Chalkbeat

Seventy years after Brown v Board of Education, school funding is the new frontier in education equity

2024-05-20T16:34:40+00:00

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

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In 1969, Debra Matthews was almost nine years old and looking forward to fourth grade with her friends at Rowen Elementary when her mother told her she would be going to a different school five miles away from her West Oak Lane home.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Matthews recalled. Rowen had just built a brand new annex building that Matthews had been excited to explore. “I thought I would be going there. I was looking forward to that.”

Instead, until she graduated, Matthews, who is Black, rode a bus every morning, about a half hour each way, to predominantly white Northeast Philadelphia. First in a schoolbus to J. Hampton Moore elementary, then via SEPTA to Woodrow Wilson Junior High, now Castor Gardens Middle School, and then to Northeast High School.

All in the name of school desegregation.

This month marks the 70th anniversary of what is perhaps the most consequential U.S. Supreme Court decision of the 20th century, Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed Jim Crow laws in 17 states that required Black and white children to be educated in separate schools.

As the nation commemorates Brown, Philadelphians are reflecting on their own long and complicated history with school segregation.

Philadelphia was a city where segregation was not de jure, or imposed not by the laws that Brown struck down, but instead de facto – the result of personal choices, such as where people choose to live, that led to massive white flight.

For some civil rights leaders of the time, Philadelphia was a perfect test case for challenging segregation in many Northern states. While a federal case was never filed, the district experienced more than 40 years of litigation and oversight from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission aimed at integrating schools.This resulted in generations of students like Matthews, almost all of them Black, bused to schools outside of their neighborhoods and decades of court pressure to implement other policies designed to end segregation.

But, today, the city’s students are still largely attending some of the most segregated and under resourced schools in the country. The district is 50% Black and 14% white, while the city’s overall demographics are nearly 40% Black and 34% white, reflecting a longstanding pattern of most white families attending private schools. Although the city is home to a few of the most racially-mixed schools in the state, a new study out of Stanford University found Philadelphia’s schools overall remain nearly as segregated as they were 30 years ago. White students are concentrated in a little over a dozen mostly special-admissions schools and comprise just a tiny percentage in the vast majority of neighborhood schools, the study found.

In the 70 years since Brown, “Segregation in the North has gotten worse, and the Philadelphia area is no exception to that,” said Michael Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center, a legal advocacy group.

Advocates like Churchill haven’t given up on desegregation as an ideal, but they have shifted focus to the new frontier in educational equity – school funding

“The schools that have the most minority children also have the least funding,” said Churchill, who has represented plaintiffs in the lawsuit seeking fair and adequate school funding in Pennsylvania. “And as difficult as it may be to fix the physical segregation of students, there is absolutely no excuse why there should be such funding disparities.”

The Brown anniversary comes at a time when Pennsylvania’s governor and state legislature are grappling with reforming the state’s funding system in the wake of Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer’s February 2023 decision declaring it unconstitutional. She said Pennsylvania overly relies on property taxes to fund education, depriving students in poorer areas of a “thorough and efficient” education. And she concluded, drawing on research and testimony, that Black and Latino students are disproportionately located in districts with inadequate funding.

While Philadelphia is surrounded by overwhelmingly white, better-funded suburban districts, the lead plaintiff in the school funding case is the William Penn School district on the city’s southwest edge, itself an example of de facto segregation: after more Black families moved into the district, white families once again left, perpetuating the largely separate and unequal system. Property values went down, tax rates went up, and those who could afford to move did.

And that unequal system has been proven to harm Black students, Hispanic students, and students from low-income backgrounds by depriving them of experienced teachers and educating them in aging buildings without proper temperature controls and often plagued with lead and asbestos, among other challenges.

“There is an anti-big city, anti-urban attitude,” said Roseann Liu, a visiting professor at Swarthmore College, at an event for her recently published book “Designed to Fail: Why Racial Equity in School Funding Is So Hard to Achieve,” which is a case study of the issue in Pennsylvania.

“What that really means is anti-Black. … I don’t think that state legislators are racists, but there is something to be said about people in power holding ideas about the value of different kinds of children.”

The history of desegregation efforts in Philadelphia

For decades until the 1970s, the school district strictly enforced policies and practices clearly designed to segregate its schools.

In the early and mid-twentieth century as they built new schools to accommodate the city’s growing population – including many Black families moving from the South – officials drew school catchment area boundaries to segregate students as much as possible.

And well into the 1950′s, the district maintained segregated elementary schools to employ a growing cadre of Black teachers and principals. The white power structure of the day was steadfast in opposition to allowing Black teachers to teach white students and to having black principals supervise white teachers.

While some practices had eased by then – there were a handful of Black teachers and principals in high schools – discrimination was still very much in evidence in 1970, when the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which had begun monitoring city schools several years before, filed a complaint against the district. The commission, which at the time had the power to enforce anti-discrimination laws, wanted mandatory busing to remedy segregation.

School officials fought any effort to forcibly bus students out of their neighborhoods, especially white students, but they did agree to a voluntary plan in which students like Matthews took part. They also agreed, in the 1970s, to create several new, specialized schools such as George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science in the hopes of attracting a diverse student body.

When Constance Clayton became the city’s first Black (and first female) superintendent in 1982, she and her chief of staff, Penn law professor Ralph Smith, devised a more sweeping plan to satisfy the commission.

Clayton’s plan had two major components. One was to provide extra resources, including free extended day activities and art, music, and technology programming, to mostly Black schools in racially integrated areas as an incentive for white students to attend. Such a school was considered successfully desegregated if it reached 25% white population.

The second component was aimed at the significant number of neighborhood schools that remained virtually all-white, most in Northeast Philadelphia. Under this initiative, the district vastly expanded the voluntary busing program, with the goal of reaching 40% Black enrollment in as many of these schools as possible. Many more thousands of students than was the case in Matthews’ time were bused starting in the Clayton era.

While the voluntary busing did change the demographics of many schools, the commission, which continued to advocate for mandatory busing, took the district to court again in the 1990s. By that time, with more desegregation becoming virtually unattainable, the case evolved to focus on the adequacy and equity of funding.

Commonwealth Court Judge Doris Smith-Ribner ordered the district to invest more resources in the district’s poorest, “racially-isolated” Black schools. But when she also ordered Harrisburg to send Philadelphia more money to help pay for this, the state Supreme Court summarily took her off the case and the state legislature largely ignored her directive.

Around that time, when Superintendent David Hornbeck called the state’s education funding system “racist,” Gov. Tom Ridge took umbrage at the comment, an incident that helped precipitate the state takeover of the Philadelphia school district in 2002. The state controlled the district until 2018, an era that saw the rise of charter schools as the primary reform effort to improve the education of low-income, Black, and Hispanic students.

The busing continued until 2009, when the district’s second black superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, asked that it be ended, citing the expense of busing and a waning commitment to desegregation itself for its own sake.

Students at Henry R. Houston Elementary School in Mount Airy. Houston was one of the district's targeted desegregation schools which received extra resources to attract white students. Today it is 23% white.

“Integration 2.0″

As the nation reflects on the Brown anniversary, Philadelphia educators and policymakers have been pondering what next steps should be.

“The other legacy of Brown, is when desegregation did happen it was done at the expense of Black communities,” said Erica Frankenberg, who studies the subject at Pennsylvania State University. “It was done inequitably in that it made some communities question the importance of it.”

She said she has been “thinking about this idea of what would integration 2.0 look like, integration in a multi racial way, with equitable sharing who has to travel, making sure what is reflected in the curriculum and history classes, integrated teachers. All of that is done in some places, but it is not widespread.”

Sharif El-Mekki, a former school district and charter school principal who now runs the Center for Black Educator Development, said Brown was invaluable in that it invalidated what he described as an “apartheid” system. At the same time, he said, quoting activist Stokely Carmichael, it is not segregation per se, “but white supremacy we should be fighting against. What’s important is that we don’t have government-sanctioned forms of segregation.”

El-Mekki, who is working hard to recruit more Black teachers at a time when their attrition rate is greater than that for white teachers, said while the government and institutions should be vigilant about discrimination, they should also be doing more to support “all-Black spaces that are holistic and affirming.”

To mark the anniversary, Desireé Chang, the Director of Education and Outreach at the state Human Relations Commission that pursued the Philadelphia case for so long, said there is still work to be done.

“Students living in lower income communities are deprived of the same resources provided to students in higher income communities,” she said. “This underfunding has led to crowded classrooms, fewer teachers and outdated schools, textbooks, and an overall unequal education.”

In in Black community where Debra Matthews grew up, and still lives, and in others like it, there was long the assumption that schools with white students would be better than the one in the neighborhood. The students taking the opportunity to travel from Rowen to the Northeast filled the school bus.

Matthews, now 63, can’t say for sure how or whether she benefited from her experience traveling far from her home to attend school, having nothing to compare it to. She noted that at J. Hampton Moore, the building was more modern, the gym had more equipment, and the schoolyard was bigger than at Rowen. She recalls that she made new friends and enjoyed “a rainbow of classes.”

She remembers that at Rowen she had been on an accelerated track, whereas in her new school she was not. After her mother complained, however, she was switched.

And she recalls that when she arrived, as a nine-year-old, several of the girls in the class had letters from their parents saying that they were not to sit next to any Black students. And the teacher complied.

But, she said, over time, she made friends, even with some of the girls who had the letters. In an era when many students went home for lunch, something the bused-in students couldn’t do, she was invited to go home with a classmate.

“I did that one time, and I wasn’t impressed,” she said, laughing, recalling that the only difference between her Philadelphia rowhouse and theirs – down to the plastic covers on the furniture – was that her friend’s mother didn’t toast their bread.

“I thought I was going to see something with more splendor, grandeur. But they were just an average family. And I was missing pizza day.”

There were occasional conflicts and awkward incidents, but by fifth and sixth grade she and her girlfriends were sitting around together cutting out pictures from magazines of their favorite idols, which included both the Osmonds and the Jackson 5.

“We got along,” she said. “Sometimes, if adults just let children be children and stop trying to spread beliefs onto them, it will work out.”

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’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.

The Philadelphia mayor’s plan for year-round school is taking shape. What will it look like?

2024-05-06T11:00:00+00:00

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A plan to put in place Mayor Cherelle Parker’s promise to lengthen the school day and year — her signature education proposal — is taking shape.

But what that will look like in practice is still very much in flux.

Last week, Superintendent Tony Watlington told the City Council during an education budget hearing that a “beefed up” extended-day program will start in September in an unspecified number of schools, mostly consisting of “fun and engaging” after-school activities. In the 2025-26 school year, the district plans to offer a year-round schedule in up to 20 pilot schools, he said.

The first step of implementing Parker’s vision is adding programs and offerings this summer. But changing school districts’ traditional calendars to fully adopt year-round school is a different animal. It has typically meant shortening summer vacation and adding four week-long breaks during the school year. That shift, if it ever occurs, will not begin for well over a year, based on Watlington’s timeline.

It is very rare for year-round school to actually add instructional days. And the strategic plan adopted by the district last year cast doubt on the power of reallocating school days to improve academic achievement.

Putting in place an extended schedule — as opposed to offering more robust summer options — will need buy-in from the district’s unions, parents and other stakeholders, including agencies that now provide after-school and summer programming.

Cost has also not been discussed, though Watlington said he is seeking philanthropic help. And there are practical considerations linked to expanding programming at any particular school, such as whether it’s air-conditioned. Most city schools are not. (Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts just donated $200,000 to install air conditioners in 10 schools.)

“We have to create a demand and build partnerships,” Watlington told the council.

Watlington has mentioned the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City as one model he’s studied. Its Promise Academy charter schools’ schedules run from September through July, with week-long breaks in October, December, April, and June. The schools don’t have a longer day, but do have extensive after-school activities, and they also offer after-school and summer enrichment programs for students in New York City district-run schools within the zone.

During her campaign, when she discussed her reasons for supporting year-round school, Parker emphasized the benefits and flexibility it would provide to parents more than the potential academic benefits for students. But she didn’t clarify exactly what she had in mind.

Since taking office in January, she has changed how she talks about the issue. She now describes her vision as giving more educational opportunities to the city’s children outside regular school hours while keeping them safe.

“School is the safest place they’ll be … Ward and June Cleaver, the Cosbys, is not the reality our children are living in,” Parker said last month at an education conference, referring to the bygone popular television shows “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Cosby Show,” which presented ideals of American family life.

Philadelphia has previously tried one model of year-round school — albeit on a very small scale. In 2000, Grover Washington Middle School in Kensington operated on a shorter summer vacation with longer breaks during the year.

The goal was to reverse the effects of “summer slide,” or the decline in students’ achievement levels after the long summer break. But just four years later, the district’s then-CEO Paul Vallas ended the program, saying that its negligible academic benefits didn’t justify continuing it.

Here’s what to know about Parker’s push for year-round schooling and how it compares to other cities’ initiatives:

What’s new — and returning — for students this summer?

Both the city and the district already have extensive summer programming.

But the Summer Achievers program, which will be new this summer, could be especially significant. That’s because the 20 schools that could eventually participate in the 2025-26 pilot for year-round school will likely be drawn from the 62 schools where Summer Achievers programs will take place.

In Summer Achievers, in the mornings, students will receive instruction from district teachers in English Language Arts and math, while the afternoons and Friday will include camp-like activities and field trips. The program will also feature music, art, and sports, as well as social-emotional learning. The district is calling it a “school meets camp” experience.

This idea isn’t entirely new. A version of such a program was offered by the district starting in the summer of 2021, as schools began reopening after COVID.

Summer Achievers will be held between June 25 and Aug. 2. (For the program’s final week, the camp activities will take up full days and there will be no academic instruction.) While children in Summer Achievers will receive breakfast and lunch, families will be responsible for transportation.

The list of providers include the Greater Philadelphia YMCA, the University of Pennsylvania, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and Sunrise Philadelphia. Summer Achievers is based on pilot programs held over the past three summers, funded in part by the William Penn Foundation. (Chalkbeat receives funding from the William Penn Foundation.)

A statement from the Office of Children and Families described Summer Achievers as “a model for what summer programming can look like … in a full-day, year-round program moving forward.”

Another new program for this summer is called “Young Entrepreneurs” and is for rising ninth graders. It will run from June 25 to July 25, and will focus on developing business skills as well as providing instruction in English Language Arts and math.

The school district already offers a considerable array of summer programming for young people between the ages of 5 and 18. They range from a two-day-a-week virtual program for students entering kindergarten to month-long courses for high schoolers to make up credits for courses they failed.

Several emphasize particular skills and interests, including music – there’s an option to join a summer orchestra and a summer drumline.

Others are focused on particular populations, including a longstanding “extended school year” program for students with disabilities to shore up their skills and a “newcomer academy” for English learners.

The city recreation department runs camps around the city, and the Office of Children and Families oversees nearly 100 programs run by Boys’ and Girls’ clubs and other organizations called “It’s a Summer Thing!”

In addition, Deputy Mayor for Children and Families Vanessa Garrett-Hartley said the city is planning to provide up to 8,000 summer employment opportunities and career exploration activities for young people ages 12 and up.

It’s “work based learning, internships, job shadowing,” Garrett-Hartley said.

What will year-round school mean for teachers?

Teachers remain wary of what officials might ultimately come up with, a sentiment rooted in last year’s mayoral race.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said in an interview that Parker never discussed her proposal for year-round school with the union before making it a centerpiece of her campaign.

Without having more details, he said, his members have expressed concerns about how it may affect their jobs and schedules.

Some are also parents, he noted, “and if they have to work during the summer, this will totally impact their families and they don’t want to do that.”

In Philadelphia, the Belmont charter school network has its own extended-year program. Teachers in the network who sign up to teach over the summer get a few weeks off between the end of the regular academic year and the start of summer programming. They also get two weeks off before going back to Belmont in the fall.

But if parents have children in different schools on different schedules, year-round school could present more of a problem than a help.

All teacher participation in summer programs are voluntary; it is unclear what will happen if school schedules are changed. In the meantime, Jordan is praising the addition of enrichment activities and field trips to students over the summer, because many city children never have the opportunity to visit attractions like the Franklin Institute or the Constitution Center.

“All of this is going on around them and they are just not aware of it, and parents don’t have the funds to take them to museums, they can be costly for one child much less for three or four,” Jordan said.

What are the next steps for year-round school?

The logistics are daunting and the cost considerable. But one city councilmember said that after asking Watlington about it during budget hearings, she thinks the district is moving too slowly on the initiative.

“It wasn’t as well thought out as I thought it would be,” said Cindy Bass, who represents the 8th District in Northwest Philadelphia.”It’s hopeful, aspirational, not concrete.”

“This is the mayor’s directive. I was expecting more substantive detail,” Bass added.

Parker has separately proposed giving the school district a larger share of the city property tax, increasing its share from 55% to 56%, which she said would raise $129 million over five years. Bass said that money should be used for year-round schooling.

The school district already spends $42 million on summer and after-school programming, although COVID aid that helped pay for it is about to expire

Sharon Ward, the deputy chief education officer, said city, district, and other officials are meeting to hash out the details for this summer and for the future.

Echoing Parker’s comments from last year’s mayoral campaign, she noted that parents want more safety and enriching programs for their kids that are “more aligned with their work hours.”

Ward also said that “additional academic enrichment” will be a part of whatever’s developed, and that the city will learn from the activities already available to students.

“We’re working on it. We’re not starting from scratch,” Ward said.

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.

Pennsylvania students must take state standardized tests online by 2026

2024-04-18T20:06:29+00:00

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Pennsylvania will require nearly all students to take state standardized tests online by 2026, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Thursday.

During a press conference at Pittsburgh’s Northgate Middle School, Shapiro said the move would free up more classroom time for learning, save the state money, and reduce time spent on test preparation and processing.

Schools across the state can already choose to administer their Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and Keystone state exams online or using pencil and paper. But by 2026, all schools will be required to give all tests online, Shapiro said. However, paper-and-pencil assessments will still be available for students who need special accommodations, according to a statement from the state Department of Education.

The Philadelphia district already administers online assessments and each student is provided a laptop or tablet device, said spokesperson Christina Clark in an email. Though “we do not know what the specific requirements for online PSSA/Keystones districtwide will be,” she said, “we are confident that we will be able to make any necessary adjustments that are needed by 2026.”

The window for administering this year’s PSSA in schools, including Philadelphia, starts next week. According to a statement from the state Department of Education, 32% of schools in Pennsylvania have already started giving their assessments online.

In explaining the decision, Shapiro said that students do “a ton of interactive learning on their computers” and moving the tests online would be a better fit for their classroom experience. The state also plans to adapt the online tests to include more items like drag-and-drop elements, sorting, and graphic manipulation questions.

Educators have long argued state tests are a burden and impact classroom flow while providing limited information on what students are learning. Forty-eight states, including Pennsylvania, already offer optional online testing. And New York City is also moving to drop the pencil and paper alternative for some grades by 2026.

“We are spending too much time on these fill-in bubble sheets,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Khalid Mumin said, adding that this move is part of Shapiro’s promise to “reimagine” public education in the commonwealth.

The traditional tests, mostly multiple choice, are limited in value and “take too damn long,” Shapiro said. He also said they place a major bureaucratic burden on teachers that’s separate from their primary job.

To be sure, online tests have their limits. There is some evidence that students tend to perform worse on exams taken on a computer, tablet, or other device than on one taken with pencil and paper.

Shapiro’s announcement about online exams wasn’t the only testing news from Thursday’s event.

To better assess student progress and achievement, the state Department of Education is also developing a new “benchmarking” tool to help educators identify if students are on track to succeed, flag any potential issues early so they can be addressed before testing begins, and help teachers “respond to unique student needs to set them up for success.”

“What we really want [is for] our teachers and students to be able to collaborate on learning, that’s the environment that we want to create,” Shapiro said.

At the same time, Shapiro took the chance to criticize testing broadly. He said the state is working to “get rid of [standardized] tests entirely.” But he noted he can’t do that without losing $600 million in federal aid.

The main federal law governing K-12 requires standardized testing in certain grades and subjects. Shapiro said his administration is working with the federal government to relax the standardized testing requirements on states.

“Trust me, the moment that they provide some easing of those requirements, we will ease them as well here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.

Mumin said the Pennsylvania Department of Education will be ready to help districts make the switch in 2026 through professional development, webinars, tutorials, monthly newsletters, a help desk, and more.

“No student is going to be inhibited by this process or held behind by this process,” Shapiro promised.

In a statement following the announcement, Shapiro’s administration also claimed the move to online testing would save the Commonwealth $6.5 million a year and reduce its carbon footprint by cutting back on printing, packaging, and shipping test materials.

Carrie Wynn, an 11th grader at Northgate who appeared at the press conference, said taking her state tests online eased some of the pressure that can come with the exams.

“I cannot stand here today and say that moving to online testing has made me more excited for testing, but it was not the nerve wracking change that I had anticipated,” Wynn said. “It was more similar to the way we learned in class than the old paper tests … while they still aren’t fun, that made these tests less stressful for me.”

The PSSA is given in the spring to students in grades three through eight in English Language Arts, math and science.

The Keystone exams are administered in winter and spring to high school students in Algebra I, Biology and Literature. Keystones are currently most commonly administered via pencil and paper.

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.

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

Philadelphia will stop the teacher shuffle between schools known as ‘leveling’

2024-04-16T18:36:13+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district will stop shifting teachers around between schools after the academic year starts, a dreaded practice known as “leveling,” Superintendent Tony Watlington announced Tuesday.

The longstanding procedure reassigns teachers based on actual enrollment for each school, instead of predicted enrollment. But teachers and parents have long complained that the annual teacher shuffle at the end of October disrupts and harms student progress as well as school stability.

This school year, 59 schools lost teachers under leveling, according to the district, and 88 teachers changed schools.

In a letter to parents and a video posted on social media Tuesday, Watlington said the district “will reallocate up to $8.8 million from Central Office cuts and energy savings to fund the discontinuation of leveling in any schools or classrooms after the beginning of the school year.”

Christina Clark, a spokesperson for the district, said it’s the district’s intention to eliminate leveling permanently “unless there are significant funding reductions.” During the pandemic, the district suspended leveling only to bring it back.

“We are committed to investing in and protecting our classrooms to the extent we can,” Clark said in a statement.

To make sure that all schools are staffed appropriately from the outset, Watlington said the district will do more outreach to families over the summer to get more accurate enrollment data. If it can estimate more precisely how many students actually show up, it can make sure that enough teachers are assigned to each school, he said.

Education, city officials and parents welcomed Watlington’s news.

“We’re relieved and excited that the district and Superintendent Watlington listened to the parents and community members’ cries to stop leveling,” said Emily Pugliese, co-president of the Houston Elementary Home and School Association, Philadelphia’s equivalent of a PTA; Houston lost a teacher through leveling last October. “We’re really hopeful we’ll see the end of it forever and our students won’t have to go through the damaging process of losing a teacher and being in a classroom with too many kids.”

Why parents worry about the teacher shuffle

During the leveling process, some schools gain teachers, if their enrollment has been underestimated, and others lose them if it has been overestimated.

Because teachers are allotted according to strict class size limits — 30 students in grades K-3 and 33 above that — the lack of two or three students could mean the difference between losing a teacher and keeping one. It could mean the difference, for example, between having two fifth grade classes with 17 students each, or one with 33.

But due to requirements of the teachers contract, if a school loses a position, which teacher relocates has been based on seniority rather than on a principal’s judgment. This meant that if the fifth grade was not large enough to support two teachers, it would be the second grade teacher who has less seniority who is reassigned, resulting in disruption for more than just fifth grade students.

The leveling practice also doesn’t take into account whether the rising fifth grade in the school is large enough to accommodate two teachers the following year, leading to further instability.

The practice has occurred in Philadelphia since the 1970s, but in recent years there have been efforts to dial it back. The district suspended leveling during the pandemic but resumed it in 2022.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said Tuesday that Watlington’s decision would promote school and classroom stability. Katherine Gilmore Richardson, the City Council’s Democratic majority leader, issued a statement saying she supported the district’s decision, as did Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, the chair of the education committee.

“I have spoken with countless families on how their children have been impacted by leveling,” Gilmore Richardson said, adding that smaller class sizes in early grades were particularly beneficial for students of color and those from low-income families.

The district’s federal pandemic aid is ending and it faces a budget shortfall without significant funding increases. But the $8.8 million cost Watlington said is sufficient to stop leveling is a tiny fraction of the district’s $4.5 billion budget, and he made sure to say the money was coming from savings elsewhere. The district cannot raise its own funds and is dependent on the city and the state for most of its revenue.

In the midst of a statewide teacher shortage, the district started this school year with more than 200 vacancies for teacher positions, although it’s not clear how many of those positions have remained vacant throughout the year.

Clark said the district started this school year with “the most teachers of any fall in the last eleven years, and our teacher applications for open positions is significantly higher than this time last year.” She said Watlington’s team is confident the rate of filled positions will be even higher in the fall. Clark did not say whether the district has filled all its vacancies for this year.

Leveling has long been a sore subject for parents who say the practice harms students and is something the district should be able to avoid.

During testimony to the City Council in February, Seleny Fernandez, a parent of a 7-year-old at Clara Barton Elementary School, testified in City Council about her concerns that leveling had on her children’s education.

“A lot of those kids, they have big problems learning,” Fernandez said, “And then if you [take] away their teachers, what is going to happen? More problems.”

Fernandez’s husband, Luis Ramirez, told the council that at Clara Barton, their daughter was regularly in classes of 28 kids or more. He argued that this situation in the richest nation in the world “cannot be a money problem.”

“As a concerned parent, I get emotional because my daughter is in this mess,” Fernandez also said.”To me leveling is the same thing as looting. The school district is coming to my school and looting us of the most valuable resources.”

This story has been updated to include comments from a spokesperson for the school district.

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.

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

Philadelphia school board adopts preliminary $4.5 billion budget

2024-03-29T01:42:05+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education adopted a preliminary $4.5 billion budget Thursday for fiscal year 2025 that shows its yearly expenditures will outpace revenue but will be balanced with reserves.

The “lump sum” budget presented by Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman does not include any significant cuts at the school level. A five-year projection shows escalating shortfalls each year, starting with nearly $88 million in 2025 and ballooning to $745 million in 2029.

Those projections do not take into account any extra money coming to the city as a result of last year’s Commonwealth Court decision, which declared Pennsylvania’s current school funding system unconstitutional.

“Even as we face declining revenues, we are committed to doing everything we can to protect the classroom at all costs,” said Herbstman in presenting the numbers to board members.

Even though yearly revenue is falling behind expenditures, the district will end 2025 with a fund balance of $695 million due to the reserves, according to Herbstman’s numbers. Those reserves include what’s left of federal pandemic aid and other sources.

The budget does include proposed increases in education funding from Gov. Josh Shapiro and Mayor Cherelle Parker. Shapiro has proposed increasing state aid to education by $1.4 billion, about $240 million of which would come to Philadelphia. He called it the first downpayment on bringing the state’s school funding into constitutional compliance.

Parker has proposed a $100 million increase in the city’s contribution to the schools, while reiterating that the state should bear most of the burden of making education funding fair and adequate across the state.

Superintendent Tony Watlington made the case during the meeting that the district has made good use of additional funds, citing the results of a national study showing that Philadelphia recovered to pre-pandemic achievement levels faster than any other urban district. He noted that the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission determined that Philadelphia is underfunded by at least $1.4 billion annually.

He said that he planned to pilot in 15 schools an extended day and year-round school, which Parker proposed during the mayoral campaign. He did not put a price tag on the initiative.

He also said he planned to relaunch Parent University, which offers classes so parents can help their children with schoolwork, and start a major recruitment effort to get more Black and Latino male teachers.

The board approved the preliminary budget by a unanimous 8-0 vote. Board member Leticia Egea-Hinton was absent.

The district’s final budget must be approved by both the city, while the state’s contribution to education is still a matter of negotiation as it finalizes its spending plan. The board will hold a hearing on April 25, and city council will hear testimony on April 30. The city approves its final budget on May 30 and the state on June 30.

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.

Parker’s picks for Philly school board back her vision for year-round school, longer days

2024-04-02T22:24:45+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker introduced her nine nominees for the Philadelphia Board of Education Tuesday, saying they represent the diversity of talent, experience, backgrounds, and neighborhoods needed to bring Philadelphia’s school district into a “new era.”

Shaping the school board “is the most important decision I have to make,” she said.

“The unifying factor of the nine, they put children first, they all had that in common.”

Parker, whose picks must now be approved by the City Council, opted Monday to nominate four current members and name five new people.

Seven current members had sought reappointment, but she decided to replace Leticia Egea-Hinton, Lisa Salley, and Cecelia Thompson.

The new board, slated to take office May 1, will face major challenges in a district that has long struggled to provide a quality education to all its students, many of whom come from families in poverty and from neighborhoods plagued by violence. On Tuesday, Parker highlighted aging facilities and a teacher shortage as two such issues facing the board.

Any plan for improving schools needs to include “facilities modernization … more career and technical training, and quite frankly a diverse and a stable teacher workforce that gets the respect that it deserves,” Parker said.

Parker also spoke highly of Superintendent Tony Watlington, who was at her side during the event. She made it clear that she approved of his leadership and wants him to stay.

“I have been impressed with his innovative thinking, also the competitiveness when he describes the potential of the School District of Philadelphia to be the largest fast-improving school district in the nation,” she said. “You have to have that kind of belief in our young people and the people that keep our educational system going.”

Parker also reiterated her commitment to seeing through major education proposals she made during her 2023 campaign: a longer school day and year-round school. Her board choices echoed that priority as they were introduced, even though there has been scant discussion of how much that might cost and how to do it with a teacher shortage. Watlington has said that he plans to create a pilot program in 15 schools next year.

“I am particularly motivated by the concept of year-round schooling,” said Joan Stern, one of Parker’s nominees who would be a new member. Board veteran Joyce Wilkerson said she looked forward to “enriching supports for students before and after school and throughout the year.”

Parker noted that the state has a $14 billion surplus that could be used to provide more education aid to Philadelphia and other districts. She has also proposed increasing the city’s share of school funding by giving the district a higher percentage of property tax revenue.

She and her nominees also expressed optimism. Parker and Watlington pointed out that the dropout rate has been decreasing, and that Philadelphia has made greater strides than most districts in rebounding from pandemic learning loss.

Learn more about Parker’s Board of Education nominees and hear their comments from Tuesday’s press conference below, beginning with the five nominees who would be new to the board.

Crystal Cubbage

“I want to serve because too much intellect, creativity and raw talent in my hometown goes unrealized,” said Cubbage, the executive director of the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative.

Cubbage is an engineer who has worked at NASA and taught physics in public and private schools.

Cheryl Harper

Harper, a former teacher who worked for the district in human resources, said that she planned to see for herself what is happening in schools.

“I intend to go out into the community and sit down with principals and teachers … and talk about the things they are doing that are positive,” Harper said. “We’ve already lost part of a generation, and we need to be able to keep what we have.”

To do this, she said, it is important “to recruit the best and brightest teachers.”

Wanda Novales

Wanda Novales, who taught and led schools in the district, founded and was principal of the Pan American Charter School in Kensington, which uses the International Baccalaureate curriculum. She is now the executive pastor of City Reach Church and described her own experience as a child in an under-resourced Kensington school after moving to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico and not speaking English.

“I have found that no matter the type of school or neighborhood, a student’s progress and a parent’s hope is still the same,” she said.

Like Parker, Novales said that “I believe that we can work together to provide a standard of excellence for school buildings, even in poor neighborhoods like the one I went to school in.”

Joan Stern

Joan Stern is a finance attorney who worked for the city, state, and school district over a 50-year career. Stern was instrumental in the founding of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, or PICA. Parker called her “the mother of Philadelphia’s fiscal stability.”

Stern said she was “particularly motivated by the concept of year-round schooling and making capital improvements that give children the best places to study at any time of the year.

She also said that “public education is a public good,” and that all taxpayers are responsible to pay for it, “whether they have children in the system or not.”

Whitney Jones

Whitney Jones said he started his career on Wall Street, but realized that wasn’t for him, and pivoted to working with non-profit organizations to shore up their finances. He has worked for charter school networks and is now chief financial officer at the Children Crisis Treatment Center.

“I decided to use my background to build generational community wealth,” he said, and pass on the “blessings” he gained from his own upbringing by parents who prioritized education.

Current Philadelphia board members also excited to continue

The four current members of the board nominated by Parker also spoke about why they wanted to continue serving.

ChauWing Lam described her own background as an immigrant and how she sometimes had to miss school to help her parents run their restaurant. “School was where I was given opportunities,” she said.

Sarah-Ashey Andrews, the board’s youngest member and a public school graduate, said she was concerned about equity. “I was the little girl from North Philly who didn’t necessarily have the opportunity of quality schools in my neighborhood,” she said.

Wilkerson led the board from 2018 to to 2023, and prior to that chaired the School Reform Commission, which ran the district when it was under state control. She said she applied to stay on because “continuity” is key, and that “how we govern the district in coming years will play a huge role in children’s outcomes for decades to come.”

And Reginald Streater, the current board president, said to Parker that he is “looking forward to promoting your vision,” including year-round school, teacher retention and recruitment, repairing school buildings, “and educating the whole child.”

An attorney, Streater is a graduate of Germantown High School whose family experienced housing insecurity when he was growing up.

“I am a living testament to the transformative power of education in Philadelphia,” he said.

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 Cherelle Parker picks 5 new members for school board

2024-04-01T18:13:19+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker is pushing to remake the Philadelphia Board of Education by appointing five new people to the nine-member body, including two with strong past ties to charter schools and organizations.

But Parker, who released her nine appointees on Monday, also wants to keep the board’s president, Reginald Streater, along with three other current members.

The new names Parker chose are:

Crystal Cubbage, a former teacher and executive director for the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative.
Cheryl Harper, a former Philadelphia district employee and distinguished educator for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Whitney Jones, the chief financial officer at Children’s Crisis Treatment Center who has also worked for the nationwide KIPP charter network and for a charter school consulting firm.
Wanda Novales, founding CEO and principal of Pan American Charter School.
Joan Stern, a public finance attorney and former special counsel for the district.

In addition to Streater, the current members chosen by Parker to stay on the board are Sarah-Ashley Andrews, Joyce Wilkerson, and ChauWing Lam.

Parker’s picks will now be submitted to the City Council, which will hold public hearings and vote on each nominee. If the council confirms her picks, as is generally expected, then the new board will take office May 1 to start four-year terms.

The Philadelphia school board has the power to drive education decisions in the city including voting on and monitoring the district’s $4.5 billion budget, hiring the superintendent, and influencing curriculum decisions including the purchase of new materials. It also has the power to authorize new charter schools, close underperforming ones, and expand charter seats.

Education advocates have been watching Parker’s decisions closely to see whether her administration would preside over a new era for charter school expansion. Since regaining local control from the state in 2018, the school board has not approved a new charter school but has allowed current charters to grow by more than 2,000 seats.

“I said I wanted a school board with a diversity of skills, from different neighborhoods, sectors and communities, some with deep knowledge, some with new ideas, a group that truly reflects my vision of One Philly, a United City,” Parker said in a statement Monday. “I’m confident we’ve assembled that board.”

Current members Leticia Egea-Hinton, Cecelia Thompson, and Lisa Salley sought to stay on the board and were among the 27 names submitted to Parker by the Educational Nominating Panel. But Parker didn’t reappoint them. Board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez and member Julia Danzy previously took themselves out of the running.

During her campaign last year, Parker indicated she may be open to growing the charter sector, which are publicly funded but privately run schools and enroll upwards of 70,000 students in the city. Thompson and Salley, who were not selected by Parker to continue on the board, voted several times in favor of renewing or approving new charter schools that other members opposed.

“I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are,” Parker said in an interview with Chalkbeat before the election, adding that she “will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.”

Alongside Superintendent Tony Watlington, the new board will also be tasked with determining what Parker’s promise for “year-round school” means in practice.

Watlington has said that he plans to start piloting year-round schooling this summer at 15 schools. At last week’s school board meeting, Watlington said plans for that pilot are still “under development” and he is “not yet ready to roll anything out.”

Parker said she would be appearing alongside her nominees in a press conference Tuesday. If confirmed, the new board picked by Parker will have seven women and two men.

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.

Philly police will notify schools about students found at traumatic events under pilot program

2024-03-25T21:06:42+00:00

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One day earlier this school year, a fifth grader came to school and was acting a little off. His motivation was down, his attention elsewhere, and his behavior unsettling.

It turned out he was traumatized because he had seen his father murdered the day before, said Brandy Blasko in the district’s office of school safety.

Unfortunately, this kind of scenario is not that uncommon in Philadelphia schools. In response, the city school district and police department have unveiled a $1 million program to help students deal with such trauma.

The program, announced by officials at a Monday press conference at the Philadelphia Military Academy, is called Handle With Care. It will train 300 police officers and 100 educators to sharpen their awareness of students’ exposure to violence and help them cope with trauma. It will be piloted in 15 schools starting next school year that are in the 22nd Police District, which covers parts of North Philadelphia.

While the program has been long in the works, it’s taken on new urgency in the wake of two shootings involving students leaving schools earlier this month in which one was killed and another 10 injured.

Handle With Care is a child-protection program first piloted in West Virginia and now used there statewide, as well as in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley and elsewhere. The program starts with police who respond to a call and arrive at the scene of a traumatic event, from the execution of a search warrant to violence or sudden death. If a child is present at the scene, the police collect the child’s name and where they go to school, then notify the relevant school officials.

This system allows teachers and others to offer support, postpone tests or other academic work, and refer the child to nurses or counselors, among other responses. The program will also provide training to police and school personnel about the impact of trauma on children and how to respond to it in school, and officials will follow up with families.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, who used to be the school district’s police chief, said it had been “a dream of mine for a long time” to bring such a program like Handle With Care to Philadelphia.

He noted that violence can impact schoolchildren even if they are not directly involved. In 2021 in the 22nd district’s 4.3 square miles, 300 people were shot and 70 killed.

“We’re starting here, in one of our most challenged communities,” Bethel said, adding that he eventually wants to use the program in the entire city.

But Bethel also said that children are exposed to all kinds of trauma-inducing events, from witnessing car accidents to being in a household with domestic violence. Such circumstances, if not addressed, can lead to discipline problems, dropping out, and criminal activity, he said.

“When we do something different, we can change that trajectory,” he said.

Children who have witnessed violence “have to sit in class carrying this burden on their shoulders,” said Jayme Banks, the school district’s deputy chief of prevention, trauma and intervention.

“Their level of stress interferes with their ability to succeed, to form positive relationships, to make friends,” Banks said.

Bethel said the communication between police and school officials would be year-round, even when school is not in session.

At Monday’s press conference, two students from the Philadelphia Military Academy attested to the need for the program.

Nadia Porter, who is the school’s command sergeant major, said that the programs will be “very useful” because “a lot of kids are not seen as trauma victims, but as problem starters.”

Kaheem Bailey-Taylor, the brigade commander who mentioned the two recent shootings in which one student died and 11 were injured, received an honor from his ROTC program for going to the aid of a student who had been shot at a birthday party.

“This program will bring some hope to the youth,” he said.

Referring to the student who witnessed his father’s death, Blasko said that at first, “No one knew why he was acting that way,” she said. “Now they will.”

The grant funding for Handle With Care in Philadelphia is from the U.S. Department of Justice. The 15 schools that will participate in the Handle With Care pilot program are:

Richard R. Wright.
Robert Morris.
Paul L. Dunbar.
James G. Blaine.
William Dick.
Ethel Allen.
Tanner G. Duckrey.
Edward Gideon.
William D. Kelley.
General George G. Meade
High School of Engineering and Science.
Philadelphia Military Academy
Vaux Big Picture High School.
Murrell Dobbins Career & Technical High School.
Strawberry Mansion High 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.

