superintendent in Upper Darby, a diverse suburb adjoining Philadelphia. “It’s more about leveling the playing field.”

Under state law, Pennsylvania charters must be nonprofit, but they are allowed to have management contracts with for-profit entities. And some do, including several cybers.

“Taxpayers are funding a for-profit business … and it is not right,” said Stephen Rodriguez, superintendent of the Pottstown School District in Montgomery County.

“For most of the charter era, Philly has taken the brunt of it,” said Lawrence Feinberg, the director of the newly formed Keystone Center for Charter Change at the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, which organized the press conference. “But with COVID, all 500 districts got slammed with cyber charter tuition.”

The Center was established in an effort to get long-sought changes to the charter reimbursement formula “over the finish line,” said Feinberg, who is also the president of the Haverford Board of Education.

As most district high schoolers stay remote, Philadelphia’s Mastery charter network invites all students back

2021-04-30T14:43:05+00:00

Sharon Brewer is getting the chance to spend at least some of her senior year in school, in person.

It didn’t come a moment too soon.

“I was doing terrible at home,” she said.

Same for her classmate, Parris Boyette.

“It’s the best thing that happened to me,” said Boyette, a 17-year-old basketball player, about returning to school in person last month. “My grades are going up, I’m understanding more. When I was home, I was not paying attention. Here, I’m paying attention.”

Inside Sam Scarpone’s English class at Mastery Charter School-Pickett Campus in Germantown.

The two are students at Mastery Charter School-Pickett Campus in Germantown, a combined middle and high school with grades 6-12 that reopened for in-person school more than a month ago.

Unlike the Philadelphia school district, which won’t bring back 10th to 12th graders this school year, Mastery has tried to bring back as many students as possible in all grades in its 18 schools across the city. The charter network, which enrolls about 14,000 students, started hybrid learning back in March, with some starting in April, and has moved its students phase-in at a faster pace than the district.

Most students are back two days a week, except for those with special needs, who can come in four days.

“It is indisputable that in-person learning is what’s best for students,” said Mastery CEO Scott Gordon. Its internal assessments indicated that students learning at home were attaining less academic growth than in a typical year, he said. At the same time, he said, they were also showing “greater levels of depression and anxiety” as levels of gun violence hit historically high levels.

As a result, “we made it an absolute priority” to maximize in-person learning, including for older students, he said.

While the district also sought an early and fuller return to school buildings, it was a rougher road, exacerbated by deep distrust over dangerous building conditions. After a protracted dispute with the teachers union over school safety that was finally settled through mediation, the district has brought back students in phases. Students in prekindergarten to second grade began hybrid learning in three waves in March, followed by students in third to fifth grade this week. By May 10, sixth through ninth graders can begin in-person learning, most for two days a week. The school year ends on June 11, meaning the last eligible students will have just 10 days of in-person learning.

Most high school students won’t be back this school year.

“We’ve said this before, we understand this is not the school year any of us have envisioned,” said Monica Lewis, the district’s spokeswoman. “Those in high school, particularly seniors, are probably disappointed. They have missed out engaging with friends and doing activities typical of high school life. But this was the plan most in line with efforts to get through the pandemic as safely as possible for all students and staff and school communities as well.”

To help students who might have fallen behind, the district is beefing up its summer offerings, providing credit recovery courses, and encouraging families “to reach out to school to see what services are available,” she said.

Keylisha Diaz, one of two student representatives on the Board of Education and a junior at Philadelphia Military Academy, a district school, has been keeping in regular touch with seniors and other high school students advocating for their needs. Seeing the process up close, she said she has developed a keen appreciation for the hard choices faced by the district’s leadership.

At the same time, she said, “It’s very upsetting seniors didn’t get the experience they were hoping for.” At this point, however, given how late it is in the school year, most of those she has spoken to have made their peace and “are fine with staying virtual.”

Instead, she said what they are looking forward to are the end-of-year rituals, especially graduations, which the district has said will be held outside. It is also providing free caps and gowns to students. Proms, however, will not be held.

Two different approaches

Like the district, Mastery has paid close attention to the guidance from federal and state health agencies. But the charter network has been determined to bring students back since the start of the year.

Mastery held outreach sessions for parents in the summer, and then opened school buildings for a short time in September. Schools closed again when there was a surge in coronavirus cases in November and stayed closed for the rest of the winter. A phased reopening began in early March, with all students who wanted to return coming back for some in-person learning by the end of April.

Across the country, many school districts have focused first on reopening buildings to younger students and those in special education classes. High school reopening also has been a challenge because older students change classes more often, making it difficult to create socially distanced pods.

Like the school district, Mastery has faced challenges with social distancing and classroom capacity. Almost all their schools are converted district schools ceded in the hopes of rapid academic turnaround, so they have many of the same challenges with old and poorly ventilated buildings.

But Mastery hasn’t faced bitter pushback about safety. The network spent $4 million on upgrading ventilation, including the purchase of expensive air purifiers, and $2.5 million on COVID-19 preventative measures like frequent student and staff testing, said Gordon. It tests weekly, using less expensive batch tests for 20 people at a time; if there is a positive reaction the source can be traced to one or two participants who can then be retested individually.

The network also conducts careful contact tracing. People entering the building can scan their phone in front of one device so they can be notified if someone else in the school that day tests positive. They step in front of another device to have their temperature taken. Mastery maintains a dashboard of positive test results, and it says there were 63 cases this week and 306 since testing began. Pickett has had eight positive cases, according to the dashboard.

