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School Reform Commission still a destructive agency

lisa-haver-2

by Lisa Haver
published in the Philadelphia Daily News – June 8, 2017.

In April, the Inquirer/Daily News conducted a reader survey on whether City Council should hold hearings on Council’s $17 million budget. No surprise that most who responded voted “Yes.” Taxpayers want to know how elected officials are spending their money, and they want to have their say about it.

Most Philadelphians probably feel the same about appointed officials, especially those who hold the purse strings on a budget that totals almost $3 billion. The School Reform Commission, after 16 years of everything but reform, continues to earn its reputation as the city’s least transparent, most destructive governmental body, second only, perhaps, to the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

My reader survey would ask these questions:

Should the SRC release the district’s $2.9 budget before the public hearing?

The district’s first official budget hearing on April 20 opened with the unveiling of its lump-sum budget. Alliance members who requested that it be released before the meeting, so that the public could review it and ask informed questions, were told by the SRC that it was “ever-changing” and would not be available until the meeting.

Should the SRC hold hearings on contracts over $10 million? How about $50 million?

At its Feb. 16 meeting, the SRC approved two contracts for food services totaling $90 million. No hearings were held; there wasn’t even a staff presentation at the meeting itself. In March, the SRC renewed its contract with Durham bus service, again without deliberation, for $69 million. A subsequent news story revealed that the district had just sent this company, which it hired after outsourcing all of its bus services, a legal notification that it was in breach of contract. Several parents had complained in writing and at SRC meetings that their children were not being picked up on time or at all several days a week.

Should the SRC hold hearings on reviewing and amending its official policies at 9 a.m.?

The newly created Policy Committee has scheduled its meetings for a time when the teachers who must implement the policies, and the students and parents who will be affected by them, are unable to attend or provide any insight on how the policies could best be formulated and carried out.

Should the SRC be allowed to vote without telling the people exactly what they are voting on?

The SRC has decided that in some cases it will reveal only the topic to be voted on. Full resolutions are composed and posted after the meeting. The official SRC minutes then report that those are the resolutions they actually voted on. Like to see City Council or the state Legislature try that one.

Should the SRC be allowed to ignore its own rules?

At an April meeting with only three commissioners present, one left early, without notice; the SRC, in violation of its own bylaws, continued without a quorum. At a meeting the following week, the same commissioner left again, missing not only most of the public speakers but an hourlong staff presentation on the sole topic under consideration.

Should the SRC schedule a meeting in which it plans to decide on renewals of 23 charter schools with less than a week’s notice?

The district’s budget shows that it will spend $894 million — about one-third of the budget — on charters next year. Shouldn’t the SRC allow enough time for those paying the tab to read the reports? They may want to ask why schools that have met none of the standards are being recommended for renewal.

Should the SRC publicly deliberate before voting on significant financial, academic and policy resolutions?

The SRC approved contracts totaling $149.2 million at its February meeting; it spent $173.1 million in March. Resolutions are voted on in batches of 10 or 15, with little explanation of why.

How do we reform the School Reform Commission? By abolishing it. Philadelphians have the right, as all other Pennsylvanians do, to decide who will represent them on an elected school board.

Lisa Haver is a retired teacher and co-founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools.

Also see:
Lisa Haver: It Is Time to Establish Democratic Control of Philadelphia’s Public Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog – June 9, 2017

APPS News: June 2017

by Karel Kilimnik
June 7, 2017

Fighting the Normalization of Turmoil

Every year, Dr Hite introduces his latest “turnaround” plan. Over the past four years, we’ve seen the Transformation Plan, the Renaissance Plan, the Redesign Plan, the Innovation Plan. This year: Priority Schools. And with that the instability resulting from forcing the transfer, without cause or due process, of most teachers and some principals.

In addition, Dr Hite has said, in SRC meetings and before City Council, that he intends to close three schools a year for at least the next five years.