What Philadelphia public schools could get in new city budget

2024-03-14T19:28:57+00:00

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s self-described “big” and “bold” first budget would increase funding for public schools, include a pilot plan for year-round learning, and create a new workforce pipeline program in the Community College of Philadelphia.

But despite ample city coffers due to post-pandemic years of unusually strong revenue collections, the proposal — and accompanying five-year financial plan — still relies on state funding to make up the district’s anticipated $400 million shortfall for the next fiscal year.

This is Parker’s first budget and the blueprint for how Philadelphia’s 100th mayor — and first woman to hold the job — intends to run the city. While shored up by temporary federal pandemic funding for the past few years, the underfunded school district is facing a $407 million gap for fiscal 2025, aging buildings, a gun violence epidemic that injured 10 students last week and killed one, a mandate to make up lost special education services for thousands of students, significant charter school costs, and teacher shortages.

Parker said her budget would increase city funding for the district, with a current budget of $4.5 billion, by $24 million in fiscal 2025. That would come partly from increasing the school district’s share of property tax revenue from 55% to 56%, which would bring in an additional $18 million. The district also gets revenue from other local sources, including an annual city grant which this year amounted to $282 million.

Parker said she also wants to increase the local contribution to the school district by $2 million each year going forward, and announced a plan to speed up the sale of delinquent tax properties, which she said would also raise more funds for the district.

Her budget proposal would bring the total to nearly $140 million in additional city funds for education over five years, the mayor said, with $129 million going directly to the school district and $10 million to a new workforce program at the Community College of Philadelphia.

Parker also doubled down on her year-round schools proposal and promised to pilot the initiative in schools starting this fall.

“On public education, our goals are high — they must be,” Parker said during her budget address to City Council on Thursday. “For far too long, our students have struggled with far too little. The days of settling for crumbs are over. Our students deserve a full loaf and they’ll get it.”

As Parker gets ready to name a new Board of Education, she signaled her support for Superintendent Tony Watlington, who was in attendance on Thursday. She told him, “You’re my guy.”

Watlington and Board of Education President Reginald Streater issued their own statements in support of Parker’s proposal following her address.

Year-round school, city workforce pipeline, and more: what’s in the budget for schools

The mayor’s major education platform during the campaign was for year-round school and a longer school day, which will be expensive and undoubtedly require union negotiation. She never put a price tag on the proposal, but both she and Watlington came out in favor of a pilot to test the concept.

Parker said her budget includes a “plan for full-day and year-round schooling — offering students educational enrichment throughout the year, with schedules that work for working families.” She said her office of education will launch the initiative in 20 pilot schools this fall.

But she did not give a dollar amount during her address Thursday.

Parker also spoke passionately about the impact gun violence has had on Philadelphia students and families. She said the recent spate of shootings at SEPTA bus stops after school dismissal has “left our city shaken.”

“Enough is enough,” Parker said.

The budget includes $33 million in new investments in public safety for fiscal 2025, increasing the total amount to more than $600 million over five years.

She said she wants to hire 400 new police officers every year and fund 100 officers doing primarily “community policing.” She also wants to add new patrol cars, unmarked cars, video software, cameras at parks and recreation sites, drones, and upgrades to investigative equipment.

Parker also said youth safety is tied to opportunities outside of the classroom which is why she proposed $3.2 million for youth sports

“I know youth sports aren’t just about wins and losses — they’re about giving children hope,” Parker said. “”We should be supporting them.”

For postsecondary education, Parker announced $10 million for the Community College of Philadelphia in partnership with the school district to “establish a first-in-the-nation City College for Municipal Employment” — a city workforce pipeline she said will prepare more students for jobs in city government. Participants will “earn a stipend while they learn and graduate into good city jobs” Parker said.

What the budget leaves out

The mayor’s plan to increase the district’s share of property tax revenue to 56% is significant, but won’t entirely solve the district’s looming shortfall. Parker had said during her campaign that she would like to see a larger share of city property tax revenue go to the school district, mentioning 58% as a goal.

Rob Dubow, the city Finance Director, said at a press briefing on Wednesday that they decided to shift the tax revenue split to 56% rather than 58% because the administration is moving “in concert” with what Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed and what district officials said they needed in their budget presentation before the school board.

Last month, Shapiro proposed a state budget that would increase overall education spending by $1.1 billion, of which nearly $300 million in additional funds would come to Philadelphia. The city’s school costs are primarily covered by the state and the city; last year the state provided 46% and the city 41%, with federal money – mostly pandemic relief funds – making up the rest. Usually, the federal share is much smaller.

Parker cited the 2022 court ruling that Pennsylvania’s education funding system is unconstitutional and the finding by a legislative commission that Philadelphia alone needs $1.4 billion in additional state funds to meet the needs of all its students.

On the district’s aging facilities, Parker said “we need to modernize our existing schools and build new ones,” saying she would be “working with our allies on City Council” including Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas. Thomas has proposed creating an independent authority to handle school construction and renovation, but Parker did not comment on that proposal Thursday.

The primary education initiatives of her predecessor, Jim Kenney, were PHLPreK and the city investment in community schools, which bring social service resources and personnel into school buildings.

Dubow said PHLPre-K would be funded at the same level as last year. Under Kenney, PHLPreK served 17,000 students over several years, providing about 5,000 seats at any one time, and he regarded it as one of his biggest legacies.

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.

Philly schools should get bigger cut of tax revenue than mayor’s proposal, group says

2024-03-20T20:18:33+00:00

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One of Philadelphia’s leading education advocacy groups wants the City Council to allocate more money to city public schools than the mayor has recommended in her proposed budget.

In a lengthy report released Wednesday on the state of the city’s children, Children’s First said Philadelphia should devote 58% of property tax revenue to the district, up from the 55% schools get now.

Children First Executive Director Donna Cooper estimated that an increase to 58% would bring in an additional $61 million to the district next year due to the higher percentage, although she said that figure could rise to as much as $98.6 million if expected revenue growth is included.

In her budget proposal, Mayor Cherelle Parker says the school district should get 56% of that tax revenue.

While that and other parts of Parker’s proposal would add $24 million to the district’s coffers next year, it wouldn’t necessarily be enough to stave off potential cuts due to the end of federal COVID relief funds. District officials are forecasting a $400 million shortfall in fiscal 2025 without additional revenue. The district’s operating budget this year is $4.5 billion.

“Students need much more and they deserve much more,” said parent advocate Jazmin Banks at a press briefing on Children First’s report. “We cannot afford any cuts to the school district’s budget.”

Parker herself proposed the 58% figure during the mayoral campaign. In her budget address, she also called for year-round school, which the district plans to pilot in 20 schools in 2025 and will come with added costs, although Parker did not provide a price tag.

In an interview after the Children First event, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said increasing the district’s share of city property tax revenue to 58% is not off the table as budget negotiations continue. But he emphasized that council members must “protect the fiscal health of the city” while doing what it can to support the school district.

Johnson also said he thinks “the onus is on the state” to make sure Philadelphia’s schools are adequately funded. He cited the 2023 Commonwealth Court ruling that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional and shortchanges Philadelphia by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget includes $1.1 billion in additional funding for education, of which about $300 million would come to Philadelphia.

The Children First report also called for the city to invest in creating 250 more seats in its early childhood education program, PHLPreK. It also said the city should increase its investment in after-school programs and other out-of-school-time activities to keep students safe.

Without additional funding, 8,000 seats in out-of-school-time programs may be lost with the end of federal pandemic aid. Keeping those activities at recreation centers and other venues would cost $8.8 million.

Several parents and grandparents spoke of the need for the city and the district to more proactively address increasing violence, primarily through additional support for diversion programs to reduce the number of young people who wind up in juvenile detention centers.

The report noted that in 2023, 243 young people in Philadelphia under the age of 19 were injured by gun violence, and 31 of them died.

“That number should be zero,” said Geanna Williams-Davis, who has eight grandchildren in the city. “We have to stop violence in the city, period. That means investing in young people, making sure kids have enriching activities to do after school and over the summer and on weekends as well. Too many of our kids are dying unnecessarily.”

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.

Here’s who could be chosen for the new Philadelphia Board of Education

2024-03-13T00:06:34+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education will have at least two new members, according to a list of candidates submitted to Mayor Cherelle Parker.

The 13-member Education Nominating Panel voted to approve its shortlist of 27 finalists at a public meeting Tuesday evening. The list includes former teachers and administrators, education advocates, business leaders, and labor union officials and appears to represent a range of ages and neighborhoods.

Otis Bullock Jr., chair of the panel, said the group was “just looking for diversity all around the board.”

“You need some folks on here with some gravitas … and legislative experience,” Bullock said. He added if the school district is looking to legislators in Harrisburg for additional funding for the cash-strapped district, “you need some folks that know how to do that.”

Parker’s board picks will have the power to set the education agenda in the nation’s eighth largest school district. Board members can authorize or deny new charter schools, hire and evaluate superintendents, guide curriculum decisions, and approve the district’s $4.5 billion budget.

Seven of the names on the panel’s list are current board members, but board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez and Julia Danzy were not on the list. Earlier this month, Fix-Lopez unexpectedly announced she would be resigning, and Danzy had previously indicated she would not be reapplying.

Which candidates Parker chooses to sit on the board — in conjunction with her budget proposal expected to be released on Thursday — will signal her education priorities for the city.

Parker has indicated she may be more open to expanding the charter school sector than her predecessor Jim Kenney. The school board has not approved a new charter school since 2018. Charters, which are publicly funded but privately run, now educate upwards of 70,000 students in Philadelphia, about a third of those enrolled in tax-supported city schools.

Indeed, many of the public comments at Tuesday’s meeting included calls for more charter seats and resources for those schools, a fair authorization process, and an end to charter school closures.

Many of the written comments, which were read aloud at the meeting, were identically worded, and echoed something Parker has said. She wants to eliminate the “us vs. them mentality” between district-run and charter schools.

Despite speculation that Parker’s nominating panel would try to load the shortlist with pro-charter activists, few of the 27 people on the list appear to have direct or deep connections to charter schools.

This is the first full school board nomination process since 2018, when former Mayor Kenney chose his nine appointees to replace the School Reform Commission. It had governed the city school district since 2001, when the state took over the district citing financial and academic distress. Since then, Kenney appointed a few additional members to replace some who resigned.

Lee Huang, a former board member, said Tuesday he would not “sugarcoat” that serving on the board was challenging at times. The position is unpaid, demanding, and comes with intense public scrutiny.

“It was long hours …. and you’ll get yelled at,” Huang said. “That’s part of the job.”

Parker will choose nine people (or request more names if she is not happy with the 27) and send those to City Council, which will hold public hearings. With its approval, the board members will take their seats starting May 1.

In alphabetical order, here’s the list. The mayor’s office provided biographies for each candidate.

Sarah-Ashley Andrews (current board member)
Nakia Carr
Timothy Crowther
Crystal Cubbage
Leticia Egea-Hinton (current board member)
Cindy Farlino
Mark Gittelman
Cheryl Harper
Keola Harrington
Michael Henderson
Jameika Id-Deen
David Irizarry
Dominique Johnson
Whitney Jones
ChauWing Lam (current board member)
Letisha Laws
Maddie Luebbert
Colleen McCauley
Cheryl Mobley-Stimpson
Wanda Novales
Michelle Palmer
Lisa Salley (current board member)
Marisa Shaaban
Joan Stern
Reginald Streater (current board president)
Cecelia Thompson (current board member)
Joyce Wilkerson (current board member)

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.

Thousands of Philadelphia students are owed special education services from the pandemic

2024-03-07T23:26:49+00:00

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The Philadelphia school district has fallen way behind schedule in providing thousands of students in special education with extra services they did not receive during the pandemic, according to state officials.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education first directed the district to provide compensatory services to students in June after receiving a complaint from the Education Law Center on behalf of families.

According to the complaint, some parents and guardians were still unaware their children were entitled to extra help more than a year after students returned to in-person instruction. Families and advocates fear that many of these students may have suffered lasting damage.

“These are students who were most harmed by 15 to 18 months out of school,” said Margie Wakelin, senior attorney at the law center.

Wakelin said students didn’t receive the math tutoring, speech therapy, intensive phonics instruction, emotional support services, or other interventions that their education plans require.

In a review dated February 23 responding to the complaint, state officials found that the district has for the most part identified the students who need to be evaluated for compensatory services, but likely made decisions about what they were entitled to without properly consulting parents as required.

After analyzing 50 randomly chosen cases from four elementary schools in one of the district’s 16 learning networks, the state found only four in which the required meetings with families had occurred – yet the district made eligibility determinations in 44 of the cases.

“Not everybody is necessarily eligible, but meetings are supposed to happen to determine whether they are entitled to services,” Wakelin said.

The state ordered the district to submit evidence by April 5 that they have followed all the requirements for determining need and are providing appropriate services.

District says they face shortage of special education teachers

The closure of in-person school between March 2020 and September 2021 most severely affected students with disabilities who have either individualized education plans or 504 plans, according to the law center’s complaint. Individualized education plans, which are created by a team of school officials and parents, spell out services to which students are entitled, while 504 plans guarantee accommodations for students with conditions that could interfere with their learning.

The complaint relied on guidance from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on what districts must do to ensure that all children, regardless of disability, receive a “free and appropriate public education.”

The district received about $528 million in federal COVID relief funding, which was meant to help address learning loss, but budget materials for this fiscal year don’t mention compensatory services as a priority. District officials did estimate in one undated request for proposal that they would need to provide services to as many as 40% of the roughly 22,000 students with disabilities who were eligible. They expected to provide the services between January 2022 and June 2024.

In a statement issued Wednesday, district officials said that they are “working to remediate educational learning loss” from the pandemic, despite a “national shortage of qualified special education teachers and related service providers.” The district opened the school year with 200 teacher vacancies.

The statement also noted that Nathalie Nérée, who has experience in several other large districts including Chicago and Broward County, Florida, became chief of special education and diverse learners at the beginning of this school year.

Under her leadership, the district “is looking forward to building transparent, collaborative and positive relationships with our families, community partners and advocacy groups as we reimagine special education for students in Philadelphia.”

Families have found it difficult to get services

Many families in the school district have found the process to get compensatory services frustrating and have sought help from the Education Law Center.

Yolanda Workman said she and her daughter met with school officials in January on Zoom to discuss services for her grandson, a fifth grader at Emlen Elementary School in Mount Airy who has been diagnosed with a learning disability. The school’s special education liaison didn’t give them much of a chance to speak, she said, and then told them that the child was not entitled to extra services. The liaison also urged them to sign a legal document confirming that.

Workman said they refused to sign and told the liaison they planned to contact an attorney. A few weeks later, they received notice that her grandson was entitled to 75 hours of compensatory services.

But neither Workman nor her daughter could say whether he was receiving the services, or what form they were taking.

Colleen Gibbons-Brown, a special education teacher for ninth and 10th graders at Strawberry Mansion High School, said that she has not seen much evidence that students are getting extra services, or that parents and caregivers have been consulted about what students need and how best to provide it.

“From what I have seen, decisions are not made as a team, but by network case managers and some administrators,” she said. “They are making a call, then informing the parents, [thus] removing parents, teachers and even students from that decision.”

At her school, she said the process for deciding whether a student qualified for extra services was hasty and flawed. For instance, invitation letters for parents to meetings about their child were generated the same day that some of the meetings were scheduled. “I’m listed as being part of the team, and I know I wasn’t attending the meetings,” she said.

One of Gibbons-Brown’s colleagues, who is also the mother of a student with disabilities, said she had no idea that compensatory services were available, even though she works in the district. The child, now 10, had not learned to read and exhibited serious behavioral issues that were exacerbated during the pandemic.

“I never heard about compensatory services,” said the teacher, who asked not to be identified to protect her child’s privacy.

She contacted a lawyer, who helped her enroll her child in an approved private school, a common alternative for students whose education plans cannot be fulfilled within the district.

Wakelin said that the law center’s goal is to compel district officials to focus on alternatives to private services, which are expensive and tend to favor parents who are savvy in navigating the system.

Meeting this mandate also falls disproportionately on some public schools. For instance, at Strawberry Mansion, a neighborhood school in impoverished North Philadelphia, 43% of its 250 students are classified as needing special education. The citywide figure is 19%.

Determining services for students is complex

Calculating what is owed to each student and then providing services is a daunting task, Gibbons-Brown said. Still, she said her school’s process didn’t consider what progress students might have made if not for the pandemic’s disruption.

If a student had not regressed beyond what they had scored pre-COVID, it was decided they didn’t need services, she said. But that doesn’t take into account any progress they should have made since.

“Analyzing the impact of COVID is more nuanced than that quick comparison,” she said. “I have students, based on one data point now and for 2019, that may look like there is no regression. Maybe not, but their progress has stalled.”

Wakelin said the process is “now in the do-over period and we’re trying to get the word out to families so they know that their children have this right.”

As complex as the task is, “it’s not like there aren’t other large urban districts that have grappled with this and come up with solutions compliant with the law,” she said.

Wakelin said the district still has not taken basic steps to reach families, saying “there’s nothing on the website, no fact sheets for parents, and minimal information provided to teachers.

“We want kids to get services, not just a ruling that this child is eligible for 50 hours they are not able to use.”

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 teachers will get bonuses, 5% raises in approved contract extension

2024-03-08T00:30:00+00:00

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The Philadelphia Board of Education voted to approve a one-year contract extension for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers that includes raises, retention bonuses, and more.

The contract was approved unanimously at a meeting Thursday night. The extension “reflects the deep respect we have for all of our PFT members,” Superintendent Tony Watlington said before the board vote.

Watlington emphasized that the extension was agreed to well before the contract expiration date of Aug. 31 and represents a “good faith partnership” with the union. It’s a significant departure for a union and district known for down-to-the-wire negotiations.

He said he expected that collaborative spirit to help with his reform blueprint for the district known as Accelerate Philly.

The district and the teachers union reached a tentative agreement on the contract extension late last month.

District Chief Financial Officer Mike Herbsman said he hoped the contract, which includes a raise and bonuses designed to attract job candidates, would “have a significant and meaningful impact on our ability to recruit and retain teachers.” The district opened the school year with 200 vacancies.

Union membership voted overwhelmingly to ratify the contract Wednesday evening; 84% of those present, or 2,096 people, voted yes, while 16%, or 399 members, voted no. Those who voted against the contract, including Building 21 teacher Eric Hitchner, said the contract didn’t go far enough to secure improved working conditions for teachers.

The contract will cover more than 14,000 district employees, according to Grant-Skinner.

Notably absent from the agreement is anything altering the current sick leave policy, which detractors say punishes teachers for taking their allotted 10 sick days.

Here’s what’s in the new contract extension:

All PFT-represented employees — including teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors, and others — will receive a 5% salary increase in September 2024.
Employees eligible for “step” increases (raises based on years of experience) will still get those.
PFT-represented employees will also receive a “retention and re-engagement bonus” of $1,200 paid by June 2024.
The Designated Schools Program — which provides $2,500 bonuses to teachers who work in schools with staffing challenges — will be extended to run through Aug. 30, 2025.
Watlington (or another district leader) and a union representative will meet regularly to discuss the superintendent’s five-year strategic plan.

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 school board vice president resigns

2024-03-04T23:15:09+00:00

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Philadelphia Board of Education Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez has resigned, effective April 18, and has taken herself out of consideration for a future board appointment.

Fix-Lopez cited a planned medical procedure as the reason in a statement on Monday.

In an interview, Fix-Lopez said that with the turn of the new year she got “more concerned about the demand of time.” She has an 8-year-old attending Childs Elementary School in Point Breeze and a 4-year-old who will enter kindergarten there in the fall.

She said she initially applied to stay, but withdrew from the nominating process. “I had planned full steam ahead,” she said, but when she was filling out the kindergarten application, “I slowed down to reflect. The time is too much.”

This unexpected shakeup on the board — where the members are appointed by the mayor — could create an opening for what new Mayor Cherelle Parker intends for the future of the body. Parker has signaled she may be more open to expanding the charter school sector in the city than her predecessor, Jim Kenney, and she could be angling to appoint board members who share her perspective. The board has not approved a new charter school since 2018.

Fix-Lopez said that her resignation was unconnected to any future board appointments.

“I get the optics of the timing. But honestly it’s totally separate,” she told Chalkbeat.

The board serves as the sole charter school authorizer in the city and member terms run concurrent to the mayor’s. In the years when a new mayoral term begins, board terms start on May 1.

The process of naming a new board is underway but has been quiet. Until Fix-Lopez’s resignation announcement, the future of any board members’ positions has been uncertain and Parker’s office has repeatedly declined requests for comment about the process.

Parker has convened her Education Nominating Panel, which is interviewing 121 candidates who applied by the Feb. 1 deadline. The panel is charged with recommending 27 people, three for each of the nine seats. Parker, who took office in January, will make the final appointments, who then must be approved by City Council. The panel next meets on March 12, where it is expected to release their list of recommended candidates.

Parker has not indicated whether she intends to renominate any of the current members or remake the board entirely. Board President Reginald Streater has indicated that he would like to remain.

In a Monday statement, Parker offered “deep thanks” to Fix-Lopez for her service. Streater called her “an incredible educator … who has left an indelible mark on the board” by pushing it “to govern from a student-centered perspective with student achievement at its core.”

Fix-Lopez, who teaches English at Philadelphia Community College, was first appointed in 2018 by Kenney when the district was returned to local control by the state. At the time, a nine-member board replaced the School Reform Commission that had governed the district since 2001.

She was reappointed in 2020 and picked to serve as vice president in 2022 and 2023. Members elect the president and vice president each December.

In her time on the board, Fix-Lopez has been active in establishing and enforcing its Goals and Guardrails since they were approved in 2021 to monitor district progress around academics and set standards for creating welcoming school environments for all students. She took a special interest in district policy regarding transgender and gender-nonconforming students, and in expanding translation services for families who don’t speak English.

She also took the lead in evaluations for both Superintendent Tony Watlington and his predecessor, William Hite.

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.

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.

Philadelphia Mayor Parker names chief education officer and deputy

2024-02-06T00:06:13+00:00

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Mayor Cherelle Parker has named former high school principal Debora Carrera as the city’s chief education officer and Sharon Ward, a well-known education advocate, as a deputy in that office.

Parker made the announcement Monday afternoon, along with several other city appointments.

Debora Carrera, Philadelphia's new chief education officer.

Carrera worked for 27 years in the Philadelphia school district as a teacher and then as principal of William McKinley Elementary School and the Kensington High School of Creative and Performing Arts. She was also an assistant superintendent before becoming an official in the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Ward previously held positions in the Pennsylvania Department of Education and as an advisor to the Philadelphia School District. She was a founder of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy center and is a consultant to the Education Law Center.

Carerra and Ward will likely be charged with working on how the city and district can implement Parker’s ideas for year-round school and a longer school day, both expensive propositions that will require buy-in from the district’s unions. Neither could be reached for comment Monday.

The position of chief education officer has been vacant since December 2022, when Otis Hackney left after seven years in the job under former Mayor Jim Kenney. With just a year left on his term, Kenney put education issues under the Office of Children and Families.

Sharon C. Ward, Philadelphia's new deputy chief education officer.

As chief education officer between 2015 and 2022, Hackney oversaw Kenney’s prekindergarten expansion and community schools initiatives and worked with Comcast to make sure that all students had adequate internet access through the ConnectED program. He also started the city’s Catto Scholarships for students to attend Community College of Philadelphia and smoothed the return of the district to local control.

Like Carrera, Hackney was a former Philadelphia principal when appointed. He was widely credited with bringing stability to South Philadelphia High School after repeated clashes between Black and Asian students. At the time of his appointment, he had moved on to become the first Black principal of the high school in Springfield in Montgomery County.

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.

Record-setting increase in public school funding proposed by Pennsylvania governor

2024-02-06T19:26:10+00:00

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Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a 2024-25 budget Tuesday that increases basic education funding by $1.1 billion, which would be the largest single-year increase ever.

Most of that money, $900 million, would be funneled through a so-called adequacy formula that calculates what every district actually requires to educate all their children to high standards, based on students’ needs.

Shapiro’s proposal comes almost exactly one year after Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer’s ruling that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional – meaning it is neither fair nor adequate and depriving many children of their right to a “thorough and efficient” education. Currently, districts that educate high numbers of students in poverty, English language learners, and others with special needs generally spend less than wealthier districts, even though their students require more in order to be prepared for college and careers.

Shapiro said in his Tuesday address that his spending blueprint “will deliver real results for the Commonwealth” by “making historic investments in public education.”

Shapiro’s proposal also hews closely to the recommendation of the Basic Education Funding Commission, which spent a year traveling the state to question educators, advocates, experts, and others about education in their communities. By “acting on the work” of the commission, the budget is “delivering a comprehensive solution on K-12 education in Pennsylvania,” he said.

In a report released last month, the commission determined that the state should spend $5.4 billion more annually to bring all districts to adequate funding, with $5.1 billion of that coming from state as opposed to local coffers. It set out a plan to reach that goal by 2029.

The remaining $200 million in Shapiro’s proposed $1.1 billion increase would be funneled through the formula established by the funding commission, which also takes into account student needs in devising a per-pupil rate for state aid. This would assure that wealthier districts like Lower Merion and Radnor still get a share of state aid to help with inflation and other cost drivers.

Under the proposal, Philadelphia would receive an increase of $203 in adequacy funding, plus $40 million additional through the standard formula.

It would also get a share of the $50 million increase Shapiro is proposing for special education funding, and a share of a $300 million increase in facilities funding.

Shapiro also proposes to cap cyber charter tuition at $8,000 per student, which could provide significant savings for Philadelphia public schools. Philadelphia now pays $11,502 per cyber charter student.

The budget does not include vouchers, which are backed strongly by Republicans who control the Senate and share power in an almost equally divided General Assembly. The state already has two programs that offer tax credits to corporations that donate to scholarship programs, but Shapiro does not recommend any funding increases for them.

Last year, Shapiro publicly stated his support for creating vouchers in Pennsylvania. But he ultimately vetoed a provision to establish vouchers when he signed the state budget. On Tuesday, Shapiro reiterated his support for vouchers and said he considered them “unfinished business.”

‘The transformation of Pennsylvania’s school funding system’

Advocates who brought the 2014 lawsuit that ultimately led to Jubelirer’s ruling, William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, hailed the budget proposal, which is just a starting point in negotiations before a final budget is adopted by the end of June. They said it meets the mandate of Jubelirer’s ruling.

“If carried out to completion, this would mean the transformation of Pennsylvania’s school funding system,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center. “It would mean thousands of more teachers, counselors, librarians – it would truly be historic.”

Deborah Gordon-Klehr, director of the Education Law Center, hailed the governor’s proposal as “critical,” adding that “it’s the start of what needs to be a long term commitment.”

She said her group would be seeking legislation to guarantee future increases to reach the target set by the commission “so districts can plan, leaders can be held accountable, and students can see the benefits.”

The adequacy formula devised by the funding commission looks at what the most successful districts spend per student and determines what every district needs to get all their students to that level, using a weighted formula that takes into account poverty, English language status, and other circumstances. Philadelphia’s “adequacy gap” was determined to be in the range of $1.4 billion, on a current budget of about $4.5 billion, or about $7,100 per student.

Philadelphia has the 35th highest adequacy gap in the state; Reading’s shortfall of $14,000 between what it has and what it needs is the widest.

Shapiro’s proposal “targets the funding specifically for the districts that are farthest from adequacy,” said Urevick-Ackelsberg.

Of the 500 districts in Pennsylvania, about 400 do not meet their adequacy targets as defined by the commission.

The governor’s proposal to reform cyber charter funding is likely to run into political headwinds.

Pennsylvania has one of the largest cyber charter enrollments in the country, and districts pay cyber charters their own per-pupil costs, even though cyber education costs far less to deliver than brick-and-mortar schools.

“Currently, cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania charge school districts between $8,639 and $26,564 per student per year,” Shapiro said. This, he said, “no longer makes sense. The 2024-25 budget establishes a statewide cyber tuition rate of $8,000 per student per year and will better align tuition with the actual costs of providing an online education.”

He said this reform will save school districts an estimated $262 million annually.

Other education highlights of Shapiro’s budget include:

$50 million for school safety and security.
$300 million in “sustainable funding for environmental repair projects” in school buildings.
$10 million for teacher recruitment.
$15 million, an increase of $5 million, for student-teacher stipends.
$100 million for mental health funding in K-12 schools.
$3 million to provide free breakfast for all students year-round.
$96,000 to help free up $62 million in federal child care reimbursements for providers.

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’s ‘State of Public Education’ improving but has a long way to go, schools chief says

2024-01-30T21:19:34+00:00

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The “State of Public Education” in Philadelphia is not as strong as it could be, Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a sweeping address Tuesday.

In the first speech of its kind in Philadelphia, Watlington celebrated some incremental successes since he became superintendent in June 2022: Student attendance is up, the four-year graduation rate is up, dropouts are decreasing, and teacher attendance is also improving. But he cautioned that the district is facing many challenges, including a looming budget shortfall of more than $400 million, declining enrollment, low test scores, aging facilities, and a persistent teacher shortage.

With no ability to raise taxes on its own and with federal COVID aid set to run out, Watlington’s ability to appeal to representatives in Harrisburg and City Hall will be crucial to getting the chronically underfunded district more money to address different issues.

And Tuesday’s event — which began with remarks from Mayor Cherelle Parker and was attended by a host of state, federal, and local elected officials — was a public attempt to make the case for adequately funding Philadelphia students.

Watlington, who came to Philadelphia from North Carolina, said in an interview before the address that in his nearly two years leading the district, he has perceived a “crisis of confidence” in a city he described as “hard on itself.”

“All the children are not well, it is no secret,” Watlington said in his speech. Citing modest improvements in several areas, he added: “Is it enough? Absolutely not.”

Speaking at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts, Watlington presented data showing the district is improving on some markers from 2021-22 to 2022-23:

Student attendance is up from 57% to 60%.
The teacher attendance rate is up from 77% to 84%.
The four-year graduation rate is up from 71% to 74%.
The number of students who dropped out fell from 3,917 to 3,652.

But state test scores show students are still struggling in the classroom; even with small gains last year, most students are still scoring below proficient in reading and math. In Algebra I and Biology, performance has also declined post-pandemic; just one in five students scored proficient in Algebra I last year.

Watlington said he wants to “establish deep partnerships” with district families, caregivers, and community members, and be more transparent with budgeting.

Watlington’s presentation reiterated much of what he said when he finished out his first full year in office. But now, with Parker in charge, changes to the district may be coming.

Parker has expressed more openness to charter schools, which now educate a third of the city’s students. But the Board of Education has not approved a new charter school in six years, and it and the district’s charter office has been accused of racial bias in disproportionately moving to close charters that have Black leadership.

The first hint of a possible political shift on this issue came at last Thursday’s board meeting, when members reversed their previous decision not to renew the Southwest Leadership Academy charter school.

Parker’s presence at Watlington’s speech could signal she wants to take a more hands-on approach to public K-12 education than her predecessor, Jim Kenney. She has the power to appoint all nine members of the school board, and can remake it from scratch if she wants. Current board members’ terms expire on May 1.

So far, she has given no hints about her intentions, although she spoke well of Board President Reginald Streater.

Philadelphia mayor says ‘crumbles of funding’ are inadequate

Watlington said in his speech he is trying to prove to Parker, and to state and federal lawmakers, that under his leadership the district will be a responsible steward of any new funding. He highlighted decisions to reorganize his office, overhauling math and language arts curriculum, eliminating vacant positions, and shaking up his leadership team in an effort to trim administrative staff and focus more on crucial priorities like dropout prevention, facility improvements, and high-impact tutoring.

Parker pledged to work to bring more school funding to the city. She also called out elected leaders attending Tuesday’s event, including several members of Congress, state legislators like House Speaker Joanna McClinton, and City Council members including Council President Kenyatta Johnson.

Philadelphia’s children are “given crumbles of funding when they really do deserve a whole loaf” Parker said of the state’s current school funding system.

Parker commended Watlington for his five-year strategic plan, known as Accelerate Philly, which the school board adopted last year. But she said it’s the job of policymakers and elected officials to “make sure we have the dollars in order to get it done.”

Still, Parker cautioned that “this is going to be a tough year,” and expressed concern about whether city taxpayers should be expected to shoulder more of the burden for schools. She placed her faith in state education funding reform in the wake of last year’s Commonwealth Court decision that the current system is unconstitutional.

In her remarks at the event, Parker did go out of her way to express her continued support for another of her campaign platforms – year-round school, a potentially budget-busting initiative that would require massive union buy-in. In his speech, Watlington expressed some support for extending the school day and year.

The district’s presentation on Tuesday concluded with a “call to action” by Kathryn Epps Roberson, president and CEO of the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia — a source of private philanthropic funding for the district. Epps called Watlington’s five-year blueprint an “audacious approach” to school reform and improvement.

She also announced the Fund’s intent to raise $40 million by 2028 to support Watlington’s plan, including $6 million in year one.

“This has to be a public and private effort,” she said.

That money will provide stipends to people to participate in Parent University, an initiative Watlington intends to revive that helps parents shore up their skills and learn how to better help their children with schoolwork. It will also fund a high-impact tutoring pilot program in up to eight schools, help with teacher recruitment and training, and underwrite swimming programs, among other priorities.

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.

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.

Philadelphia teachers union president’s retirement comes at critical time for educators, schools

2024-01-19T00:39:44+00:00

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The pending retirement of Jerry Jordan as Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president and the ascension of Arthur Steinberg as his replacement ensures the union will continue to be run by members of a group that’s held power for decades.

It also maintains an unbroken string of male presidents of a union that is at least 70% female.

The change in leadership is occurring at a critical time for the school district and the union, which is the city’s largest union and represents 13,600 teachers, nurses, counselors, librarians, secretaries, food service managers, paraprofessionals and other school workers. At its peak, before the advent of charter schools and an overall decline in Philadelphia’s population, it had more than 20,000 members.

Philadelphia’s new mayor, Cherelle Parker, has said she would like to see year-round schooling, and Superintendent Tony Watlington has indicated his interest in the concept. And a state court has ruled that Pennsylvania’s current method of funding education is unconstitutional — a decision that could result in hundreds of millions of more dollars annually for city schools. How that money is used will chart the futures of hundreds of thousands of children and the staff who work with them.

Jordan announced his retirement, which will be effective June 30, on Tuesday. The PFT’s contract expires at the end of August, and the district would have to negotiate any changes in schedules linked with year-round-schooling with the union. The district has also been coping with significant teacher and staff shortages recently.

“It’s terrible, there are a lot of vacancies” for both teacher and paraprofessional positions, Steinberg said in an interview. “A significant number of schools are understaffed.” And Philadelphia’s teacher salaries, especially for experienced educators, lag behind the compensation offered by neighboring districts.

Steinberg, who was previously a special education teacher at Edison High School before becoming a PFT staffer, is currently the president of American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania. He declined to comment on the union’s stance on Parker’s year-round schooling plan, saying it would be premature. His priorities, he said, “are as they always have been: to engage and listen to the members and take care of their needs.”

Not everyone is thrilled with the hand-off from Jordan to Steinberg, and specifically how Steinberg faced no competition for the presidency. Several teachers associated with the Caucus of Working Educators, which challenged the union leadership in 2016 and 2020, noted in interviews that Jordan took no chances in assuring Steinberg would be the only candidate in contention to succeed him. No one else filed to run because no potential contender besides Steinberg knew of Jordan’s intentions until it was too late, they said.

Jordan sent a letter to his membership announcing his planned retirement just after Tuesday’s filing deadline for the PFT presidential election, which occurs every four years.

His email explained that Steinberg would take over under rules laid out in the union’s constitution. Because he was the only candidate, a vote would be unnecessary, Jordan said.

“This evening, candidates had until 5 p.m. to submit their consent forms and petitions to run” for the presidency and other leadership positions, he wrote. Jordan said that representatives from the American Arbitration Association verified “that only one slate, the Collective Bargaining (CB) Team, submitted their candidacy. I share with you the exciting news and my congratulations to our next president, Arthur Steinberg!”

Arthur Steinberg, who will replace Jerry Jordan as president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, used to be a special education teacher at Edison High School and is currently the president of American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania.

Steinberg is the son of Jack Steinberg, who was among the PFT’s founding leaders, a longtime treasurer, and head of the union’s Health and Welfare Fund. Members of the union’s CB faction have served as PFT presidents for almost all of the past 40 years. Marv Schuman was president from 1983 to 1990, Ted Kirsch from 1990 to 2007, and Jordan has led the union since then.

Ismael Jimenez, a history teacher for most of his career who is now the district’s social studies curriculum specialist, said he had no doubt that other candidates would have entered the contest this year if they knew Jordan was retiring.

“That would have switched up the equation,” said Jimenez, who ran twice on the Working Educators slate in 2016 and 2020.

Kathleen Melville, who led the Working Educators slate in 2020 as the candidate for president, said it is a “shame that PFT members won’t have a chance to choose the next leader of their union.

“I ran for leadership in 2020 because I believe that members should have a say in who leads their union and what their union is fighting for,” said Melville, who is now a City Council staffer.

‘A persistent voice for the needs of teachers’

The Working Educators caucus was founded in 2014 by a group of teachers who wanted the union to be more active on social justice and equity issues affecting city schools — following the lead of other unions. Kelley Collings, a 23-year teacher who was among the founders of the caucus, also said the group has pushed to change the union’s policies to make it “truly democratic.” (Collings said she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the caucus.)

The caucus decided in November not to put up a slate of candidates this year, saying instead it would focus on creating a strong contract, building-by-building organizing, and reforming the discipline policy for teacher absences. In the 2016 and 2020 PFT leadership elections, the Working Educators slate got around a third of the vote.

Asked about the timing of Jordan’s announcement relative to the filing deadline, Steinberg said there was no attempt to limit the field.

“The executive board adopts election procedures in December and as soon as that process concluded we sent [filing] deadlines to schools,” he said. “They had the same opportunity to run as any of us did … there was no subterfuge.”

Jordan declined to comment.

Jimenez said in deciding not to run a slate, one factor had been that the caucus felt there had been “a good amount of victories” with the last contract.”

Recent contracts negotiated by PFT included raises and some back pay to make up for a five-year period when the union worked without a contract; that protracted stalemate occurred when the district was under state control. During that time, teachers got no raises at all and no credit for accruing additional experience and educational credentials. Being able to get some of that money back and be made whole was an important victory, Jimenez said.

He also noted that PFT’s leadership team, after being challenged by the Working Educators caucus, had started issuing statements on issues including gun violence and LGBTQ+ issues.

At the same time, Jimenez said “the kind of leadership transition that just happened is “a terrible look for any union, especially teachers and those trying to teach children about democratic values.”

Despite their concern about the succession process and criticism of some of the union’s priorities, many teachers as well as some influential education figures in the city had good things to say about Jordan.

“I would say that he has been a persistent voice for the needs of teachers, and that’s his role as the head of the union,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First and a former official in the mayoral and gubernatorial administrations of Ed Rendell.

While noting that the needs of teachers and those of students don’t always align, she said Jordan was always cordial and respectful.

Former superintendent William Hite called Jordan a “consummate professional” who was “committed to creating better conditions for children in the school district.”

Correction, Jan. 19, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect that Ismael Jimenez ran on the Caucus of Working Educators slate in Philadelphia Federation of Teachers elections in 2016 and 2020. A previous version of the article said Jimenez ran twice on the Collective Bargaining slate. This article has also been updated to refer to Jimenez as the district’s director of social studies. A previous version of the article referred to him as the district’s social studies curriculum specialist.

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 shrugs off national controversy as it updates and reinvigorates Black history lessons

2023-02-27T19:27:42+00:00

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In 2005, Philadelphia became the first big city in America to require all students to take African American history in order to graduate. And as other states and districts pass laws and adopt policies that restrict teaching about race and racism, the city’s public schools are taking a very different approach to classroom topics now under a national microscope.