Mastery spokeswoman Kerry Woodward said that since reopening it has had one classroom quarantine and two schools have “paused” in-person instruction due to an uptick in COVID-19 cases; Wister is closed until May 3 and Clymer until May 5.

The school district started a dashboard after pressure from the The Caucus of Working Educators and Parents United for Public Schools, activist groups that were seeking more transparency and had begun tracking positive COVID-19 cases on their own.

Like most charters, Mastery doesn’t have a teachers union, but it still faced questions from teachers and students about whether it was safe to be in buildings. Gordon said that he and his team maintained constant communication with its teachers and the network’s 11,000 families.

Mastery Pickett Principal Margaux Munnelly talks with student Parris Boyette.

“We had open town meetings, and lots of meetings to get staff comfortable,” Gordon said. “When we have an infection, we respond quickly. We built confidence we could manage through this.”

Sam Scarpone, an English teacher at Pickett, said at first she was apprehensive about returning, mostly when teachers were not being prioritized for vaccinations and due to “fear of the unknown.” Once she set foot in the building, she said, “all my fears dissipated.”

While it varies by school, just under half of Mastery’s students have elected to come back to the hybrid model, Gordon said. At district schools, the figure has been closer to one third of those eligible at any given time.

Neither the school district nor Mastery could offer exact numbers on how many high school students are on track to graduate now compared to the norm in other years, although Mastery said it has not detected a dip.

‘It’s not natural for them to be so isolated’

At Pickett, Principal Margaux Munnelly said that returning to in-person school has major benefits: increased engagement with learning, lessening of distractions, more interaction with teachers, and the opportunity to socialize with friends.

“You want to see your students learn and grow and thrive,” she said. “Welcoming our students back into our building over the last several months has been a joy. I could not overstate the importance of the connections I am seeing our students make with our teachers and with each other.”

Both Scarpone and Katy Kahn, who teaches Advanced Placement and honors literature classes, said they want to see more students in the building. They feel the benefits far outweigh the risks.

“I want as many kids back as possible,” Kahn said. “I’m also planning summer camp. I’m anxious about getting kids up and out for academic and social purposes. The kids need it. It’s not natural for them to be so isolated.”

In fact, after the initial wave in March, more students did decide to come back to Pickett, which enrolls more than 900 students. Just over 300 students returned in March and another 200 returned this week at the start of the fourth and final marking period — meaning about half the 917 students have chosen to return.

To be sure, with maybe a quarter of students there at any given time, the vibe in the school is still nowhere near normal, although some classrooms now have 10 to 12 students in them, spaced out and working on laptops behind plastic barriers. During lunch, there is one student per table, and everyone faces the same way. Hallways are still eerily quiet during class changes.

For seniors like Brewer, however, returning has been a lifesaver. For most of the year, she worried she wouldn’t be able to graduate because her grades plummeted. While some students, she said, were excelling at home, she struggled.

“I am a social person, I need to be in class writing, taking notes, and listening to my teacher talk. I need to be physically participating. I need to ask questions, I can’t sit around and wait for a breakout room,” she said.

Since she came back to school in person, “I feel like I’m improving already. I get more work done. I’m more verbal. The best part of being back here is I’m able to get to the grade-point-average I’m used to.”

Boyette is also happy to be back. He also said being at home all the time was too distracting. “I just want to be with my friends,” he said.

School is better, he said, but in many ways “it feels weird. You can’t walk around like you used to, you’ve got to stay away from other kids.” So, like Brewer, he studies and buckles down on his work. Unlike at home, he pointed out, where the TV, smartphone and refrigerator beckons, “There is nothing else to do here.”

Munnelly, the principal, had to agree. “It’s not the same. But it’s something.”

Philadelphia school board votes not to renew two Black-led charter schools despite outcry from parents

2021-04-23T20:38:47+00:00

Members of the Board of Education voted not to renew two Black-led charter schools despite public outcry from parents, ending a long conflicting relationship with the district.

The majority of the board voted to follow the recommendation of a hearing officer to not renew Universal Bluford and Universal Daroff schools. Board members Lisa Salley and Cecelia Thompson voted against the non-renewals.

Attorney Rudy Garcia, whom the school board hired to review the two schools, made a damaging case Thursday for the district to cut its ties.

“I concluded that there were ample grounds for non-renewal for both schools,” Garcia said during his presentation to the board Thursday. He cited low proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and science, among many other concerns about the schools’ financial viability.

“Both had negative margins and low ratios, meaning they had insufficient funds to cover liabilities,” Garcia said. “Both had negative non-restricted fund balances, or rainy day funds that would cover unexpected emergencies.”

Garcia said both schools failed to comply with other applicable laws such as maintaining Pennsylvania child abuse clearances, and state and federal criminal backgrounds, Garcia said. “There were many instances where that information was not in the files. And that has an effect on student safety,” he said.

Garcia noted there were many files missing on student health, dental and immunization safety at the two schools, including meeting violations of the Sunshine Act.

Parents of students who attend Bluford and Daroff testified at Thursday’s board meeting on behalf of the two schools.

Milon Attaway, a parent of a second grader at Bluford said, “We are begging that you vote against the non-renewal recommendation and let Bluford keep progressing. I’ve personally witnessed the intellectual advancement of Bluford scholars. I spend nights texting my teachers and no matter what time they always respond. My son’s scores are significantly higher and he’s on the honor roll. He wants me to let you know to keep his school the same.”

Francisco Echevarria is the father of a second and fifth grader at the school. He said it’s the culture that has kept his children enrolled at Daroff since kindergarten.