Fifteen more schools to be shuttered, thousands of students relocated, relationships disrupted, and vacant buildings becoming eyesores in our neighborhoods—or sold to developers to turn into private housing/commercial spaces or handed over to charter school operators.

We must stop the dismantling of public education in Philadelphia.

To that end, we want to honor the 29 schools closed since 2011. These neighborhoods are still reeling from the loss of long-established neighborhood schools. It’s time to stand up for our neighborhood schools. Linked is our flyer for the Requiem for Philly Schools Vigil to be held before the June 15 SRC meeting. We are ask people to wear black as we mourn these losses. There will be a display of tombstones (one for each school) displayed in front of the administration building. We are asking people to tell their stories at the SRC meeting about losing their neighborhood school. Call 215 400 4180 by 3 on Wednesday, June 14, to sign up to speak.

Changing Speaker Policies to Stifle Public Voices

APPS members attended and testified at three SRC meetings in May: two regularly scheduled action meetings, plus one called with less than a week’s notice to rush through several charter renewals. At its April 27 meeting, the SRC passed a resolution to limit the number of speakers to 24 at its next meeting.

Turns out that they meant 24 speakers from the community. A separate group of charter operators (no limit) was able to speak at the beginning of the meeting. The SRC also violated its own speakers policy by allowing one school, Laboratory Charter, to sign up for 14 of the 24 slots. Two of the five commissioners took pains to inform Laboratory Charter School supporters (recommended for non-renewal by the Charter School Office) of how they can get their charter renewed. Where was this support for Wister School parents faced with their school being turned over to Mastery Charter School last year?

New Idea for City Council

APPS members Lynda Rubin, Barbara Dowdall and Lisa Haver testified at City Council’s May 17 hearing on the school district’s budget. Lynda urged Council members to pay closer attention to the questionable spending priorities of the SRC. APPS members will be urging every member of Council’s Education Committee to send a staffer to observe and report on all SRC meetings.

District Losing More Qualified Teachers

One thing we can count on at every SRC meeting? Funds will flow into the pockets of consultants, corporate non-profits, faux teacher training programs, and various other vendors. Dr. Hite has announced his intent to recruit 1,000 new teachers. District teachers have been working for over 1,300 days without a new contract. Several have testified that they simply can no longer afford to work in the district and have been forced to leave for economic reasons. Dr. Hite’s highly promoted campaign to recruit teachers reflects this exiting from the district. Meanwhile, professional development that was done in-house is now being outsourced for millions, and the unaccredited Relay School continues to win contracts from the District.

Speaking Out Sometimes Gets Results

At the April 20 Budget Meeting APPS member Lisa Haver raised the issue of the public needing help understanding the district’s multi-page budget. CFO Uri Monson, after several conversations with Lisa, issued a “Budget 101” so that the layperson can understand where the money comes from and how it is spent. This multi-page, graphic tutorial is available on the district website.

The newest SRC Commissioner, Estelle Richman, attended this session sitting at the official table instead of watching from the audience.

APPS members continue to testify at all SRC meetings. We are joined by activist parents and community members who cannot remain silent during this assault on our public schools. See testimonies from May 18th and May 25^th.

Where Oh Where are the May 25 SRC Resolutions?

For days the only thing to be found when looking for the resolutions was one word: PENDING. Two days before the meeting, only three budget items were posted. Wednesday morning (the day before the meeting) saw an additional seven items listed, including one to approve a revised application for Deep Roots Charter School. This application was denied at the February SRC special charter meeting, but not before the applicants were encouraged by commissioners to reapply. For the result, see APPS Ears on the SRC: May 25, 2017. You might ask yourself where this supportive advice is when neighborhood schools are slated to be “transformed” or shuttered.