The district is redoubling its efforts to expose students to Black history and culture. This year, it debuted a substantially updated and revitalized curriculum for the course of study that relies mostly on primary and secondary sources rather than a standard textbook.

Students examine such essential questions as how Black communities retained their cultural identity in colonial America, and they compare the philosophies that motivated figures like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey.

They also discuss whether the nation’s founders were “hypocritical for claiming freedom” while they tolerated slavery in the nation they were creating. And they are asked to ponder why the history of slavery should be taught in schools to begin with.

Philadelphia’s revisions to the course and new training for teachers track with the Board of Education’s commitment in 2021 to “address racist practices” in a multitude of areas, from discipline to the content of classroom libraries. Part of the board’s goal is to ensure that the district’s students, most of whom are Black or Latino, “see themselves in the curriculum” throughout their school careers.

The district is also incorporating instructional materials about Black history beyond the high school course. And the new materials can look quite different from things like traditional classroom textbooks.

Philadelphia’s updated high school course creates a natural avenue for students to think about and discuss topics and authors that were recently removed from early drafts of the Advanced Placement African American Studies course that the College Board has been piloting.

The controversial elimination of topics like the Black Lives Matter movement and Black feminism took place following prominent complaints from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican. The College Board has said that it did make changes to the course, but not due to political pressure.

Ismael Jimenez, the district’s social studies curriculum specialist and a driving force behind the revisions, cited the growing number of states where, as he put it, “You can’t even have these conversations” like the ones he wants to encourage.

Since early 2021, 18 states have enacted bans or restrictions on teaching topics related to race and racism, according to Education Week.

Legislators in Pennsylvania did make an effort in 2021 to restrict what could be taught about race, but their bill about the topic has failed to gain traction.

In Jimenez’s view, educators now have an even bigger obligation “to teach children the truth.”

New reading material and new training

Teachers in Philadelphia still have a Prentice-Hall textbook from 2005 for the mandatory high school course. But Jimenez said although the textbook is advanced considering when it was published, the district has also incorporated more primary sources, like Marcus Garvey’s “The Negro World.” The course relies on digital access for books like Garvey’s, which is available through the New York Public Library.

Links to sources, topics to be covered, and pacing schedules are listed for teachers in shared Google documents, which are continually updated.

When he taught the course for more than 12 years at two different high schools, “I found myself making my own materials,” Jimenez said.

Schools are also using materials that aren’t just more recent than Garvey’s work, but present history in a different way.

Earlier this month, Jimenez spoke to Philadelphia teachers and other district employees — many of whom work in elementary schools or preschools and don’t teach the mandatory high school course — at a Temple University event unveiling a new book for use in city schools called “Black Lives Always Mattered!”

The book was written and illustrated in the style of a graphic novel. It features 14 Black figures from 20th century Philadelphia history. These range from luminaries like opera singer Marian Anderson and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, to lesser-known people like teacher and political activist Crystal Bird Fauset, photojournalist John W. Mosley, and Ruth Wright Hayre, who in the 1940s became the first Black high school teacher in the district and later rose to be Board of Education president.

The book’s lead illustrator and art coordinator is Eric Battle, who has worked for Marvel Comics and other publications. Battle said work on the book began in 2018, well before controversies about lessons on race and racism that are now making headlines.

“It came about as a way to let young people know their connections to the city, knowing why a street is named after a certain person. What did that person do to garner such an honor?” Battle said. “We want them to know that the people profiled in this book are ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

Other changes are afoot to bolster the revised course.

While the student body in Philadelphia is mostly Black and Latino, more than two-thirds of the teachers are white. And although the mandatory course has been in city schools for 17 years, this is the first year teachers are required to attend professional development focused on the class.

Jimenez, who fought hard for the mandatory training, said it can be “problematic” if teachers “are left on their own without appropriate guidance” before presenting such important and potentially sensitive material.

Unlike in science, where teachers in Pennsylvania must be certified in the specialties of biology, physics and chemistry, social studies teachers have no such restrictions. They can be assigned to teach any required course, regardless of their expertise, even though “you have to be very knowledgeable on the subject before being able to go in and determine what should be emphasized or not,” Jimenez said.

Nicholaus Bernadini, who works at Samuel Fels High School, has been teaching African American history for 14 years and worked with Jimenez alongside other teachers to revise the mandatory high school course.

Bernadini, who is white and was born in Philadelphia, spent most of his formative years in Sea Islands, South Carolina among the Gullah people, a group of Black Americans who live along the southeastern coast and developed a distinctive culture. That background gives him a unique perspective. But Bernadini also recognizes that teachers from all walks of life can face “pitfalls” when dealing with the material.

“Teachers navigate better in environments where they can ask questions on what they are unsure about,” Bernadini said. “It is important for teachers to feel free to improve themselves as educators without backlash.”

During the professional development sessions for teachers on the course, Bernadini said there have been “incredible” conversations about everything from the role of states’ rights in the Civil War to personal perspectives on race.

“We had an educator talk about the idea that they don’t necessarily see color. We had a discussion around that along the lines of, ‘We can respect that, but what’s the impact of that mindset on you and your students?’” Bernadini said. “And while not all white teachers think that, there are teachers of color who don’t necessarily disagree. So having these conversations gets teachers to feel more comfortable about teaching the content.”

Jimenez said that teachers have told him that they appreciated the professional development sessions on a personal level.

“They realize that a lot of things they emphasized before were problematic and that it’s a reflection of the indoctrination in what society tells us about racial progress,” he said.

Teachers see broad benefits of learning Black history

Teachers at different levels of the school system say how invaluable it is for students to encounter things in their classes that presents them a fuller picture of American history through the lives of Black people. And they’re puzzled if not angered by those who say otherwise.

Tiffany Johnson teaches fourth grade at Ziegler Elementary School. Her students are learning about topics ranging from Black women’s contributions to society to the Green Book, a 20th century guide for Black travelers to the places they would be welcome to stay and to have a meal, where they could get their hair done, and which gas stations to patronize.

Many of her students previously had no idea about the existence of things like the Green Book in American history, she said.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with teaching the truth of what happened. I don’t get that. It’s not like we’re saying white people are bad,” said Johnson, who is Black. “We’re saying these events happened, this is how people reacted. The facts need to be told. It happened. We can’t sugarcoat it.”

Monique McKenney, now at Central High School, has taught African American history for most of her 24 years in Philadelphia schools. She said she is “not shocked, but disappointed and outraged” that politicians like DeSantis “would try to water down, or whitewash a curriculum that all students would benefit from.”

Central, one of the city’s leading academic magnet schools, is racially and ethnically diverse but it is predominantly white and Asian, unlike the district as a whole. In McKenney’s experiences, a broad cross-section of students have benefited from the lessons she teaches about the topic.

“It’s interesting to see students of various backgrounds who are able to connect with some of the experiences that you have in African American history,” said McKenney, who is also Black.

Some students, she said, “are surprised they’ve never heard about certain things before.”

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.

Advocates praise school funding report, promise statewide campaign to back more spending

2024-01-12T22:50:52+00:00

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Education advocates said Friday they were encouraged by the report from the Basic Education Funding Commission, calling it a potential “game changer” for student opportunity in Pennsylvania if the General Assembly and Gov. Josh Shapiro implement its recommendations.

The report, approved on Thursday, recommends increasing school spending, drawing up a plan for what it means to fund students “adequately,” and overhauling charter school funding, among other proposals. The commission’s suggestions act as the first step in the state’s response to a 2023 Commonwealth Court ruling that the way Pennsylvania funds its schools is unconstitutional.

In a call with reporters, the advocates played down the divided vote on the commission, which approved the report by an 8-7 vote largely along party lines. All but one Democrat voted in favor and all Republicans opposed. And the Democratic dissent was from a legislator who felt it didn’t go far enough.

“This provides almost everything we need for a roadmap for success,” said Sharon Ward, senior policy adviser to the Education Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs in Commonwealth Court along with the Public Interest Law Center and the private law firm O’Melveny and Myers LLP.

But she and others also said that they would continue lobbying around the state to build political support for the larger state education investment that the commission is calling for.

Last February, after a four-month trial, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer ordered the state’s school funding system to be revised, responding to a lawsuit brought by six districts, several parents, and some advocacy groups. She ruled that the system deprived many students of a “thorough and efficient” education required by the state constitution and violated the federal right to equal protection.

After months of hearings all over the Commonwealth, the commission said Pennsylvania should increase its spending on K-12 education by $5.4 billion over the next seven years to meet the constitutional mandate, with most of that money, $5.1 billion, coming from the state rather than local districts. It also set a method for determining the amount each of the state’s 500 districts — which vary widely in demographics and poverty levels — would need to reach adequacy for their students.

“While not every (commission) member supported this, the minority accepted the court ruling,” said Marc Stier, executive director of the Pennsylvania Policy Center, a Harrisburg think tank, noting that Republican legislators who argued in court to keep the funding status quo did not appeal Jubelirer’s ruling. He noted that the Republicans’ 92-page minority report laid out a series of ways schools could be improved, “which cannot be put into place without new funding.” That report got six yes votes on the commission, six no votes, and three abstentions.

Donna Cooper, executive director of the advocacy group Children First, said “Republicans did not refute that there was an adequacy gap, and they were very clear to say that the solution to that needed to be found in the General Assembly.” She said the advocates “are looking forward to working with members on both sides of the aisle” to come up with a plan and to “rally parents, teachers, concerned citizens in every district, Republican and Democrat, to stand behind (legislators) as they do that.”

“ZIP code should never dictate the level of education students receive,” said Melissa Robbins, of the local Urban League chapter. David Heayn-Menendez, of the Latino advocacy group ACLAMO, described how so many Latino students in the city attend schools without basic amenities like a functioning library and a school nurse.

The commission report “lays a path to invest in our children, support our educators, and be a Commonwealth that genuinely supports the common good for all,” he said. “It is a commitment to bridging the gaps that have hindered our education system for generations.” No family, he said, should be “choosing between the future of their children and where they can afford to live.”

Pennsylvania is currently more reliant on local rather than state funding for its schools, with wide disparities in education spending depending on a district’s wealth. The national average for the state contribution is about 55%, while in Pennsylvania it is just 45%, which means that residents of the poorest districts are often overtaxed locally.

The commission’s recommendations included earmarking nearly $1 billion to ease the burden on high-tax districts.

Philadelphia is one of the districts with a high proportion of students from low-income families and has long argued that it has been shortchanged by the state. Its per-pupil expenditures fall below most of the surrounding suburbs, even though it serves a student population with greater overall needs.

Under the commission’s proposal, it would stand to see its annual state aid, now around $2 billion, increase by some $1.4 billion, or 70%, in seven years.

David Lapp of Research for Action said that such a boost would allow Philadelphia and other historically underfunded districts to give students more access to certified teachers, counselors, rigorous curricula, healthy facilities, and smaller class sizes — benefits that are taken for granted in wealthier areas.

“We believe the Commission’s report is a crucial first step forward ending the systemic underfunding of the School District of Philadelphia,” said Superintendent Tony Watlington in a statement. “We look forward to working with Governor Shapiro and the General Assembly to make its recommendation a reality in the coming months.”

In their own report, Republicans took issue with the commission setting adequacy targets at all, while also disputing the method it used.

“Unfortunately, the Commission could not reach a consensus on a model for measuring adequacy to recommend to the General Assembly. … It is up to the General Assembly to determine the appropriate adequacy model,” the Republican report said.

It added that any additional funding sent to districts “must include an accountability component to ensure those districts invest in programs that focus on high-quality academics.”

In court and in general, Republicans have long disputed the correlation between the amount of spending and education quality. House Republican leader Bryan Cutler issued a statement saying the report “continues the false choice that providing only more state funding will improve Pennsylvania’s public schools.”

He and other Republicans favor more choice for parents, including the creation of more charter schools and vouchers for private schools. They also cautioned that any big increases in education spending could result in higher taxes, especially when federal pandemic aid runs out.

The advocacy groups have said that if the state does not adopt a funding system that meets the constitutional mandate of adequacy and fairness, they will go back to court.

“What’s really going to be important is the acknowledgement that this is not just going to be a report on paper, but a report that informs the governor’s budget proposal,” said Ward. “It is and will be a game changer.”

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.

Bipartisan Pennsylvania school funding commission proposes eight changes

2024-01-11T23:21:44+00:00

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The long-awaited report from the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission recommends steady, annual increases in school spending, an overhaul to charter school funding, and a plan to calculate what it means to fund students “adequately.”

But even without any earth-shattering proposals, the report released Thursday did not receive unanimous support from the bipartisan but politically divided commission. And school funding experts are already raising questions about it.

The commission’s report follows months of hearings and hours of testimony from school leaders, education advocates, and others regarding how Pennsylvania should remake its school funding formula. A Commonwealth Court judge ruled the state’s funding formula unconstitutional in 2023 and ordered the state to revamp it. If lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro enact the commission’s recommendations, Philadelphia students could receive significantly more funding — nearly $243 million more in the fiscal 2025 budget, for example, and $1.4 billion more over seven years.

In an 8-7 vote largely along party lines, the commission (which is made of Democratic and GOP legislators, as well as members of Shapiro’s administration) approved a 114-page report that includes eight recommendations. All votes in favor were Democratic lawmakers or from Shapiro’s team, while the Republicans were united in opposition. Sen. Lindsey Williams, a Democrat, voted no because in her view the report’s recommendations don’t go far enough.

Primary among those recommendations is to update estimates of what each district needs so all their students can succeed — the so-called “adequacy” target — by recalculating key aspects of the funding formula to make its annual allocations to districts more fair and predictable.

The commission also calls for making teacher salaries more competitive; adding funding for student supports, including mental health; and examining how the state can bolster support for access to prekindergarten, career and technical education, and funding for libraries.

To make sure that school spending in the state continues to be fair and adequate, it also wants the commission to be reconstituted in 2029 to provide continued monitoring of the funding system.

But overall, the commission’s recommendations regarding state funding fall well below the $6.2 billion over five years of increased education spending that some advocacy groups are calling for. Those groups want a $2.2 billion hike in fiscal 2025, followed by $1 billion increases in each of the following four years.

Instead, the commission determined that there’s a $5.4 billion funding adequacy gap, of which $291 million is “the local responsibility of low tax effort school districts.” The remaining $5.1 billion “rests upon the state” which Pennsylvania would close through a seven-year ramp-up in funding.

For 2023-24, Pennsylvania’s share of K-12 total spending in the Commonwealth is $10 billion.

The commission also acknowledged the widely disparate tax burdens for individual districts. To address this, it proposed an additional $955 million in state money, in the form of “tax equity supplements,” for districts that have been taxing themselves at high rates.

“I believe the report not only meets our obligation as a commission … but also meets constitutional muster as directed by the Commonwealth Court,” said state Rep. Mike Sturla, a Democrat and a majority chair of the commission.

But he cautioned, “really, this is the end of the beginning. There’s still a whole lot of work to do.”

Shapiro said in a Thursday statement he “look[s] forward to addressing these points when I deliver my budget to the Legislature in a few weeks, and to continue working with leaders in both parties in order to deliver a thorough and efficient public education for students across our Commonwealth.”

In a Thursday press conference after the report’s release, advocates who were among plaintiffs in the 2014 school funding lawsuit that was the subject of the Commonwealth Court judge’s ruling last year said it represented a step in the right direction. In particular, they highlighted the commission’s proposed adequacy targets that take into account the actual needs of Pennsylvania students, district by district.

“This is a big first step … the timeline is long, it’s not perfect, and there are unaddressed issues. But the vision it lays out is a transformative one,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg of the Public Interest Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs along with the Education Law Center.

Recommendations focus on teacher workforce, poverty data, charters

The commission’s recommendations won’t go into effect without corresponding legislation approved by the state’s General Assembly and the governor. Its recommendations are:

Simplify and “reduce the volatility” in the state’s basic education funding formula by using three-year averages of U.S. Census Bureau data on poverty and median household income. The state should then add at least an additional $200 million to this updated formula each year.
Calculate adequacy targets — or how much each district should be spending on their student population, based on their needs. The commission recommended using Pennsylvania’s state performance standards to determine which districts are “successful” and then use those districts’ spending level as a target for all school districts.
Invest more state money in school facilities, especially in districts like Philadelphia.
Reexamine the way charter schools are funded in the state and “modernize” the calculation of cyber charter school tuition.
Invest in the teacher workforce.
Invest in student supports like mental health services and the “community schools” model.
Bring back the Basic Education Funding Commission in 2029.
“Consider other important education issues,” including access to pre-K, transportation, school safety, and “explore dedicated funding for every school district to have at least one school librarian.”

While saying that the state “should be investing in competitive teacher salaries across the Commonwealth,” the report cites a few actions already taken, including a teacher pipeline program and provides stipends and other incentives. But it doesn’t lay out a blueprint or funding source for helping high-poverty, low-spending districts raise their salaries, which generally fall below those offered by high-wealth districts.

The charter school recommendations are likely to be politically controversial. The commission wants to restore a charter school reimbursement line item in the state budget to help districts cope with the “stranded costs” of charters. When Gov. Tom Corbett ended the practice in 2011, Philadelphia, which has half that charters in the state, was receiving $110 million through that provision.

The commission also wants to change the charter school funding formula so that it uses the same three tiers of supplemental funding for students with disabilities that traditional districts receive, depending on the severity of their disability. Right now, charters receive the highest tier of funding for all students under current law.

‘You have to use good empirical evidence’

Though the final report reflects a compromise, experts and education advocates are already raising eyebrows at some of the commission’s suggestions.

Bruce Baker, a school finance professor and national school funding expert at The University of Miami, took issue with the assigned weights the commission recommends using to calculate how much it would cost to educate each student.

Research has found students with disabilities, English language learners, and students from impoverished backgrounds all require more funding than their peers to help them achieve a desired level of performance.

Baker said the commission should have required that those weights be updated because the current ones are part of a formula that has been deemed unconstitutional.

“You can’t correct the constitutional deprivation without specific consideration to the additional costs of providing children of all backgrounds, in all settings, equal opportunity to achieve the outcomes,” Baker said. “You have to use good empirical evidence in order to correctly calibrate the weights.”

Meanwhile, Nathan Benefield, senior vice president of the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, called the report “deeply disappointing” in a statement Thursday.

Benefield previously told Chalkbeat the state could find more money by phasing out so-called “hold harmless” aid rather than injecting billions of dollars that may not be sustainable if the state’s budget surplus runs out. “Hold harmless” was a policy enacted to guarantee that no school district in the state would receive less funding than it had the previous year, even if it lost students.

But in its report, the commission said abandoning “hold harmless” would be “counterproductive.”

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, called the report “a critical step in the right direction” primarily because it recommends additional state spending on facilities improvements and because of the significant increases it brings to the city’s schools.

Clarification: This story has been updated to better explain Pennsylvania’s share of total K-12 spending in 2023-24.

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.

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

This Philadelphia teacher wants students to find themselves through theater

2024-01-10T22:19:20+00:00

Last month, Sally Wojcik, who teaches theater and creative writing at Benjamin Rush Arts Academy, was named by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as one of 12 finalists for state Teacher of the Year. Rush has just over 600 students who come mostly from its Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood, but as a criteria-based school, it also draws from all over the city. Some students commute up to two hours a day.

Students can choose from among various majors, including media arts, graphic arts, fine arts, theater, dance, and instrumental and vocal music. And once they choose their concentration, they take classes in that area every day and stay in that major for all four years. That means Wojcik is able to work with the same cohort of students for their entire high school careers and can plan a curriculum with that particular group in mind. “I was given full flexibility to design a curriculum that I thought was best for students,” said Wojcik, who chooses most of the plays her class will focus on, including some that may be controversial.

Rush has been her only teaching job, and she established its theater program there in 2009. She said she “was very lucky” when the director of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, who knew her from her work with the education outreach program of the Arden Theater, recommended her as a perfect fit for Rush, which was in the process of converting from a middle school to an arts-focused high school.

A summa cum laude graduate of Albright College, Wojcik has a master’s degree in English education (Pennsylvania does not offer teacher certification in theater) from Temple University, and also spent a semester at the prestigious National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. She spoke to Chalkbeat senior writer Dale Mezzacappa about how she approaches her “dream job” and why theater experience is important for high school students.

Why did you become a teacher?

I was a “theater kid” my whole life. That was always the thing that brought me the most joy and fulfillment when I was a high school student. And then I pursued it in college and when I finished college, I apprenticed at the Arden Theater Company in Philadelphia trying to figure out how I fit into the theater profession. I worked in Arden’s education department and realized that I really loved helping young people find their voice and figure out what kind of artists they wanted to be.

Tell me about your own experience in school and how that affects how you work today.

I was really lucky. I grew up in Western Massachusetts, and my high school had a longstanding relationship with Shakespeare & Company, which has an amazing program where they would pair their resident artists with schools, and would come to work with us on our own Shakespeare productions. I remember, as a student, being made to feel very much like a valued and important person, and I just loved being a part of a group that had this collective goal to tell a compelling story. All throughout high school I had these amazing teachers, one theater teacher in particular, who was also the journalism teacher, who inspired me to value words and language.

How do you teach theater? It can’t be just kids sitting in a classroom.

My approach is very holistic. Everybody knows what it means to be an actor because that’s what we are used to seeing, but my program purposely focuses also on directing, design, and playwriting. We actually do spend a bunch of time in the classroom sometimes because each of my units is tied to what I call an anchor text. We read, analyze, discuss, pull apart a text … then we break off so a student might do a scene study or create an original piece of playwriting based on inspiration within that play, or they might take on designing an aspect of that play.

What plays have you studied recently? And how do you choose them?

There are 15 to 16 plays over the course of four years. My goal is to make sure that every student at least once sees themselves represented in the plays I bring in. So it’s really important that they come from playwrights with diverse backgrounds that highlight diverse characters. We start at the very beginning … so there are a couple of Greeks, moving all the way up through contemporary plays. I try to bring in plays that have different kinds of conflicts, different kinds of themes, different kinds of structures or use of language. Every play has an engine, something that makes the play go, and it’s really important to bring in different kinds of engines so every student can get excited at some point.

What plays, specifically?

The ninth grade set curriculum is Antigone, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Glass Menagerie, three big canonical works. In 10th grade, it’s Medea and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, and I’m in the process of reworking what I want the third text to be. And in 11th grade, it’s How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, BFE by Julia Cho, Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage, The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute, and then Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. The 12th grade is always whatever they chose as their senior play, then A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Stop Kiss by Diana Son, and 26 Miles by Philadelphia writer Quiara Alegria Hudes.

What kind of plays do the 12th graders choose?

We just finished a production of Elsewhere by Don Zolidis, which is a play that follows four teenagers into a kind of shared dream landscape where they have to navigate some childhood issues to realize what they want to become as adults. Last year, they did a murder mystery, and the year before that they did Tinkerbell, which is an adaptation of the Peter Pan story. Sometimes, I have veto power, but mostly, they’re chosen by students.

Rush focuses on the arts, but in other schools, arts tend to be the first thing to go when the budget gets tight. Do you think all students should be exposed to theater?

I think it is every student’s right to have access to high-quality arts education in the same way they have the right to a high-quality core curriculum. The thing I love about theater is that it’s about stories, and stories are the most fundamental way for humans to connect. Allowing students to explore other people’s stories gives them a pathway to explore and explain their own.

Is there a particular moment or production that you remember as being pivotal for you? Something that made you think, this is why I do this?

Well, lots of students have expressed to me that theater is the thing they come to school for. But there was a moment, I think, when my students changed me. It was maybe seven years ago, the senior production was Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, which deals with two female teachers who run a boarding school and had been accused by a student of being involved in a romantic relationship. The student was mad and wanted to get back at them, but what she didn’t know was that one of them really did have deep feelings for the other. And the student actors playing the teachers were just both so good. I was sitting in the audience when I thought, they are both, at age 17 or 18, better actors than I ever was. And it was this beautiful moment where I felt like they had surpassed my own skill level, and I was learning from them. My program is designed for students to become really independent of me. I provide all the scaffolding and the structure, so, then, they can do it on their own.

What is the best advice you ever got as a teacher?

When I first started working in Philadelphia, I took a workshop with Young Playwrights, and there was a speaker who said that our job is to help students find their voices, and not our voice through them. And that has been something that has always resonated in the back of my head. I am always looking for ways to center students in the work that they are creating, and to help them learn to trust themselves and their stories rather than looking to me for validation of their stories.

Have you ever had a parent or administrator try to censor what you were teaching?

It’s funny because I’m always waiting for that call. I’ve had parents ask questions, good questions, but I’ve never had a parent say their kid can’t read that, or can’t be a part of it. The play How I Learned to Drive [about a sexually abusive relationship between a teen and a trusted adult], every year I have students come to me afterward and say that the play changed their life, sometimes because they’ve been through something similar, and having the opportunity to process that through somebody else’s perspective has freed them. And I feel very backed up by the School District of Philadelphia. I feel really grateful for the progressiveness of the district I work in.

Did you ever aspire to be an actor?

No, this is actually my dream job. I was not ever very in love with the lifestyle of a professional artist [moving] from gig to gig. Part of what I love about being a theater teacher is that I get to really tuck in with the students and work with them over a long period of time. I love teenagers; I love this point of personal development when they are figuring out who and how they want to be. Teaching, for me, wasn’t a default. It was an active choice.

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 should hike education spending by at least $2 billion, groups say

2024-01-04T23:05:48+00:00

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Education advocates want the state to hike education spending by $2 billion in the upcoming budget, saying that is the minimum necessary to start fixing a funding system that a Commonwealth Court judge ruled last year is unconstitutional.

In addition, Pennsylvania needs to invest additional capital funds to help districts update school facilities and expand access to preschool, according to a statement from the Education Law Center and the Public Interest Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs at the four-month trial. The proposal is also supported by PA Schools Work, a statewide coalition of groups that advocate for fair school funding.

The demands come a week before the Basic Education Funding Commission — a bipartisan group of legislators and state officials — is scheduled to release its report based on hearings it held across the state in response to Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer’s ruling, and as the state’s annual budget process gears up.

The groups held a press conference Thursday to outline their desires for education spending. If Gov. Josh Shapiro and state lawmakers fall short, “we are prepared to go back to court to uphold the rights of those communities,” said Deborah Gordon-Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center.

After a $2 billion education funding increase in the 2024-25 budget, the groups say an additional $1 billion should be added in each of the next four years, which they said will allow the state to close a $6.2 billion “adequacy gap” by 2028-29. Taking decisive action now is necessary “so that children currently in school will see the benefits,” they said.

When lawmakers approved the current state budget, they enacted an increase in basic education spending of $567 million, which combined with other aid increases brought total K-12 spending to $10 billion.

In February 2023, in her ruling on a lawsuit that several plaintiff districts and others filed in 2014, Jubelirer said the state contribution to school funding — meant to offset wealth disparities among districts — is both inadequate in the overall amount of money allocated and inequitable in how it is distributed. She concluded that as a result many students are deprived of their constitutional right to a “thorough and efficient” system of education.

At the trial, educators, experts and students described the impact of inadequate funding: large classes, insufficient counselors, outdated equipment, a lack of libraries, and teacher shortages due in part to inadequate pay. The defendants — the governor and legislature — eventually decided not to appeal Jubelirer’s ruling, and instead set up the commission to explore how to comply.

In a November letter to the funding commission, the group said that the General Assembly must determine “how much funding is needed to provide each child a constitutionally adequate, comprehensive, contemporary and effective education,” as well as determine the needs of each of the state’s 500 districts.

Experts testified during the trial that Philadelphia’s shortfall is in excess of $7,000 per student. According to the groups’ data, Philadelphia has a total “adequacy shortfall” of nearly $1.6 billion. Under their plan, the district would get an increase in state funding for 2024-25 of $500 million, as well as $250 million the next year. That additional money could go a long way toward helping new Mayor Cherelle Parker’s ambitions to implement year-round school and a longer school day.

They also noted that Shapiro, when he was attorney general, filed an amicus brief for the funding lawsuit that supported the plaintiffs’ claim of inadequate funding.

“Every child in our Commonwealth should have access to a high-quality education and safe learning environment regardless of their zip code,” he wrote in the 2022 brief. “Many Pennsylvania schools are not able to provide the level of education required by the Constitution—not for lack of trying, but for lack of funding … It is past time for the General Assembly to step up, comply with its constitutional obligations, and give our public schools the funding they need to educate our children.”

The advocates also released polling data from last year showing that most people think the current system is unfair, and that people did not oppose raising more state revenue to fund state school aid increases, as long as the burden fell on wealthier taxpayers.

In Pennsylvania, however, the state income tax, which raises most of the money that helps underwrite schools, is a flat tax — the same rate regardless of income. Courts have ruled that imposing a graduated tax, which would have higher rates for those making higher incomes, violates the state’s “uniformity” clause.

Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, said during the press conference that according to the polling, citizens “know what is going on, they know about inequity,” and say officials “should do more to ensure the state is sufficiently funding schools.”

Noting that this is an election year and Pennsylvania is a swing state, she said while that sentiment is strongest among self-described Democrats, polling showed that 52% of Republicans also agreed with that statement.

“There is really a large amount of consensus on what is broken about this system,” said Public Interest Law Center attorney Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, who argued the case before Jubelirer, adding that state officials need to change their mindset about education funding.

“It’s no longer a matter of political convenience,” he said at the press conference, “but a matter of what students are constitutionally entitled to.”

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.

North Philadelphia hails opening of T.M. Peirce, its first new public school building in 70 years

2023-12-21T20:12:57+00:00

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It was, Kendra Brooks said, a long fight.

She and other activists had advocated for years for a new school in their North Philadelphia neighborhood to replace the old T.M. Peirce Elementary building, which was built in 1909. But their pleas went unheeded — until a building engineer discovered flaking asbestos, causing community outcry.

Similar conditions at other schools have led to prolonged building shutdowns recently. In T.M. Peirce’s case, the district determined that the old building was so full of hazards like lead and mold that it had to be demolished. The Board of Education voted in September 2021 to replace it.

And on Wednesday, officials including outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, Board of Education members, and Superintendent Tony Watlington celebrated the opening of a modern, $44 million school in one of the city’s most challenged neighborhoods, where about a third of residents live below the poverty line.

Peirce teachers and students will start using the new building in January, right after the holiday break. They have been located so far this school year in the nearby Pratt Elementary School, which closed in 2013 but has been retrofitted to serve as “swing space” while other schools undergo renovation or construction.

In fact, the new T.M. Peirce Elementary is the first new school built in North Philadelphia in 70 years, Watlington pointed out. (As of last year, the average public school building in the city was over 70 years old.)

“This school building says something about what we value for our students,” he said Wednesday.

Zamyrah Wicks, 8, left, and Ayaan Cole, 8, at the new T.M. Peirce Elementary School on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, in Philadelphia. Officials hailed the new school building as a big step forward for North Philadelphia.

The building at 22nd and West Cambria Street can accommodate 625 students in grades K-6, and features furniture and rooms designed for collaborative work, as well as an auditorium and cafeteria with all the most modern amenities.

The message to the students, Kenney and other officials said, was that they matter as much as those in affluent areas “like Lower Merion and Radnor.”

City Councilmember Cindy Bass grew up in the neighborhood, and described as a student moving from school to school as one after another closed. Now, she said, this state-of-the-art school “is the standard” for education. T.M. Peirce Principal Anthony Gordon called it “a historical moment in North Philadelphia.”

Kenney used the ceremony to tout the $1.5 billion increase in city funding for schools during his tenure. Board of Education President Reginald Streater called the new school a “down payment” that would help future generations.

And State Sen. Sharif Street called the investment a matter of educational equity, citing the recent Commonwealth Court ruling that the school funding system in Pennsylvania is unconstitutional and inequitable for low-income areas like the community around Peirce. .

“Our young people are worth it. They deserve this building,” said.

Meanwhile, architect Kevin Blackney, whose firm designed the building, said that the school was designed by the community. “You don’t know how rewarding that is,” he said.

Members of the Dobbins High School marching band serenaded the crowd at the festive ceremony.

Among those in attendance was Joan Monahan, 88, who graduated sixth grade from Peirce in 1946 after serving as the leader of the student body, she said. Her daughter designed the child-friendly furniture at the new school.

Brooks worked with Sylvia Simms, Quibila Divine, and Shakeda Gaines as part of a formidable contingent of North Philadelphia women to get the new T.M. Peirce built. Their fight rippled across the city’s politics and civic life.

In 2017, Brooks rode the campaign, as well as other battles on behalf of children in the neighborhood, to a seat on the City Council, where she still serves.

Simms’ advocacy got her an appointment to the School Reform Commission, which ran the district when it was under state control until 2017, where she continued to fight for a new school. Divine now works to help homeless citizens through the Urban Affairs Coalition, and Gaines is a deputy chief of staff in Brooks’ council office.

Speakers at Wednesday’s ceremony acknowledged their presence and their role. “We never gave up,” said Simms after the ceremony.

Students filled up the first two rows of seats in the auditorium after the ceremonial ribbon cutting in their spiffy navy blue uniforms with a logo on the chest that read: “T.M. Peirce, 21st Century Learning.”

“This is a first class, state-of-the-art facility just for you,” Brooks told them. “Take advantage of it.”

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

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney discusses his pre-K legacy: ‘We had all the parents’

2023-12-06T11:04:00+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2023 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. To keep up with early childhood education and Philadelphia’s public schools, sign up for our free newsletter here.

When Mayor Jim Kenney is feeling frustrated, he said, he has a guaranteed pick-me-up: He goes to visit students in a local prekindergarten.

“When I get really down, and depressed, and disgusted, and lots of other adjectives, I go schedule a pre-K visit,” Kenney told Chalkbeat in a candid interview conducted during his final weeks in office. “It’s like my salvation.”

Along with overseeing the school district’s return to local control after 17 years under state authority, Kenney regards the establishment of PHLpreK, which allows thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds in the city to attend prekindergarten free of charge, as one of the major legacies of his two terms in office.

“I believe the only way out of poverty and into a successful life is education,” he said, by way of explaining his commitment to the issue. Providing structured programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, he said, “sets the tone for the rest of their educational experience.”

As policymakers consider how to overhaul the state’s school funding system to make it fairer for districts like Philadelphia’s, Kenney also pointed out that the city increased its contribution to the school district by $1.5 billion during his tenure.

This year, more than 5,000 children are enrolled in PHLpreK, according to a report from Kenney’s office. Since its inception in 2017, more than 17,000 children have passed through the program and over 500 new teachers have been hired to work in PHLpreK classrooms, the report said.

Making free, high-quality prekindergarten more accessible helped parents and caregivers of young children hold down jobs, Kenney said, which in turn reduced poverty and led to more stable families – in itself an important factor in promoting school readiness.

While there isn’t research on PHLpreK’s impact that tracks students who had access to early childhood education versus those who didn’t, Kenney said third grade reading scores went up 3 percentage points last year in district schools. Those third graders were the first class of children who had access to PHLpreK.

To be sure, that increase is modest. The district set a goal for 62% of third graders to score proficient on the state exam by 2026. But in the 2022-23 school year, only 31.2% of third graders scored proficient or above on their state exams.

Beyond the numbers, Kenney cites anecdotal evidence that PHLpreK is having an impact. He loves to tell the story of visiting a kindergarten on the first day of school. “It was a disaster,” he said, with children bawling and clinging to their mothers — except for two kids sitting placidly in their seats, hands folded in front of them.

“I said to them, ‘Did you go to pre-K?’ They did. They knew exactly what to do,” Kenney recalled. “There was no learning curve.”

To get free pre-K done, Kenney fought off the soda industry, which spent millions trying to kill the sweetened beverage tax he proposed to fund the program. (The City Council approved the 1.5 cents-per-ounce tax on those beverages in a 13-4 vote in 2016.)

“They hired every lobbyist in the universe,” he said. “But we had all the parents. And ladies with babies strapped to their chests can be a powerful force.”

Kenney said he voted against the tax twice during his time on the council in 2010 and 2011 when then-Mayor Michael Nutter brought it to the table. Nutter had emphasized the health benefits of reducing soda consumption, which didn’t resonate with the council members at the time.

What changed Kenney’s mind? If he wanted free pre-K, he would need to establish a sustainable funding source.

“Once we got sworn in. We’re sitting in my office … and I said, well, how are we going to pay for all this stuff?” Kenney said.

Having a dedicated purpose for the tax revenue was enough to convince the council members to back the tax.

But in its first few years, hampered by an ongoing lawsuit against the soda tax and diminished state revenues during the pandemic, the program was slow to roll out and expand. A city controller’s audit in 2017 found some “missteps” with the program’s implementation, including over-billing and under-enrolling.

But Kenney said he never considered giving up on the effort.

“Head down, win or lose,” Kenney said. “I don’t know what we would have done if we had lost in court. But we didn’t.”

The state Supreme Court upheld the beverage tax in a 4-2 vote in 2018. Kenney said he hopes the program will continue to expand after he leaves.

It’s unclear what the future will hold for the program when Kenney vacates his position. A spokesperson for mayor-elect Cherelle Parker declined to comment on the program..

Kenney said he hasn’t had the expansion discussion with Parker’s team yet. But he thinks it’s “politically powerful enough” that “if somebody tries to take it away, I don’t think that they would get a good reception.”

In his waning days as mayor, Kenney has been thinking about what he’ll do next. He said he intends to set off on an ocean cruise the day after Parker is inaugurated. After that, he’s not sure. But it won’t be public life.

“I’m done with it. It’s time for people to move on sometimes,” Kenney said.

He said one idea he’s mulling is starting a nonprofit that would raise money to expose city kids to more live arts and culture programs, he said.

As a high school freshman at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Kenney said he and his classmates were taken on a field trip to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and its legendary founder, Judith Jamison, perform at the Walnut Street Theater.

“I went from hating it to thinking, ‘This is beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. I’ve never seen anything like this,’” Kenney said. “I honestly believe that kids in the city, who see nothing but chaos and hurt, [deserve] an opportunity to do that, to see that there’s beautiful things in the world.”

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.

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

Philadelphia teachers say they are passionate about their jobs but feel underpaid and overworked

2023-11-30T21:31:41+00:00

Philadelphia teachers feel supported by their school leadership, their students, and their colleagues, but nevertheless feel overwhelmed by their workload and the demands made on them.

And they think their own school is doing well, but they think the district as a whole is going in the wrong direction. They say they are passionate about their job, but think they are underpaid and overworked.

Those were among the key results of a survey of 734 district and charter school teachers conducted on behalf of Elevate 215, a nonprofit organization once called the Philadelphia School Partnership, which was a proponent of charter school expansion. There are more than 8,200 teachers in district schools and another several thousand in charters.

Asked to pick their top three concerns, teachers cited their workload (46%), unrealistic expectations around student achievement (41%), and inadequate salary or benefits (39%).

Based on responses to survey questions, teachers in charter schools are somewhat more satisfied with their jobs than those in district schools. For instance, 79% of charter school teachers said they were satisfied with the “vision and priorities established at my school,” compared to 64% of district teachers. And just 33% of district teachers expressed satisfaction with the condition of their facilities and level of resources, compared to 71% of charter teachers.

There were also key differences in attitude among veteran teachers versus their newer colleagues and between white teachers and those of other races, especially regarding whether they plan to stay in teaching over the long haul.

In one interesting finding, just 41% of teachers who have been in the district at least 16 years feel the district offers the possibility for a “rewarding career.” A higher proportion of those with five or fewer years’ experience, 52%, agreed with that statement.

In the survey, charter teachers, which according to the survey skew younger and have less experience, expressed higher levels of satisfaction with their salaries and working conditions.

Charter teachers also said by higher margins, 68% versus 41%, that they felt their “input matters” regarding school policies and practices.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said that the survey offered “no big surprises,” rather reflecting “concerns that I and my staff have been hearing from our members,” top among them being teacher salaries that are not keeping up with inflation. He said many PFT members leave for higher salaried jobs in suburban districts.