“Universal Daroff is a true staple in the West Philadelphia community and it provides my sons with regular and special education services,” Echevarria said.

Lashana Woodson, a graduate of Daroff, has a daughter who has attended the school since kindergarten and is graduating from the eighth grade with straight As.

“What has saddened me throughout this process is the overwhelming discrimination against Bluford, Daroff and Universal Company as well as the large Black and Latino charter schools of Philadelphia,” Woodson said. “This is something the officer failed to detail in his report.”

James Ruffin, Daroff’s principal, acknowledged the school faces some behavioral problems. ”But if you look at Daroff students, they are hungry for knowledge and they want what every student wants,” Ruffin said. “I also want to dispel the myth that our parents don’t care about their kids. They want the best for their kids.”

In a statement late Thursday, Penny Nixon, superintendent and CEO of schools at Universal, said the company questions the accuracy and objectivity of the data utilized as the basis for Garcia’s recommendation for non-renewal.

“An expert testified and demonstrated that both Universal Bluford’s and Universal Daroff’s academic performance exceeded the School District of Philadelphia in their properly identified peer group,” the statement said. “The vote is a continued assault on Black-led and founded charter schools.”

Over the years, Daroff prided itself in educating students who come from some of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods. Daroff is located at 56th and Vine in West Philadelphia, while Bluford is located at 57th and Media in the Carroll Park section of West Philadelphia.

Universal had joined a coalition of Black-run charters in Philadelphia claiming systemic bias has led the school district to recommend closure or non-renewal at disproportionately high rates. According to the coalition, Black and Latino charter leaders operate 19% of the charter schools in the city, yet account for 87% of those recommended for closure or non-renewal in recent years.

The African American Charter Schools Coalition held a press conference in November to highlight disparate outcomes in charter regulation. The group includes 21 of the 22 Black-run charters in Philadelphia, which enroll students from 13,000 families.

A press conference scheduled for Tuesday was canceled. Leaders were scheduled to call for a moratorium on closing Black-founded and Black-led schools “until an investigation into the systemic racism in the district is completed,” according to the media notice.

Philadelphia has more than 80 charter schools, with a total enrollment of more than 75,000 students, or about a third of those enrolled in city publicly-funded schools. The school district, through its office on charter schools, is the sole authorizer.

Daroff and Bluford together serve 1,250 students. The schools are among the city’s Renaissance charters, which can only enroll students from their neighborhoods.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, if a charter agreement should be revoked, the charter is dissolved. Students attending a dissolved charter school are able to apply to another school in the student’s district of residence and normal application deadlines will be disregarded under these circumstances, the department’s website states.

A representative told Chalkbeat that the attorneys for the schools are filing to the Charter Appeals Board Friday. The schools have asked parents, teachers and staff to stay the course as Universal works with the attorneys via the state’s appeal process.

“Universal will address and defend our academic growth and improvement, organizational compliance, viability, and finances as an Education Management Organization against the Board’s vote of non-renewal for Universal Bluford and Universal Daroff,” the statement said.

Nixon has argued that both Bluford and Daroff outperform schools serving a similar demographic.

“Our schools are not perfect, and there are minor operational issues that we have addressed,” she said. “However, there is nothing that substantiates a non-renewal recommendation given the great work that we have done turning around both schools that were failures under the school district.”

But Garcia argued the district looks at comparison groups to determine if these schools were performing better, same as, or worse as the students in the same grades of students in the school district, or students in the charter sector, or similar charter schools that serve similar student bodies.

“This was a way of determining how they were doing compared to other schools,” Garcia said.

Philadelphia board rejects five charter school proposals

2021-03-05T03:29:15+00:00

With barely any comment, the Philadelphia Board of Education unanimously denied five new charter school applications Thursday after hearing scathing critiques of all of them from the district’s reviewers.

Christina Grant, head of the district’s charter school office, described all of the applications as deficient either in their planned academic program, operations, finances, or evidence of community support — sometimes in all four areas. The office doesn’t directly recommend denial or approval, but these evaluations had few positive things to say.

The five schools were seeking to enroll more than 4,300 students. The district currently has 86 charter schools that enroll over 70,000 students, more than a third of the 200,000 total in the city’s publicly funded schools.

Charter school expansion was the main reform strategy initiated by the board’s predecessor, School Reform Commission, which governed the district for nearly two decades after the state declared it academically and financially distressed. The board has not approved a new charter school since taking over its governance when the district was returned to local control in 2018.

More than $1 billion of the district’s $3.3 billion budget consists of tuition payments to charters — and the state’s charter school funding formula hasn’t been significantly revised since the law was passed in 1997. Combined with a declining state share of overall school costs, this means that charter and district schools compete for increasingly scarce resources.

“The district does not need and cannot afford any more charters,” said Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, which advocates against charters.

Two of the proposed new schools would have been operated by Aspira, Inc., which already runs five charters, including a cyber school. The proposed new schools were the Eugenio Maria de Hostos Preparatory Charter School, for kindergarten through eighth grade, and the Bilingual Business, Finance and Technology Charter High School.

The community development organization has a troubled history dotted with investigations into its management and financial practices relating to its charters — including its use of state and local per-pupil subsidies for the schools as collateral for loans to shore up other aspects of its operations.

Two of Aspira’s existing schools, Olney High and Stetson Middle, are former district schools that were converted to charters in an effort to turn them around under an initiative called Renaissance Schools started by the SRC. But due to mediocre academic performance and questionable finances and operations, the board voted in 2018 not to renew the charters and reabsorb the schools into the district. But Aspira appealed to the state and the schools remain under Aspira’s management.

