This week national media outlets couldn’t resist a flurry of Back To the Future references as we approached the mythical date featured in the 1985 movie portraying time travel to Oct. 21, 2015. Meanwhile here in Pennsylvania, it was a Back to the Future redux, as advocates continued their march to divert resources from public schools and shift them to private operators by creating a statewide turn around district despite all evidence against the merit of their plan.
We all recall in 2001, when then Gov. Tom Ridge and the General Assembly enacted a privatization plan centered around the recommendation of the for-profit Edison Schools Inc. for its own company to command both the Philadelphia School District administration and 60 district schools. At the end of the day, Edison’s scope was more limited. But even the reduced size rollout results were so bad that the for-profit company’s stock went from a high of $40 to 14 cents per share.
Now the Senate Education Committee Chair, Lloyd Smucker (R-Lancaster) is looking to open a new door for private public school operators by creating a statewide turnaround district that would force schools to be turned over to charters if they are among the bottom performing schools in the state. (His own bill ignores the fact that some of the schools in those bottom ranks are charters.) His push took a big hit this week when the head of the Tennessee turn around district resigned basically saying it’s much harder than you think.
In spite of evidence that state turn around districts are not showing the desired results, the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Senate Education Committee told the Inquirer this week that the Senate Republicans want to put $4 million toward an effort to create a turnaround district in Pennsylvania.
Julie Corbett, a consultant who specializes in turnaround strategies says: “Educators need to be thinking about dental care, health care, weekend jobs, child care for young moms, and the list goes on.” According to the Senate Republicans, 90,000 students would be in schools effected by the turn around district legislation. It’s pretty clear that $4 million, or a meager $40 more per student, is not going to cut it.
The fact is, we already have a bi-partisan agreement on a new school funding formula that has passed both the House and Senate twice. If that formula was backed by an appropriation along the lines proposed by the Governor, those schools would begin to get the resources they need to support and educate their students.
The redux of the privatization battles of nearly two decades ago isn’t the only bad movie that’s being regurgitated. At this moment, pols in Harrisburg battle yet again against new revenue to fund schools as they did in 2003 when the state budget wasn’t adopted till Christmas. The push for a “stop gap” budget that locks in a fifth year of the Corbett education cuts allows us to take our quirky metaphor one more step toward absurdity. It’s like Deja Vu, all over again.
Email and call your legislators and tell them we need a budget that takes us into the Future…not Back again.
They Got It Right…(a new weekly feature of the PCCY News)
… The New York Times
Advocate and Serve
PSD announced this week that they would not move forward with the Student Health Services RFP released in May. PCCY was at the table and we will stay there until this crisis is resolved.
Again this year, the Rendell Center invites Philadelphia area 4th and 5th grade classes to participate in thier annual civics essay contest, The Citizenship Challenge. For complete information on the Challenge, submission criteria, and prizes, visit The Rendell Center here.
Upcoming Grant Workshops for the Picasso Project
- Wednesday, October 28th from 4:45pm to 6:45pm: Frankford Library Branch, 4634 Frankford Avenue, 19124
- Thursday, November 5th from 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm: CONFERENCE CALL #1-605-562-0020 with Meeting ID: 674-155-812