“Teachers indicated that they really like what they do, but want to be respected for what they do as well. We’ve been hearing that for a number of years,” he said.

He also said he wasn’t too surprised by the finding that charter school teachers, who are not unionized and tend to make less money, expressed somewhat higher satisfaction with their salaries. Many of them are new and in their first jobs, he said. “We were all excited when we got our first jobs,” he said.

Most teachers in Philadelphia are white and female, although based on the survey responses, there seems to be an uptick in male teachers and teachers of other races. For instance, 71% of the teachers surveyed with five or fewer years of experience are female, compared to 81% of those with 6-10 years and 82% of those with 11 years or more. Also, 49% of those in teaching for five years or fewer were white, compared to 67% of those with 6-10 years’ experience and 69% of those with more than that.

Teachers of color are also more likely to live in Philadelphia – 70% of Black teachers and 81% of Hispanic teachers, compared to 54% of those who are white. Teachers of color are also less likely to be fully certified, with 29% of Black teachers and 39% of Hispanic teachers having an emergency certification, compared to 6% of whites.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 27 and Oct. 9, with respondents recruited via email invitation. The margin of error is 3.6%.

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.

Talk, not fists: Philadelphia students with discipline issues learn how to defuse conflict

2023-11-20T21:18:40+00:00

Luis Rios used to have one way to react when he felt he was being dissed: with his fists.

Luis, 15, aspires to be an architect and eventually work in his father’s construction firm. He was a straight A student at Philadelphia’s Hopkinson Elementary School, where he was good at math and loved to draw. He enrolled at Bodine High School for International Affairs, a special admission school that he and his father, Nelson, hoped would keep him away from trouble.

It wasn’t to be.

He felt out of place at Bodine, and his home life was in turmoil. During his first year at the school, he got into fights. He was barred from participating in sports due to his disciplinary infractions and sagging grades. This only made him angrier, setting off a vicious cycle. Eventually, after several incidents and the appropriate due process proceedings, he was sent for sophomore year to Achieve Academy East, a “transition” school for students with discipline infractions, where they can work on controlling their anger and learning how to solve problems without resorting to violence.

Last week, Luis was one of 27 students at the school who received certifications for completing a six-week program run by Temple University on conflict resolution for youth. In the program, which began in 2022, the students learn de-escalation strategies, primarily through intensive discussion and role-playing.

The school, which is privately managed by Specialized Education Services, keeps students for 45-day placements, after which they transition back to other schools.

“The Temple program helped me control my emotions, to defuse the situation,” Luis said.

The biggest thing he learned? “How to keep your mouth shut,” he said. “You can’t be mad when things don’t go your way.”

When he went to get his certificate during a ceremony at Achieve, Luis — a talented baseball and football player and boxer — was so excited that he executed a full flip on his way to the stage. And Luis did so well in the program that he qualified to be a youth conflict specialist intern and work with other young people, said clinical director Samantha Petroski.

Luis’s cohort is the fourth to complete the program, she said, which by spring will be in seven district schools. Since its inception, 225 students have graduated from the program, said Tricia Jones, who runs it for Temple.

“We come in and find them so open and ready to talk about things that matter, to take on challenges, how they want to do things differently,” Jones said at the ceremony where Rios and others got their certificates. “There are a lot of places to spend their time, and it’s special they choose to do this,” she said.

Jones said in a later interview that the program helps students learn skills that empower them “to move forward in life and achieve their goals.”

‘Think about other people’s feelings’

Nylaah Booker, 14 was sent to Achieve after she was caught at Finletter Elementary School with “contraband,” which means either alcohol or drugs, on her person. She said she agreed to hold it for someone else. She also had, by her own admission, “a little temper problem.”

“I was a good student,” she said. “I got myself into a situation.”

Conflict can escalate quickly for students — a joking comment that someone takes seriously can devolve into cussing, pushing, and even worse. A fight can eventually lead to gunfire, “or we can talk about it and hug it out,” Nylaah said.

And that possibility of violence isn’t just an abstraction for Nylaah: She lost her brother to gun violence. Then her mother had a heart attack not long after.

“There was a lot of stuff I was angry at,” she said. She said she has “bad anxiety” and has trouble just talking to people and making friends.

Now, she said, “I don’t react to petty things.” She learned skills during the Temple program that kept her away from “being angry all the time.”

Having completed the conflict resolution program, she plans to complete her school year at Franklin Learning Center and, like Luis, will also become a mentor to other students – a paid job. Nylaah is eager to share what she’s learned.

“A key is to think about other people’s feelings, not just your own, she said. “It helped me mature more, it helped me definitely see things differently.”

Both Nylaah and Luis have been at Achieve since the start of the school year. At Achieve, in addition to learning how to deal with conflict and his emotions, Luis is also learning to lean into his talents.

“I like to draw, for me personally, art is a way for me to calm down so I can use art to express my feelings,” he said.

Even now, Luis said he really doesn’t regret anything he did in the past, but vows to do better in the future.

“His lack of focus in school was in reference to everything happening at home,” Nelson Rios said. His parents are divorced, and Rios’ business had difficulties that forced the family out of their home. His children went from “having everything” to living on the edge.

He also understands his son’s anger and his journey. “I’ve been to jail,” Nelson Rios said.

But, in Luis’s world, controlling your anger could mean life or death, he said, and he’s grateful his son is on a better path.

“I grew up in the boxing world,” Nelson said, who runs a boxing program for youth and has taught Luis to box since he was little. “But now we live in a day and age when you can’t put your hands up because you’re afraid the other person will pull out a gun.”

His message now: “It doesn’t make you less of a man to avoid arguments.”

Luis will be going to Excel Central, an “accelerated” high school for students who are over-age and under-credited. Because of his rocky year at Bodine, Luis fell behind on accumulating credits.

“They will help him catch up, and he can graduate from there or go to a regular district school,” said Jennifer Green, the school’s executive director.

He will also be able to play sports for a regular district high school if he does well.

Luis said he wants to stay to graduate at Excel Central and then go to Florida State University.

“I don’t want to go to jail,” he said. “I want to go to college.”

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.

Kevin Bethel leaves top school safety job in Philadelphia to be city police commissioner

2023-11-22T18:51:03+00:00

Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker has named Kevin Bethel, the School District of Philadelphia’s current chief of school safety, as her new police commissioner.

Bethel has long been a well-respected fixture in Philadelphia law enforcement and school safety circles. During his tenure in the school district, Bethel focused on reforming the juvenile justice system, dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, and promoting “trauma-informed policing.”

As a deputy police commissioner and then the district’s safety director, he also developed a national reputation for his work emphasizing prevention over punishment as an approach to improving student behavior and discipline both in and out of school settings.

In his four years leading school safety for the district, “I believe we have made the schools safer,” Bethel said at his appointment announcement at City Hall on Wednesday. “It’s unacceptable that some students feel unsafe going to and from school.”

This is Parker’s first mayoral staffing announcement, though she doesn’t officially take office until January. She said that she chose Bethel from among three candidates chosen by a search committee headed by former police commissioner Charles Ramsay.

Deputy Chief of School Safety Craig Johnson will serve as interim chief for the district while a search is conducted for Bethel’s replacement, according to the district.

“Chief Bethel is a class act, and I always felt very confident knowing that he was overseeing all efforts to create safe learning environments for our students to imagine and realize any future they desire,” Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement Wednesday.

The Board of Education issued a joint statement calling Bethel’s appointment “well deserved” and that his departure would be a “significant loss” for the district.

Bethel’s school safety legacy in Philadelphia schools

A John Bartram High School graduate, Bethel’s oft-repeated motto during his time in the police department and school district has been: “I didn’t become a cop to lock up children.”

While on the police force in 2013, Bethel said he was “alarmed” by how many students were being arrested in the city under a “zero tolerance” policy that saw police called on students as young as 10 years old.

“I can’t lock up a 10-year-old child who comes to school with scissors,” he said.

He described his dismay at a school in Kensington that put bulletproof blankets on the windows due to nearby shootings.

“I lived it when kids have been shot in front of our schools,” he also recalled. “I never thought I would take a job where kids would be killed at the doorstep of a school.”

With buy-in from district officials and others, Bethel created a diversion program for students with no prior delinquency record who committed low-level offenses like fighting or possessing a pocket knife. That program was praised at the time for substantially decreasing the number of students arrested in school from nearly 1,600 in 2013-14 to 251 in 2018-19.

Bethel has also worked to improve the district’s weapons detection process — a pain point that’s drawn public fury.

In 2019, outraged protesters shut down a Philadelphia Board of Education meeting after members voted to make metal detectors mandatory in every district high school. In the years after, random wand screenings, X-ray machines, and other detection systems have been used in high schools and some middle schools.

Some parents and community members have been critical of the practices, which they said can make students feel criminalized in their own schools.

When he announced new school safety measures last August, Bethel said the district would be introducing a new “minimally invasive gun detection system” in 14 middle schools. Those detectors were chosen because district officials were looking for technology “that did not add to the trauma of our young people,” Bethel said at the time.

To be sure, the city still struggles with youth incarceration issues. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June that the city’s juvenile detention center reached its highest population levels ever, with 230 young people in custody. The Inquirer discovered overcrowding resulted in dozens of young people forced to sleep in offices, gyms, or on the floors of “filthy” cells.

As commissioner, Bethel said Wednesday he would work to make police officers a vital part of communities, not just enforcers of the law.

“I’m proud to be a cop,” he said. “We’re not your enemy. We’re here to serve, and I ask you to give us that opportunity to do that. … Raise your voice when it needs to be raised, but let’s be part of the community, let’s work with you.”

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.

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

Philly’s premier high school requires 8th grade algebra for admission. Many kids can’t take it.

2023-11-13T17:14:31+00:00

Every year, hundreds of students in some of Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods can’t apply to the city’s most prestigious high school for a simple reason: They can’t take eighth grade algebra at their local public school.

The advanced math course is only offered in 50 of 195 K-8 and middle schools in the district that have eighth grades. A review by Chalkbeat of the schools where algebra is offered, and the schools that recently began offering it, shows a pattern:

In general, the lower the median household income in the school’s surrounding neighborhood, the less likely that algebra is available to eighth graders.

Students who attend schools where algebra is not offered are automatically shut out of applying to Masterman in high school, the district’s most selective school, because the course is a prerequisite for admission. The requirement has been in place for at least 20 years, according to district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek.

The fact that algebra is a barrier to entry at one of Philadelphia’s premier schools highlights challenges with the district’s efforts to revamp admissions in the name of equity and to overhaul its math curriculum.

Philadelphia’s approach to the course underscores a national debate about the importance of eighth grade algebra. Some say that early algebra can set students on a path to completing calculus in high school, often a prerequisite for those seeking to be STEM majors in college. But others say such an approach can exacerbate inequality without giving most students an understanding of practical math they need to succeed in life.

In 2014, San Francisco prohibited eighth grade algebra because different student groups had vastly different outcomes. But now there’s a movement afoot in the city to change that. Cambridge, Massachusetts schools recently stopped offering eighth grade algebra. The debate has also raged in New York City where a mandate to expand and standardize the way algebra is taught has received polarizing feedback from teachers.

Janine Remillard, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education who is an expert on math curriculum, said research shows that the outcomes for students who take algebra in eighth instead of ninth grade are a “mixed bag.” That aside, she said, the eighth grade requirement means that admission “is really about what school you went to” before Masterman.

“It’s enormously problematic that Masterman is using eighth grade algebra as criterion in a district where equity issues are so much at play,” Remillard said.

Current decisions about where to offer algebra in eighth grade are based on analysis of sixth and seventh grade student math performance, Orbanek said, as well as input from principals and central office staff.

“Equity of access, even surrounding Algebra I, still needs to be worked on,” said Jeannine Payne, who has been principal of Masterman since 2021.

Payne, who formerly led two North Philadelphia elementary schools that rarely sent students to Masterman, said when taking the job that she wanted to create more opportunities at the magnet school.

Making eighth grade algebra more widely available is part of Superintendent Tony Watlington’s plans for a $70 million curriculum overhaul that began this school year with math. But the lack of access to algebra illustrates that a huge investment in new materials alone does not necessarily address serious concerns about inequity, and that current practices can deny students opportunities that extend beyond just admission to Masterman, said Remillard.

Orbanek said a team is reviewing how and where the district currently offers the course. The district did not make anyone on that team available for an interview.

There is a district program in which eighth graders at several schools jointly take the same algebra class. But that effort, which is called Cross School Learning and began last school year, still leaves many students without access to the course in eighth grade. The program started with three schools and now includes 16.

At the October Board of Education meeting, Watlington shared state test score data showing declines in algebra proficiency from 2018-19 to 2022-23 of 6.6 percentage points among district students, and an increase in below basic scores of 8.3 percentage points, even as PSSA scores for grades 3-8 improved between 2021-2 and 2022-3. On this year’s state math exams overall, just 20.4% of students scored proficient or better, an improvement on 2022 but slightly below pre-COVID achievement.

“If kids are not prepared, why offer [8th grade algebra]?,” Remillard said. “That’s a problematic approach as well.”

Which students can get into Masterman?

Getting into Masterman is already very challenging, especially for those seeking to begin in ninth grade rather than in fifth grade, the earliest students can enroll. Historically, no more than roughly 10% of students have been admitted to Masterman just for high school. But that percentage is changing.

For decades, Masterman’s enrollment has seldom reflected that of the district as a whole — it is predominantly white and Asian, while the district is made up of mostly Black and Latino students. That disparity sparked protests in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.

Two years ago, in an effort to broaden access for two dozen criteria-based schools, the district overhauled its admissions system, including for Masterman. In place of a process that gave most of the power to individual principals to choose from among qualified students, it established a citywide lottery.

The lottery gave automatic admission to students from historically underrepresented ZIP codes, most in North and West Philadelphia, to their top choice school — if they qualified based on their grades, test scores, and other potential factors.

But just five of the 28 schools that have an eighth grade in the targeted ZIP codes — which are mostly in North Philadelphia — offer algebra in eighth grade, according to information from the district.

Two of the schools in the priority ZIP codes that do offer the course in eighth grade, Carver High School of Engineering and Science, which includes grades 7-12, and Conwell Middle Magnet, are not neighborhood schools and have their own admissions requirements. In Carver’s case, most of the eighth graders stay there for high school.

“Until you put algebra in all those schools, having it as a requirement for entry to any high school is inequitable,” said one district official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Even if your plan is to put algebra everywhere in eighth grade, we don’t have it yet. How is it just, how can you say you’re creating more equity and favoring some ZIP codes, if students are coming from schools located there that t don’t offer it?”

Since the district switched to a lottery to determine final admission to the district’s most selective schools, the percentage of students entering Masterman in ninth grade has increased to about 30% in the current school year because, unlike in the past several years, eligible Masterman eighth graders were no longer automatically offered a spot in ninth grade.

But the district announced it will go back to automatic admission for eighth graders into the ninth grade starting in 2024-25, which could reduce the percentage again.

Expansion of eighth grade algebra uses hybrid classes

Citywide, student success in algebra classes has also varied significantly between the eighth and ninth grade in a way that suggests preparedness for algebra doesn’t necessarily improve as students get older. Last year, nearly 15% of the 8,300 students who took algebra in ninth grade didn’t pass the course, while only seven of the nearly 1,400 students who took it in eighth grade didn’t pass, according to data the district provided to Chalkbeat.

The district is trying at least one approach to increase access. In its Cross School Learning program, selected eighth grade students from several schools take algebra classes jointly.

The hybrid online and in-person program started in the 2022-23 school year at J.S. Jenks, Lingelbach, and Shawmont elementary schools. This year, it expanded to 13 more schools, which are among the 50 that the district lists as making eighth grade algebra available.

There are currently five teachers who give lessons in three schools each. The teachers travel from school to school, providing in-person instruction in one while the other two schools are virtual.

The decision where to expand the Cross Schools Learning program was based on an analysis of sixth and seventh grade student math performance, said Orbanek, the spokesperson, as well as input from principals and teachers. Students in algebra also receive regular eighth grade math instruction so they can be prepared for state math tests.

“Cross Schools Learning has been vital for our school this year,” Jenks Principal Corinne Scioli said in a video promoting Cross School Learning. “So many of our eighth grade students are not having the opportunity to apply and be considered for some of our most competitive high schools in the city.”

Correction: Nov. 17, 2023: Decisions about whether to offer algebra in eighth grade are made with input from principals and central office staff. Due to incorrect information provided by the school district, a previous version of this article said union leaders were involved in the decisionmaking.

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.

Cherelle Parker will be Philadelphia’s 100th mayor. Here’s what she wants to change about education.

2023-11-08T11:30:00+00:00

There was never much doubt that Cherelle Parker would become the city’s 100th mayor and the first woman ever to lead the nation’s sixth largest city. On Tuesday night, she defeated Republican David Oh, winning more than 73% of the vote.

Like mayors before her, she will lead a city with an underfunded school district beset by concentrated poverty — conditions that limit schools’ ability to make major inroads on the traditional measures of student achievement such as proficiency on state tests and graduation rates.

But unlike previous mayors, Parker — who started her career as a teacher — will take office when a major contributor to those conditions is on the verge of significant change.

That’s because the state is working to comply with a Commonwealth Court judge’s order from February to revamp a state school funding system that has resulted in wide gaps in spending between high- and low-income districts, and has historically shortchanged Philadelphia.

Although the city’s public school district was not a plaintiff in the case that led to the judge’s order, Philadelphia schools could benefit greatly from any changes to the state funding formula, and increases in overall education funding, that Pennsylvania lawmakers ultimately adopt.

What will also help define Parker’s tenure as mayor is how she will use her power to appoint all nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education — she can rebuild it from scratch, if she wants — and what will happen regarding the one far-reaching education proposal she shared during the mayoral campaign: a year-round schedule for schools.

Parker pushes for more Philadelphia school funding

Parker grew up on Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane, the daughter of a teenage mother. She was raised by her grandparents and attended Philadelphia public schools, graduating from Girls High.

When she voted Tuesday morning, she brought along her high school English teacher, Jeanette Jimenez, who encouraged her to write about her life after her grandmother died.

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” she said.

She was the first in her family to go to college. After attending Lincoln University, she briefly taught English and English as a second language in Pleasantville, New Jersey, before interning for former City Council member Marion Tasco and setting off on a political career.

She will work as mayor to launch all young people on a path of self-sufficiency, she said at her victory speech at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 headquarters Tuesday night.

As a member of the City Council and as a state legislator, Parker leveraged methods to collect more revenue for schools, including an initiative that went after delinquent property taxpayers in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker celebrates with supporters on Nov. 7, 2023.

The mayor of Philadelphia has no direct authority over the School District of Philadelphia. But with the power to appoint all nine members of the Board of Education (subject to City Council approval), Parker can help shape education policy on key issues. These include spending priorities, charter schools, how to deal with the district’s aging buildings, and negotiations with unions for the district’s educators and other staff.

Through the school board, she can also influence where (and whether) to close schools and where to build new ones, and how to enhance student safety with respect to everything from environmental hazards such as loose asbestos to gun violence that has plagued the city.

During the campaign, Parker did not tip her hand on any intentions to keep or replace the current board members, saying she would not discuss any personnel issues before the election.

Parker favors keeping schools open longer

Parker’s signature education proposal in the mayoral race was to institute year-round schooling. She said what she had in mind would not involve more days of traditional classroom seat time for students, but more breaks spread throughout the year and a shorter summer vacation, coupled with increased access for students to enrichment activities.

Parker also advocated for a school day that starts earlier and ends later.

In making both these proposals, she cited the hardship that school schedules pose for many parents, rather than touting the additional time as an educational improvement strategy.

“Not all of the young people in the school district of Philadelphia are in the Hamptons in the summer, or at the Vineyard.” she said in her victory speech. “Maybe you thought they were there. But they are not.”

She added that “for those who are being raised, particularly in circumstances like mine, particularly when they’re being raised by someone other than their biological parents, they can benefit from creative year round scheduling. They could benefit from going to school in the morning and having it open until 6:30 in the evening.”

She said after the traditional school day is over, students could learn coding, financial literacy, and other subjects. “I’m getting ready to tell you the big one for me is homework help and tutoring,” said the mayor-elect, who is the mother of a young son. “Have you seen the math today?”

As far as paying for any such change, she has said she favors devoting a higher proportion of the city’s property tax revenue to the district — 58% instead of 55%. Parker said that change would bring $50 million in additional revenue for schools even before any statewide funding reform.

Parker is a strong union supporter, and many of the city’s labor leaders endorsed her in the Democratic primary, although the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers supported rival Helen Gym. PFT president Jerry Jordan did not attend Parker’s victory party Tuesday night, unlike many other union heads, but issued a statement saying members “celebrate and honor this momentous and historic occasion… (Parker’s election) shows little girls, especially Black girls, what they can achieve.”

On social media, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten also congratulated Parker for making history as the first woman to lead the nation’s sixth largest city.

Parker will for sure need union buy-in for her plan to move to a year-round school schedule and keep school buildings open longer.

Cherelle Parker holds her hand up to honor Delta Sigma Theta sorority after winning the mayoral election and becoming Philadelphia’s 100th mayor on Nov. 7, 2023.

Parker skirts divisions over charter schools

One area where Parker as a candidate took a measured approach was charter schools.

Nearly one-third of Philadelphia’s public school students attend charters, making the city home to one of the largest charter sectors in the country. The school board must approve charter school applications, and has essentially imposed a moratorium on new charters since 2018.

During the campaign, Parker did not directly answer a question from Chalkbeat about whether she would like Philadelphia to have more charter schools.

“I want quality seats, and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding: “I will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” She forcefully repeated that in her victory speech Tuesday.

“If anybody is interested in talking to me about public education, and you’re trying to pitch traditional publics against charters, don’t do it,” she said.

Parker has also avoided wading into a controversy over whether the Board of Education has discriminated against Black-led charter schools.

A report issued by a law firm last month found problems with the charter monitoring system that has resulted in a larger proportion of Black-led charters being closed. But the report, two years in the making, found no “intentional” racial discrimination.

Parker did say that as mayor she would “insist” that the state legislature reinstate a budget provision that sent millions of dollars to school districts to compensate them for “stranded costs” linked to charters and cyber charter schools that occur when students leave district schools in patterns that don’t allow for neat downsizing.

That provision was eliminated in 2011 by state lawmakers under the administration of former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican; half the total amount came to Philadelphia. Losing that reimbursement was among the factors that fueled resistance in Philadelphia to expanding the charter sector, including near the end of the period when the district was under state control from 2001 to 2017.

Parker’s main goal now, which she said is attainable through government and private collaboration: “We want all of our children in a 21st century, modern school building with the highest academic achievement.”

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.

See how your Philadelphia school did on the latest state tests in English and math

2023-11-08T21:51:41+00:00

Philadelphia students’ state test scores are slowly recovering back to pre-pandemic levels, but most students still aren’t proficient in English language arts, math, and science, while longstanding performance gaps between student groups persist, according to new state test scores.

And the city’s students are still scoring far below their peers in the rest of the state on the tests, which were administered last spring. The scores, released on Wednesday, essentially confirm preliminary data shared with the Philadelphia Board of Education in early September showing that Philadelphia students made small gains from last year, but that most are still not proficient. The scores also indicate that Philadelphia has far to go to meet the school board’s own long-term academic targets.

Scores released Wednesday for the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA, data for grades 3-8 show major disparities between white and Asian students and their Black and Hispanic peers in Philadelphia district and charter schools. Those gaps are most pronounced in math: Only 9.3% of Black students scored proficient and above on the math tests, while 44% of their white counterparts scored proficient or above. Some 11% of Hispanic students scored proficient or better in math while nearly 53% of Asian students scored the same.

Just 15% of economically disadvantaged students — who make up more than two-thirds of all city students — scored proficient or better in math.

Overall for the 2022-23 school year, 34.2% of Philadelphia students in grades 3-8 scored proficient or better in English, 20.4% of students in those grades scored proficient or above in math, and 41% of students in grades 4 and 8 scored proficient or better in science.

In 2021-22, the proficiency rates were 34.7% in English, 16.2% in math, and 37.1% in science — though the district’s science scores from that year do not include charter school students.

Philadelphia’s scores do show that students are gradually catching up to where they were before the COVID pandemic.

In 2019, 21.6% of students in Philadelphia scored proficient or better in math, while in English, 35.7% of students were proficient or better.

In late 2020, as part of a multi-year “goals and guardrails” plan, the district and school board set a goal that by 2026, 52% of students in traditional district schools, in grades 3-8 would achieve proficiency on the state math exam, and 65% of students would achieve proficiency on the state English exam.

Statewide, students scoring proficient or above in English increased slightly from 54.1% in 2021-22 to 54.5% in 2022-23. Over the same period, proficiency scores in math increased from 35.7% to 38.3%, and science scores increased from 54.4% to 58.9%. (Students did not take the state tests in 2020, while state officials say 2021 scores are not truly comparable to pre-COVID results.)

“This year’s assessment results underscore what we have said before — that with each passing year, participation and achievement will continue to improve,” Secretary of Education Khalid Mumin said in a statement Wednesday. “Pennsylvania’s results are well on their way to returning to pre-pandemic rates and we look forward to helping our students exceed those levels in the years ahead.”

But just as a much higher share of white and Asian students were proficient on state exams than Black and Hispanic students, there is a similar disparity when it comes to the lowest scores.

In English, 13.9% of white students in grades 3-8 scored below basic, compared to 29.4% of Black students, 33.4% of Hispanic students, and 9.6% of Asians, 14.1% of those who identify as multi-ethnic, and 27.7% of economically disadvantaged students.

In math, such differences are also stark. Overall, 57% of students in grades 3-8 scored below basic. That included 32.6% of white students, 69% of Black students, 66% of Hispanics, 22% of Asians, 45.4% of multi-ethnic students, and 45.4% of those who are economically disadvantaged.

District officials and board members said they were heartened by the increases from last year — however small — but said there’s more work the district can do.

Tonya Wolford, the district’s chief of evaluation, research, and accountability, told board members in September it is important to keep in mind that students “likely are not going from below basic to proficient in one year.” She said Philadelphia students will need more time, resources, and support to make the jump.

To emphasize the importance of students achieving proficiency in reading by third grade, the district also set a goal for 62% of third graders to score proficient on the state exam by 2026. Yet in 2022-23, only 31.2% of third graders scored proficient or above on the PSSA.

On Keystone exams — another state standardized assessment for high school students in literature, biology, and algebra — Philadelphia students also lag behind peers statewide. Just 25.1% of city students are proficient or better in algebra, compared to 34.2% of students statewide.

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 mayoral election 2023: How Cherelle Parker answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:58+00:00

If Philadelphia voters cast their ballots in line with their party registration this November, Democrat Cherelle Parker is all but guaranteed to become the city’s 100th mayor. She will also be the first woman, and the first Black woman, to hold the office.

Parker is a former City Council member and state representative who has a degree in education from Lincoln University and worked briefly as an English teacher in Pleasantville, NJ. She is running against Republican David Oh, an attorney who also used to be on the council.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

The next mayor will have the responsibility of appointing the city Board of Education’s nine members, who in turn appoint and evaluate the superintendent, and monitor the district’s progress related to student achievement.

Parker’s campaign has already begun shaping education conversations in the city. Her pledge for “year-round school” was quickly picked up by Superintendent Tony Watlington, who incorporated a pilot program into his five-year strategic plan for the district.

Inspired by reader submissions, Chalkbeat asked both candidates to weigh in on the city’s most pressing education issues: school funding, safety, infrastructure, school board appointments, charter schools, and more. You can find Oh’s detailed Q and A here.

Here, Parker clarifies that for her, year-round school doesn’t mean more seat time in traditional classrooms, but vacation breaks spread throughout the calendar year and shortened during the summer, along with more enrichment activities for students. She also reiterates that she would favor putting more city funds into schools by increasing the district’s share of the city property tax, its largest source of local money.

She did not rule out creating more charter schools: “I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are,” she said, adding that she “will not allow anyone to act as if district-run and charter schools are warring factions.” Unlike Oh, she does not favor electing members of the school board.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Year-round school has been the centerpiece of your education platform. Tell us more how you envision that working.

When people heard me describe access to year-round school, I was not referring to our children sitting in a classroom at a desk, like we do during a traditional school day. But rather, it will … ensure that everyone has access to not just our traditional school curriculum, but academic enrichment programs, tutoring, homework help after school, and access to any workforce development and life skills opportunities that we could offer during out-of-school time.

Year-round education also references being innovative with scheduling. It doesn’t mean you don’t ever get time off. It could be two weeks here, two weeks here, three weeks here. All of our children … aren’t in the Hamptons or the shore all summer long. So for those children for whom those kinds of familial opportunities aren’t a part of their real lives, how do we structure our traditional school year in a way that makes good economic sense and is worth the educational investment for them?

Do you have any more specifics about how this would work and have you talked to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ union about this?

The way I design things, they won’t be designed without the PFT, without our administrators, without our parents, without the external stakeholders, and subject matter experts all at the table figuring out, how do we make this work? … That has not been figured out, but that’s the purpose of putting out the concept. Stakeholders come together and we figure out a way to make it work. And that’s how I go about doing things.

Maybe some other people would love to be able to offer a plan and very specifically say, “This is how it’s going to work and this is what you’re going to do in a Parker administration.” That’s a recipe for disaster. This is a concept that I have in my mind. If I am the mayor, we are going to have year-round educational opportunities for our children. What does it specifically look like when it’s baked and done? I don’t have the specifics for you right now.

There is a basic foundation to public education, that we should in no way shape or form attempt to usurp. But I will tell you that it is in no way sufficient for everything that our children should be learning today.

The most direct power the mayor has over education in Philadelphia is by appointing the school board. Do you intend to replace any of the Board of Education members?

I am not going to make any comments or personnel decisions while I’m on the campaign trail. … I will be looking for people with a deep commitment to our city, the children of our city, and [who] share my vision for public education in this city.

Your opponent David Oh has talked about shifting to a partially elected school board. Is that something you would support or do you think the current model is working?

I will not and do not support an elected school board because if you elect a school board that comes with taxing authority … I trust the [city] council with the taxing authority for the city of Philadelphia. They are our legislative branch.

Who do you think would have access to the resources to run a citywide campaign to get elected to a school board? It would be those who are boosted by very special interests.

What is your position on charter schools? The Board of Education has not approved a new charter school since 2018, do you think that there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

I want quality, modern 21st education for all of our children [regardless of] their race, class, socioeconomic status, or zip code. I want quality seats and I don’t care where they are … Some people are not going to like it, but I’m going to unify educational institutions in the city of Philadelphia to work together to help our young people.

Under a Parker administration, I will not allow anyone to pit traditional publics versus traditional charters to act as if those two are warring factions. They are not. They are two types of schools that are both public that educate children in the school district of Philadelphia

I want to see our traditional publics, our traditional charters or parochial schools, and even the private schools — I want to see the leadership all coming together to say this is what we’re doing. Is there a way as educational leaders … that we can add value to each other’s delivery of education? Can we leverage working together, and any supports or services that could benefit young people? Can we share or steal an idea?

I’m always looking to see what other cities and states and countries and nations are doing relative to public education … we haven’t thought big enough and broad enough because everybody’s so accustomed and comfortable working in silos, my mind doesn’t work that way.

Do you support Councilman Thomas’s proposal for a school building authority that would help the school district deal with flaking asbestos and other issues relating to safety and modernization of its buildings?

Let’s think about using apprentices and pre apprentices in the building trades and students in our school district to help be a part of that process. Do we do it via School Building Authority, an accelerated process within our current structure? I’m not sure. I’m not wedded to any way, I’m actually still right now reviewing what that means.

I’m more concerned with getting it done. We have to get together at the table, agree to what the plan will be. And then we have to be unified in our advocacy and not trying to pick winners and losers with the ultimate goal being focused on our children and doing right by the people who work in those buildings.

How do you expect to pay for some of the big policy ideas you’ve put forward?

I would be open to exploring increasing the school district’s portion of our property taxes from 55%, potentially to 58%. And that would add an additional $50 million in additional revenue.

That couldn’t be done alone. You have to have an intergovernmental strategy that’s state, local, and federal. You also need the philanthropic community, you need the business community. We cannot try to address these issues in silos that we’ve got to bring people together to say this is the plan, this is what we need from you and you and you and how are we going to work together in order to make it happen?

Our district is historically underfunded, we get it. The court case [ruling Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional] is extremely important, and potentially increasing our school district’s portion of our property taxes, but we also have to be demonstrating that we’re trying to do things differently here. People are not going to talk about providing additional support and funding to the school district until they see us trying to do something different [in the city.].

Gun violence is also a major issue affecting students, educators, and school communities. What are your proposals for improving school safety?

I welcome everyone to take a look at my comprehensive neighborhood safety community policing plan … we have to make public health and public safety the number one priority here in the city of Philadelphia, and we should do it with three primary buckets in mind, prevention, intervention and enforcement.

We cannot talk about [education] without talking about trauma, mental and behavioral health support. We can’t talk about public education without the need for nurses and counselors and therapy for our children. A holistic approach to delivering public education helps us with public safety.

How does policing fit into that?

We are going to have community policing in every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia. The only time we see law enforcement won’t be because it’s a crisis and someone called 911. They will be a part of the very fabric of our neighborhoods, and that, of course, does mean in and around our schools and buildings.

How can anyone shout we should be defunding the police when we should be focused on a holistic approach that does include community policing? … [We should] have officers who are not there as warriors but as guardians, working in partnership with our public safety office in the school district, with SEPTA and with other institutions so that we can have a holistic, comprehensive approach

I don’t apologize to anybody about making that a priority, because every child deserves to feel safe in school, and we should do everything that we possibly can to ensure it.

School was a lifeline for a person who grew up in poverty like me. … Every school should be a community school.

What’s your plan to address the teacher shortage and grow the teacher pipeline?

We’ve got to market it to them.

Philadelphia hasn’t done a good job in trying to package supports and services that we have available for example, with home ownership. We should be creative and incentivizing this … first we’re gonna make [Philadelphia] the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all and because it’s safe, we want you to have access to home ownership in a safe and a clean area with a thriving economy, thriving arts, culture, creative economy.

We’re going to see shortages across the board if we don’t find a way to use non-traditional strategies to market and encourage people to become residents of our great 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.

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

Philadelphia mayoral election 2023: How David Oh answered 10 important education questions

2023-10-26T20:27:53+00:00

Though the voter registration rolls are against him, Republican mayoral candidate David Oh thinks he sees a path to victory in Philadelphia, and that path starts with the city’s schools.

Voters are “not coming out because of the pomp and ceremony. They’re not coming out because of the noise, they’re coming out because they want a change,” Oh said in a recent interview at his campaign office in Northeast Philadelphia. “People want to believe there is a better future for them. And schools are where it can happen.”

Oh, a former City Council member, is running against the heavily favored Democrat Cherelle Parker, who also served on council and was a state representative. In Philadelphia, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans seven to one.

The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7, and the last day to vote early in person is Tuesday, Oct. 31.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Oh said he favors holding elections for five of the nine members of the Philadelphia Board of Education while the mayor would appoint the remaining four. That would in effect cede the mayor’s primary influence over education in Philadelphia, which is to appoint all members of the board that governs the district.

Oh did not go into detail into how such a hybrid board would work with respect to issues like taxing power. Now, the appointed school board relies on the City Council to allot local tax dollars to the schools. Parker said she opposes an elected board because she wants the council to keep taxing power.

But Oh said that having elected members would make the board more responsive to community concerns. He proposed combining the 10 current councilmanic districts (districts that are aligned with those represented on the City Council) into five, and electing one from each district.

He said he would also seek to promote “equity in resources and facilities” and beef up vocational education. On charter schools, he said: “I am not for or against. I am for good public schools.”

An attorney, Oh was born and raised in Southwest Philadelphia, where he still lives, and represented on the council from 2012 until he resigned to run for mayor earlier this year.

He reiterated that the major issue facing the next mayor is crime — in the city and in the schools. He contends that reducing crime will have a beneficial effect on education by attracting more people to teach in the city and reducing student trauma, among other things.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your proposals for improving school safety?

[Students] have every legitimate reason why they cannot focus and why they are afraid. They’ve been traumatized by all this gun violence. They have to see we care. The way I show them we care is I have uniformed officers, school police — no weapon, but looking sharp, being attentive and being accountable. I say ‘when you’re in our custody, you’re in our care’ for people who we arrest. When you’re in our schools, you’re in our care.

I think a lot of our problems come from the fact that people feel neglected. They feel like nobody cares about them, they feel like they have no future.

I think, although well intended, to not provide police, to not provide discipline, to not provide that shows you don’t care when kids are getting killed, shot, and hurt.

People want policing, but they want police reform. They want good policing. They don’t want police brutality. They don’t want ‘stop and frisk,’ I’m against the return of stop and frisk.

How would you address the teacher shortage?

We’re losing teachers to public safety issues, and they’re telling us “we’re getting out of here, because it’s dangerous for us to go to work … this is not what we signed up for and you don’t seem to care.”

The low pay with no visible steps — the more experience you have in Philadelphia, what do you get? What is your future there? And so a lot of teachers look at Philadelphia as their public service time … we lose too many good teachers, and they really want to be here. They want to be a part of the community.

If I wanted to deal with teachers, I would look at recruitment. I would create a more predictable system of how you get paid, and how the pay increases every certain number of years. And it would incentivize staying in Philadelphia longer.

You’ve said you would support an elected school board. How would that work? What would you do when you first take office, before you could change from an appointed to elected board?

I would appoint nine new [members] … start from scratch.

I have really pushed five elected school board members … we can have five councilmanic districts where the people elect a representative … regionally, but not the same as the council districts.

That would give people a level of responsiveness and accountability that they really feel is missing in the school district. … In other words, I would rather have the community tied in with the schools and have some level of tailoring language, culture, educational options, things like that. And recognition of religious issues that are important to their community.

What would your education priorities be as mayor?

Safety in the school, which is a big problem. Number two, it would be equity in resources and facilities ... and I would return the standards of academics, vocational career training, and then I’d try to create a VET program like they do in Germany, Switzerland — vocational educational training.

If someone wants to get certified in a good vocation, there’s a program that I would try to work out with [lawmakers in] Harrisburg, where you do ninth and 10th grade in business theory, academics, all that related to what your career is. Then in 11th and 12th grade, you do part-time [at a] workplace.

What changes would you make to the way the school district is organized?

I’m not really a fan of the way schools are run now with a superintendent in charge of everything … I think it has to be a little more horizontal. There should be a chief innovation officer for technology. One that doesn’t get fired or demoted by the superintendent.

I don’t think the school board should be in the school administration building at all … you have to let the administrators administrate. Let the teachers teach, let the principals be the principals, let the facilities [workers] do the facility, the police do the police and the board looks at the overall but without any interest, without any conflicts.

A Commonwealth Court judge recently ruled the way Pennsylvania funds its schools is unconstitutional and many school districts, including Philadelphia, are underfunded. What would you change about the system?

The city is very wasteful. And nobody likes to hear that, or they already know it.

The poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia are overtaxed. They have a lot of anxiety, they have a lot of problems, they have a lot of violence and all kinds of things. It’s illegal and it’s unfair.

I would … audit the [property tax] assessment process… we have to create fairness in taxation. … Otherwise, we’re going to drive all our poor folks out of the neighborhood with their kids who go to schools.

I believe the city should contribute more money from the money it has..the taxes have to be accurate, if they are higher, no problem. If they’re lower, whatever they are, they have to be accurate.

The current system is abusive to the poor, the vulnerable, and the low income and that is resulting in a lot of other problems that are very expensive.

That is having a devastating effect on our city. A lot of the problems we face are from people who feel targeted by a bullying, hateful government that doesn’t care about them … they could see it in schools and the libraries and places like that. I would correct that property tax.

How would you deal with the school infrastructure issues like damaged asbestos?