Even the SRC, in 2017, voted not to renew Olney and Stetson’s charters.

No district school has been converted to a charter since 2016 under the Renaissance program, and board President Joyce Wilkerson, who also served on the SRC, has questioned the effectiveness of the model.

Grant’s critique said that the applications for both new charters would give Aspira “outsized control” and contained “numerous inconsistencies in anticipating per-pupil funding,” among other shortcomings. It was proposed that many of the employees would work directly for Aspira and not for the schools, which would present a problem in creating a cohesive staff and school culture, Grant said.

The three other proposed charter schools voted down Thursday were Empowerment Charter School, Philadelphia Collegiate Charter School for Boys, and Pride Academy Charter School.

Empowerment was proposed as a kindergarten to fifth grade school in North Philadelphia operated in conjunction with the educational leadership company Jounce Partners. Courtney Taylor, presented as the principal of the school, said it would be named for Shirley Chisholm and would nurture students to be “activists” and “reach beyond their potential” in a close-knit community.

Several parents and community members spoke in favor of Empowerment, not least because it promised to be staffed by people of color.

“One of the things that is important to me is that children see someone who looks like [them] as a teacher,” said Ruth Williams, a community member. “I didn’t see a teacher who looked like me until high school.”

But the charter office report said the application “did not present compelling evidence of the founding coalition’s ability to establish and operate a charter school.”

The Philadelphia Collegiate Charter School for Boys, proposed to locate in Mount Airy, would “prepare Philadelphia’s next generation of young men,” according to its application. It would be managed by an organization that runs a similar school in Baltimore.

“Being in an environment with leadership of men of color can be transformational in the lives of young boys they serve,” said Eric Worley, a graduate of the district and longtime city resident.

The district’s critique said, among other things, that the application did not clearly outline the role of the management organization and did not present a curriculum that would meet state requirements.

In rejecting this application, board members Julia Danzy and Reginald Streater said that they saw value in gender-specific education, especially for boys of color, but that this proposal fell short. “This application does not contain what we need,” Danzy said.

Pride Academy, a K-5 school proposed for Germantown, planned a project-based curriculum to help students develop life-long learning skills for the 21st century.

Jamie Meekins is a local small business owner and potential parent who had hoped to partner with Pride in its hands-on curriculum around nutrition. He urged approval, as did parent John Scarborough. “I believe in the vision of teaching through project-based learning,” he said, adding that he would enroll his child if it opened.

But Grant said its application lacked “a systemic approach for its educational philosophy” and did not show enough evidence of community support.

Among nearly 30 speakers, about half opposed charters on principle, while echoing the shortcomings of these applications, and the rest offered support for Pride, Empowerment and the Collegiate School for Boys. No speakers at the meeting spoke on behalf of the Aspira charters.

Pennsylvania wants to allow districts to delay standardized testing until fall

2021-02-23T22:19:09+00:00

Pennsylvania Education Secretary Noe Ortega has informed the U.S. Department of Education that he wants to allow districts and charter schools to delay administering state exams until September, taking advantage of an option offered when federal officials told states on Monday that they must resume testing this year.

Acting Assistant Education Secretary Ian Rosenblum sent a letter to chief state school officers Feb. 22 telling them to administer standardized tests for 2020-21, despite the disruption caused by the pandemic and the prevalence of virtual learning. The department did not offer states the option to avoid giving tests entirely but offered flexibility, including the ability to give the tests later in the year rather than in the spring, as is customary.

“State assessments and accountability systems play an important role in advancing educational equity, by enabling states, districts and schools to use data to target resources to the students with the greatest needs,” Rosenblum’s letter said. “In addition, parents need information on how their children are doing.”

In response, Ortega on Tuesday posted on the department’s website a draft letter to Rosenblum stating that 320 of the state’s nearly 750 districts and charter schools are offering remote-only instruction due to state health guidance regarding the spread of the coronavirus in their areas. He said it would be “impossible” within the next six weeks to balance health concerns while “safeguarding … the validity of any assessment results.” The letter asks federal officials to issue one of the permitted waivers on the testing requirement.

Noting that the all-remote districts and charters enroll disproportionately high numbers of students who are economically disadvantaged, English learners, Black and Hispanic, or have special needs, Ortega said that the complex logistics of administering the tests in the spring would result in lower test participation and therefore defeat the purpose.

“The very student groups that have faced the greatest historical disadvantages will be systematically underrepresented in any near-term statewide assessment administration,” Ortega’s letter to Rosenblum said. “To be clear, Pennsylvania feels a moral imperative to assess students as one means of understanding and documenting learning loss; however, the assessment administration itself should not serve to aggravate or confound the issue.”

In Philadelphia, the district has remained entirely virtual as have most of its more than 80 charter schools, which together enroll more than 200,000 students.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools across Pennsylvania — and the nation — to shut down in March, a few weeks before the scheduled administration of the state standardized test, the PSSA. Since Rosenblum’s letter, several states including Michigan and Colorado took immediate steps to suspend the usual testing or substitute local assessments to fulfill the requirement.

Many civil rights groups told President Joe Biden’s administration that they opposed waiving the tests entirely, saying such assessments are necessary to expose entrenched educational inequities among different student groups and help direct resources where they are most needed.

While affirming that view, Education Voters of Pennsylvania, a leading advocacy group, issued a statement saying it agreed with Ortega’s position.

