Lisa Haver reports from Philadelphia, where the Board of Education is getting involved in charter school shenanigans.
In this era of authoritarianism, the will of the people is too often subverted to the will of the wealthy and powerful. Despite polls that show a majority of Americans do not support the privatization of public schools, and the overwhelming defeat of voucher proposal referenda in several states, politicians have found a way to overrule the voters and impose anti-public school measures. And despite the growing evidence that an increasing number of the city’s parents are rejecting charter schools, including under–enrollment at over half of the city’s charters, Philadelphia’s Board of Education voted to approve a new application, one they had previously voted to deny. Their convoluted and dishonest justifications served only to underscore how much they had betrayed their constituents for the benefit of the politically connected special interests. That reason, among others, is why APPS members called on Mayor Cherelle Parker to ask for the resignations of the members of the board.
Last-minute Time Change Excludes Parents, Students, Teachers
In October 2014, the School Reform Commission, under Chair Bill Green, posted a small legal notice in the newspaper announcing a special meeting to be held the next day. At that meeting, the SRC voted to cancel its contract with the members of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Since that 2014 SRC meeting, APPS member Deborah Grill has checked the legal notices in her Philadelphia Inquirer every morning. Last Wednesday, she saw a small-print notice on page 2 of section B that the board had rescheduled Thursday’s 4 PM action meeting to noon. No reason was given. APPS members checked the board’s webpage which still posted the 4 PM time in several locations. We called the district; the person who answered told us (after confirming with another staff person) that the meeting would start at 4. The board posted no banner on its website. They issued no press release. They posted nothing on any social media outlet. The board told reporters that it had to address an item just added to the meeting agenda about a “time-sensitive matter” stemming from an “ongoing investigation” by the US Department of Justice. Any skepticism about the reason the board gave was confirmed when the first thing President Reginald Streater did after the meeting convened was to withdraw that item. The fact is that the board could have scheduled an emergency meeting at noon to consider that one item, as provided for in Board Bylaw 006, and still held the regular meeting at 4 PM. The posting of the speaker list indicated another reason: thirteen of the first fifteen speakers had registered to speak in favor of approving the new charter application.
Board Abdicates Role As Independent Charter Authorizer
The board’s 8-1 vote to approve the application for Early College Charter School (ECC) furthered its capitulation to the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the district’s neighborhood public schools. Project 2025, a conservative blueprint guiding President Donald Trump’s administration, calls for the expanded privatization of public schools. ECC’s founding coalition claims to want to educate children who live in the poorest parts of the city; their proposed location: Broad and Pine in Center City, one of the most affluent sections in the city. That property, the former Pierce Junior College, is currently assessed at $26 million. APPS’s analysis noted that the ECC application includes not one document showing community support in any of the 17 zip codes they target for recruitment and that the “letters of commitment” attachment includes no letters of commitment. Some of the board members attempted to justify their votes with blatant misinterpretation of the state’s charter law. Streater, in his convoluted remarks, blamed the charter law itself for ECC’s inadequate application. He repeated the false narrative that the board can only consider the contents of the application and is barred from considering the financial condition of the district. Streater and other board members actually addressed the founding coalition members in the auditorium directly, entreating them to do their best. The public witnessed the board, in effect, abdicating its role of independent authorizers and evaluators and taking on the mantle of supplicants to charter administrators.