I think there is purposeful inefficiency [in school construction and upkeep]. … In this city, since the colonial days, schools have been a place of political payback.

I would look at serious rightsizing of the district based on the fact that we probably need to build new buildings.

We need to look at the buildings that have asbestos and actually clean them for real and not just coat them. We don’t need to remediate them. We have to remove it.

Do you think there should be more charter schools in Philadelphia?

No, I don’t. I’m not for or against the charter schools … I’m for good public schools. But we’ve had horrible public schools and no response. And therefore there were charter schools.

I think we have enough charter schools.

I would look at the mayor as someone who’s responsible for education for every child … whether it’s at a charter school, a neighborhood public school, a magnet school, a private school, at religious school, or whatever it is, it’s a school … [and it] is the mayor’s responsibility. One of the biggest jobs a mayor can do is to raise the money to put into education.

Would you support private school vouchers?

I think I’m for them.

If [private school families] are going to pay their taxes and send your kids to another school and pay for that, that helps us … it helps us to have them pay their taxes and have open seats … I would like to give them a tax break, to encourage them to do that so I can get the benefits of their tax dollars and those open seats.

If we had more people paying taxes, and paying for their own tuition, we’d have more money, more room in schools. So in that sense, I’m for it.

How would you improve trust between the school district and the communities it serves?

Our issue is how do we deliver a good quality education, a meaningful education in a way that shows the children in our care in our worst neighborhoods, that they have hope for the future? … As a mayor, I have to answer that question.

I think the problem with this whole situation is that the public does not trust the schools anymore … it’s all a scam to them.

You’re going to have to show them a visible difference from almost day one. The neighborhood looks different, the school’s different, the library hours have changed, the whole delivery of services is different.

You have to build credibility. We have such pessimistic people in this city. And it’s one of our biggest problems. Many of them don’t believe school matters, quite frankly, they just see school as a place to send kids and just occupy their time there.

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.

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

One of Philadelphia’s oldest charter schools will close next year

2023-10-10T23:10:05+00:00

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The Mathematics, Civics and Sciences Charter School, one of Philadelphia’s oldest and largest charters, plans to close at the end of the school year with the retirement of its founder, Veronica Joyner.

Joyner, who announced the school’s closure in a Monday letter to parents, said in an interview Tuesday that at nearly 74 years old, she felt she could no longer put in the 12-hour days necessary to keep the school operating, and that she had not identified a successor she thought could continue her legacy.

“For 25 years I’ve been looking for someone to take on” the leadership of the school, she said, “but I haven’t seen anybody with the care and compassion I have for children and parents.”

The school’s closure at the end of the 2023-24 school year means its roughly 900 students will have to scramble to find new schools next year. The district’s school selection process for the fall of 2024 is underway, but ends in two weeks.

The first through twelfth grade school, which opened in 1999, says it offers “an alternative style and setting for children experiencing learning difficulties.” But the school district’s office that oversees charters has questioned its performance in recent years, and the Board of Education recently gave it a short leash. It has also drawn criticism for its admissions practices.

Additionally, Mathematics, Civics and Sciences is losing its home next year. Joyner said that Parents United for Public Schools, the nonprofit organization that Joyner leads, plans to sell the school’s building, which is located in the rapidly developing area around Broad and Spring Garden streets.

In an evaluation published this year, the Charter Schools Office reported that the school did not meet standards for academics or operations, and that it approached the standard for financial health and sustainability. After that review, the Board of Education offered a one-year renewal for its charter instead for five years, which is what charter schools that are meeting standards typically receive.

Joyner said she found the decision to extend the charter for just one year “insulting.”

In her Monday letter to parents, Joyner painted a picture of the school that differs from the Charter Schools Office’s findings this year.

Unlike this year’s official evaluation, Joyner said that the school had received “the highest grade of Meets Standards in all three review areas” of academics, finances, and operations.

Joyner said in her letter that Mathematics, Civics and Science had “the highest graduation rate within the Philadelphia school system over the past nine years and the highest college matriculation rate as well.” Official district statistics for the 2021-22 school year did say that Mathematics, Civics and Science was the only charter — along with four district-run schools — with a 100% graduation rate.

The school has provoked controversy for reasons beyond its academic record. In a 2019 lawsuit, the Education Law Center alleged that the charter school illegally denied admission to a student based on her disability. At the time, Joyner said the allegation was based on a “misunderstanding.”

Peng Chao, head of the district’s Charter Schools Office, said the district “just became aware” that the school will close next year.

“Our focus is to put together a plan to ensure students and families are supported through this transition … and have available to them all the information about their school options,” Chao said.

Last week, the Ballard Spahr law firm issued a report commissioned by the school board that found Philadelphia district leadership did not deliberately discriminate against Black leaders of charter schools when making key decisions about their fate. However, the report did say the closure rate of Black-led charter schools is “concerning” and could feed perceptions of bias.

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.

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.

Annual Philadelphia teacher shuffle known as ‘leveling’ inspires protest

2023-10-04T20:14:16+00:00

It’s October, time for the dreaded practice of “leveling” Philadelphia schools.

Just when students and teachers are settling into their classes for the year, the district takes stock: It determines whether its teacher assignments, based on preregistration and estimates, are in line with the number of students who actually showed up, in each grade and school. For many schools — especially those with elementary and middle grades — there is a mismatch, triggering a musical chairs game of teacher reassignments and transfers.

Some schools gain a teacher or two or even more, but others lose. And for those schools, the result is unwelcome and sometimes traumatic.

One of them is Henry H. Houston Elementary School in Mount Airy, where the administration planned for two fifth grade classes. The school community was excited, because teaching in one of those classrooms was Lya Rodgers, who grew up in the neighborhood and was returning after several years abroad. She specifically sought to teach at Houston.

But only 31 fifth-grade students are enrolled now, below the maximum for a single class allowed under the contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. The maximum is 30 students for kindergarten through third and 33 for fourth through eighth.

So Houston’s two fifth grade classes of 15 and 16 students — closer to the norm in many suburban districts — will be combined into one, and Rodgers will be going elsewhere, starting Oct. 10. She was given five schools to choose from.

She “got just five days’ notice,” said parent Emily Pugliese. “She’s leaving Friday.”

In all, 59 schools lost teachers this year under leveling, according to figures released by the district, and 88 teachers moved.

Another 45 schools were absolved from any impact, with 93 teachers able to stay despite fewer students showing up in their schools than expected; many of those are criteria-based or magnet schools. And at an additional 50 schools, 66 teacher positions were added because of higher enrollment figures.

At Houston, dozens of parents and other neighborhood residents upset about the loss of Rodgers — and the practice of leveling — gathered after school Wednesday in front of the building to protest.

They held up signs and chanted slogans including “All year, teachers stay here; “Lose leveling, not teachers,” and “Keep Ms Lya.”

“I really want my teacher to stay,” said fifth grader Sarina Hayes. “I feel like she’s my mom. And she’s really funny.”

Parent Christina Jackson, who has fifth grade twins, called leveling “a disruptive process.”

“It feels like teachers are treated like pawns,” Jackson said. “It’s all about numbers, not relationships built with students. It doesn’t seem the district is caring about the real health of our kids.”

It’s “reckless,” she said, to do all this moving “based on a couple of kids over or under a number.” She said if it goes through, she will consider homeschooling.

“My daughter will not do well in a class with way more kids,” she said.

Mary Hoeffel has a daughter in fifth grade at Houston and one in second grade.

Her fifth grader “loves, loves” Rodgers, Hoeffel said Tuesday. “Her homework is so engaging, she loves class discussions, the book they’re reading, and it’s been great from Day 1. And then she found out yesterday that Rodgers would be gone next week.”

For her part, Rodgers left school as usual with other teachers directly to the parking lot via the back door and didn’t answer an email seeking comment.

Leveling is a longstanding practice growing out of the need to make sure schools are adequately and appropriately staffed, but also driven by concerns around equity in teacher distribution and by the need for cost-efficiency in the perennially cash-strapped district.

No one questions the need to add teachers in schools where more students show up than planned for, but taking teachers away after the year begins has long prompted complaints that it destabilizes schools. On occasion, superintendents have suspended the practice of moving teachers out of underenrolled schools.

The process governing which teachers are reassigned when a school must give up a teacher has also been controversial, as it is primarily based on seniority rather than a principal’s best judgment.

This year, though, the district is also facing a teacher shortage. When the school year started, there were close to 400 vacancies. District spokeswoman Marissa Orbanek said that the “fill rate” is still at 96%, meaning that most of those vacancies still exist.

Orbanek acknowledged the importance of consistent access to qualified teachers. “We will continue to refine our processes, including seeking to more accurately project student enrollment at each school and grade level prior to the start of the school year so that mid-year staffing adjustments can be avoided as much as possible,” Orbanek said in a statement.

She said that staff reassignments are continuing through Thursday, so the numbers may change. Superintendent Tony Watlington will provide more information “within the next day or so,” Orbanek said.

Several Houston parents signed on to an anguished letter to Watlington, begging him to reconsider.

“If the School District of Philadelphia is dedicated to trauma-informed practices, why does it continue to engage in the trauma-inducing practice of leveling?” the letter says, calling on district officials to review the practice and “to halt this harm to this wonderful, growing, neighborhood school.”

Houston, which has about 400 students, is in a progressive, politically active, racially integrated part of the city. In recent years, it has made progress in attracting more parents, white and Black, to send their children there instead of to private or charter schools.

The school has as high a proportion of white students now as when it was given extra amenities as part of the district’s voluntary desegregation program, which was in effect from the early 1980s until 2011. The school also has many students whose families applied to attend from outside the neighborhood.

Houston also had started a “differentiation initiative,” in which one grade teacher concentrated on English language arts and social studies, while the other focused on math and science. That project will also be derailed by Rodgers’ reassignment.

Rodgers happened to be the teacher at the school who was lowest in building seniority, so she was the person who needed to move. But sometimes, the teacher who is reassigned is not in the underenrolled grade, which results in more internal shuffling within the school as teachers are moved around to compensate.

The Houston parents’ letter notes that this year’s fourth grade has close to 50 students, so next year’s fifth grade will almost certainly require two teachers.

At the protest, parent Ari Jackson (no relation to Christina) said she had two children at Houston, a fifth grader and a seventh grader, who has been there since kindergarten.

“This is disrupting for a lot of kids,” she said. “And it goes without saying that it’s better to have 15 rather than 30-plus students in a class. There’s more individualization. That’s self- explanatory.”

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.

Roxborough High remembers Nicolas Elizalde, killed one year ago

2023-09-27T21:47:01+00:00

On a strip of ragged grass adjoining the front steps of Roxborough High School, students planted crocuses.

The bulbs, assistant principal Julian Saavedra explained to them, are perennials, meaning they die out but come back every year, bursting out in vibrant colors on patches of ground still waking up from the cold of winter.

The planting happened Wednesday, on the first anniversary of one of the most devastating events in the history of Roxborough High: a brutal shooting mere steps from the school that took the life of 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde as he walked home from a football scrimmage at the field nearby.

Nicolas was actually a student at nearby Saul High School of Agricultural Science, which shares a football team with Roxborough.

To cope and remember, the 600-student school observed a Day of Peace on the anniversary, seeking to bring additional support to a community that is still traumatized. To start the day, students held a moment of silence. Over the past year, they helped paint a mural on the wall of the school closest to where the shooting occurred. The mural depicts, among other symbols, a football helmet filled with flowers and a large rendering of Nicolas’ jersey number, 62.

“We’re getting through it as a team,” said assistant football coach Marc Skinner. “We stand by each other, we talk to each other. … We put our focus on the field and the game and making sure we do the right thing, and not be a part of any situation that would have us in this type of tragedy again.”

Since the incident, Roxborough has partnered with organizations including Healing Hurt People to work with students and others affected. Police in the 14th District have stepped up patrols. The school has more security guards and many programs addressing students’ emotional needs.

But the pain is still raw.

“We continue to support our children with trauma-informed best practices. We share resources with our teachers, and all of our staff,” said Principal Kristin Williams-Smalley. “And we all have a schoolwide social emotional learning program that we have implemented. … It’s an ongoing issue that our children are dealing with.”

Roxborough High principal Kristin Williams-Smalley speaks to reporters

She said that Roxborough lost another student to gun violence in May.

During the last school year, 199 city students were shot, and 33 of those died, district officials said. Less than three weeks into this school year, five students have been shot, and one died. Philadelphia’s efforts to restrict gun ownership have been blocked by the courts and a state law that bars municipalities from enacting their own gun control measures.

Shortly before the shooting, Mayor Jim Kenney had signed a law that restricted gun possession at public spaces in the city, including parks, recreation centers, and pools, but it was overturned in a court challenge.

When Nicolas was killed, four other teens were wounded by the bullets flying out of an SUV that had been lying in wait near Roxborough High.

Police don’t believe Nicolas was the intended target. One of the shooters jumped out of the car and chased another, older boy down the street, firing at close range before his gun jammed.

Police have arrested four suspects in the killing and are still seeking a fifth person they believe was the main shooter.

This week, Nicolas’ mother, Meredith Elizalde, called on state lawmakers to enact gun reform. Nicolas was her only child, and he died in her arms.

“I want them to get on the front lines and fight for gun sense, because if you’re not, you’re just part of the problem,” Meredith Elizalde said.

Asked about the chances of gun reform, Williams-Smalley sounded weary.

“I’m tired to go to funerals. I’m tired of visiting my colleagues at their schools when something happens to be a support for them. We are all, my colleagues across the city, we are all tired of the violence that is pervasive.”

As the students dispersed after planting the crocuses, Saavedra called after them.

“We’ll water them later on,” he said.

A mural on one wall of Roxborough High in memory of Nicolas Elizalde features Nicolas’ football jersey number, 62.

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.

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.

Remembering Constance Clayton, Philadelphia’s trailblazing former superintendent

2023-09-19T17:16:25+00:00

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Constance Clayton’s legacy as Philadelphia schools’ first Black and first female superintendent is deep and still being felt today. In an era when few Black women held positions of power, Clayton took a school district mired in patronage, labor strife, and division, and put the focus back on providing all students with a quality education.

Clayton, a Philadelphia native and the district’s last homegrown superintendent, died on Monday at the age of 89. She ran the district, then the nation’s fifth largest, from 1982 to 1993, during an era when the average tenure for urban school leaders was three years

Her career and achievements were an inspiration to many – women and Black women in particular. As news of her death spread, tributes came in from city and state leaders, educators, friends, and former adversaries.

“She is an icon,” said Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, which represents principals.

City Council member Katherine Gilmore Richardson said in a statement that Clayton “was an inspiration to young girls everywhere. It was her commitment to education that in part inspired me to become a teacher.”

Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker, poised to become the city’s first female mayor, said in a statement: “It was with Philly in her blood that she raised the expectations for Black and Brown students and students from low and moderate income communities. She set out to prove that race and socio-economic status would not define the chance of a students’ success. Her name is synonymous with leadership that is the model for the generations that came behind her.”

Former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell said Clayton literally led the city into a new era as “the first superintendent who challenged the rest of us in the city” to believe that the public school system could educate children as well as any private school.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said he met with her frequently for advice and that she had called his office as recently as last Friday to set up a lunch so she could advise him on what to do in his second year leading the district.

“On the last Christmas holiday, she was the first person I talked to,” said Watlington. “And that says something about her and the extent to which she wanted to make sure she stayed engaged.”

In her nearly 12 years as superintendent, Clayton brought labor peace after a decade of almost constant strikes, stabilized the district’s budget, and spearheaded a popular standardized curriculum, declaring that it would benefit the many city students who moved frequently from school to school.

Regal in bearing and no-nonsense in her leadership style, Clayton did not suffer fools gladly and would shut out people she perceived as critical of her leadership. But while she alienated some, she left no doubt among anyone that her concern was for the city’s children.

Veteran district educator Karen Kolsky remembers clearly that Clayton’s mantra was “Every school’s a good school,” a simple statement that set a tone for eager young teachers who could be intimidated by the district’s size and diversity.

“I remember that like I know my name,” said Kolsky, who retired recently after 38 years in the district. “That spoke volumes to me as a new teacher. I remember it so vividly because she really meant it.

“She has such presence. She was the School District of Philadelphia.”

Hailed as “best” recent superintendent

Clayton also brought a desperately needed stability to a system often in turmoil. Before her tenure, district-union relations were toxic. Through the 1970s and early ‘80s, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers went on strike almost yearly, striking for 20 days in 1980 and 50 days in 1981.

But during Clayton’s 11-year tenure, while union-district relations were hardly cordial, there were no strikes.

Though they were on opposite sides of the negotiating table, Jerry Jordan, now the president of the PFT, described Clayton as a “mentor, a teacher, a friend” and, in his opinion, the best recent superintendent the district has had.

“She gave me advice on a number of occasions,” he said. “She helped to teach me how to do my job working for the union.”

Jordan said teachers loved her standardized curriculum. “Long after Dr. Clayton left, I would visit schools and classrooms and teachers would show me they were still using [it]” because it told them “what they needed to teach, not the how. They liked having the freedom to be creative.”

As to her manner and style of leadership, Jordan said with a chuckle, “She wasn’t a pushover, but she was respectful. She mentored so many people in the school district, and all she wanted to know was that you were concerned and cared about kids.”

Former mayor and City Council member Michael Nutter agrees with Jordan that Clayton “was the greatest Philadelphia school superintendent in modern history.

“She cared passionately about children,” Nutter said. “She always asked the question, ‘is this in the best interest of our children? You just had to appreciate that.”

While “some people adored her and some had different feelings,” Nutter added, Clayton managed to avoid teacher strikes “and set a national standard” for school leadership.

Board of Education president Reginald Streater, who graduated from Germantown High in the early 2000s, said he “was a direct beneficiary” of the work Clayton did to improve the district, especially in helping to create smaller themed academies in the neighborhood high schools. The best way to honor her memory, he said, is to work toward “ensuring that all students are given access to the lifelong tools that we all know they need to navigate this world and toward their dreams.”

Longtime education advocate, policy analyst, and frequent district critic Debra Weiner described Clayton’s superintendency “as a golden age. What preceded her was teacher strikes every two years, a gigantic exodus of kids from the district, constant deficits, and no standard curriculum.”

But Clayton prioritized working with a less politicized Board of Education “to bring more transparency” to decision-making, said Weiner, who was one of the victims of Clayton’s legendary cold shoulder after she made one remark the superintendent didn’t like.

“Sure, she had a thin skin,” Weiner said. “But you have to remember, she was a Black woman. Black women never got anywhere at that time. She went to an all-Black school (Dunbar elementary) herself. She came from a single parent family. When she went to Girls High, it was full of the white elite. I can talk about how she was thin-skinned, but also say, where were the Black women in power in the 80s? They didn’t exist. So it’s very easy to understand why she had those kinds of shortcomings.”

The record shows, Weiner said, that “between what she inherited and what she bequeathed, there was a big change. It was key in giving the school district a lot of credibility that it had lacked as long as anyone could remember.“

Clayton “came in after a series of strikes and budget crises, and she appointed a very capable team,” said Christopher McGinley, a former Board of Education member who started as a teacher when Clayton was superintendent and went on to become a superintendent himself in two suburban districts. “They had a work ethic second to none.”

Most notably, Clayton did not play the political patronage game with local politicians, which inspired anger on the part of some, and admiration from others.

As far as hiring, “my position and questions became ‘what are their competencies, what are their qualifications, what are their experiences, what do they know about children,’” she told scholar Camika Royal in a 2011 interview for her dissertation. “Well, as I said to you before, it became Don’t ask Connie Clayton for anything, because she will not give it to you. I wanted it that way. I was very clear about why it should be that way. We were not a feeding trough for people. The School District is for children.”

Constance Elaine Clayton was born in 1933 (she would never confirm her age while in public life). Raised by her mother and maternal grandmother in Philadelphia, she attended Dunbar Elementary School and Girls High, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a doctorate in education. She subsequently was given many honorary degrees.

Clayton began her career as a fourth grade teacher at the Harrison Elementary School in North Philadelphia in 1955. She quickly rose through the ranks, and in the 1960s, wrote a social studies curriculum for elementary grades and also established an African American studies program for all age levels – efforts that eventually contributed to Philadelphia becoming the first school district in the nation to mandate, in 2006, that all students take an African American history course in order to graduate.

Clayton was also a visionary in recognizing early on the importance of preschool to children’s brain development. As associate superintendent for Early Childhood Education, her last position before being named to lead the district, she expanded the district’s role in pre-K through a variety of programs that still exist.

She championed the arts and promoted the teaching of culturally-relevant curriculum in general “that children could see themselves in,” said Howard Stevenson, who holds the Constance E. Clayton chair at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

“She was not afraid of new ideas,” he said.

Superintendent took on mandate to desegregate city schools

On the day she was installed as school superintendent in October 1982 – hired by a less politically beholden school board appointed by former Mayor Bill Green in an effort to get past the patronage and divisions that dominated the district before then – Clayton made her intentions clear. At the time, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Black educators had distinct affinity groups that kept tabs on the distribution of leadership positions and school assignments.

“I hope all of us will commit ourselves to the proposition that all children can learn, all children can achieve, and all children deserve to be educated to the maximum of their abilities,” Clayton said.

At the time, the district was struggling to deal with an order from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, dating back to 1970, to desegregate its schools. There were many all-white schools, especially in the Northeast, reflecting neighborhood demographics but also district decisions regarding how school district catchment areas were drawn. The PHRC wanted mandatory busing but, mindful of the kind of violence and upheaval school desegregation caused in cities like Boston, Clayton – like her white predecessors – rejected that option.

Unlike them, she and her chief of staff, law professor Ralph Smith, came up with a voluntary desegregation plan that resulted in the busing of thousands of children, more than 14,000 at its peak and mostly Black, to predominantly white schools, primarily in the Northeast. The program also provided incentives, such as free after-school programs, to schools in integrated communities where the school enrollment was predominantly Black, to attract more white students to them.

“I did not accept the job of superintendent to preside over a segregated school system. And I will not do so,” she wrote in a 1983 letter to the school board reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

While the voluntary plan did increase enrollment diversity at many schools, over time, the busing waned, and the focus shifted to providing more resources to schools that were predominantly low-income and Black. The PHRC case was settled in 2009.

Once in talks to become chancellor of the New York City school system, Clayton withdrew her name, writing in a 1987 telegram to the then-president of the New York Board of Education published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, “I have an unfinished agenda in Philadelphia … Now is not the time to leave.”

But the year 1988 for her had both triumph and missteps: The PFT signed a landmark contract, preserving labor peace and including some important reforms. But in a presentation to the school board in August – in the context of explaining her priorities in managing a budget crunch – she said: “There are those among us who will always choose in favor of the historically privileged. That is a luxury that the school district, this city and our society, can ill afford. When compelled to choose we should and we must choose in favor of those children most at risk and most in need even if they are not the loudest or the most well connected.”

She also closed five day care centers in the Northeast to spare some in poorer neighborhoods.

Soon, she faced calls for her resignation, mostly from residents and officeholders from the Northeast, a largely white but working-class community, where many were offended at the notion of who she considered “privileged.”

She persevered, although the last years of her tenure were marked by struggles to keep the district’s budget balanced, stubbornly flat achievement scores, the birth of the charter movement, and the increasingly volatile politics around education and power struggles on the school board. Her resignation in 1993 was unexpected and abrupt.

She told Royal in 2010: “I’d been there 11 years. And I did, I took early retirement. You know, you get to a point where you question whether you’re still effective. It was time.”

After her retirement she took an interest in artificial intelligence and its potential role in children’s education, said Stevenson of Penn GSE. She also became a patron of the arts.

“She was one of the largest holders of Black art in the city,” and also challenged the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as a board member there, “to include folks of color as leaders,” he said. She founded the museum’s African American Collections Committee.

She was also a philanthropist, he said, often giving money for scholarships and other purposes, but not wanting it publicized.

In retirement, Clayton also opened an antiques and notions store in Chestnut Hill with one of her former district colleagues, Lee Scott. She lived for decades in a sprawling stone house in Mount Airy with her mother, who died in 2004.

“She didn’t achieve everything she wanted to achieve, but she began the first wave of people taking education seriously and understanding kids of all ages and backgrounds can learn,” said Rendell. “We were all lucky to have her in Philadelphia.”

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. She was the Philadelphia Inquirer education writer during much of Constance Clayton’s superintendency. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania’s school funding commission starts work on a new funding formula

2023-09-14T22:27:42+00:00

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On the heat-soaked steps of the Philadelphia School District building Thursday, education advocates, teachers, and elected officials sought help for city students forced to learn in underfunded schools.

“Children are in crisis,” said Maritza Guridy, deputy director of parent power and outreach at the National Parents Union. They’re “struggling to survive.”

Behind those speaking, 12 legislators and staff entered the front doors preparing to sit for a three-hour hearing of the state’s Basic Education Funding Commission. The newly formed group is tasked with overhauling one of the most inequitable education funding systems in the nation after a court ruled the current system is unconstitutional.

The 15-member commission launched a series of hearings across the state this week to get feedback on how much to invest in education and how to distribute the aid.

“We need to listen to everyone and we may like what we hear, we may not like what we hear,” Sen. Kristin Philipps-Hill, a Republican from York, said in her opening remarks, adding that lawmakers must work in a bipartisan fashion to make sure student needs are met.

Pennsylvania is embarking on this long overdue — and constitutionally mandated — effort to overhaul the school funding formula because the current one is “shortchanging” students across the state, including those in Philadelphia, school board Vice President Mallory Fix-Lopez said to the group rallying outside the hearing.

Generations of underfunding means students in the city — who are predominantly Black, brown, and from low-income families — have had larger class sizes, less qualified and experienced teachers, older and often unsafe buildings, and fewer extracurricular opportunities compared to students in wealthier Pennsylvania districts.

Outside on Thursday, Philadelphians decried how long it’s taken to get here and the toll it’s exacted on students.

“Aren’t we tired of just talking about it?” Fix-Lopez asked. “I’m ready for change.”

The commission will deliver a report to Gov. Josh Shapiro by the end of November and produce a new formula in time for next spring’s budget negotiations. If lawmakers’ proposed formula doesn’t measure up, the state could find itself back in court, said Michael Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs in the funding lawsuit.

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington, now in his second year in office, has crafted an ambitious five-year strategic plan for the district but has said he lacks the funding to carry it out.

“The Pennsylvania public school funding system has inadequately and inequitably funded low-wealth school districts for decades,” Watlington told the commission. “The funding system systematically harmed the very districts that need the most resources … those districts who serve students with the greatest needs.”

What the commission will do

Beyond trying to create a formula that is more fair, the commission must deal with the question of adequacy, or how much the state should be contributing to education so all students get a quality education. Pennsylvania now ranks 45th among states in the proportion of state versus local funding, providing only 38% of the total, compared to a national average of 47%.

A new formula and more money for Philadelphia schools will mean the difference between cutting programs and expanding access to things like high-dosage tutoring, algebra courses, and extracurriculars.

But it’s going to be costly. Penn State professor Matthew Kelly told the commission during an earlier hearing on Tuesday the state needs to spend an extra $6.2 billion each year to adequately fund education for all students. Philadelphia falls short by nearly $8,000 per student, Kelly found.

And that estimate doesn’t include facilities costs to manage environmental hazards like asbestos and broken or inadequate air conditioning. Watlington told the commission that the district was forced to close more than 80 buildings early each day during the first week of school because they lack no air conditioning. To fully modernize and repair the district’s infrastructure would cost $7.9 billion, he said, citing a 2017 study.

The Basic Education Funding Commission is tasked with overhauling one of the most inequitable education funding systems in the nation.

How Philly measures up

Philadelphia is not the lowest funded among Pennsylvania’s 500 districts. In fact, it is in the top half, ranking 232nd in per student revenue.

Other districts, large and small, have even larger “adequacy” gaps, including Allentown, Reading, Panther Valley, and Shenandoah. Kelly found that 412 of the state’s 500 districts fall short of what’s necessary to provide all students with a quality education.

“There is a cross section of districts that are dramatically underfunded,” Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney with the Public Interest Law Center, said in an interview.

And while, statewide, there are more white students in underfunded districts, “kids of color are dramatically concentrated in them,” he said.

At the hearing, Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and Ashley Cocca, a counselor at Bache-Martin elementary school, talked about the trauma that many students face.

“Gun violence, drug presence, poverty levels, housing inadequacies, domestic violence, underemployment, tragic loss….inconsistent continuity of care,” Cocca said, choking up. Jordan said Philadelphia students need as much, if not more, than counterparts in wealthier areas.

A bipartisan solution will be needed

Many of the state’s poorest districts are rural, and largely white, and educate the constituents of many Republican lawmakers who have resisted the plea for billions more in state money for education. In some of these districts, tax rates are sky high, but they can’t raise enough funds because property values are low and taxable industries are scant.

Over the years, Republicans have protested that there is no correlation between money and achievement, and argued at their funding trial that the state’s obligation ended with assuring that the most basic needs were met – essentially, providing buildings, classrooms, and teachers.

Sen. David Argall, at the commission’s hearing on Tuesday, said the state legislature has voted for “significant spending increases” in the past, but said “we haven’t seen the results that many had hoped for.”

Kelly told Argall, “the research is clear and unambiguous” on this front: “Increased spending does increase outcomes” for students.

In resisting the lawsuit, Republicans also argued that legislators, not judges, are charged with determining fair and adequate funding levels for schools.

But, in a February ruling that followed four months of testimony, Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer firmly rejected that reasoning, saying in a 786-page opinion that the current system so severely shortchanges many students that she was compelled to intervene.

Republican legislative leaders decided not to appeal her decision, instead initiating a process to overhaul the funding system.

How school funding currently works

The biggest component of state school aid comes through the basic education line item in the budget, which is now $7.8 billion. In an effort to direct a higher proportion to the neediest districts in lieu of a formula overhaul, the legislature set aside millions in so-called “level up” funding directed toward the 100 poorest districts; this year, the amount is $100 million. That funding is still held up in a lingering legislative standoff.

The current formula — most recently reworked in 2016 — weights such factors as the number of students in low-income households, poverty concentration, the prevalence of students with disabilities and English learners, and a district’s local wealth and taxing capacity.

But the formula has not significantly reduced disparities in spending among districts because legislators at the time also introduced a “hold harmless” clause that guarantees that no district gets less than it did before, even if its enrollment drops. Lawmakers decided to apply the new formula only to a new aid, not to all aid.

This meant most of the funding is distributed based on student demographics from many years ago

While Jubelirer ruled the current formula to be unconstitutional, she did not prescribe a solution.

This is where the new education funding commission comes in.

After the listening tour, the commission will present a series of recommendations to Shapiro, who will then work to reach a deal with lawmakers on a new formula, likely to be enacted through the state budget process.

But that will take months, and some say Philadelphia students can’t wait much longer.

“We must fix it immediately,” State Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Democrat representing Philadelphia, said. “We have waited too long, generations have suffered.”

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect the status of the distribution of “level up” funding and Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg’s role with the Public Interest Law Center.

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.

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

Back to school in Philadelphia has students and teachers feeling excited — and the heat

2023-09-05T16:54:39+00:00

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First grade teacher Holly Lau crouched down so she could speak with her new student Jahlil Porter at his level.

“It’s our first day, too,” she said reassuringly to Porter, who was sporting a colorful backpack but looked a bit lost after showing up to his first day of school Tuesday at Bluford Elementary School. It was something of a fresh start for Bluford as well — it was a charter school last year but has returned to district control.

Lau was generous with her hugs, and then led her students into the building between a line of cameras and dignitaries including Mayor Jim Kenney, Superintendent Tony Watlington, and state Sen. Vincent Hughes marking the first day of school for Philadelphia’s more than 113,000 public school students.

If Jahlil was jittery, so was his mom. “I’m a little nervous,” said Yvette Williams. “I just hope everything goes well for our kids.”

More than 500 students at Bluford avoided the disruptions to the start of the school year caused by extreme heat. Students at 74 other schools in the city without air conditioning or in need of electrical system upgrades weren’t so lucky.

The first day of school at Bluford Elementary School on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

With temperatures projected to soar above 90 degrees this week, the district informed families over the weekend that those schools would operate on an early dismissal schedule Tuesday and Wednesday, and that “any decisions about Thursday or Friday will be communicated by 12 p.m. on the day before.”

The news underscored the challenges Philadelphia schools face when it comes to infrastructure, following a year when several schools closed due to fears about asbestos.

After his first year leading the district, Superintendent Tony Watlington has big plans for year two, even as he wrestles with such long-standing challenges. He’s hoping to put his five-year strategic plan into action. A new math curriculum is hitting classrooms. And the district is planning a new “two-way communication system” to give parents more access to district staff.

In addition, the district has tweaked its much-maligned lottery admissions process for selective schools. And its new safety plan aims to keep students safe from the ongoing gun violence in the city.

On Tuesday, Watlington projected optimism.

“Every year teachers, students … get a chance to have a fresh start no matter what happened in the last year,” he said. “If you had a good year you can make it even better. If you made some mistakes last year we can improve on them.”

Watlington added that “the same is true with superintendents I’m told.”

Bluford Principal Tangela McClam, a graduate of the Philadelphia district, had good news Tuesday for parents gathered in front of the school wondering about dismissal times. The school day would end at 3:09 p.m., she said, not at noon.

Like Watlington, she expressed high hopes for the future of Philadelphia public schools.

“I am delighted to be able to lead a school that is returning [to the district]” McClam said. “We’re calling … for all of our community members, parents, families, and friends to help us as we launch successful citizens and prepare them for the next generation in Philadelphia.”

Tangela McClam, left, the principal of Bluford Elementary School, stands next to other school administrators and elected officials while students enter the building on the first day of school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 5, 2023.

Asbestos, heat, and teacher vacancies remain concerns

Still, Philadelphia has a long way to go toward becoming “the fastest improving large urban district in the country,” which Watlington has said is his overarching goal. One hurdle will simply be ensuring students have safe school buildings to learn in.

The district will, in all likelihood, continue to uncover flaking asbestos this year, Watlington said. Although the district is still crafting its “master swing space plan” to ensure displaced students are able to learn in-person, disruptions should be expected.

Though some students at Frankford High School and all students at Universal Vare Charter School will be learning in other buildings this year as the district remediates damaged asbestos, the district has made progress with other schools that had been closed at the end of the previous school year.

In an effort to lessen the extreme heat affecting school buildings, the district has invested $285.7 million to “improve electrical and HVAC systems” in 23 schools and installed over 800 window air conditioning units and over 1,400 hydration stations, according to a statement from Oz Hill, the district’s chief operating officer.

Teacher and school staff vacancies are also persisting into the new school year.

According to the district, staffing is at 95.3% this year, meaning there are still more than 400 vacancies among the 9,000 positions for teachers and counselors. Last year, the school year started with about 200 vacancies.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said last year the district had 225 yellow bus drivers; this year, she said, 210 have been hired so far. About 33,000 students are transported to school on yellow buses, she said, a number that includes district, charter, and private school students.

Under state law, the district must provide or pay for transportation for all students who live more than a mile and a half from the school they attend. The younger ones and those in special education require yellow buses; older students get free SEPTA passes.

A test for one Philadelphia school

This year will be pivotal to Bluford’s success as it transitions from its status as a Renaissance charter school back to district control.

In 2021, the Board of Education voted not to renew the charters of Bluford and nearby Daroff, which had been run by Universal Companies as part of a decade-old strategy of turning over existing district schools to charter operators in the hope of improving them.

Daroff has closed altogether. But the district is promising to engineer a turnaround at Bluford, which under Universal had fallen short of academic goals and had financial problems.

“I’m hoping for a good school year,” said Sharady McDuffie, the parent of two fourth graders at Bluford.

McClam said that the school is expecting 505 students, although only 95 had been signed up when she arrived to take over the school in the summer. She held various outreach events and said that so far about 400 are officially enrolled.

On Tuesday, McClam gathered unregistered students into the auditorium to fill out paperwork and get them cleared for class.

The school was named for astronaut Guion Bluford, the first Black person to travel to space and who attended the school when it was called the Hanna School. Keeping the school’s namesake in mind, McClam said the motto this year will be “launching successful citizens.”

A student holds onto a guardian’s hand during the first day of school events, at Bluford Charter School, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 2023.

Meanwhile, at a “meet and greet” event last week at Ellwood Elementary School — one of the 74 schools on a revised heat schedule this week — dozens of students and their parents showed up to meet their teachers and collect goodies such as backpacks, water bottles, and pencils.

Ellwood, built in the 1950s, isn’t as up to date as it could be when it comes to infrastructure. But it has gotten new windows and doors. The school is installing air conditioning, but it’s not yet operational. And parents and students are still holding out hope for a strong school year.

Assistant Principal Edward Davies said that the focus for Ellwood this year is “maintaining what we have and making gains.” It was easy to find excited students around him.

Eris Brown, 7, is entering second grade. Her favorite subject, for now, is art. But she has big ambitions. “I hope to learn everything,” she said.

Berlyn Stanford, 6, is entering first grade and likes school because “I get to play with toys. I can meet new friends and I like gym class.”

Kiyon Harris, 8, who is entering second grade, spent a long time talking to physical education teacher David DiEva about his plans for the year, hands on hips and ideas flowing. He said he’s looking forward to “a lot of math, and reading, and I like activities and sports,” he said.

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 updates test score and grade standards for many selective admissions schools

2023-08-31T22:52:40+00:00

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Philadelphia posted its revised selective schools admissions process Thursday for the 2024-25 school year that’s meant to improve a controversial lottery system and provide more access to students from all areas of the city.

One of the biggest changes involves state test scores. Instead of using a student’s most recent state test scores in English language arts and math to determine eligibility for the top seven highly selective schools, the district will consider a student’s best score from a two-year period. And for all but the top seven schools and programs, a student can score as low as the 50th percentile on one of those two exams and still be eligible for admission.

Attendance requirements have also been relaxed at 15 of the 22 selective schools and programs. Starting for admissions in the 2024-25 academic year, students need to have a minimum attendance record of at least 90% of school days, which means 18 or fewer unexcused absences. But at the top seven schools, the attendance cutoff remains nine or fewer unexcused absences, or 95% attendance.

Through lowering the test-score cutoffs and other changes, including holding sessions around the city where families can get assistance in applying, the district is seeking to provide more access to the most selective schools to qualified students from historically underrepresented ZIP codes, which are mostly in lower-income areas of North and West Philadelphia.

The changes follow significant backlash earlier this year to the lottery system for selective admissions schools that the district adopted in 2021 and went into effect for the 2022-23 school year. Hundreds of spots at some criteria-based schools went unfilled, at least initially, because students who did not get into any of their preferred selective schools through the lottery did not have alternatives under that process. A survey of students, staff, and others concerning the new system found that just one in five liked it.

The lottery system did increase Black and Hispanic enrollment in the city’s top public schools in the last school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

The district announced changes to the lottery system in early August, although the information released by the district Thursday updates its website and provides more details about them. Preferences for students from underrepresented neighborhoods will continue, while the district is also working to improve access to magnet schools for English language learners and students with disabilities.

Under the revised system, Central and Masterman high schools continue to have the most stringent requirements. In order to be accepted, students must have all As and Bs, scores in the 80th percentile or above in English language arts and math on the state standardized tests commonly known as the PSSA, and 95% attendance.

As recently as 2020, the test-score cutoff for Central, Masterman, and Academy @Palumbo was the 88th percentile. But in the wake of the pandemic, the district lowered that threshold for Central and Masterman to the 80th percentile. It is keeping that lower benchmark.

For the next tier of five schools, which includes Palumbo, the requirements for 95% attendance and all As and Bs remain. But the PSSA cutoff has been reduced to the 65th percentile. Besides Palumbo, those schools are:

Carver High School of Engineering and Science.
Parkway Center City Middle College.
The aerospace program at Northeast High.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) magnet program at Northeast High.