The group said the decision allows educators “to focus their time and energy for the remainder of this school year on teaching and supporting students” and on determining how to invest “one time federal funding to help mitigate the harm that Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable students have experienced” due to the pandemic.

The public is invited to weigh in on Ortega’s letter to Rosenblum by emailing RA_EDESEAWaiver@pa.gov.

Despite nonrenewal, one Philadelphia charter school remains hopeful

2020-12-23T23:53:46+00:00

Administrators at Universal Daroff Charter School in West Philadelphia are appealing the decision by the city’s Board of Education to not renew its charter status.

Though it’s unclear when the Charter Appeals Board in Harrisburg will rule, the school is optimistic about the outcome.

Penny Nixon, superintendent and CEO of schools at Universal, said their students are learning. “This notion that we cannot educate our children is false and must be addressed.”

Daroff prides itself in educating students who come from some of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods. Located at 56th and Vine in West Philadelphia, it’s one of two charter schools under the Universal umbrella slated for closure. The other is Universal Bluford, at 57th and Media in the Carroll Park section of West Philadelphia.

Universal has joined a coalition of Black-run charters in Philadelphia claiming systemic bias has led the school district to recommend their closure or non-renewal, at a much higher rate than other schools. They say that Black and Latino charter leaders operate 19% of the charter schools in the city, yet account for 87% of those recommended for closure or non-renewal in recent years.

Bluford and Daroff have underperformed their peers on academic and management measures. The charter office rated both the lowest among the district for finances and administration. Both district reviewers and classroom observers noted poor board practices and “mixed” levels of quality instruction and student performance.

Nixon argued that both Bluford and Daroff outperform schools serving a similar demographic. She’s confident that a fair comparison with district neighborhood schools would show Universal Bluford and Daroff deserve applause and appreciation.

She said the renewal system is broken and that any bias must be eliminated.

Nixon alleges the Charter School Office did not follow its own process by failing to send both schools in writing its final non-renewal recommendation before making it public.

In an April 9 email, the Charter Schools Office stated that it didn’t send the reports because it hadn’t been informed nor could it identify the CEO of either school.

“This claim by the CSO was both puzzling and inaccurate,” Nixon said.

“In my capacity as superintendent of Universal Schools, I have been the CSO’s point of contact for both schools for their previous charter renewals and the recipient of the ACE [Annual Charter Evaluation] reports for both schools for the past five years,” she said. “Therefore, it is not clear as to why the CSO would not have sent the reports to me or at least have contacted my office to ascertain where the final reports should be sent.”

Philadelphia has more than 80 charter schools, enrolling more than 75,000 students.

Daroff and Bluford together serve 1,250 students. The schools are among the city’s Renaissance charters, which are public charter schools and can only enroll students from their neighborhoods.

When they ran Philadelphia schools, the state and the School Reform Commission created the Renaissance Schools initiative in 2010 to try to turn around low-performing elementary and middle schools. But 10 years later, critics who say Renaissance campuses remain low performing have pushed for abolishing the initiative.

“Remote learning takes a tremendous amount of effort,” Ruffin said. “The silver lining has been my teachers and students are learning so much more about technology and platforms, that once we go back to face to face it will push our entire program to the next level.”

The school teaches from an online program called i-Ready that also enables it to test students to see what they’ve learned and how well they’re meeting state standards, said Katie Hollenbach, assistant principal at Daroff.

“The program is used to supplement the core curriculum and as an additional resource for targeting diverse learners and skill sets. It also helps the school diagnose and tier instruction based off of students’ needs,” Hollenbach said.

Nixon believes the charter schools will win their appeals.

“Universal feels strongly that when the charter school law is applied fairly and impartially by objective reviewers both Bluford and Daroff charters will be renewed,” Nixon said, “because renewal for both schools is what is fair, just, and equitable.”

Philadelphia widens free internet eligibility for families with children in school

2020-12-18T23:46:59+00:00

Do you have Internet Essentials? Take this survey about the quality of your connection.

Philadelphia has expanded eligibility for PHLConnectED, its program to provide free internet access to families with school-age children.

City officials intensified outreach this week to families who now qualify for the program.

Under the new guidelines, all families who participate in public benefit programs with income qualifications, such as food stamps, will be eligible. Students who receive special education services or are learning English also qualify.

“We want to connect as many families as possible to reliable internet access,” said Mayor Jim Kenney in announcing the outreach campaign. “As digital learning continues, access to high-speed internet is more important than ever.”

Among the main beneficiaries of the expansion are customers who were enrolled in Comcast’s low-cost Internet Essentials program — especially those who fell behind on their payments — before the pandemic forced most learning online and Comcast began offering free access to new customers.

Even at $9.95 a month, the cost can prove too much for families who are struggling with other obligations, especially those who lost jobs during the pandemic.

“Throughout this process, we’ve also learned that many families already have internet service, but struggle to afford it,” said Chief Information Officer Mark Wheeler. Those already enrolled were not eligible for the two-months-free offer Comcast made last spring to new customers when some virtual learning began for almost all the schools in the city.

About 7,000 people signed up for the Comcast offer between April, when the offer was made, and August, when PHLConnectED started as a joint venture with the city, school district, internet service providers, and several foundations and non-profits. The $17 million program promised free internet until June 2022 to eligible households with students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade in the Philadelphia school district, as well as at most charters and some private schools.

Those 7,000 families have since been notified that they could enroll in PHLConnectED and receive free internet through the end of the 2021-2022 school year. That group accounts for more than half of the 12,000 families PHLConnectED has enrolled since its August launch, according to officials.

