May 17, 2015

Philadelphia Charter Change Question - School Reform Commission

I hate to say, the best kept secret seems to be this one of the four ballot questions for the upcoming May 19th primary -

I rarely get over to this forum but anyone who does hang out here and lives in Philly - take note! The state law that went into effect in 2001 that created the SRC and imposed it on Philadelphia, DID have a provision (that I looked up and found last year) that allows the city to revoke this idiocy and present its own plan for running the schools once more, as has always been done for over a century pre-2001. The SRC does nothing for the education piece of the school system, but essentially only looks at the "costs" (using the bullshit "business model" mode of operating), and to hell with obtaining the resources that are really needed (in a state with no funding-formula, and obscene differences between school districts in the state on how much per child is allocated while taking into account the cost of living in these areas). And the critical piece is that the city school infrastructure - much of it built in the late '20s/early '30s, is crumbling daily.