In the next tier, students need to score at or above the 50th percentile on the PSSA and are allowed one C. They must also have 90% attendance. The schools in this tier are:

Science Leadership Academy (SLA).
SLA-Beeber.
Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP).
Creative and Performing Arts High School (CAPA).
Bodine High School of International Affairs.
The IB program at George Washington High School.

In another tier, the requirements are identical, except students are allowed A, B, and two C grades. Schools in this tier include Girls High, Franklin Learning Center, and Hill-Freedman.

And in the final tier, students are allowed A, B, and C grades. Schools in this tier include Motivation High, Parkway West, and Saul High School of Agricultural Science.

The full list of selective schools and their admissions standards is here.

Pre-algebra, space at certain schools remain concerns

The changes mean different things at different schools.

At CAPA, for instance, the test scores cutoff was the 80th percentile before the pandemic. Before the revised lottery system, SLA and SLA-Beeber, which take a project-based approach to learning, had not imposed a test-score cutoff; they required only proficiency on the PSSAs as well as a project presentation. SLA and SLA-Beeber will continue to require projects; GAMP and CAPA require auditions and will continue to do so.

Masterman will maintain its requirement that its students take pre-algebra before entering the ninth grade. But that course is offered in only 35 schools with eighth grades, far from all the district’s K-8 and middle schools, and is less common in schools serving low-income areas.

The district says it is working on expanding access to pre-algebra.

Under the updated process, students who otherwise qualify but have no luck in the lottery process and are waitlisted at all their five schools of choice can still receive offers from other selective schools not on their list that have spaces available.

Before the lottery system, principals at the selective schools could pick and choose from among all qualified applicants. They often chose those with the best test scores, especially at Masterman, making its effective cutoff score much higher than 88%. Concern about an underrepresentation of Black and Latino students at Masterman and Central especially was a major reason for moving to a lottery system.

The district previously announced that starting in 2024-25, students in selective middle schools that also have high schools — Carver, Masterman, GAMP, Hill Freedman and SLA-Beeber — will not require eighth graders to reapply. If they qualify based on grades and test scores, they will be offered admission.

This policy could have a particularly big impact on Masterman, where the high school grades are about half the size of those in the middle school.

The school selection process for students in pre-K through 11th grade opens on Friday, Sept. 15 at 4 p.m. and will close on Oct. 27 at 11:59 p.m, according to the district. The district will be staffing “Application Assistance Labs” at schools across the city for families to ask questions and get help with applications.

District spokespeople said they are also in the process of setting up a dedicated school selection call center by Sept. 8 that will allow families to call in with questions about the process.

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 families rejoice at school’s new playground amid fears for children’s safety

2023-08-17T22:24:53+00:00

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When Duane Watts was a student at Edward Steel Elementary School in Philadelphia’s Nicetown neighborhood more than 40 years ago, he remembers running excitedly out of his classroom for recess and being confronted with concrete.

No swings, no slides, no monkey bars to climb on. “We would play tag, but nothing was actually present and given to us to play with,” he said.

But that’s no longer true for the children attending Steel, a pre-K-8 school of more than 300 students. On Thursday morning, school officials and nonprofit leaders cut the ribbon on a new $45,000 playground in Steel’s side yard.

Built over the summer with donated funds, the playground gives children more room to play at a time when policies like the city curfew and restrictions on unaccompanied minors at businesses, as well as gun violence that has affected Nicetown and other Philadelphia neighborhoods, have made it harder for children to congregate and spend productive time together in public spaces.

Teachers and counselors at Steel who fought for the playground by writing grants and building partnerships and community support for it looked on in tears at the ribbon cutting. At least a dozen parents brought their children to be the first to test out the new equipment.

“This is a huge deal for us,” said Nicole Wyglendowski, a special education teacher for K-3 students who helped with the effort. Younger children especially need playgrounds with inviting activities to help them to learn to get along with each other and “just have fun,” she said.

Counselor Maria Lajara, who helped write the grant proposal for the playground with fellow counselor Klarissa Hudson, pointed out most Steel students “don’t really have a nearby city playground that is safe to play in. They want to play, and they didn’t have anything to play with. This is a great asset for them, they deserve that.”

A study in 2019 found that only one third of Philadelphia’s schools had playgrounds, and most of those were in more affluent areas. Advocates have made the case that quality playtime is vital to children’s physical and emotional health, and the lack of playgrounds in some areas of the city has become part of the broader debate about the need for educational equity.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said the situation has improved since then. Of 149 district schools with elementary-age students in the city, 79 have fully equipped playgrounds and 70 don’t, although 11 of those have play equipment in various stages of planning or construction.

The cost of the playground was underwritten by The Block Cares, a two-year-old nonprofit organization with a mission to uplift children; the Robert Half Company, a recruiting firm; and some private donations. The Block Cares is affiliated with The Block Church, a non-denominational Christian congregation founded in 2014.

Maria Little, director at The Block Cares, said her organization has a “mission to empower urban youth and kids to experience a limitless future.” When the organization began working in the Nicetown area, it connected with Steel Elementary and became especially interested in supporting teachers and students as they returned to in-person learning from the pandemic.

Parent Samantha Dowd, who has five children at Steel, had just heard that morning about the playground and the dedication ceremony.

“I was shocked,” she said. “This is really nice. To see something like this is important, especially at a time when so many tragedies are happening,” referring to the gun violence that is plaguing the city.

She was grateful her kids now have a safe space to play. As she spoke, her son Isaac Carter was already on the monkey bars, and her daughters were enjoying the swings. “It’s fun,” Isaac said.

Najalene Bey’s daughter, third grader Amina Ray, made a beeline for the swings as soon as she could. Bey said she had attended Steel herself. When she was a student, they would play sidewalk games like hopscotch, foursquare and jump rope during recess. But surveying the new playground, she said, “I wish we had this.”

Grandmother Darlena Green, watching the children, observed: “They’re not gonna go home now.”

Orbanek said that the district partners with outside organizations for funding what she called “schoolyard transformations.” They include the Eagles Annual Playground Build project and the Trust for Public Land (although not The Block Cares). Grants are provided by the William Penn Foundation, earmarked funds through state legislators, and neighborhood groups connected to schools. (Chalkbeat receives funding from the William Penn Foundation.) The Steel project falls into the latter category.

She noted that the district’s strategic plan includes providing safe, welcoming spaces for students, and that building more playgrounds fits into this.

“We have a vision for our schoolyards to be much more than paved asphalt parking lots,” said Oz Hill, the district’s chief of operations, in a statement. “We strive to provide a dynamic space for playful learning with green space, active recreation, quiet areas, and space to refocus and unwind and creatively engage in learning and socializing through play.”

Watts, who remembers the schoolyard’s concrete during his days as a Steel student, is now the school’s academic teacher leader. After graduating from Dobbins Area Vocational Technical High School and attending college, he went on to a career in finance before switching to education.

He has family members who still live in Nicetown, and he said the neighborhood’s public park is not safe.

“Yeah, this is significant,” he said. “To see this now as a new playground in the area and have it attached to the school that I attended, and the community having access to it, it’s just indescribable.”

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 school district welcomes more than 700 new teachers and counselors

2023-08-14T22:19:07+00:00

The Philadelphia school district welcomed more than 700 new teachers and counselors on Monday to a weeklong orientation that started with a pep talk from Superintendent Tony Watlington, who reminded them that the most important factor in a child’s academic success is consistent access to effective and well-supported teachers.

“We want you to believe in children,” he said.

Board of Education President Reginald Streater, a graduate of Germantown High School and father of two district students, also spoke to the group, telling them: “You are the ingredient we need to make sure we educate the whole child.”

Both Watlington and Streater thanked the new hires for choosing Philadelphia, where teacher salaries lag behind most of the surrounding suburbs, and working conditions can be more difficult. Most of the district’s students come from impoverished backgrounds, and many of the school buildings are in disrepair, or potentially dangerous.

The weeklong orientation is taking place at School of the Future, a technologically advanced school building constructed in 2006 with the help of Microsoft.

The new recruits vary in age and backgrounds, with many still working on their full certification as they embark on a new career in teaching. Some are seasoned teachers who have worked in other districts or charter schools, while others are fresh out of college. They will attend sessions ranging from information on benefits to discussing racism and equity.

The first day of classes is Sept. 5.

Here are brief portraits of four new district teachers:

Kia Boggs-Pinkney

Kia Boggs-Pinkney (left) talks to Meredith Mehra, deputy chief of the district’s Office of Teaching and Learning, at the orientation.

Boggs-Pinkney was a special education assistant at Muñoz-Marin Elementary in Kensington, when both Principal Amanda Jones and Elaine Rosario, the school’s special education compliance manager, kept telling her she should become a teacher.

“I thought they were in cahoots, but they weren’t,” Boggs-Pinkney said.

Jones would stick her head into Boggs-Pinkney’s classroom every time she walked by, and try to get her attention. “Teach!” Teach!” she’d call out.

Boggs-Pinkney, who has two grown sons and a management degree from South Carolina State University, is heeding the advice this year at age 57.

Initially, Boggs-Pinkney told her fans that she wanted to work on school discipline as a climate manager. But seeing how she interacted with students in her classroom, others in the school kept pushing her towards teaching. “Do it for a year, see if you like it, and go from there,” they advised.

She will be working at Muñoz-Marin, in the same classroom where she was the special education assistant, and with many of the same students. She already knows four of the five first graders with multiple disabilities whom she will be teaching.

This is a second career for Boggs-Pinkney. She worked in human resources for many years, and started at the district in 2010 as a special services assistant while raising her two sons. In 2013, she became a special education assistant, first at Hopkinson Elementary School and then at Muñoz-Marin, where she transferred in 2021.

“I heard good things about the school,” she said, especially how school leaders “encourage staff to do different things.”

Meredith Mehra, deputy chief of the district’s Office of Teaching and Learning who was helping to run the orientation, was principal of the KIPP charter school when Boggs-Pinkney’s son was a student there. She also recognized Boggs-Pinkney’s special qualities.

“I love it,” Mehra said of Boggs-Pinkney becoming a teacher. “I remember who she was as a parent, when she was ready to be involved in any and all conversations about her kiddo. Any school community would be so fortunate to have her as a teacher.”

Boggs-Pinkney is working on completing her certification through an online program, and she is still thinking about what will change for her when she is in charge of the classroom, rather than just serving as an assistant. For sure, she said, “It will be a little different.”

Simeon Fryer

Simeon Fryer will be teaching health and physical education at Benjamin Franklin High School.

Simeon Fryer, 25 and just out of college, will be a health and physical education teacher at Benjamin Franklin High School.

Standing at about 6 feet, 6 inches, he will also be assistant basketball coach.

A small forward and graduate of Upper Dublin High School, Fryer was recruited to play at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, a Division I school. While on a team organized through the Amateur Athletic Union, he was mentored by Ron Sizer, a teacher at Franklin and a coach in the program.

Sizer is thrilled that his onetime mentee will now be his colleague.

“I’m super proud of Simeon,” Sizer said in an interview. “He was a good player, and we were able to build a great relationship.” While Fryer was in college, he and Sizer kept in touch. “I’d watch his games on my phone,” Sizer said, including NCAA games during March Madness.

What he admired about Fryer was his “resilience,” how he beat health challenges and other circumstances to get better as a player and a student.

“The resiliency this young man has is what young kids need,” Sizer said. “A lot of kids give up. To have somebody who overcame obstacles and made it, kids need to see that.”

Fryer is modest about all that. While he had a shot at playing pro ball overseas, he chose to come back to Philadelphia. People kept telling him he was “good with kids.” Besides, he said, “I have a son, and I was tired of being away from him.”

Sizer, for his part, is hoping to retire from coaching after this school year and turn Franklin’s basketball team over to his protégé, so he can concentrate more on his job teaching precision machine tool technology in the school’s career and technical education program.

Besides his talents and resiliency, Fryer “is fun,” Sizer said. “And he’s younger. He can relate to these kids. They probably listen to the same music. I look forward to watching him grow not only as a teacher and a coach, but also as a man and a father. That’s really cool to me.”

Fanta Mshindi

Fanta Mshindi taught in charter schools for 18 years, but now is moving to the district to take a position at Girls High School.

“I was offered a dance teaching post, and that’s my passion,” she said.

Mshindi is a graduate of the district; she studied dance at the High School of Creative and Performing Arts. In 18 years working at Harambee and then Sankofa charter schools, she taught English intervention — meaning she helped students behind in their reading skills to catch up — as well as African studies. She also worked with young Black women in a “sisterhood rites of passage” program.

“I am so excited to teach dance,” she said.

Frank Machos, the district’s director of arts education, said that this year the district has 22 additional positions compared with last school year in music, art, dance and theater. That’s on top of 10 positions added in 2021-22, all part of an effort to rebuild programs that were decimated after the severe state budget cuts that started in 2011.

With the district now in a better financial position, “Things are looking up” for arts programs, he said.

Peter Nelson

Peter Nelson, an engineer, will be teaching math to middle schoolers at Benjamin Franklin K-8 School starting next month.

Peter Nelson, 28, has a degree in engineering, and will be teaching math to seventh and eighth graders at Benjamin Franklin K-8 School in Northeast Philadelphia.

A native of Kennett Square, he has lived in Philadelphia for 12 years, starting with when he enrolled at Temple University, “and I wanted to teach here,” he said. After graduating, he worked for several years as a mechanical engineer.

While Nelson is also still taking courses toward getting his full certification, he has a lot of experience, having taught in prisons and juvenile detention centers, and working with young people affected by HIV. Plus, he said, “I know a lot about math.”

He applied to the district in May, and went on a few interviews at schools over the past few months, without success. But as the school year approached, things picked up. “In late July, I started to get attention,” he said. He hit it off with Franklin principal Roslynn Sample-Greene and he was offered the position at Franklin elementary a week ago.

Teaching, he said, “is what I want to do.”

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.

Report: Pennsylvania’s low-income, Black, and Hispanic students have least experienced teachers

2023-08-07T22:11:49+00:00

Black or Hispanic students and those from low income families are the least likely to receive the most experienced, qualified teachers in Pennsylvania, a new study from Pennsylvania State University shows.

Using Pennsylvania Department of Education data from the 2020-21 school year, researcher Ed Fuller found that schools with the greatest percentage of students eligible for the federal free and reduced-price meals “had substantially greater percentages of novice teachers, teachers assigned out-of-field, and teachers on emergency permits than schools with the lowest percentages of students eligible for the…program.”

Fuller, a professor of education who works with Penn State’s Center for Education Research & Policy Analysis, said the pattern holds for elementary, middle, and high school levels, although the upper grades have the highest percentage of teachers lacking full qualifications. The shortages are most acute in urban areas, he found.

Schools in districts that are relatively underfunded, including Philadelphia, had higher percentages of “novice” teachers with under three years of experience, teachers who were teaching a subject in which they were not certified, and teachers who were working with emergency credentials.

“Overall, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that students most in need of well-qualified teachers are the least likely to be enrolled in schools that provide qualified teachers,” the report said. According to Fuller’s data, Black students were twice as likely to be enrolled in schools that lacked fully qualified teachers than white students.

“Regardless of the measure you use, the teacher qualifications of those teaching in Philadelphia county are lower than any other county in the Commonwealth,” Fuller said in an interview.

While that is “no fault of the teachers” who are hired to work in the city, he said, “that’s what struck me the most.”

Much of this is due to the high number of charter schools in the city, which educate about 70,000 students, compared to about 119,000 in district-run schools. Under the state law that established them, charter schools can have as many as 25% of their teachers be uncertified.

Fuller’s data shows that nearly 28% of teachers in charter elementary schools in Philadelphia have less than three years experience, while 41% are teaching out of their field, and 11% are not fully certified. That compares to 13% of novice teachers in district schools, 11% teaching out-of-field, and 5% who aren’t fully certified.

Another part of the issue is that the number of teachers graduating from teacher certification programs in Pennsylvania is at an all-time low, with just 4,000 graduating this year, Fuller noted. That compares to 16,000 a decade ago, in 2011-12.

Historically, he said, a quarter of those coming out of teacher prep programs in Pennsylvania each year would end up teaching in Philadelphia.

“The differences in teacher quality — exacerbated by the current shortage of teachers — all but guarantees the vast gap in achievement and other outcomes between students of color and white students as well as between students participating in [free and reduced meals] and their more affluent peers,” the report said.

Fuller attributed much of this difference to spending disparities among districts in Pennsylvania, whose education funding system was ruled unconstitutional by Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer in February. She ordered the state to fix the system.

But while the budget passed by the legislature and signed last month by Gov. Josh Shapiro has a historic boost in education funding, it did not overhaul the system in a way that would come close to meeting Jubelirer’s mandate.

Teacher salaries in Philadelphia range from around $50,000 for new teachers with a bachelor’s degree to about $100,000 for those with 11 years experience or who have reached the status of senior career teacher.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said that its Philadelphia schools are expecting 650 new teachers and counselors at its new hire orientation next week.

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 revises selective admissions process after uproar from students, educators

2023-08-04T21:18:25+00:00

Middle schoolers at five of Philadelphia’s selective admissions schools will no longer have to reapply to their schools for ninth grade, while preferences for students from historically underrepresented neighborhoods at those schools will continue but with updated data, the school district announced this week

Under the wide-ranging changes to selective school admissions, the district will also place a greater priority on ensuring students with disabilities and English language learners have access to magnet schools, based on mandates stemming from a 1994 court decision known as LeGare.

However, the district has decided to maintain a requirement that students reach certain test score cutoffs as a prerequisite for admission to 22 selective schools, despite a recommendation from a consulting firm. But those cutoff scores could change for at least some schools under the district’s revised admissions system.

The changes, which will go into effect for the 2024-25 school year, follow months of widespread confusion, discontent, and protests in the district about the new lottery-based system Philadelphia adopted in 2021. Students, educators, and others who criticized the process said it was hurting the long-term viability of several selective schools and would lead to the forced transfer of teachers and layoffs, among other concerns.

In early April, a dozen of these schools had hundreds of open seats just a week before the deadline for students to pick their schools next year. At the same time, many students who applied to selective schools didn’t get into any of them.

In June, the consulting firm Accenture told the district that among students, educators, and others who were surveyed about the new system, only about one in five said they liked it.

Accenture also concluded that the process was confusing, not well communicated, and potentially excluded promising students from the candidate pool.

The application process for the 2024-25 school year runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 27.

Changes to selective admissions unpopular among students, staff

Two years ago, Philadelphia overhauled its admissions process for the city’s 22 selective (also known as “criteria-based”) schools to create a lottery-based system, with the goal of providing more equity and opportunities, especially for Black and brown students from relatively low-income neighborhoods who have typically lacked access to these schools.

The changes reduced the power of principals to influence the makeup of their incoming classes through factors like interviews, and officials hoped the system would reduce conscious and unconscious bias.

This new system resulted in higher Black and Latino enrollment at some of the selective schools, according to a Chalkbeat analysis from last year. But the new process has made only a small dent in the demographics at Central and Masterman, the city’s most selective schools, which continued to have much higher proportions of white and Asian students and lower proportions of Black and Latino students, than the district as a whole.

But last year, a group of parents filed a lawsuit in federal court to overturn the new admissions process. They called it a “blatantly unconstitutional race-based system.” The outcome of that suit is pending.

Under the revised system the district announced Thursday, the selective admissions process will continue to include preferences for students who come from historically underrepresented ZIP codes, mostly in North and West Philadelphia. However, the ZIP codes that will get preferences are still being determined based on the newest data, according to district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek.

But the lottery resulted in hundreds of qualified students receiving admission to none of their choices and reduced enrollment at many schools severely enough that they lost teachers and other staff.

Under the current system, students entering ninth grade list five schools of interest not ranked by preference. They are entered into lotteries for each school for which they qualified — a process that resulted in some students getting into all five of the most sought-after schools, while others got into none.

For applying this fall to enter in the 2024-25 year, there will be a second stage for students who received no offers through the lottery. If they were waitlisted at all schools to which they applied, they will be offered admission to schools where seats are still available and there is no waitlist, according to a letter sent to families by Superintendent Tony Watlington.

In the first two years of the lottery system that began in 2021, students who were accepted into earlier grades at five highly selective schools that start in middle school — Masterman, Carver Engineering and Science, Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP), Hill Freedman, and Science Leadership Academy @ Beeber — had to reapply for the ninth grade, a requirement that caused consternation among many parents. Now, all who meet admissions requirements can stay at those schools.

That change, however, means the district will also reduce the size of the middle school at Masterman, where the lower grades enroll more students than the high school.

Orbanek said that all the criteria for the 22 most selective schools are being jointly worked out between central office administrators and individual schools. The precise test scores minimums for each school are still under development.

Accenture also found that the cutoff score requirement on the state exam — the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA — created issues with filling enrollment at 12 of the selective schools, including Girls High and SLA @ Beeber. Those 12 schools received fewer eligible applications than the lottery cap, leading to a 100% acceptance rate, but some of them were still unable to fill all available seats.

“The requirements for admission to these schools, particularly the PSSA percentile, may have been set too high to maximize the number of offers received,” the consultant’s report said.

Accenture’s survey results found that more than 44% of principal respondents were “strongly dissatisfied or dissatisfied” with the PSSA as a criterion for admissions, compared to more than 26.2% who felt that way about the attendance requirement, and 24.6% for grades requirements. Accenture recommended that district leaders “collaborate with school leaders” to ensure each school has appropriate admissions criteria.

Accenture’s data analysis showed that over 90% of applicants to ninth grade in 2022 “did not meet the PSSA requirement.” About half didn’t meet the grade requirements and a third failed to qualify based on attendance.

Before the lottery system, principals were able to interview and otherwise vet applicants who looked promising, but did not technically qualify based on test scores and, sometimes, one of the other criteria. A teacher at one school, who did not want to be identified due to not being authorized to speak, said that a study of students admitted who met the technical requirements compared to those who didn’t showed similar outcomes regarding graduation and experiences after high school.

Regarding access for students with disabilities and English learners to selective schools, the district’s changes to the admissions process include “improving the impartial review process” for such students at the high school level and “creating a process for an individualized review” for those applying to middle schools.

Margie Wakelin, senior attorney at the Education Law Center, which advocates for students with disabilities, noted in a statement that before the 2021 lottery system, only .5% of students at Central High had individualized education plans. Under the 2021 system, that increased to 1.3% for the 2022-23 school year, she said.

“We support efforts to examine the current LeGare process to determine if it is working for students with disabilities and English learners. Data indicates that this is not currently the case,” she said.

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 Philadelphia is rolling out its first big curriculum shift in 7 years to teachers and schools

2023-07-24T18:57:29+00:00

Anna Spencer is about to begin her first full year teaching middle school math in September, starting her career just as Philadelphia invests tens of millions of dollars in brand new curricular materials.

She was one of 450 teachers who gave up two hours of their summer for a voluntary training on the new math resources. District officials say the $20 million curriculum from Imagine Learning will promote deeper understanding by students, instead of merely emphasizing process and procedure. And Spencer left the training energized.

“Students will be learning through problem solving rather than being told what to do,” she said.

The Philadelphia school district is planning to spend $70 million of pandemic aid on new textbooks, lesson materials, and other instructional resources that will start rolling out next school year, beginning with math. But how well teachers will be prepared to use them, and the impact they will have on classrooms, are issues still up for debate.

At its May meeting, in addition to the $20 million for Imagine Learning, the Board of Education voted to spend $20 million for an English language arts program called StudySync from McGraw Hill. The board also approved $5 million on new materials for English language learners and $5 million for new special education materials (A resolution to spend up to $20 million on science materials was withdrawn but is expected to be taken up later, bringing the total potential expenditure to $70 million.)

Anyone at the meeting hoping to learn more about the new instructional materials would have left disappointed, however. No district official gave any presentation about the new resources. And no board members asked questions about the resources before voting to approve them. The process underscored ongoing concerns about the district’s transparency.

In a letter to families and a subsequent press release, Superintendent Tony Watlington called the spending on new curricular materials a “historic investment” in the city’s children.

But some teacher preparation experts questioned whether there will be adequate professional development or teacher training to help new teachers and veterans get up to speed. (The English language arts materials will be phased in for the 2024-25 school year.)

“It’s really essential that the investment in teacher learning is deep” and involves something more than an optional webinar or a two-hour workshop, said Patrick Sexton, executive director of teacher education programs at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Many of Penn’s graduates go on to teach in Philadelphia schools.

The district invited feedback about updating curriculum during March and April and received some 3,000 responses, according to district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek. But that hasn’t stopped questions about the curriculum’s suitability, and whether teachers will be limited in their ability to help students in the same class who are at different levels of proficiency.

Nyshawana Francis-Thompson, the school district’s chief of curriculum and instruction, told Chalkbeat that the new materials represent “a significant shift from what we were doing in the past” and “will require a significant change for our teachers,”

“This is not an approach where the teacher stands in front of the classroom and … says ‘do step one, step two, step three,’” she said.

While district leaders worked with teachers and others to create an updated “academic framework” in core subjects in 2020, it hasn’t bought new materials since 2016, Francis-Thompson said. That framework lays out expectations for each grade level and lays out best practices.

More continuity for Philadelphia students across grades

Since 2016, in many subject areas, schools were able to choose between two or more different sets of curriculum resources. But now, through Watlington’s strategic plan known as Accelerate Philly, district officials are hoping to achieve more instructional continuity.

For all grade levels, “there will be one resource across the board,” Francis-Thompson said.

However helpful the voluntary professional development sessions are for teachers like Spencer who participated in them over two weeks in July, the 450 teachers who took part in them represent just a fraction of those who will be teaching with the new materials.

Officials stressed that such sessions are not the sum total of training and support that will be offered.

Sexton, from Penn, said that he considered the district’s initial voluntary training “a good first step,” and agreed that Imagine Math is “aligned with what we teach our [teachers-in-training] to do,”which is “going for deeper understanding. It’s looking not just for answers, but the thinking behind the answers,” he said. He also said the “culturally responsive” component of the math materials will help build support with parents.

Still, he said, it is important to consider “how are we looking at veteran teachers as learners, not as just implementers of curriculum,” Sexton said.

That’s where teachers like Eileen Wager come in. She’s been teaching for 13 years and is the “math lead” at Duckrey Elementary School in North Philadelphia. As such, she will be responsible for ongoing training for teachers at her school with the new materials.

She agreed with district officials that the new curriculum materials are focused on the students rather than the teacher. She noted a big change involves dividing students into groups so they can collaborate on problem-solving. In that model, the teacher works with one group while the others work independently.

Many teachers use this strategy now, but not all teachers are at ease with it, she said, even though “we’ve learned that having students split into small groups for hands-on activities is effective. I’m hoping this curriculum will be helpful in the long run in getting teachers comfortable with that.”

“Our math scores, as a country and as a district, have been in the toilet for years,” Wager added. “What we’ve been doing hasn’t worked. We need to be open to this new thing.”

According to the latest Philadelphia “district scorecard,” only 17% of students met the math proficiency standard on state testing in 2021-22, down from 22% in 2018-19.

Helping students reach a deeper understanding

Spencer, who will be teaching seventh grade at Bregy Elementary School in Southwest Philadelphia, said the two-hour training was helpful. Like Wager, she supports the use of small groups as part of the new math curriculum.

“I think it will be really really beneficial for students to have meaningful, deep understanding of content, versus rote memory or mimicking what the teacher is doing,” she said.

At the training session, teachers reflected on their own math experiences, discussed what they want their students to remember, and talked about the new curriculum’s philosophy and goals. Then they got a look at the new materials.

Spencer had two main questions during the training. Would the curriculum limit teachers’ agency by offering a daily script or rigid timeline? And what resources would it provide for working in a classroom where many of the students might be grade levels behind in their skills?

Ultimately, Spencer said the training convinced her that she could “switch things up if I need to.” She also said she thought the curriculum was nimble enough to allow her to help students who need additional help.

“The curriculum gives a list of prerequisites for each lesson,” she said. “We can see what students are supposed to have mastered [and can] review skills they’ve missed.”

Lola Sergeant, a five-year teaching veteran at Mayfair Elementary School who will teach seventh grade this fall, noted that the district’s academic framework calls for a more “conceptual” approach to math to deepen student understanding.

She said that dealing with students who are at vastly different levels “is an ongoing challenge,” but added: “I think this curriculum will do a better job of it, because it’s embedded more differentiation.”

Annemarie Hindman, a professor of early childhood education and educational psychology at Temple University, said the district’s emphasis on continuity through the new materials is an admirable goal.

But in practice, she said, teachers and school leaders are going to need a lot of support and buy-in to put these materials to work for their students, especially any changes to the reading materials.

“There is no curriculum package, no matter how scripted, that can help you work with every individual kid,” Hindman said.

Francis-Thompson said she understands these concerns, and said the district must ensure there’s “ongoing professional learning,” coaching, and other strategies in the coming years.

Spencer, for her part, is optimistic the new materials will be a boon for her as a new teacher.

“I trust what they’re trying to do,” Spencer said. “It’s a good starting point for me.”

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.

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

Pennsylvania illegally denies services to older students with disabilities, lawsuit alleges

2023-07-13T19:41:42+00:00

Pennsylvania is depriving up to 17,000 young people with special needs as much as a year of services they are entitled to under federal law, according to a class-action lawsuit brought this week against the state Department of Education.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a 19-year-old student in the Lower Merion School District by the Public Interest Law Center and the law firm Berney & Sang, which specializes in civil rights litigation.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, commonly known as IDEA, specifies that students with special needs are entitled to a free public education until they turn 22 if they cannot earn a regular high school diploma.

But under Pennsylvania Department of Education policy, districts can terminate services to students at the end of the school year during which they turn 21. That means students could be denied services for as much as a year depending on when their birthday falls, the complaint alleges.

The lead plaintiff, identified as A.P., has an intellectual disability, is on the autism spectrum, and has speech and language as well as other health impairments. He will turn 22 in February 2026, but his services would stop almost eight months earlier under Pennsylvania’s policy.

“Pursuant to his [Individualized Education Plan], he is supported by personal care assistants and receives services including speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and transition services to help him develop independent living and workplace readiness skills,” the complaint says.

While it is impractical to find all potential members of the class, the complaint estimates up to 17,000 students in Pennsylvania, including 2,000 in Philadelphia, are ages 17 to 21 and receiving special education services. Of those, about 300 of those are 21, said a spokesperson for the law center, which specializes in students with disabilities and often represents them in litigation against school districts.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education does not comment on pending litigation, but “is committed to ensuring that every student receives a high-quality education and working with parents to meet the needs of students with disabilities,” according to a statement from its communications director, Casey Smith.

The legal argument rests on the provision of IDEA that requires states to provide services to individuals with disabilities as long as free education is provided to others in that age range. The complaint says that in Pennsylvania, adult education programs are available to young people who have not earned a high school diploma.

“Because PDE provides free public education to students 18 through 21 via its adult education programs, it is obligated under the IDEA to make a [free appropriate public education] available to students with disabilities in that age range as well, and thus to provide special education and services to eligible students until their 22nd birthdays,” the complaint says.

Federal courts in similar cases involving other states, including Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, have ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, according to the court filing.

“PDE’s age-out policy unlawfully cuts this right short, denying eligible young adults the supports and services they need to succeed in life after high school,” said Claudia De Palma of the law center.

David Berney of Berney & Sang said that “for children with significant disabilities who are not yet ready to transition out of high school, another school year can make a huge difference in their lives.”

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 will announce changes to lottery-based selective admissions at end of July

2023-06-30T18:15:53+00:00

Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington announced Thursday that the school district will further revise its process for admission to its most selective schools, based on recommendations from a consulting firm hired to study the impact of a lottery system introduced in 2021.

That system was introduced in an effort to increase the proportion of Black and Latino students at the most selective schools — Masterman and Central — and replaced a long-standing process in which principals generally made final admissions decisions. Instead, all students who met minimal requirements based on scores on the PSSA state standardized test, grades, attendance, and behavior records could enter the lottery.

In other business at its monthly meeting, the Board of Education approved more than $205 million in contracts, mandated Juneteenth instruction, and voted not to renew the charter of Southwest Leadership Academy.

In the presentation on the admissions process for selective schools, the consultants, Accenture, recommended that a strict PSSA cutoff should be eliminated as a requirement for several of the schools. In selective schools that start in middle grades, they suggested, students should not have to reapply to continue through the ninth grade.

Accenture conducted a survey of counselors, principals, students, and other stakeholders, in which 45% of principals said they were dissatisfied with the PSSA requirement, Nahomie Louis and Nicole Newman of Accenture told the board.

Additionally, that process gave preference to students in certain ZIP codes, primarily in North and West Philadelphia, who were historically underrepresented at Masterman and Central. That provision has been challenged by a group of parents who say it is a “blatantly unconstitutional race-based system.”

The consultants said that only 20% of persons surveyed said they liked the lottery process. And, based on data so far, that system has made only halting progress in reaching its goal and had unintended consequences. While the demographics at Central and Masterman showed slight increases from 2021-22 to 2022-23 in the proportion of Black and Latino students, it left hundreds of vacancies in some of the city’s other criteria-based schools, mostly those that had high Black enrollment.

Students also don’t appear to be in favor of the lottery system. Accenture’s survey found that 54% of students said they wanted to remove the lottery, and 38% said if it continues, they wanted to be able to rank their schools of choice rather than just submit a list of five.

Under the current process, students can get into all five schools or none, and they could get into a school or schools they really don’t want to attend while being shut out of their first choice.

Accenture consultants studied the systems in other cities, including Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC as part of their review. They found those cities more precisely tailored their plans to local circumstances and preferences.

“Many other districts already optimized their systems and curated them based on the needs of students,” they said, recommending that Philadelphia similarly “customize” its process. They also said Philadelphia should hire a staff dedicated to overhauling the process and have revisions and improvements in place by fall 2025.

Accenture has a $298,000 contract to evaluate the school selection process.

Board approved millions for building maintenance, tech, asbestos abatement

The board considered 104 separate items. Through its consent agenda, in which many items are voted on in a bloc with little or not discussion, the board voted to approve more than $205 million in spending on school building maintenance, food, lease agreements, an “instructional management system,” and more.

Some of the big ticket items:

$26.3 million for Contract with NCS Pearson for Schoolnet Instructional Management System, which comes on top of a $70 million expenditure approved at the last meeting for new curricular materials in reading, math, and science.
$69 million on an agreement with a city agency, the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID), to aid with capital projects involving the building and renovation of school buildings.
$24 million for “Contracts with Various Vendors for Asbestos Abatement in Various Schools”
$20 million for “Contracts with Various Vendors for Professional Environmental Design and Testing Consulting Services.”

Board member Cecelia Thompson voted no on several smaller spending items, including $6 million for snow removal and $300,000 for window shades, saying they came without explanation. Lisa Salley voted no on two resolutions to spend money on outside law firms.

The board also voted to terminate the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees (Salley dissented.

Board rejects charter renewal

The board also voted 7-2 not to renew the charter for Southwest Leadership Academy Charter school. The vote came after Rudolph Garcia, who presided over hearings following the board’s first vote to close the school in June, 2022, said Southwest Leadership has not improved its low academic record and is teetering on financial viability. Garcia presided over a hearing held in January and February contesting the board’s intent to revoke the charter.

Last month, the board denied the application to open a Global Leadership Academy high school. That vote and other denials have led some officials to allege that the board is biased against Black-led charters.

Before voting, board members repeatedly asked Garcia if there was any evidence of an upward trend. Garcia, unequivocally, said no.

“If I had seen some progress, if they were still performing below comparison groups, but catching up, I would have seriously considered that they be given more time to do it,” he said. “But that didn’t happen.”

He noted the pandemic was disruptive, but said all schools had to cope with that. “Everybody was affected, but the relationship between them and the other comparison groups didn’t change,” Garcia said.

The K-8 school, founded in 2007 with just over 600 students, was trying to expand, but “got ahead of their skis,” Garcia said. It bought property to build a new school, but were not able to enroll enough students to justify or pay for the expansion, he said.

Board member Lisa Salley, who voted no on the closure along with Cecelia Thompson, said she was concerned that the audit of the school’s finances seemed “biased.” “I don’t see the objective evidence to support” the nonrenewal recommendation, she said.

Parent Robyn Fernandes, who has children at the school, disputed Garcia’s conclusions, saying that the enrollment is 92% Black, and those students outperform Black students in other charters and in comparable district schools.

She upbraided the board members for never visiting the school or taking to parents and the community about its positive impact on students. “No one has had a conversation with us,” she said. “No one has set foot in the school.”

At its May meeting, the board voted down an application of Global Leadership Academy.

Peng Chao, director of the board’s Charter Schools Office, said that 14 charters are up for renewal this year with a total enrollment of 14,000 students, one of the largest cohorts ever considered at one time.

Chao gave more detailed information on five of those schools that do not meet standards in one of more categories: Deep Roots, KIPP North Philadelphia, Mastery Prep Elementary, Mathematics Civics and Sciences, and Christopher Columbus.

Mathematics Civics and Sciences also failed to meet standards for organizational compliance. And Chao noted that while the school reports a 100% graduation rate, the performance of its students on Keystone exams measuring proficiency in math, language arts, and sciences fall below comparable schools.

Christopher Columbus met academic standards, but failed to meet organizational compliance benchmarks.

He recommended that Columbus be renewed for five years with conditions, while the others be renewed for just one year with conditions.

At the meeting, Watlington also said that 10th through 12th graders at Frankford High School, which had been closed due to asbestos, would return in September to a refurbished wing in the school. Officials had previously announced that the building would not be open next school year and all students would be relocated.

Now, only ninth graders will go elsewhere, to the third floor of Clemente Middle School, Watlington said. An assistant principal and other staffers will be on that site and students will be provided transportation back to Frankford for afterschool and other out-of-school-time activities, said Associate Superintendent for High Schools Tomas Hanna.

Students will be required to learn about Juneteenth

The board also approved a resolution to make sure all students learn about Juneteenth, but amended the original resolution that said it should be taught “in all content areas” from grades kindergarten through 12th. It now says Juneteenth lessons should be taught “to all students where appropriate in the curriculum” starting in 2023-24.

Juneteenth is a national holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Although President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “all persons held as slaves” in Confederate states shall be free, on January 1, 1863, freedom for many would only be gained later. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers informed enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, that they were free people; and this event, eventually known as Juneteenth, became a celebration of independence for Black people.

At Thursday’s board meeting, Watlington, a former history teacher, noted that most persons of African descent lived under slavery for 246 years – from the first arrival of enslaved Africans to English colonies in 1619 to the abolition of slavery in 1863, and then under Jim Crow segregation for another 100. And their civil and voting rights “continue to be under attack” in some parts of the country, he said. .

The board resolution calls for the school district to collaborate with educators, administrators, and community partners to develop and provide age-appropriate instructional resources, materials and professional development opportunities that support the teaching of Juneteenth.

The district will also engage parents, families, and community members by offering resources, hosting events, and promoting dialogue to enhance understanding and appreciation of Juneteenth and Black history.

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 principal has big plans for International Baccalaureate program at Jenks Academy

2023-06-15T21:08:04+00:00

Corinne Scioli remembers the moment she was sold on the International Baccalaureate program.

She was the assistant principal at Northeast Philadelphia’s Mayfair Elementary School, which educates almost 2,000 students and is the largest elementary school in the city. Its families come from more than 60 countries.

A few years ago, a first grader from Brazil “who spoke not a lick of English” showed up at Mayfair. Scioli, whose native language is Spanish and was once an English language learner in the U.S. herself, could make do in Brazilian Portuguese. So she communicated with the boy about his class homework assignment to make an object from recycled materials.

The assignment was a quintessential example of International Baccalaureate, also known as IB, a curriculum program that relies on a strategy of “learning by doing” while promoting cultural understanding and global awareness among students. In 2018, Mayfair became the first elementary school in the city to adopt the IB curriculum.