As part of PHLConnectED, the city designated three organizations to employ “digital navigators” who track down families, tell them about their eligibility, and help them complete the multi-step process.

“Most of the people I have talked to on the phone about Internet Essentials and PHLConnectED, they don’t know where to start,” said Miyo Imai, a digital navigator for the ExCite Center of Drexel University.

Besides Drexel, the other organizations with digital navigators are Community Learning Center, an adult literacy organization, and SEAMAAC, an advocacy group for immigrants.

Even before PHLConnectED started, Drexel and the other organizations had been reaching out to clients trying to help them with their internet connectivity and to obtain Chromebooks or other devices.

Signing up for PHLConnectED requires several steps, and many families just didn’t follow through.

“They have to take the initiative,” said Imai, who is a Drexel student studying computer science and psychology. “In the beginning, we weren’t getting very many calls, and we weren’t sure how to get the word out there.” It’s a Catch-22, she said — promoting a program online doesn’t work if people aren’t online.

“It was hard to get the word out to people who really needed it,” she said. The city turned to advertising through other means, which helped somewhat, she said.

But altogether, she estimates that she only succeeded with about 10 families to complete the process from beginning to end.

To sign up for the program, families can call a 24-hour, 211 hotline. They get a promotional code from the district or their participating school, which they must then activate before receiving the equipment they need to get online. Some families, such as those with less stable living situations, get hotspots through T-Mobile if that will better serve their needs.

Imai and other navigators said many families are in situations where other life challenges take priority over signing up for internet access.

“We have people coming back to us who don’t know how to set it up once they get a kit from Comcast,” Imai said, “Some have data plans on their phone, so we can send them links. But with other people, it is harder. They’ve never seen a modem or a router, they don’t have any idea what to do with them. There is such a range of people’s experiences with tech.”

Other people have called the Drexel navigators to say that their internet speeds are “ridiculously low. “One woman said she couldn’t open up a single web page,” she said.

Existing customers whose bills are in arrears will not have those obligations forgiven, but have not had their service cut off and will be able to receive free service through June 2022.

Before the expansion, eligible families included those with no access or access only through mobile phones, anyone experiencing housing insecurity, or those who had students who spent their days with caregivers at locations without access.

‘The cutting edge of safety’: Philly area schools plan widespread coronavirus testing

2020-12-11T15:51:00+00:00

School administrators across the Philadelphia area are moving forward with plans to provide coronavirus testing to students and staff — a step seen by many as essential for in-person learning to proceed safely.

The planning comes as a surge of coronavirus cases have compelled the School District of Philadelphia to delay bringing some students back to the classroom, and forced other schools in the region to suspend in-person learning.

Mastery Charter — which runs 26 schools with more than 14,000 students in Philadelphia and Camden — announced Thursday that it would provide free weekly coronavirus tests to all students and staff who want them, whenever in-person education resumes.

“We really recognized it was the cutting edge of safety, and something that was incredibly important to ensuring the health and safety of our kids,” said Laura Clancy, a senior adviser with Mastery.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia also confirmed Thursday it was in discussions with local government and school districts in the region to pilot a program to administer COVID-19 tests in schools. A CHOP spokesperson declined to offer more detail, but Chester and Delaware counties, as well as two Montgomery County school districts, Lower Merion and North Penn, confirmed they would be participating. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health said they are “having some conversations about how it could be organized in Philly,” but said nothing was formalized.

School District of Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite also said Thursday that he expects tests to be available for all students and staff that want them when classrooms re-open. The district is partnering with the city’s health department, but could not yet give specifics about what the testing program will look like and how it would be administered.

“The test will be voluntary, but will be mandatory for people with [COVID] symptoms,” Hite said. “That’s our approach right now, but we’re in the process of finalizing, we hope within the next couple of weeks, a plan for administration.”

Grappling with cost

Public health and education experts have honed in on consistent testing as the key to making in-person instruction safe during the pandemic. One recent study from Johns Hopkins and Duke University found that weekly coronavirus tests can reduce transmission within a school by 60 to 70%. Officials in New York City reopened elementary schools this week, even as the pandemic worsens, based largely on weekly testing.

Mastery’s experience administering a small number of coronavirus tests to students and staff this fall convinced the charter network that routine testing was effective, Clancy said. For one, their overall positivity rate mirrored the city’s rate at the time. Perhaps more importantly for reducing transmission, Clancy said many of those who tested positive had no symptoms.

“If really the only way to tell if someone who is asymptomatic is sick is to do a test…that’s a pretty compelling reason to do a screening program,” Clancy said.

Clancy said Mastery’s plan is only possible because the cost of coronavirus tests has fallen dramatically in the last few months. The school system will pay about $12 per test. By comparison, the average cost of a coronavirus test last summer was $127.

Still, those tests add up. Mastery plans to spend up to $2.7 million of federal coronavirus stimulus funds to pay for the endeavor through the end of the year. The charter network has been able to absorb many other pandemic-related expenses, such as laptops for all students, in part because of its strong philanthropic support.

Mastery is budgeting for a plan to test roughly 50% of all students — the amount they expect will want to return to in-person learning when it becomes available — every week from mid-January through the end of the school year.

If the School District of Philadelphia wanted to do the same testing program for the same proportion of its students, it would cost about $15 million. The district is currently facing a budget gap of nearly four times that amount.