The boy came in the next day carrying a robot he had made from plastic water bottles and a shoebox. The boy had immediately engaged and was able to participate in school, despite the language barrier and the newness of his surroundings. For Scioli, “It was confirmation that the approach works.”

Scioli, 50, is now the principal of J.S. Jenks Academy of the Arts and Sciences, which is on track to become the second elementary school in the city to adopt the IB program and its demanding, project-based curriculum. Jenks received approval in April to be an IB candidate school for grades K-5, which means it has a year to explore its goals and refine its practices before seeking full IB authorization. Adopting IB also matches Superintendent Tony Watlington’s goal to accelerate academic achievement, and it’s one of the programs that he included in his five-year strategic plan, which was recently approved by the city Board of Education.

In a statement to Chalkbeat, district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek emphasized the IB program’s emphasis on “research and critical thinking skills, knowledge acquisition, and global awareness.” The statement also pointed out the strategic plan’s goal to provide students with “equitable access” to course offerings that are “more aligned with their interests, are relevant to their lives, and prepare them for their future.”

Although located in predominantly white and well-off Chestnut Hill, Jenks’ student body today is 81% Black, and most students come from low-income backgrounds. Just a third of the student body lives within the Jenks catchment.

Jenks, a K-8 school which enrolls about 420 students, is transitioning to the IB program on its 100th anniversary; it was built in 1923 on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill and has served students ever since.

The IB curriculum is organized around six interdisciplinary themes: who we are, how we organize ourselves, how we express ourselves, where we are in place and time, how the world works, and sharing the planet. Jenks said the program also promotes social-emotional learning in addition to academics. And through the program, students will be able to take classes in a foreign language.

The IB program “follows a student inquiry cycle,” Scioli said. “They’re invited to think deeper and to be advocates for social and environmental justice. It puts that at the forefront.” In short, Scioli said IB’s framework “promotes everything I believe in.”

For elementary school students, “we want to encourage them to be hands-on learners and constructors of their own knowledge,” she said. Teachers will undergo extensive training so they can support this mission.

“This takes us to the next level,” she said.

Scioli recalls teaching her grandfather to write his name

The program’s global outlook resonates with Scioli for personal as well as professional reasons.

Although she was born on an Air Force base in Omaha, Nebraska, Scioli spent first and second grades in Panama, where her father was from. When she returned to the U.S. at the end of second grade, she had trouble with reading and writing English at grade level.

“In those days, instead of viewing bilingualism as an asset, many schools put foreign students who were learning English in special education classes,” Scioli recalled. But her father insisted that Scioli would not go to special education classes. Thanks in part to tutoring, her love of reading evolved from “Charlotte’s Web” to Shakespeare, all the way to an undergraduate degree in women’s studies and a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Scioli also traces her path to becoming an educator to a time when she traced letters in the ground during a visit to the Dominican Republic to see her maternal grandfather, who was illiterate. Using a stick, she spelled out his name in the soil at the family farm. He then followed suit, and called the moment he learned how to write his name “incredible.”

“It was my introduction to being an educator, and it stuck,” she said.

She hopes to eventually receive approval for IB’s Middle Years Program for grades 6-8. According to the district eight schools currently offer IB programs: six high schools, two middle schools as well as Mayfair. Thurgood Marshall Middle school is also in the candidacy process.

“I want to create the same level of cultural awareness” that now exists at Mayfair, she said, “and help students to think critically, work with their hands as well as their minds, and help us all understand how to connect.”

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 schools go remote for students Friday amid pollution from wildfire smoke

2023-06-09T00:14:16+00:00

Philadelphia schools will switch to remote learning on Friday “out of an abundance of caution,” district officials announced Thursday evening, due to ongoing concerns about air pollution from Canadian wildfires.

However, the district said all employees — including school-based staff — should report to their “normal work location.”

“The health and well-being of our students and staff is a top priority,” the district said in a statement issued Thursday at 6 p.m.

The district did not require school buildings to close Thursday, but did urge students and staff to stay indoors due to the smoke from the wildfires that has blanketed much of the Northeast this week and closed schools in New York City and Newark.

Remote learning may prove difficult for Philadelphia students, since staff have already collected district-issued Chromebooks in many schools as the end of the school year approaches.

In addition to remote instruction, scheduled outdoor field trips will be rescheduled or canceled. And several graduations and end-of-year “move up” ceremonies slated for outdoor spaces will be postponed. Those taking place indoors will proceed as scheduled. Principals were contacting parents late Thursday to provide updates.

The district’s statement said that environmental authorities had listed Philadelphia as “Code Red,” or “extremely unhealthy.” Philadelphia’s Air Quality Index actually improved during the day Thursday, declining to 164 (out of a possible maximum of 500) by Thursday afternoon. But it is still at “unhealthy” levels, city spokesperson Sarah Peterson noted.

Bus service for charter and private school students will be provided, said district spokeswoman Monique Braxton.

Crossing guards serving strictly district school locations do not have to report Friday, Peterson said. Those serving charter and private schools should report, she said. (Crossing guards work for the city.)

In a statement, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan noted “the unprecedented nature of this issue and the myriad challenges it has presented for staff, students, and families,” especially at the end of the school year when “parents and loved ones [have] an irreplaceable opportunity to see their students shine.”

He also said that the union “has ensured that any staff who are unable to report [Friday] will not be penalized for their absence.”

Students and staff will also not be penalized for absences on Thursday, the district said.

Mayor Jim Kenney and city Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said Thursday that non-emergency city personnel would not work outdoors Friday, which impacts services such as trash collection and routine road maintenance.

The city canceled all outdoor recreation department activities, but said it was keeping open recreation centers, describing them as “a safe indoor alternative during periods of poor air quality.”

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.

Transparency watch: Public gets time to see Philadelphia schools chief’s strategic plan after all

2023-05-24T22:48:48+00:00

This story has been updated to include additional information about curriculum contracts the Philadelphia Board of Education is due to vote on May 25.

Less than 24 hours before the Philadelphia Board of Education was due to vote on Superintendent Tony Watlington’s as-yet-unseen strategic plan, the board postponed the vote until June and released an executive summary of the plan to the public.

The executive summary says the plan will include a pilot program to “incentivize” teachers to work in “hard to staff schools,” the relaunch of “Parent University” — a program to give parents and caregivers courses in academics, financial literacy and other areas — and a $70 million update for the district’s core curriculums in math, reading, and science, among other proposals.

The board was previously scheduled to vote on the plan at Thursday’s board meeting. But two days after Chalkbeat reported that the public had yet to see the plan, Watlington said he will now present the proposal for review Thursday, and the board will vote on it June 1. If the board approves the plan, it will begin July 1.

Pressure has been building on Watlington to unveil the plan to the public before the board’s vote on it. The plan will be the culmination of Watlington’s work in his first year in office, and could guide the district through pandemic recovery, a growing asbestos crisis, and a gun violence epidemic that’s killed more than 20 students this academic year so far.

“We’re going to ask the Board to take some time to kick the tires, look under the hood, and ask our community to do the same thing,” Watlington said of the plan in an interview Wednesday. “This is going to be our North Star for the next five years and beyond, and I want to make sure we’re very thoughtful about how we begin this work.”

The summary says Watlington’s strategic plan is intended to be a “living document that can be updated by the Administration as needed based on progress monitoring, emerging trends, new internal evidence, or external research.”

The executive summary is light on specific, prescriptive policies. Many of the ideas involve launching new advisory groups, audits, updating websites, and reviewing the current policies.

And there’s no price tag for the plan yet.

“In the process of costing out this plan, we know that current funding is inadequate,” he said.

He highlighted a February ruling from Commonwealth Court Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer that the wide gaps in spending between wealthy and poor districts in the state makes Pennsylvania’s current school funding system unconstitutional.

However, Jubelirer did not prescribe a specific remedy, and securing more state aid is likely to take time. Republican legislative leaders haven’t said whether they will appeal.

“I think it’s easy in Philadelphia to get immune to what historic underfunding really means,” Watlington said.

Aside from comments about his five-year plan, Watlington also said he was confident about his future even though the next mayor can appoint an entirely new school board, which could in turn hire a different superintendent.

Cherelle Parker, the Democratic nominee for mayor who’s a heavy favorite to win November’s election, has not indicated her intentions regarding school board appointments.

Although she doesn’t exercise direct control over the district, she’s promised that her plan for education will “transform how we think about public schooling.”

Two leaders’ dovetailing plans for year-round schedule

The summary says the plan includes five priority areas: safety and well-being, family and community partnerships, accelerating academic achievement, recruiting and retaining “diverse and highly effective educators,” and “high-quality, cost-effective operations.”

One of the most high-profile proposals in Watlington’s plan — one likely to have a substantial cost — is a pilot for year-round school. Parker’s most far-reaching education proposal during the campaign called for the same.

Watlington said he wants to pilot “a year-round and extended day school calendar” in up to 10 schools. Beyond that, he had few details.

It’s too early to say whether year-round schooling means extending the academic school year or the school day, or both, Watlington said.

“I want to slow down and roll out the strategy, cost out what it would cost us, and then we want to take the time to build support and do an information campaign with various school communities,” Watlington said. “I don’t want to just assign schools to do this.”

Parker’s plan was also short on specifics. On the campaign trail, she promised to “create full-day, full-year education for all students in Philadelphia.” She also wants schools to be open from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for “before and after-school enrichment,” but has not elaborated on those statements.

Any change in school schedules “is something that would have to be negotiated,” Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan said in an interview.

Asked whether year-round schooling was a major component of his plan before Parker made it a keystone of her platform, Watlington demurred.

“I think it’s coincidental, but inherently good” that both he and Parker are talking about the idea, Watlington said. “What we do together is more important than ‘who came up with the idea?’”

But Jeron Williams II, a Central High School student who sits on one of the committees that helped develop the plan, said “never once did we discuss year-round schooling.” Jordan, who also participated in the process, said the same thing.

Incentives for teachers will require union negotiations

Another component of the plan would create a pilot to give some teachers and principals “retention incentives” for teaching in schools where staffing has proven difficult.

But the executive summary does not provide further details, such as whether those incentives would take the form of bonus pay or something else.

Such incentives would also have to be negotiated with the teachers’ union. Jordan said that the district used to have a program that offered salary boosts to teachers who took particularly difficult assignments, but that only covered about 25 teachers at its peak, and that teachers generally didn’t like it.

The summary doesn’t provide details about Watlington’s proposed $70 million changes to curriculum. However, the agenda for the board’s May 25 meeting includes votes on contracts with various vendors for new curriculum in math and language arts that add up to $50 million; another $20 million contract for science materials was originally included on the agenda but withdrawn as of late Wednesday. Those contracts are related to Watlington’s plan, a board spokesperson said.

Watlington also highlighted a proposal to pilot “learn to swim” programs in “different parts of the city,” but did not provide further details. Students and members of the public have stressed that helping young people — especially Black and brown children from low-income backgrounds — learn to swim and giving them access to pools provides various benefits.

“The fact that we can’t do this all over the city does not mean that we should not start somewhere,” Watlington said of the swimming pilot, “I’m hopeful that we can grow that over time.”

In general, Watlington said he’s optimistic that he will have the buy-in necessary for his strategic plan to get the board’s approval and get his proposals done.

“I think the future is bright for Philadelphia and the school district of Philadelphia,” Watlington said. “I’m excited to be here and we’re gonna do some great things. I really believe our best days are ahead of us.”

Damaged asbestos will close school into next year

New details about Watlington’s plan came on the heels of news Wednesday that Frankford High School would remain closed for the rest of the school year and into next year because asbestos remediation at the century-old school building was more extensive than originally thought.

In addition, the district has been “unable to quickly identify a nearby swing space that could be prepared in time for this school year to accommodate our students and staff, as well as meet all the programmatic needs,” Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said in a letter to the school community. All but Frankford’s special education students are learning virtually.

As with his strategic plan, Watlington placed the blame for such asbestos-related school closures on historic underfunding for the district, as well as prior leaders’ failure to “care for our facilities like we should have.”

The summary of Watlington’s strategic plan does call for a “facilities master plan project team.” Last November, the district paused its work on a blueprint for infrastructure upgrades; Watlington said at the time that he wanted to ensure that such a blueprint matched his strategic plan.

“We’re going to be in this asbestos space over the long term,” Watlington said. “Unfortunately, because of historical underfunding we don’t have shovel-ready swing spaces” that school community members can support or commute to.

District officials told reporters at a briefing Tuesday they were making progress in their building inspection process.

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 school leaders defend their asbestos response: ‘No simple fix’

2023-05-23T21:23:34+00:00

At least 293 of 300 Philadelphia district buildings — most but not all of them schools — contain asbestos, officials said Tuesday, although inspectors have reexamined nearly all of those facilities for the potentially dangerous material since October 2021.

During a press briefing about asbestos in district facilities, Victoria Flemming, the interim executive director of the Office of Environmental Management, said that out of those 293 buildings, 277 schools have been reinspected, and six of those were schools that the district subsequently closed, she said. The goal is to inspect the remaining 16 by the end of August, she said.

The more inspections the district conducts, the more asbestos is likely to be found, she said, but “this is a step in the right direction. This is the school district taking the additional time and resources to address what has been a longstanding issue within the Philadelphia region.”

“There’s no simple fix,” Flemming said.

The district’s update comes in the wake of criticism from parents, advocates, and others about the district’s handling of the environmental hazard. The abrupt shutdowns of Building 21, Frankford High School, Mitchell Elementary School, and other schools have created major disruptions for students and families. They have also called into question the accuracy of previous inspection reports that indicated schools did not face asbestos-related dangers.

Flemming said that more than 200 of the district’s buildings were built before 1978, when builders commonly included asbestos in construction, and that many of them also contain lead paint, another potential hazard. The average age of district buildings is 73 years.

Under the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, the federal law regulating asbestos containment, every school must be inspected every three years, with “periodic surveillance” every six months. Flemming said the district at any given time has between eight to 12 inspection teams of two people each, depending on availability of personnel.

In order to be in full AHERA compliance, the district would need to average 50 inspections a month, she said, but the district currently lacks sufficient staffing and resources to do that, Flemming said.

“Our intent is to add more inspection teams,” she said, but added that meeting the AHERA requirements in full “is still a work in progress.”

The district has a three-year, $24.2 million contract with Tetra Tech, starting in 2022, a consultant and engineering firm, which is managing its inspections. The district also hired DeLuca Advisory & Consulting Services — where Flemming previously worked — to help the district manage the AHERA inspections and related record-keeping and data-tracking, which is a massive undertaking.

For instance, DeLuca is making sure that all inspections included the mandatory number of required samples from the required variety of locations. One large school can have as many as 3,000 building materials that require assessment and documentation. And the district is also studying the records of past inspections to make sure that they are valid, although Flemming said limited staffing and resources have made record-keeping a challenge.

“What we have actively done is gone back through our archive to confirm they have the correct number of samples based on today’s protocols,” she said. The district is also scrutinizing records “per floor, per room, per ceiling” to make sure that all necessary areas were inspected, she added.

Oz Hill, the district’s deputy chief operating officer, said the district organized Tuesday’s briefing in order to “communicate the depth and breadth of the challenges we face.”

The district’s staffing challenges and churn extend to the top of its organizational chart, and two key new administrators are set to join.

Former Deputy Superintendent of Operations Uri Monson and Chief Operating Officer Reggie McNeil left in January to join Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration. In addition, Deputy Superintendent for Academic Services ShaVon Savage and Chief Talent Officer Larissa Shambaugh announced their departures in March. Shambaugh has already left and Savage will leave by the end of this month.

On Monday, Superintendent Tony Watlington announced the hiring of two new top administrators: Jeremy Grant-Skinner as deputy superintendent of talent, strategy and culture, and Nyashawana Francis-Thompson as chief of curriculum and instruction.

Grant-Skinner comes from the Houston district, where he has been chief talent officer. Before that, he was a teacher and then chief human capital officer in Baltimore in charge of recruitment and teacher development.

Nyshawana Francis-Thompson, who has been the interim chief of curriculum and instruction, was named to the position permanently by Watlington.

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’s school board is about to vote on a strategic plan the public hasn’t seen

2023-05-22T21:53:35+00:00

Just three days before the Philadelphia Board of Education is scheduled to vote on a sweeping five-year plan for schools from Superintendent Tony Watlington, the public has virtually no idea what’s in it because the district hasn’t released it.

The plan will include a year-round school pilot program, the district confirmed last week, but officials have not released any additional details. A version of year-round school is Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker’s signature education proposal, but she has also failed to elaborate on what she has in mind.

The Philadelphia school district is grappling with systemic problems. A growing asbestos crisis is closing school buildings. Gun violence has claimed the lives of more than 25 students this school year. And test scores are stubbornly low. With all these problems plaguing the district, Watlington has repeatedly touted his strategic plan as a way to make progress on pressing issues.

The plan made headlines before Watlington even took over the district. Roughly a year ago, the board approved a $450,000 contract for a consulting firm to help him craft the plan. But as of late Monday, officials had not shared the plan, or even a basic summary of what it calls for, with the public.

Alexandra Coppadge, the district’s chief of communications and customer service, said in an email Monday that several people had already seen versions of the plan.

“Throughout the strategic planning process, the District continues to collaboratively engage with key stakeholder groups including: the Board of Education, elected officials, Union leadership, principals, Assistant Superintendents, and District office staff to vet and provide feedback on the research-based strategies,” Coppadge said.

Transparency concerns have been a major pain point for the district. School board members have admitted they’re struggling to engage with the communities they serve. At last month’s board meeting, members approved a $336,000 contract with a consulting group to improve the board’s communication with the public.

The public also isn’t getting answers from Parker about her plans for education.

At her first press conference Monday morning since winning the Democratic nomination, Parker sidestepped a question on what she meant by year-round schooling. She has not said whether she wants students in school for 200 or 210 days instead of Pennsylvania’s legally-mandated 180, or whether — like many districts that have a year-round schedule — she means that the district should shorten summer vacation and add three-week breaks throughout the school year.

Parker did say that in a conversation with Gov. Josh Shapiro before the press conference, “we talked about being innovative and creative with our schedules for education and how we deliver public education In the city.”

In one of the most affecting moments, she choked up when asked how she felt breaking the “glass ceiling” should she become the first female mayor in the history of the city. Parker is heavily favored to defeat Republican candidate David Oh in November.

She also said wants to “find a way to add value to motivate, inspire, and encourage a generation of girls to say, you know, ‘wow, no one can put me in the box. Right? You know, I really can be whatever … that makes me feel really good.’”

While she has talked about the importance of educational attainment, her most direct impact on schools would be through the mayor’s power to appoint all nine members of the Board of Education, who in turn hire the superintendent.

Parker hasn’t said whether or not she would keep the current board members or seek to appoint new ones who align with her educational vision. And while she talked about having “quality seats” for every child, she has not spoken directly about whether she would seek an expansion of charter schools, which now educate more than 60,000 students in the city.

Watlington’s strategic plan meanwhile, is in many ways his audition to prove to the new mayor that he has the district’s issues under control.

The school board has spent at least $1.6 million on consultants since Watlington took over the leadership of the district. The $450,000 contract approved last May by the school board — before Watlington was even sworn in — was used to hire Joseph and Associates, a Tennessee-based education consulting firm, to assist with his transition to the district and help develop his blueprint for leading Philadelphia schools.

It’s unclear how much of a role the consulting firm played in writing the plan. The firm did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

In addition to the $336,000 communications contract, the board last month also approved $881,500 in spending with a group called K12 Insight to improve the district’s “customer service.”

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.

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

Philadelphia superintendent to pitch year-round school pilot as likely next mayor talks up the idea

2023-05-18T22:28:01+00:00

Philadelphia’s top education official and its likely next mayor are coalescing around a big idea for education: year-round school. But so far, neither of them wants to say how it would work.

The most consequential and far-reaching proposal in Democratic mayoral nominee Cherelle Parker’s plan for education is to keep schools open year-round. And Superintendent Tony Watlington will include a proposal for a pilot program on year-round schools in his five-year strategic plan that is not yet public but that Board of Education members are scheduled to vote on at their May 25 meeting.

Parker and Watlington aren’t alone in their interest in shaking up the traditional school calendar. In the wake of the pandemic, several school leaders and state lawmakers are looking to extend their school years as a way to give struggling students an academic boost. Year-round school can take many forms and it is used to try to address various issues, from academics to overcrowding.

District spokesperson Marissa Orbanek said Thursday that Watlington “has included the pilot of year round schools in his five-year strategic plan, which will be presented soon.” Orbanek said that Watlington was interested in the idea before the primary election, which Parker won on Tuesday. She declined to provide further details.

In her campaign platform, Parker said she would combine the longer school year with more before and after-school activities. And her website puts more emphasis on a year-round school schedule as a way to help parents than its impact on academics. But otherwise, her platform doesn’t focus on the details of how her idea would work in practice.

“Philadelphia students need to be prepared for a modern economy, but Philadelphia’s public school system is stuck in the past,” she said on her campaign website.

A Parker spokesperson said Thursday that Parker’s team had not seen Watlington’s proposal.

On Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told us that Watlington “shared those ideas” about year-round school with him previously, although he didn’t have any details about what Watlington would propose.

Shapiro said he is open to any “creative ideas” to address students’ mental health needs and improve learning environments including extending the school year or adjusting school start times.

“I want to be thoughtful about how we do this,” Shapiro said, “so the Commonwealth is not dictating a one-size-fits-all approach to every district, but rather allowing districts to sort of consider what they think would be best.”

Year-round schooling gets mixed reviews

Using a year-round calendar does not necessarily mean having more than 180 days of instruction, which is what the majority of states (including Pennsylvania) have set as the minimum for a school year.

The National Association of Year Round Education advocates for districts to implement the “balanced calendar,” which shortens summer vacation and adds longer breaks called “intersessions” during the school year. The group’s suggested calendar uses a 30-day summer break and breaks for fall, winter, and spring of 15 days each, plus a three-day break for Thanksgiving.

This strategy keeps 180 instructional days, but uses them “more efficiently,” said David Hornak, the association’s executive director and superintendent of the 5,000-student Holt School District in Michigan. He said about 4% of school districts educating some two million students nationwide use some form of this calendar.

After a long summer break, according to Hornak, teachers generally spend the first 20 to 40 days in school reteaching students to compensate for summer learning loss. With traditional school calendars, “schools are asked to remediate learning gaps that they are contributing to,” Hornak said.

The “balanced calendar” schedule also “improved educator morale and has a positive impact on the teacher burnout problem” as well as teacher and student attendance, he said.

“I have yet to meet an educator who wants to return to the regular calendar,” Hornak said.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has declined to comment on Parker’s plan or Watlington’s pending pilot proposal. A change to year-round schooling would require the district to rework its contract with the teachers’ union; the contract expires in August 2024.

Many districts across the country have tried year-round schooling over the years, with varying levels of success.

The Los Angeles school district tried year-round schools as enrollment grew in the 1980s, but by 2015, just one school still used that type of calendar, according to Education Week.

At least a few school districts have abandoned this approach or at least cooled on the strategy recently. In January, officials in Virginia’s Chesterfield schools recommended phasing out their year-round school trial run, after disappointing academic outcomes.

And a school district in Wisconsin is also ending its year-round school calendar after nearly a decade; officials said the schedule didn’t seem to benefit test scores or student behavior.

Paul von Hippel, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas who has researched year-round schooling, said there’s evidence that adding instructional days has a positive impact. (Parker, who has a 10-year-old son, has also said the elementary school day is too short and wants to keep school buildings open from 7:30 a.m. until 6 p.m.)

But he has not seen evidence that the balanced calendar approach has led to better student outcomes.

And it’s typically very difficult for school districts to add days to the school year, even when there is a year-round calendar. Only about one in every 1,000 schools in the U.S. has calendars that stretch the school year beyond 180 days, and most of them are charters, he said.

The Los Angeles district was among several California cities that implemented a year-round schedule similar to the balanced calendar called Concept 6. That schedule had just 163 days of instruction, although the school days were longer, he said.

Research showed that students on Los Angeles’ Concept 6 schedule did not benefit academically, von Hippel said, adding that it is “disruptive of family life and teachers tend not to like it.”

There are some “high-performing education systems” elsewhere, including in England and South Korea, that have more than 200 days in the school year, he said.

But in the U.S., von Hippel said, “I don’t think you will find a large district that has gone to 200 or 210 days.”

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.

Carly Sitrin is Philadelphia Bureau Chief and can be reached at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Year-round schools and more education funding: What Cherelle Parker could mean for Philadelphia

2023-05-17T21:39:15+00:00

Cherelle Parker’s Democratic primary election win on Tuesday means she is all but certain to be the city’s 100th mayor and first woman to hold the office.

So what would a Parker administration look like for schools?

Parker, who used to be a public school teacher in New Jersey, has proposed keeping school buildings open year-round and lengthening the school day. She’s said she wants to heal the splintered relationship between the Board of Education, the district, and city officials. And she has positioned herself as a bipartisan dealmaker capable of negotiating more money for the city from Harrisburg to help Philadelphia schools fix crumbling buildings and recover from COVID-interrupted learning.

Parker’s ascension to the mayoral seat is not a done deal. She will face off against Republican nominee David Oh in November’s general election. But in Philadelphia, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one, her primary win means she’s heavily favored.

Parker was not available for an interview on Wednesday due to a medical issue, her campaign spokesperson Aren Platt said.

But based on her comments and proposals made on the campaign trail and her responses to our mayoral questionnaire, it’s possible to project what Parker in the mayor’s office could look like for education.

Parker’s big-ticket education idea: Year-round school

Parker’s boldest education campaign proposal was to “create full-day, full-year education for all students in Philadelphia.” According to her campaign website, Parker said more time in school would allow students to pursue extracurricular activities, sports, and other “enrichment” opportunities, while also providing parents and caregivers more child care flexibility.

She’d pay for it “by leveraging existing funding” and “with new state and city funding,” according to her campaign site.

It’s not immediately clear what this would look like in practice or how much it would cost. School districts have tried year-round schooling to bolster academics and avoid overcrowded classrooms, among other reasons. But the change can also increase district costs, complicate family schedules, make it harder for teenage students to get summer jobs, and hurt tourism and other industries.

The Los Angeles school district turned to year-round schools as enrollment grew in the 1980s, but by 2015, just one school there still had such a schedule, according to Education Week.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question is whether the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which endorsed rival Helen Gym in the mayoral campaign, is on board with the idea. At minimum, officials and the union would have to renegotiate the district’s teacher contract, which expires in August 2024.

PFT President Jerry Jordan offered his congratulations to Parker in a statement Wednesday saying “the first female Mayor in our city’s history will be an important role model for our youth—especially young Black girls.” (Parker is Black.)

At the same time, PFT spokesperson Hillary Linardopoulos said Wednesday that the union was not ready to comment on the idea of year-round school, or any of Parker’s education positions.

Parker confronts tricky school board politics

Philadelphia’s mayor has no direct governing power over schools. But the mayor does appoint the nine Board of Education members, who in turn hire the superintendent and oversee all policy and budgetary decisions made by the district. The board is also the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city.

Parker said she wants a superintendent and board that reflect “the diversity of the city, wields the passion for elevating our school system to the prominence that it could be, and whose primary priority is creating quality seats for all of Philadelphia’s students.”

Under outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney, a simmering tension has developed between the school board, the district, and city officials around issues of asbestos remediation, funding needs, and community engagement.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said she plans “to be a very active Mayor when it comes to appointing and dealing with the School Board and educating our children in general.”

She said the superintendent, board, and the mayor’s office “cannot work in silos or impose an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality.”

Whether this means she will completely remake the board from scratch or keep some or all of the current Board members remains an open question. The board members’ terms will expire when Kenney leaves office, but they’ll continue to serve until their replacements take over.

Optimism that Philly schools will get more funding

Philadelphia city schools are perpetually seeking more funding. Earlier this year, a Commonwealth Court judge declared Pennsylvania’s school funding system unconstitutional and ordered the General Assembly to overhaul it. According to an Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center analysis, the district schools need an estimated $1.1 billion more each year from the state to properly educate its students.

What’s more, the district doesn’t have the ability to raise tax revenue on its own. The school board is dependent on city and state officials to allocate the funding necessary to operate the district.

Parker, a former state representative, has said she is well-positioned to negotiate with state lawmakers in Harrisburg to get Philadelphia schools the money they need.

On her campaign website, Parker touts her position as former chairwoman of the Philadelphia delegation in Harrisburg. She also says she was able to secure a plan to send the district $148 million and prevent layoffs of some teachers and support staff in 2013, when the “District was on the verge of financial collapse.”

Parker is also optimistic that the court case over the state’s school funding formula will result in more money for the city schools.

“There is almost no scenario where the Philadelphia School District does not receive more funding,” Parker said in her responses to our questionnaire.

She also said she would be open to increasing the city’s share of funding for the district. Currently schools receive 55% of the city’s property tax revenue; she said she would increase it to 58%, which she said would bring an additional $50 million to the district.

“We must prioritize investing in our education system and if that means increasing our share of funding, my Administration will be prepared to do that,” she said in her questionnaire.

In a list of priorities for the next mayor, the school board singled out funding as a top issue.

Some school buildings need to be ‘torn down’

Several school buildings have closed this year due to damaged asbestos, and district leaders have said the growing crisis means more school closures may be coming.

In response to our mayoral questionnaire, Parker said “it is unconscionable that we ask anybody, but especially children, teachers, and other workers to go to buildings with environmental, structural, and other issues.”

On her plans for remediation, Parker said “many of our school buildings need immediate attention but some are too far gone and need to be torn down, period.”

She also joined the chorus of elected officials and education advocates calling for a comprehensive plan from the district. “While the school district is already implementing an improvement plan, it’s not happening quickly enough for kids and parents who don’t have options, and for the first time in my experience, the money is there to get it done,” Parker said.

Parker: State should restore charter school reimbursements

The Philadelphia Board of Education is the sole authorizer of charter schools in the city. It has come under scrutiny concerning racial bias amid allegations from Black-led charter schools that board members have targeted them for closure.

Parker hasn’t said outright whether she wants the number of charter schools to grow, shrink, or stay the same. As a state representative, Parker signaled her support for a moratorium on new charter schools.

Parker said in her mayoral questionnaire responses that she would “insist” the state legislature reinstate the charter school reimbursement line item in the state budget that was removed by former Gov. Tom Corbett in 2011. The line item sent state funds to districts to compensate for “stranded costs” because some of their per-pupil state aid went to charters; about half the total went to the Philadelphia district.

Striking that line item “pitted public schools against charter schools unnecessarily by leaving public schools no way to defray the overhead and stranded costs that remained the same despite smaller enrollments,” Parker said in her questionnaire. “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.”

Getting more librarians into schools

Philadelphia had the worst ratio of school librarians to students in the country as of 2020, according to data from the Pennsylvania Association of School Librarians. The association said there were just six school librarians in a district with more than 125,000 students and 215 district-operated schools.

Parker said she “would ensure that every district school has a certified librarian by drawing upon our funding streams and using my voice to amplify the need for them being more prevalent in our schools.”

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.

Asbestos closed their Philadelphia high school. They still put on a show.

2023-05-01T18:52:57+00:00

Asbestos scare or not, the show must go on.

When Philadelphia’s Frankford High School closed in early April due to the discovery of loose, dangerous asbestos in the building, a cast and crew of more than two dozen students were working hard on a production of “In the Heights,” the musical about the hopes, dreams, and travails of young people living in the barrio in Washington Heights near the George Washington Bridge in New York City.

The show’s music director Rebecca Wizov couldn’t believe it. Of all the challenges that come with working in the Philadelphia school district, this was a new one. The students had been rehearsing since December.

But Wizov, a Frankford teacher, and Frankford Principal Michael Calderone sprang into action. “We went into full damage control, finding a venue to switch the performance to,” Wizov said.

Last week, their efforts paid off as the students put on an exuberant production of the show — which put “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on the map and was co-written by Philadelphia native Quiara Alegría Hudes — at Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School before ecstatic audiences of family and friends. They staged three performances on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

The journey was a “crazy roller coaster,” said Jaden Colon-Torres, a sophomore who starred as Usnavi, the open-hearted bodega owner who longs for his native Dominican Republic. “But we made it happen.”

After Frankford closed, the students first moved rehearsals to nearby Harding Middle School. Then, when the weather turned nice, they switched to the grand elevated space outside the main entrance of Frankford, a mammoth, nearly century-old building on Oxford Avenue.

The original plan was to put on the show at Fels High School, a little over a mile away from Frankford (which is slated to stay closed the rest of this school year as the district seeks an alternative space to resume in-person learning). Shortly after the school building closed on April 7, the district sent over vans to move the set pieces, costumes and props, but none of the school employees were allowed inside the building to retrieve them. Workers in protective gear were sent over to help.

“We had to make a detailed list.” Wizov said. “That was hard, but we were able to do it.”

The vans were on their way to Fels, Calderone said, when he got word that the sound system there wasn’t working properly. Calderone then called Patricia McDermott, Kensington CAPA’s principal who had previously worked with him at Frankford, begging her to let Frankford’s students perform the show at her school instead. McDermott agreed.

The vans “had left the parking lot,” he said. “We rerouted them.”

Kensington CAPA is more than four miles away from Frankford on Front Street, but thankfully, Wizov said, “super accessible by SEPTA.”

As soon as Kensington CAPA was secured, “We assembled to be able to do a Saturday rehearsal” at the new space mere weeks before the show was scheduled to open, Wizov said. The district let the school keep the vans to help transport students. Wizov and the other directors drove the vans themselves.

Calderone, meanwhile, was totally on board but also disappointed. He had been working for seven years to get a new sound system installed at Frankford, and it was finally finished six weeks ago. He was looking forward to testing it out on this show.

It wasn’t to be.

“That one hurt,” he said.

Reviving a Philadelphia school’s arts programs

Since Calderone arrived at Frankford in 2015, he had worked hard to rebuild the school’s arts program, a casualty of severe cutbacks forced on the school district a decade ago when former Gov. Tom Corbett and state GOP lawmakers slashed education spending.

“When I came we only had one visual arts teacher,” he said. “Our music teacher resigned right before the school year started.”

Not “an arts kid” himself — he played football at Archbishop John Carroll High School— Calderone gradually brought back instrumental and vocal music teachers, as well as instructors in visual arts, digital media, and ceramics, as education spending and the district’s budget saw somewhat better days during the administration of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

“I know how important it is for kids,” Calderon said. “I wanted them to have it. Ms. Wizov and [instrumental teacher Brittany Cramer] built this program from the ground up. I hired both as brand new teachers. It’s definitely something I tried to prioritize.”

Rebecca Wizov, the show’s music director and a Frankford High School teacher, during the show’s curtain call. Wizov and other school staff scrambled to make sure the students’ production of “In the Heights” could go on after the school building closed after the discovery of dangerous asbestos.

Dawn Madden has taught social studies at Frankford for two decades, and at Friday night’s show, the second of the three performances, she was helping take tickets at the door.

For the first seven or eight years of her time at Frankford, the school put on a play or musical every year, she said. After the school’s music teachers left, an English teacher organized a production a few times, she said. “Then, for 10 years, it stopped,” she recalled.

Under Wizov and Cramer, the school eased back into theater, starting in 2017-18 with a musical showcase. Then the next year, Frankford put on “Footloose.” “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” was scheduled for spring 2020, but then COVID hit. Last year, the school put on “High School Musical.”

Bringing back the annual play or musical has been transformative, Madden said.

“I saw some of those kids that weren’t participating in anything, I saw them light up,” she said. “That spark was just back. It’s an entirely different vibe than it was for those 10-ish years when … we were just sports and academics. Those kids who weren’t in sports felt kind of left out.”

She noted that special education students have also gotten involved; at Frankford, 31% of students have Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs. One student in an autistic support class is a member of the ensemble and enthusiastically demonstrated his break dancing skills.

“It’s just wonderful because all the students can access it in some way,” Madden said.

Frank Machos, executive director of the district’s arts programming, said about half the district’s 50 high schools regularly put on plays or musicals. “It ebbs and flows,” he said, with the availability of teachers and other staff, and their interests and talents.

Frankford does not have a drama teacher, but math teacher Michael Sherman directed. “He’s a bit of a thespian himself,” Calderone explained.

Frankford, with more than 900 students, is about half Latino and nearly half Black, with a smattering of white students. With “In the Heights,” students get to play characters much like themselves and people in their families, like the kindly Abuela who raised Usnavi. For example, Nina Rosario, the lead female role, has “made it out” of the neighborhood, but comes home from Stanford in despair that she will lose her scholarship (although it all ends happily).

Dreamerly Jean Louis, a junior who played Nina, immigrated from Haiti in 2020 and speaks three languages, although not Spanish.

“When [the asbestos scare] all started, I thought the show was going to get canceled,” Louis said. She said she is “just grateful” they were able to pull it off. While she has sung in public before, “this was my first time doing a long show.”

Sophomore Zion Owens played Benny, one of the main characters. As a freshman last year, he starred as Troy in “High School Musical.” For this show, “We did so much rehearsal, so much effort, we had to make sure it was perfect,” he said.

Colon-Torres had no theatrical experience whatsoever before taking on his demanding role. When he auditioned, he feared he would not be cast at all.

“This is my first time ever, first time on stage, singing, talking, everything like that,” he said. “It’s been nerve-wracking, but it’s been one of the most exciting things in my life.”

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.

From attendance to academics, two award-winning Philadelphia principals discuss how they lead

2023-04-24T19:37:30+00:00

Lillian Izzard grew up in the Philadelphia neighborhood around Edison/Fareira High School in a single-parent family with five siblings. As a high school student at a Catholic school in the 1980s, she watched the construction of Edison, grand and modern for its day, in awe.

A 33-year veteran of the school district, Izzard is now Edison’s principal. As hard as the assignment is — given that her students generally come from low-income backgrounds and must deal with issues including addiction and violence — Izzard couldn’t be happier. Since her appointment less than a year ago, she has helped create an equity coalition at the school and helped students build constructive social connections.

“I had always wanted to be here,” she said.

About a mile away, Amanda Jones works as the principal of Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary School, a K-8 school that serves as a feeder school for Edison/Fareira. Jones, the daughter of educators who grew up in integrated, middle-class Mount Airy, graduated from Masterman High School and has worked at the school for 10 years, where she’s overseen improvements in test scores and prioritized attendance and student government.

“The people in this building bring me joy,” she said.

For their work, Izzard, Jones, and five other principals won the Lindback Award for Distinguished Principals, the district’s most prestigious honor for school leaders. Each award, which the district presented last week, comes with $20,000 for principals to use to improve their schools. The two educators relish the chance to build relationships with families and children, and provide places of potential and stability, in one of the most challenging areas of the city.

When the principal’s job at Edison opened up last year, Izzard was principal of Fels High School in the Lower Northeast, a place she could have “happily retired from,” she said. But although she was initially reluctant to change jobs, she felt the pull of her old neighborhood and the challenge of leading Edison.

The school, in a neighborhood plagued by poverty, drugs and violence, has an enrollment of around 850, there is so much transience that many of the many of the students who started the school year at Edison aren’t the ones who finish it. Nearly a quarter of the students don’t speak English as their first language, and a quarter receive special education services.

After getting the job, she spent a month in the summer alone in the building, she said, planning and strategizing before teachers and students returned.

“I came with a vision. This is a school in my neighborhood that services a lot of students who look like me,” said Izzard, who is of Puerto Rican descent. “I wanted to create opportunities for them I would have liked to have for myself if I was a student here.”

Among the changes she made right off the bat: She reintroduced Spanish classes for native speakers, as well as Honors Spanish. She also took steps to integrate special education students into school activities, including into its media center and instructional trips to the community.

And the equity coalition she formed brings together students, staff, and administration to address community issues by “identifying and providing resources and opportunities” for those “who have been denied such from racial or gender disparities.”

Another major change she made of a different kind was to require students, and staff, to put their cell phones inside Yondr bags, which prevent them from being used during the school day. Despite some early resistance, the move has changed the school’s atmosphere. Izzard said teachers have told her how students are now more engaged in the classroom.