Cost is proving to be a major obstacle for other schools, many of whom have struggled to pay for more basic necessities in the COVID era, including personal protective equipment. A spokesperson for the African American Charter School Coalition, a group of Black-led Philadelphia charter schools, said some of those schools would like to implement consistent COVID-19 testing for students and staff, but have long since run out of federal stimulus funding, and lack other philanthropic support.

“There is limited funding that these schools have,” coalition spokesperson Dawn Chavous said. “With limited funding, you are limited in terms of what you can do.”

Program to connect Philly residents to the internet will ramp up in the next few weeks, officials say

2020-09-18T20:44:45+00:00

Sometimes when Ashley Chalmers Young’s second grader, Zion, tried to do his homework last spring, his mother would get an important phone call, and he’d have to stop.

“All we had was mobile internet,” through her cellular service, Young explained. And in the era of at-home pandemic schooling, this wasn’t sufficient to keep Zion engaged.

Young, who used to drive for Uber and Lyft but hasn’t worked since the onset of COVID-19, has high hopes for Zion, who she calls her “little professor.” She tried to sign up for the low-cost Internet Essentials program through Comcast, but said she could never make it happen, either by going to a Comcast store or calling a phone number she was given. “They were giving me the runaround,” she said. “It was difficult to do what they were asking.”

Young, her husband Antoine and two sons live with her mother Mary, who likes to volunteer at Zion’s school, Philadelphia Hebrew Public Charter in East Falls. One day while there, her mother “mentioned what we were doing to get online and the school was nice enough to loan us an internet box,” Young said.

That box is a mobile hotspot that the school distributed through PHLConnectED, a citywide program that aims to make sure all Philadelphia families have reliable internet access, especially at a time when those without it cannot take advantage of free public education.

City officials told the board of education on Thursday that PHLConnectED is getting off to a slow start. But they expect it to ramp up quickly and officials forecast that 7,400 households will be up and running by the end of September.

“We knew that in the first two, three, four weeks, it would be slow,” said Mark Wheeler, the city’s chief of information technology. “We know from many of our partners that it takes multiple mechanisms to get people to sign up or participate.”

The $17 million, two-year program, funded by a combination of public and philanthropic funds, was announced on Aug. 6 with a goal of signing up 35,000 city households to broadband access within two years. This would happen either by giving them access to Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, or through providing individual T-Mobile hotspots to those for whom that is the best option. This would include homeless families and the housing insecure.

“We are so grateful for this program,” said Emily Hurst, the executive director of Philadelphia Hebrew Public, a new charter in East Falls that has 250 students in grades K-2. “It’s a herculean effort by the city, the philanthropic community and the school district.”

Hurst said so far, the school has handed out 22 hotspots, and has helped “a number” of other families sign up for Internet Essentials, which under PHLConnectED is free for two years.

At Hebrew Public, more than 10 percent of her families had a need, Hurst said. Hotspots have turned out to be a more practical solution for many families, not just the housing insecure, because some students spend their days in multiple households. “Our families are creative and resilient, and a lot of families are piecing together care for their kids,” she said.

A map of the number of student households without internet from page 9 of the PHL ConnectED presentation by city officials to the Board of Education, September 17, 2020.

Superintendent William Hite has estimated 18,000 city students lack broadband service that is fast enough for doing schoolwork. PHLConnectEd is available to students enrolled in the district, the city’s more than 80 charters, and the Catholic Independence Mission Schools. The district, the individual charters, and the mission schools have all compiled a database of students who potentially qualify for the program, he said.

Using this information the program has reached out to 9,700 households with students who qualify for codes that allow participation in Internet Essentials, Wheeler told the board.

In addition, he said, 1,000 mobile hotspots from T-Mobile have been assigned to eligible students, based on determinations by their school that this is their best option. But he emphasized this doesn’t mean that many have received them.

“This is an eligibility number as opposed to a pickup number,” Wheeler said. “We know from partners who work with families who are under different types of stressors, it does take multiple outreach mechanisms to get them to participate.”

Hite said at Thursday’s board of education meeting that through PHLConnectED, so far 495 have fully connected to the internet, 274 by activating their codes for wired access, and 221 through hotspots. To reach Wheeler’s goal, that means nearly 7,000 people will need to successfully connect in the next two weeks.

Wheeler and Otis Hackney, the city’s chief education officer, are optimistic this will happen.

They told the board that since PHLConnectED started a 211 hotline on Aug. 24 about 2,500 families have called it. Soon, the hotline, run by United Way and available in 150 languages, will be upgraded to not only confirm eligibility, but to directly contact callers to the internet service provider that fits their needs. They are hoping this will help more families actually complete the connection process.

The city is basing its projections for fully connecting thousands more students quickly on the experience in Chicago, Wheeler said, which also started slowly but then saw a surge in participation.

“Chicago also had the same situation, [at first] it was low. After getting the word out...they saw a snowball effect, and we believe we are going to be on the same trajectory,” he said.

Since starting its program in July, Chicago has signed up 25,000 households through its Chicago Connected program, which has a $50 million budget and is organized more centrally than Philadelphia’s effort. Chicago’s big surge occurred in the week before school opened.

Hite has also been in touch with officials in Chicago, where he learned that persistence is key. “It takes multiple touch points, from using the code to getting the internet installed,” he said. “ We will continue that outreach, we have social workers and case workers visiting homes of students we have not heard from.”

One of the obstacles Chicago has faced is skepticism from families that the internet access will be free and they won’t get a bill.