At the same time, she plans to use the Lindback money to create a “multi-purpose space” where students can expand their social networks, and explore how their passion for video games and other online diversions can lead to jobs in esports and the gaming industry.

“After months where students were not able to socialize in person,” Izzard wrote in a statement for the Lindback judges, referring to the pandemic, “gaming showed that students benefited by improving their creativity, memory and teamwork.”

”While she is close to being eligible for retirement, she said, “I don’t think I’ll be going out next year. I want to really take the school as high as I can take it before turning it over to someone else.”

Leading a school turnaround effort

Jones arrived at Muñoz-Marin as a teacher in 2013. Three years later, she helped fend off an effort to convert the struggling school to a charter as part of the district’s turnaround strategy under the School Reform Commission. She became principal in 2020.

Instead, she helped lead an internal turnaround effort that saw improvements in math and reading scores among students who, like Edison’s, live in a poverty-stricken neighborhood plagued by gun violence and addiction.

“We got new teachers to join the staff and introduced a new curriculum,” she said. “And we got a lot of funding that we didn’t have before.”

As principal of Luis Muñoz-Marin Elementary School, Amanda Jones has overseen an improvement in test scores and has used various strategies to try to improve attendance.

The money paid for more teachers, including interventionists for reading and math, a climate manager, a behavioral specialist, an additional counselor, “and mental health supports we didn’t have before,” Jones said.

Jones hasn’t just hired new staff, but kept educators at the school. This year, the district started the school year with more than 200 vacancies, but Muñoz-Marin had only one.

But the challenges in the school, which enrolls around 500 students, are great. Many of the students miss big chunks of the school year as families go back to Puerto Rico for months at a time. “Attendance is something we’re struggling with,” she said.

She has created incentives to encourage more regular attendance, including a family barbecue for those who met targets.

In addition, Jones has established a student government in which only students with good attendance are eligible. The student officers “are able to make decisions” about important issues, she said, and hold town hall meetings once a week.

While Jones comes from a family of teachers, she studied Communications at Bloomsburg University, changing her career focus after working with single mothers one summer. She said her experience at the school has helped her understand the importance of creating connections with the Muñoz-Marin community.

“It’s kind of interesting to lead in the building where you started,” she said. “For example, my eighth graders that are graduating, I was their kindergarten teacher. So I am very strong at [building] ties, especially with the families, just because I’ve been here for so long.”

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.

Damaged asbestos closed three Philadelphia schools this year. More could be coming.

2023-04-17T16:06:22+00:00

As Philadelphia education leaders confront a growing asbestos crisis, they also face a conundrum: The more they do to discover the extent of the problem and address it, the greater the impact on students.

And meanwhile, frustrated parents are demanding the district show them a way forward.

“What will be the plan in the future when these types of things occur?” said Sheila Johnson, whose daughter attends Building 21, which abruptly closed in March after the district discovered flaking asbestos and hasn’t reopened. “[District leaders] have already stated that yes, there may be other schools affected by this because of the older buildings. So what are you going to do?”

The recent discovery by inspectors that asbestos was routinely used in plaster in school buildings, which was not previously assumed, creates risk that the material could eventually become dangerous. And the accuracy of previous inspection reports that marked buildings safe with respect to asbestos has now been thrown into serious question.

Last week, Frankford High School and Mitchell Elementary School also closed their buildings to remediate flaking asbestos in plaster walls and ceilings. In letters to parents, district officials and the building principals said that both schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year and likely into the summer.

Such closures have spurred fears that a series of building shutdowns is looming in the district, where students are still trying to recover from disruptions to in-person learning caused by COVID. There’s also been a dispute between city and district officials about whether the district has kept parents and others adequately informed about asbestos-related issues, which have posed problems in aging Philadelphia schools for years.

After officials shuttered Building 21 — a small high school located in a 100-year-old former elementary school — due to damaged asbestos, most Building 21 students have been learning virtually. A few have opted for in-person learning at Strawberry Mansion High School, which is six miles away.

That virtual learning has not worked for many students.

“My daughter is sinking like a ship,” Johnson said of her 11th grader. She said virtual learning for two years during the pandemic pushed her child into a depression and now, the majority of her high school career will have been remote.

‘Incomplete or inaccurate’ reports on asbestos in schools

Scientific research has shown that breathing in asbestos fibers can cause certain diseases and increase the risk of certain cancers, including lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Previous estimates have determined that approximately 80% of Philadelphia schools were built prior to 1978 and are likely to contain asbestos. It was commonly incorporated into floor tiles, pipe insulation, and some paint and cement roofing in school buildings constructed prior to the 1970s.

A district statement on Friday said of the 321 school buildings in the city, 295 district buildings “have asbestos-containing materials.”

Undisturbed asbestos is not harmful, and it is only considered dangerous when it begins to flake. But other infrastructure problems — failing roofs, leaky windows, or faulty boilers that release steam — can compromise asbestos. And the district has suffered from years if not decades of deferred maintenance on buildings that on average are more than 70 years old — all of which makes the discovery that asbestos is also in most plaster more concerning.

Superintendent Tony Watlington said in a statement on April 7 that “in the coming weeks and months, we continue to anticipate that more damaged asbestos will be identified.” But the district’s facilities plan doesn’t say what it will do if more schools are closed for extended periods.

The most recent federally mandated report posted for Building 21 is from 2018-19, and showed asbestos in plaster at various locations, including the auditorium ceiling, but not throughout the school.

But the discovery of the material in plaster in Building 21 set off alarm bells, and spurred the district to retest in Frankford and Mitchell, the district said.

The plaster in Building 21 was for years marked safe by inspectors on building reports. The district now says those records were “incomplete or inaccurate,” throwing into question decades of inspection data.

Watlington, who is coming up on his first anniversary as superintendent, is facing a daunting challenge: The more the district investigates, the more damaged asbestos it’s likely to find. That means more school closures and asbestos remediation for a district that is already billions of dollars in arrears when it comes to facilities repairs, upgrades, and maintenance.

And according to the district’s facilities plan released late last month, 29% of its facilities workforce positions were vacant.

But what matters to Sonja Grant, another parent of a Building 21 student, is that “there was no consideration of parents” when the school first closed.

Grant said she wanted to respond to a survey, speak to school leaders at a roundtable, or otherwise open a dialogue with her school and the district.

But Grant said “they did not respect us enough or care enough to give us an option or ask ‘what would you like to see?’ or ‘how would you like us to move forward?’”

Philadelphia district response targeted by politicians

Asbestos is not a new issue for the district. In 2019 alone, several Philadelphia schools were forced to close because of damaged asbestos. In 2020, the district settled with a teacher who contracted mesothelioma for $850,000. And students and teachers have perennially fought for remediation efforts to make their buildings safe.

The federal Asbestos Hazardous Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, requires asbestos inspections in schools every three years. The AHERA reports, which are posted on the district website, say “NAD” — no asbestos detected — for most plaster walls and ceilings in Mitchell, Frankford, and Building 21.

Michelle Whitmer, an asbestos expert at The Mesothelioma Center who has written about the issue in Philadelphia schools for years, said plaster containing asbestos is considered a more dangerous type of asbestos product because of its “friability.” That means it can be easily crushed into a powder, releasing the dangerous fibers into the air.

That the plaster was originally noted as not containing asbestos is worrying, she said.

“To me that suggests that they may have not done proper testing to identify what was actually inside the material,” Whitmer said.

According to a district presentation to the City Council last month, the school system has a three-year, $24.2 million contract with Tetra Tech, a consulting and engineering firm, “to support and restructure the District’s Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act management program.” Tetra Tech took over management of the AHERA inspection process last August.

AHERA reports show Tetra Tech managed the Mitchell building inspection last December. Its report says no asbestos was detected in plaster walls and ceilings at the time. Investigators did detect asbestos in some floor tiles, pipe insulation and other areas.

Tetra Tech did not respond to several requests for comment.

In an April 7 statement, the district said identifying the problem is necessary and finding damaged asbestos is evidence of success.

“This is not an indication of the program failing, but rather the program is working to protect health and safety through the identification and management of environmental concerns,” the district said.

The statement also noted that the oldest buildings tend to have the most plaster, and that these buildings “have been prioritized in this plaster review.”

For some, that position represents an improvement in Philadelphia schools. Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said Watlington is being more “transparent” than leaders have in the past.

“So much over the years, has been swept under the rug,” Jordan said in an interview. “The buildings have been neglected forever. And I know that that sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn’t.”

Monique Braxton, a district spokesperson, declined to answer specific questions about long-term plans regarding asbestos removal and school closure.

But other power players in the city say the district has fallen short. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, a Frankford graduate, has suggested the city might withhold district funding until it shares a detailed asbestos plan, and cautioned that the district’s response could impact its state funding. And mayoral candidate Helen Gym blasted the district for “being reactive” instead of prepared.

“‘I’m just disappointed with the district in their handling of our children’s education,” said Johnson, the Building 21 parent.

Billions needed to address failing infrastructure in schools

The danger from asbestos in schools across the country continues to cause concern in the federal government and elsewhere. In recent years, there has been exposed asbestos in schools in cities like Chicago, New Orleans, and Berkeley, Calif.

In an interview, Mayor Jim Kenney said he was “disappointed” that the district had not alerted city officials earlier to the scope of the problem. “I wish we had known about this sooner,” he said.

But he added that the city is ready to help.

“I’m not an expert on asbestos, but we’ll do whatever we can to get these schools back online,” he said, which could include enlisting members of the construction trades to help with asbestos removal and abatement.

The district estimates that $4.5 billion is “required to address building systems that are either failing, damaged or beyond their service life.” Facilities reports say an additional $430 million is also needed to “address health hazards, risks, and life safety deficiencies.”

But regardless of what the district does next, parents like Johnson and Grant say they need to be at the table.

“We are rational people,” Grant said. “We want results and we want to be heard.”

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.

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

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Where Philadelphia mayoral candidates stand on education issues: an election guide

2023-04-13T18:05:33+00:00

Update: View the 2023 Philadelphia primary election results

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free twice-weekly newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

There are 10 candidates running for mayor of Philadelphia — a city with aging, asbestos-laden school buildings, serious budgetary needs, stubbornly low test scores, and a gun violence epidemic that has already cost the lives of 20 students and injured 100 this school year.

The mayor has no direct control over the schools, but does have the power to appoint the nine school board members. The current board members’ terms will expire when Mayor Jim Kenney leaves office, meaning that whoever takes office in January can remake the board from scratch, or can keep some or all of the current members.

While education has not been a major issue in the race, public safety, with a focus on youth and their families, has been high on voters’ minds.

Some differences have emerged among the candidates on key education issues, including charter school expansion, whether the district should get a larger share of city property taxes, and to what degree the mayor will seek to shake up the board and impact school policy.

The degree of mayoral control over the education in the city has fluctuated over the past decades and is now at its highest point.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the terms of mayoral appointees to the nine-member board were staggered to minimize the power of any one mayor. In 2001, the state took over Philadelphia schools, citing fiscal and academic disarray, and installed a five-member School Reform Commission, with three members appointed by the governor and two by the mayor. In 2018, the commission disbanded and the Philadelphia Board of Education resumed control over city schools.

To better understand each candidate’s views on key issues, Chalkbeat Philadelphia asked them 10 questions about education, including several questions submitted by Chalkbeat readers. Six of the candidates responded.

Here’s what they said, in their own words.

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.

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

This article is a part of Every Voice, Every Vote, a collaborative project managed by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute, Peter and Judy Leone, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Harriet and Larry Weiss, and the Wyncote Foundation, among others. To learn more about the project and view a full list of supporters, visit www.everyvoice-everyvote.org. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.

A week before students decide, Philadelphia’s selective high schools have hundreds of vacant seats

2023-04-06T21:30:17+00:00

A week before Philadelphia students are scheduled to decide where to enroll for ninth grade, 12 of the district’s selective schools still have a combined total of more than 700 open seats, many of which are likely to go unfilled.

The open seats, which the district reported in a statement Thursday, follow its implementation of a new lottery admissions system that was meant to bring more equity and opportunity to the process. But the system, which fully went into effect this school year, has also resulted in fewer students enrolling at many criteria-based high schools for the upcoming year. That trend has sparked concerns about forced teacher transfers, declining enrollment, and corresponding job cuts at those schools, as well as worries about some of the schools’ long-term viability.

The impact on faculty has led to several protests by students and teachers, one before the March 23 Board of Education meeting, and another on March 28 outside City Hall. The concerns are especially acute at themed and innovative high schools that serve mostly Black and brown students.

At its most selective high schools, including Masterman and Central, the enrollment historically has mostly consisted of white and Asian students, although there are signs that their demographics are changing significantly under the new system.

At its March meeting, the Board of Education announced the district would offer seats to 316 students who otherwise qualified for next year’s ninth grade in one or more of the schools but had not enrolled. The district subsequently held two information sessions to help fill those seats. But as of Thursday, just 61 of the 316 students had accepted spots.

Last month, Superintendent Tony Watlington acknowledged that the new process is flawed and said the district will try to improve it next year.

Watlington said he was reallocating $3 million from other parts of the district’s budget to minimize the loss of teachers. But he also said last month that principals ultimately make such staffing decisions based on available funding, a point the district has since reiterated.

Watlington said that only three criteria-based high schools would lose more than two teachers next year: Hill-Freedman World Academy, The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, and Girls High School, based on their teacher allotments and information from principals.

However, teachers from Science Leadership Academy–Beeber remain uncertain about how many teachers they could lose from their staff of 50.

Normally, Beeber would take 120 ninth graders, but for next year the projected number is about half that, said Alex Kopp, a math and computer science teacher at the school.

The lottery qualifies students based on grades, test scores (in years when they are available), attendance, and behavior. In past years, schools like Beeber were also able to interview students who came close to qualifying and appeared on paper to be a good fit for the project-based curriculum.

This year, however, they could not interview students to flesh out the class, he said. That change was part of the district’s effort to eliminate implicit bias from the admissions system.

If school staffing drops below a certain level, he might be unable to maintain his computer science and technology program.

Kopp said he respects equity as a goal for the new admissions process, especially for the most selective schools like Central and Masterman. But schools like Beeber could be adversely affected, he said, by “becoming less diverse and less able to serve students that would be highly successful” in their small, often project-based approach to learning. If that happens, “the school community suffers,” he said.

Among the 61 students among the 316 who decided to accept an offer to a selective school, the most popular were Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) High School, Franklin Learning Center (FLC), and Saul, the state’s only high school that focuses on agriculture.

Beeber was among the other schools students could choose from. Those schools included Lankenau, Motivation, Hill-Freedman, the three Parkways — Northwest, Center City Middle College, and West — and Girls High.

Students, who can apply to up to five schools, must inform the district of their decision by April 14.

Video by WHYY Movers & Makers.

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 school board seeking student applicants for advisory positions

2023-04-04T21:34:52+00:00

Attention ninth and 10th graders in Philadelphia district-run and charter schools: If you would like to be an advisory member of the Philadelphia Board of Education, you can apply between now and April 28.

For next school year, the board is making changes to its requirements for its non-voting student advisory members. Instead of seniors, it wants sophomores and juniors. And in addition to the two members, the school board plans to appoint an alternate.

The Home Rule Charter requires that the nine- member board have at least one student advisory member, but since 2018, it has had two.

The student members provide the board feedback about a variety of issues through regular reports, said Sarah-Ashley Andrews, the board’s liaison to the student advisory members. Each year, the student members have a different focus, from mental health to advocacy for more school funding. This past year, they participated in the superintendent selection process.

This year, the board is also making a special outreach to students at charter schools to apply.

“We are hoping one of the three spots goes to a charter student,” said Shakyra Greene, program manager for the board. “Charters are one third of the district, and it’s important they participate and have their voices heard.”

Of the more than 197,000 students who attend publicly funded schools in the city, some 64,500 are in brick-and-mortar charters, and another 13,000 are in cyber charters. Since 2018, only one student advisory board member has been from a charter school. (The five-member School Reform Commission, which governed the district between 2001 and 2018, never had student advisory members.)

Applicants need to have at least a 2.5 grade point average and “be actively involved in their school community,” according to the application.

The board is seeking sophomores and juniors to serve on the board next year “because we found seniors to be focused on the next stage for their lives,” Andrews said. “We don’t want that to be a deterrence and want them to enjoy their senior year.”

The current student board member is Sophia Roach, who attends the High School of the Creative and Performing Arts and is the editor-in-chief of the citywide student publication, The Bullhorn.

The board decided to add an alternate member because this year’s other student member, Love Speech, left the position for personal reasons. It’s the first time that has happened since 2018.

The addition of an alternate is “to make sure somebody is in place if one member” leaves, Andrews said. The alternate member will go through the same orientation process as the two others, and will be asked to attend all the board meetings, at least remotely.

At the March board meeting, Central High School student Jeron Williams II chastised the board for leaving Speech’s seat open.

“From day one, there was no plan to fill Love’s seat. The board has yet again shortchanged our students,” Williams II said.

Greene said that between 30 and 80 students have applied for the position in each of the past five years, and that the number has dipped post-pandemic. “The first few years, it hovered around the 70-80 mark, and we hope this year to get the numbers back up,” she said.

Student applicants for the positions are vetted through a committee that includes representatives from various youth advocacy groups including the Philadelphia Student Union, the Philadelphia Youth Commission, and UrbEd, as well as the mayor’s Office of Youth Engagement. These and other groups forward five finalists to the superintendent, who then chooses the members and the alternate.

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.

More school counselors would improve juvenile justice system for girls, Philadelphia DA says

2023-03-31T19:02:49+00:00

Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system needs an overhaul to more fairly treat girls who are arrested and provide them with effective services and prevention programs, according to a new report from District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office.

Far fewer girls in the city are arrested than boys, the report found, but they are more likely to be arrested for incidents that occur in school or at home — one in three, compared to one in five boys.

“Girls without question are in a unique position in the juvenile justice system,” Krasner said at a Thursday press conference releasing the report. “They are arrested in small numbers, and they are arrested for very different kinds of offenses.”

One of the main recommendations from Krasner’s office involving education is that there should be a ratio of one counselor per 250 students in city schools, down from the current ratio of one per 650. In March, the Philadelphia Board of Education passed a budget that provides additional counselors to the highest-needs schools, although it doesn’t go as far as what the report calls for. Doing so would require hiring 240 more counselors at a cost $17.4 million.

The report — “Overlooked or Overscrutinized: A Case Study of Girls’ Justice in Philadelphia and Implications for the Design of a Fairer System” — studied all juvenile arrests in 2019.

In addition, the report said that every school should have two counselors on staff, regardless of its size, “with at least one of these counselors identifying as a woman to ensure that girls have a safe space if they do not feel comfortable confiding in male-identifying counselors.”

The student-counselor ratio was decimated due to budget cuts a decade ago and has not been fully restored.

The study looked at all 2,242 youth arrests in 2019, and followed all the cases through their disposition as of the end of 2022, said Adam Serlin, one of the report’s authors.

He said that nationally, 69% of the juveniles arrested are boys, but in Philadelphia, 81% are boys. The data also shows a stark racial imbalance: While about half of the city’s population is Black and 23% Hispanic, 95% of the girls arrested are Black or brown.

Black girls in particular “are overpoliced,” said Philadelphia Public Defender Keisha Hudson. “They are perceived as more mature, more aggressive. They’re perceived as adults, in our schools in our justice system, and they’re treated that way. So I think this is an important first step.”

While boys make up the majority of youth in our system, “the number of girls is growing at a rate that should concern us all,” Hudson said.

“The most practical implication of this is … the existence of fewer programs and services for girls in the juvenile justice system,” he said. Most of the existing programs are for boys only.

The “gender skew” also leads to much less research on girls.

Students protest for change in the system

A group of about 50 students, male and female, rallied outside the building across from City Hall where the Krasner press conference was held. They demanded reforms to juvenile justice in the city.

“They are putting girls in jail for fights in school,” said Kendra Vandewater, executive director of the nonprofit YEAH Philly, which stands for Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout. It works with young people who have been impacted by violence to offer them services and reduce arrests. The group chanted “free our youth” and “stop judging kids as adults.”

Kassidy Tingle, 20, one of the protesters, said that she was arrested for drug possession at age 17 when she was a student at Camelot Academy, an alternative school for students who leave traditional high schools for disciplinary or attendance reasons. She said she was called racial slurs by the police and not given the help she needed.

“They take advantage of their authority and don’t respect us,” she said. “They don’t see us as humans.”

The data shows that more girls are arrested for assault than any other reason, 44%, said report co-author Ciara Sheerin. That’s nearly double the rate for boys. And a major reason so many girls are arrested is a provision in state law that labels as a felony any assault on a member of a “protected class.”

Under the law, Sheerin said, teachers and other school staff, including school resource officers, are considered a protected class. So a student who pushes a teacher or a school resource officer, even if there is no injury, has to be charged as a criminal assault, she said.

Marsha Levick, head of the Juvenile Law Center, noted that she wrote a law journal article 20 years ago on this topic. “It’s dismaying to note that ... things haven’t changed,” she said.

“It’s not enough to give everyone the same,” she said. “What we’ve learned over time … is that when we think about the involvement and interaction of girls with the justice system, they have very specific needs. And we can’t assume that what works for boys will work for girls.”

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.

Philly parents say schools don’t prepare students to thrive, want next mayor to prioritize education

2023-03-29T22:41:55+00:00

A large share of Philadelphia parents say schools are on the wrong track and the next mayor must exert more control over education, says a new report from the nonprofit organization Elevate 215.

The group, which awards grants for school improvement, polled 400 Philadelphia parents and guardians with children in district, charter, and private schools, as well as a handful of home-schoolers. Nine in 10 agreed that “a candidate’s plan for improving the education system in the city is key to earning my support.”

Nearly two-thirds of those polled feel that the city schools are “on the wrong track” — although only 27% feel that way about their own child’s school and just 42% said that Philadelphia high school students are well prepared “to thrive in life.”

The poll comes as the city prepares to elect a new mayor to succeed Jim Kenney, with the party primaries scheduled for May 16. There are 12 Democrats and one Republican running. Because the city has seven times as many Democrats as Republicans, winning the Democratic primary is considered tantamount to winning the election.

In mayoral forums around the city, public safety has emerged as the top concern; the city had 516 homicides in 2022 and already more than 100 this year, including several incidents involving students going to or from school.

Those questioned in the Elevate 215 poll were pessimistic about how well schools prepared students for the next step in their education or career. Just 46% said they thought students were well prepared to enter a four-year college and 44% said they were prepared for a full-time job. Just over half of those surveyed said that students were prepared for a two-year community college or technical school.

The Elevate 215 report emphasized the mayoral role in education, saying the mayor must “set a vision, appoint board members aligned with that vision, and be held accountable for student outcomes.”

Asked to rank their priorities in choosing a school, 91% said safety — both in and on the way to school — was “very important.” Teacher quality and curriculum and instruction followed close behind. Philadelphia parents have a lot of educational options; in addition to the ability to choose charter or private schools, parents can also apply to attend a district-run school outside their neighborhood.

‘We have to go back to listening to our parents and planning for what our students need to thrive in life,” said Stacy Holland, Elevate 215’s executive director, who previously ran the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia, its fundraising arm.

Elevate 215 started out as the Philadelphia School Partnership, which raised money from foundations and philanthropists and promoted charter school growth in the city, although it has distributed grants to schools of all types.

Besides setting a vision for improving schools, the group recommends that the next mayor “increase the number of high quality schools” by improving curriculum and services, developing a plan for modern facilities, improving student safety focusing on teacher recruitment and retention, and advocating for equitable state funding for city schools

A Commonwealth Court judge last month ruled that Pennsylvania’s system for funding education is unconstitutional because it creates wide gaps between wealthy and poor districts and ordered an overhaul.

Unlike every other district in the Commonwealth, the appointed Board of Education cannot raise revenue for the schools, and must rely on the city, state, and federal government for its funding. In Philadelphia, the district must plead its case before City Council every year. The district spends less per student than most surrounding suburban districts despite having students who are primarily Black and brown and come from low-income families.

Currently, about 38% of the district’s revenue comes from city sources, but the survey did not ask whether the respondents would support more local taxes to raise money for the schools. Now, the district gets 55% of the property tax revenue as well as money from the use-and-occupancy and liquor-by-the-drink taxes.

Several of the mayoral candidates said at a forum last week that they would support raising the district’s share of the property tax to 60%.

Holland said she would love to hear the candidates talk about creative ways to “fill the funding gap” for schools.

“Whether that is taxes, or more alignment with the city budget, being creative about filling the gap is something we should look for,” she said.

She said, “We’re educating a population of young people who are living in deep poverty and schools don’t have the resources to meet their needs. If we’re not owning up to that, what are we doing? [Concentrated] poverty changes the game, and we’ve got to rise to that occasion.”

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.

Students march on Philadelphia City Hall, district HQ to protest school selection process

2023-03-28T21:45:48+00:00

Carrying signs with messages like “keep the teachers” and “save our schools,” more than 50 students from Science Leadership Academy at Beeber rallied outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon to protest Philadelphia’s revamped high school admissions process.

Two years after the district unveiled that new process, there are roughly 800 vacant spots next year at 12 of the district schools that require students to apply. Without a full complement of students, the schools could lose teachers and face cutbacks in extracurricular and other activities.

“We’re here to protest how the school system is pretty much messed up,” said Daniel Vergara, a sophomore at Beeber.

Not filling all the available seats in the school “means students are losing out on an education that they’re totally eligible for,” said Miriam Corrales, also a 10th grader. And Matthias Duncan, a senior, said that the changes could result in larger class sizes.

“Teachers shouldn’t be cut. It’s unfair,” said Jade Perry, another Beeber senior.

The ongoing criticism from students and others comes after a similar protest last week in which students and educators said that the district’s admissions lottery, which officials overhauled in 2021, is essentially endangering the survival of several themed and innovative high schools in Philadelphia.

At Thursday’s Board of Education meeting — immediately following last week’s protest — Superintendent Tony Watlington announced that the district would audit the lottery system with an eye toward refining and improving it.

The 2021 changes to the admissions system centralized the admissions process and eliminated the role of school principals in recruiting and admitting students. District leaders said the new system would make admissions more equitable for students of color. Last year, there were early indications that the share of Black and Hispanic students at the city’s four most-selective high schools increased for this year’s ninth grade class.

In a statement last month, the district said the revised system would “eliminate subjectivity and potential actions of implicit bias from the school selection process.”

Last week, Watlington said that 316 students who have qualified for admission to at least one of 12 schools but have not yet enrolled for next year would be offered a seat. He also said he would allocate $3 million to ensure that no high school will lose more than two staff members, “subject to principal discretion.”

But those changes haven’t quelled all of the anger about the system. A petition started by students to protest the admissions system, which circulated after Watlington announced changes to the lottery last week, is scathing.

“Our education is at stake!” it says. It goes on to say that having a lower enrollment at certain high schools “will cause class sizes of 35-40 students, 2-10 teachers to be lost, less funding for schools, fewer electives, and numerous other consequences. Why must the youth suffer from the incompetence of the School District of Philadelphia?”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition had about 250 signatures.

The students want the elimination of state standardized test scores as one of the criteria for admissions. They are also demanding “a sufficient school budget” and “adequate resources for learning.”

At Tuesday’s City Hall rally, the students heard from student speakers, as well as Councilmember Kendra Brooks, whose daughter graduated from Beeber, and state Rep. Amen Brown, a Democrat who is running for mayor.

“I’m proud to see so many young people out here rallying,” Brooks told the group. “We need the voice of those most impacted by this to stand up and fight.”

The students then marched up Broad Street to the school district’s headquarters to continue their protest.

Assistant Superintendent Tomas Hanna said the district appreciates the students’ passion and hears their concerns. He also said a committee that includes parents, teachers, and students is examining the admissions process.

Keeping a human element in school admissions

In the current system, which the district introduced for the class that is now in the ninth grade, students list five schools they want to attend, and are entered into lotteries for all of which they qualify. That means some students may be accepted to more than one school and others to none.

Watlington and the board said that the 2021 change was made in the name of equity. Yet last week, Watlington also said it is important not to “completely eliminate the human touch” from the admissions system.

Under the old admissions process, the district said in a statement last month, “Students were selected who did not meet the established criteria for the school. We also know at some schools there is not sufficient space, and students who did meet the criteria for the school were not selected.”

Tanya Wolford, the district’s director of research, told the Board of Education at its Thursday meeting that in the 2018-19 school year, 2,429 students accepted an offer to attend one of the selective schools, even though only 1,270 met the minimum admissions standards.

Board of Education President Reginald Streater cited his own experience Thursday to illustrate the perception in the community of the prior system’s unfairness. He attended Germantown High School more than 20 years ago – and had no complaints about his experience – but said that his mother told him it would be futile to apply to Central or Masterman because “you had to know somebody” to be accepted.

But the Beeber students and other critics, including some teachers, say the new system hurts those it was designed to help if it results in schools that can’t meet their usual enrollment. At Beeber, 83% of the students are economically disadvantaged and 80% are Black or Hispanic.

“We need an education that is well-funded and well-rounded,” the Beeber petition says. “Our education should not be jeopardized because the people in power will not admit that their attempt at equity failed.”

While the most selective schools have strict requirements, many smaller high schools established relatively recently, including U School and the LINC, often recruit students who don’t have stellar academic records but school leaders think could benefit. That could account for some of the students who attend these schools without meeting all the requirements on paper.

Video by WHYY Movers & Makers.

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 schools chief announces changes to high school admissions after enrollment protests

2023-03-23T18:02:08+00:00

More than 100 students and some teachers rallied before the Board of Education meeting Thursday to protest how the lottery system for citywide and selective admission high schools is causing huge enrollment drops for many of next fall’s incoming classes.

The declines mean that schools will lose staff positions and many teachers will be reassigned, since teacher allotments are done in the spring based on anticipated fall enrollment. This will destabilize these schools, demoralizing both staff and current students, teachers said.

The centralized lottery system was imposed in 2021 due to concerns about equity and access for Black and brown students to some of the city’s most coveted schools. The lottery also represented an effort to address any “implicit bias,” officials said at the time. It replaced a longstanding process in which principals made the final admissions decisions from the pool of qualified applicants.

Officials said allowing principals to make those calls resulted in a preponderance of white and Asian students at schools like Central and Masterman, even though 80% of the district’s students are Black and Latino. The lottery system also gives preference to students from six ZIP codes that rarely send students to selective schools.

But this year, teachers say, based on current enrollment projections, the lottery process is having dire consequences for a group of themed and innovative high schools that serve mostly Black and brown students. Many of those schools have relatively small enrollments.

“How is this equity?” asked teacher Jessica Way, who runs a medical assistant program at Franklin Learning Center. At her school, there are slated to be 50 open seats in next year’s freshman class and enrollment is projected to dip from nearly 1,000 students in 2020-21 to fewer than 800 next year.

At Thursday’s protest, one student held up a sign referring to fears about staffing cuts at Saul High School. “Saul has no future with no teachers,” the sign said.

“We only have 55 new freshmen and we would normally have 150,” said Deonna Brown, a Saul sophomore.

In the wake of the protest, Superintendent Tony Watlington issued a statement — and then said at the Board of Education meeting Thursday — that the district will devote $3 million to ensure that no school will lose more than two staff members, “subject to principal discretion.”

Watlington also said the district will offer spots at schools with admission criteria to 316 students who qualify for one or more of the schools with admission criteria, but are currently slated to attend their neighborhood schools. He said at the board meeting that more eighth graders met criteria this year under the lottery system than prior to the pandemic, but added that “there are still kinks to work out.”

Board of Education President Reginald Streater, who with other board members watched the rally, said in an interview that the district plans to audit the lottery process and that it could change next year.

“Right now, we’re in Band Aid mode,” he said.

Before the intervention Watlington announced Thursday, the Franklin Learning Center was due to lose as many as nine staff members, Way said.

Elsewhere, teachers said that only 17 students are slated to enter ninth grade at Bartram Motivation, a small high school that offers research-based learning and dual enrollment with Harrisburg University, leaving it with 90 open ninth grade seats.

Other schools with severely under-enrolled incoming freshman classes include The U School, The LINC, Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, Hill-Freedman, and Saul, the state’s only high school that focuses on animal science and agriculture.

Because Saul was projecting such a small ninth grade class, it was slated to lose six teachers before Watlington’s announcement Thursday, and its agriculture program could be affected, teachers said.

At the same time, there are hundreds of students who are still awaiting school placements because they had no luck with the lottery and have shown interest in one or more of these schools.

For those criteria-based schools, in past years, school personnel would be able to interview students who may have fallen just short of qualifying — for example, they may have had good grades and attendance, but maybe two Cs instead of just one, or a score just below the cutoff on the state standardized test. This year, they cannot do that, Way said.

“Normally there was some wiggle room,” she said. “This year, there was no wiggle room.”

Several Saul students at the rally said they felt that low Pennsylvania System of School Assessment scores were the main reason for the low number of students in the incoming freshman class. Last year, the first time the lottery system was used, those tests were not a factor because they weren’t given due to the pandemic.

‘Kids are more than a number’

In the new, centralized selection process, eighth graders list five high schools and are entered into the lottery of all the schools for which they meet qualifications. Some students get into all five, some to none. The default for any student is their neighborhood high school.

The most highly selective, like Central and Masterman, have stringent grade, test score, behavior, and attendance requirements. The so-called citywide schools have less rigorous criteria regarding grades and test scores, but generally expect good attendance and behavior records.

Once students make their choices, wait lists are created and the process continues until all students are placed.

Some citywide admissions schools, like The U School, have no grade or test score minimums, but must build its class from students who show interest in its model and put it on their list.

Teachers say that the prolonged loss of in-person learning due to COVID is also contributing to the enrollment drop. For some small high schools like The U School, their very viability is threatened.

The U School was established in 2014 to serve students interested in an education that prioritizes personal relationships and real-world learning through internships and partnerships and has no academic cutoffs. The school’s pre-pandemic enrollment had been as high as 400. But based on current projections, the school could have fewer than 200 students when schools open in September and could lose four staff members.

“We rely a lot on school visiting and the [annual] high school fair, but all that stuff was shut down due to COVID,” said Donovan Hayes, a math teacher at The U School. “It’s hard to get kids to write down a school when they’ve never heard of it.”

He said that Principal Neil Geyette wanted to extend invitations to all the students who had put The U School down as one of their choices, about 137 additional students, but was told he could not do that.

Besides the medical assistant program, FLC offers a focus on dance, music, and other arts. Under the old system, principals could determine if students “had a natural interest in the majors at our school. We want kids [who can meet standards] of academic rigor,” Way said. “But kids are more than a number. If you take out the human equation, it takes away the ability to see our kids fully.”

Another repercussion concerns teacher recruitment and retention. The district opened the school year with at least 200 vacancies and is still struggling to hire enough teachers.

Sigal Felber has been working in the district for two years and teaches U.S. History to sophomores at FLC.

“One of the reasons I decided to come [to FLC] is its unique programs,” Felber said. Besides the medical assistant program, it also offers performing arts, visual arts, and business tracks. To Felber, it made sense to interview students to see if they were interested in what the school had to offer.

If FLC loses nine teachers, as was projected before Thursday, two of them will be from the social studies department. And because Felber is so new, “one of them will be me.”

This story has been updated.

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.

Mayoral candidates present their visions for improving Philadelphia education

2023-03-22T20:29:35+00:00

In Philadelphia’s first mayoral forum devoted solely to education issues, eight candidates presented a few bold ideas about funding, facilities, and safety, but avoided talking about whether they would seek major changes in district leadership.

The biggest influence that the mayor has over the schools is the ability to appoint the school board members, who in turn select the superintendent. But with all nine board members sitting in the room – and in fact, sponsoring the forum – discussion of how they would shape the school board was virtually nonexistent.

The terms of the board coincide with the mayor’s, so the new mayor can decide to keep current members or appoint all new ones.

Candidates Warren Bloom, James DeLeon, Derek Green, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker, Rebecca Rhynhart, and Maria Quiñones Sanchez attended the two-hour forum Tuesday night, half of which featured questions from students. Candidate Amen Brown stayed for one hour.

Jeff Brown and Delscia Gray did not attend. Nor did Allan Domb, who cited the board’s involvement as a deterrent. “I do not believe it is appropriate to participate in a forum held by a group I would have to make decisions about whether to reappoint when I become Mayor,” Domb said in a statement shortly before the forum convened. “There is no other forum I am aware of that is being hosted by mayoral appointees.”

At the forum, candidates made innovative proposals but didn’t fully explain how they would fund, enact, or otherwise see their visions realized.

In general, the candidates said all teachers should be paid more, to bring their salaries up to those in surrounding suburbs. Sanchez said that she would find ways to recruit more Black and brown teachers, including through additional incentive pay. Parker, meanwhile, said she would work toward year-round public schools and a longer school day.

Both these proposals would be costly and require some novel negotiations with the teachers union.

Gym said she wants to restore nurses, counselors, and school psychologists who were cut from schools in 2013 due to budgetary constraints and not replaced. She also promised to guarantee free transportation for students, including those who live less than a mile and a half from school and are currently ineligible for it.

She also proposed unifying the city and school district budget and “stopping the idea that we fund the number of teachers based on the number of students that we have, rather than on the learning environment students deserve to have.”

The current contractual maximum is 33 students per class in grades 4-12 and 30 per class in grades K-3, and teachers are allotted on that basis, although sometimes class sizes can go higher if there are vacancies.

“Every mayor before us has turned their back on our public schools or has failed to fulfill their promise,” Gym said.

The candidates also said they would advocate for more education aid from the state.

Bloom proposed taxing coffee as well as alcohol and tobacco to raise money for the schools. DeLeon called for more transparency in federal COVID relief money spending. And Rhynhart said her experience as city controller, city treasurer and budget director makes her uniquely suited to “get more money from the state” for the district.

She also said she will “appoint a school board that shares my vision for improvement and accountability in our schools.”

“We need a plan. We need goals. And then we need to measure success against those goals,” Rhynhart said

To help raise money for what would be costly proposals, Gym, Parker, and Sanchez said they would devote a higher proportion of city property taxes to public schools. Now, the schools get 55% of local property taxes. Sanchez noted that she had introduced in city council a bill to increase the district’s share to 60%, but it lacked support.

They also talked about redoing the property tax assessment system to ensure that people are paying their fair share; Rhynhart called the system “broken.” Philadelphia’s property tax is the single biggest source of local revenue for the school district.

Redoing that system, however, wouldn’t necessarily yield more tax revenue for schools.

Expressing frustration about the condition of school facilities, Sanchez said, “I am tired of debating the condition of buildings that we just need to knock down.”

Brown said in the first 100 days of his term he would “evaluate each and every school” building “to see what needs to be done, whether it needs to be knocked down, rebuilt, or if it’s a historical building, we’ll keep the building and relocate the school in that same area.”

“We shouldn’t have our students and our children learning in these horrible conditions where you feel like you’re in prison,” Brown said.

Green said he would improve communications between the city and school district. Earlier this month, city and school officials had a testy exchange about whether the district had been appropriately transparent about the safety of school buildings.

“We should not be seeing our tax dollars being used in a fight between two parts of our city government,” Green said.

Bloom’s position was one of delegation: at one point, he suggested he would appoint all of his fellow candidates to his cabinet and “adopt” their ideas.

All the candidates said public safety is a major issue in the campaign, especially for students and young people. They also noted how safe and effective schools are a key factor in determining the city’s quality of life.

DeLeon leaned heavily on his proposal for a Local Incident Management System to coordinate city responses to gun violence. Sanchez, meanwhile, said the city should have “an honest conversation around safety” and rethink the juvenile justice system that sometimes incarcerates children over misbehavior in school.

The system here “removes children from families more than anyplace in the world,” which worsens poverty and destabilizes families, she said.