To allay such fears and help families complete the process, another component of PHLConnectEd is the availability of “digital navigators” who can assist with the final steps. People at several nonprofit community organizations providing navigators said that so far, however, the demand for them has been low.

“We are working on doing more on the ground outreach,” said Lois Seffu, the family literacy coordinator at the immigrant advocacy groups SEAMAAC, Inc. “I don’t know, maybe it is still a thing of people not understanding what we’re offering.”

But Seffu and others working in outreach also expect that to change.

Andy Stutzman, who is organizing digital navigators through Drexel University’s ExCITe Center, said he thought there was some confusion over whether those who call the 211 hotline should be forwarded to the navigators. According to Wheeler and Hackney, that is being corrected.

“Everything is moving so quickly, we are working out bumps in the road for that,” Stutzman said. “We are expecting more calls in the near future.”

PHLConnectED BOE Meeting 9 17 2020 Submission (PDF)PHLConnectED BOE Meeting 9 17 2020 Submission (Text)

Funding inequities hamper Philly efforts to maintain a quality, diverse teaching force, report says

2020-08-25T22:55:20+00:00

A new report says Philadelphia is facing dire teacher shortages in key areas in both public and charter schools, and that more experienced and fully certified teachers are inequitably distributed.

Research for Action, a nearly 30-year-old nonprofit education research organization based in the city, said that Philadelphia has fewer teachers per student than the state and national averages, and would need to hire 1,500 more in both district and charter schools to reach the state average ratio. Statewide, the ratio is one teacher per 15 students; in Philadelphia, it is one per 17 students.

The shortages are driven mostly by funding inequities, the report said, including the state’s failure to reimburse districts for “stranded costs” incurred when students leave the district to attend independently run, publicly funded charter schools.

Citing earlier RFA research, the report said that even as enrollment declines, “districts are not able to maintain services, including student/staffing ratios, while implementing budget cuts needed to accommodate the new costs districts must pay to charter schools.”

The fully certified teacher shortages are most acute in special education, high school math, and middle school math, English, and science. And while student enrollment has been declining in the district, the number of teachers has declined at a faster rate.

Larisa Shambaugh, the district’s chief talent officer, said in an interview that the issues raised in the report are valid and a matter of concern for the district, which is working hard on recruitment, retention, and reducing turnover. Some of the older data, for instance, on the percentage of teachers who are not fully certified, has improved, although she did not have the latest figures handy.

“We live and breathe the belief that our teaching workforce in the district is what is the key to success for our students,” she said.

This year, she said, the district hired about 600 new teachers and has filled more than 99% of its vacancies. On the issue that the district should have more teachers to reduce class size, Shamburgh said that “we don’t staff by teacher/student ratio, but by class size needs.” Under the teachers’ contract, classes can be up to 30 in grades K-3 and 33 for higher grades, but the actual class size is “well below that,” although she did not have specifics on hand.

The report also found that, as recently as 2016, up to a quarter of math classes are taught by teachers who are not fully certified in the field, and that in the 70 schools, both district and charter, where at least 96 percent of the students are black and Hispanic, the figure is 39 percent.

The district “is increasingly relying on emergency teaching permits,” the report concluded.

While she didn’t offer current numbers on emergency permits, Shambaugh pointed out that not being fully certified doesn’t necessarily mean a teacher isn’t qualified. Many in Philadelphia are second career teachers who have advanced degrees in their fields but lack courses in pedagogy. The district has started a teacher residency program with Drexel University that this year produced 67 teachers, most of color, in STEM subjects and Spanish.

Shortages in specific content areas, including science, math, and special education, “is a national issue,” she said. This year, the district started a program offering high school teachers $10,000 in tuition help toward obtaining a joint certification in special education, she said.

While Philadelphia has “among the most diverse teaching forces in the state,” the report notes that “Philadelphia’s students are far more diverse in terms of race and ethnicity than those who teach them.” While 31% of the city’s teachers are people of color, 86% of the students are Black or Hispanic. Nearly two-thirds of all the teachers of color in Pennsylvania work in Philadelphia.

Only 6 percent of the state’s teachers are people of color, compared to a third of the students. Shambaugh noted that to increase teacher diversity, “we can’t solely rely on the teacher preparation pipeline in Pennsylvania, which is very white.”

The number of students seeking and completing teaching degrees in Pennsylvania has plummeted in the past decade. Nationally, enrollment in teacher preparation programs has fallen by 34 percent, but in Pennsylvania, the plunge is 67 percent, from nearly 40,000 in 2008-09 to just over 13,200 in 2017-18.

As the overall numbers declined, the proportion of teacher candidates who are Black or Hispanic shrank. In Pennsylvania’s teacher preparation programs, 6% are Black and 4% are Hispanic, “well below” national averages of 11% and 16%, respectively.

Compared to most surrounding suburban districts, Philadelphia’s teachers — once the highest-paid in the area, have fallen behind. In Lower Merion, for instance, the average salary is just under $102,000. In Philadelphia, it is $72,500.

The contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers expires on Aug. 31, and while salary is expected to be a big issue, the district is forecasting an $800 million deficit by 2025 without additional revenue. It had brought its budget nearly into structural balance before the coronavirus, but forecasts now show state and city revenue declining precipitously while pandemic-related expenses are adding to the district’s bottom line.

“Many of the barriers and challenges to improving recruitment and retention of a qualified, more diverse teaching force are endemic to the structural inequity within which the Philadelphia school system operates,” the report said. “Efforts to eliminate broader inequity may prove the most effective long-term strategy for strengthening the teacher workforce in the city.”