Calendar

June 6: PSN fundraiser

June 7: Our Cities/Our Schools Forum on Abolishing the SRC
6 to 8 at Berean Institute 19^th & Girard Avenue

June 15: Requiem for Philly Schools Vigil @ 3:30 PM before SRC meeting

June 30: SRC Action Meeting @ 4:30 PM

Ears on the SRC: May 25, 2017

SRC 5-25-17 edited

by Diane Payne
June 3, 2017

This regular Action Meeting of the SRC had been scheduled for the specific purpose of voting on the FY 2017-18 budget. In the three days before the meeting, however, several items were added, including the unannounced reconsideration of Deep Roots charter, whose application was rejected 3-1 in February. All five commissioners attended.

Eight APPS members gave testimony in defense of public education.

SRC’s Willful, Continuous Violations of the Letter and Spirit of the Sunshine Act

The 2016 Commonwealth Court-ordered settlement of the suit brought by APPS after SRC violations of the Sunshine Act stipulates that resolutions must be posted two weeks prior to each meeting. Unfortunately, there have been repeated violations of this settlement agreement by the SRC. The resolution summary for May 18 was not posted in time. Some resolutions have only a title, but no description, which was the case for all of this meeting’s resolutions with one exception. In the case of the charter school resolutions, the SRC now designates every charter amendment—new applications, renewals, amendments—as “quasi-judicial’, then uses that unexplained designation as justification for 1) not providing full resolutions and 2) discussing charter business in executive session instead of in open meetings. APPS has repeatedly questioned the legality of hiding information from the public regarding the crucial actions on charter school applications, but the SRC continues to stonewall. This SRC changes policy on a whim (the number of speakers at the May 1^st meeting was limited to 24 total, and half were from one school), breaks its own rules (conducting the April 27^th and May 1^st meetings after Commissioner Green left the meeting in violation of policy 006.1), and ignores the Sunshine Act—all the while paying lip service to transparency and community engagement.

The Deep Roots Charter Sham

This issue alone shows the depth of the corruption of the SRC. Their actions before and during the meeting on Deep Roots leave no doubt that it has, and will, put the interests of charter operators and investors before those of the students, parents and communities.

The SRC waited until three days before the meeting to post a resolution (with no text, just a title) to vote on a revised Deep Roots application—which has yet to be released by the district. There was no explanation of why this charter company was back only three months after it had been rejected. In fact, the Charter Office director acknowledged that there were “no substantive differences” between the first application and the revision.

APPS’ Deb Grill repeated many of the same points she made in February about the obvious inadequacy of Deep Roots’ curriculum, teacher recruitment, ELL resources, etc. She noted, again, that Logan Blyler, the school’s projected instructional leader, has only five years teaching experience, all in charters. He has no principal or administrative certification, although he is allegedly pursuing one at the “School Leader Fellow” program with Jounce Partners, a program comparable to that of Relay Graduate School. Jounce’s program is new, untried and lacks any evidence of success. Deb reminded the commissioners of the intense, scripted teacher coaching plan which can only result in high teacher attrition. Those teachers, in the revised application, would actually be paid less to work a 12-month year with only short breaks. Deep Roots’ mission statement says it will teach “motivated” students without addressing how to motivate the others.

The new proposal increases the allocation for nursing services by $30,000. Nursing services are outsourced with an unnamed health services provider to provide mandated health screening and other services in the Pennsylvania School Code. A nurse will be at the school several days a week. To pay for this, they reduced the salary of teachers from $50, 00 to $47,500. This includes an extended year for students and teachers of 188 days and 20 days of professional development for teachers.

The application actually invokes both Restorative Practices and No Excuses models without acknowledging that they are contradictory; this was cited by the hearing examiner in January as an indication that the application was a cut-and-paste from other charters, particularly KIPP. Deb asked whether those commissioners who had worked with Deep Roots board member Sophie Bryan would recuse themselves. Bryan served in several high-ranking positions in the district, including the Superintendent’s and Charter offices. She also served as Green’s chief of staff when he was in City Council. (No one abstained when the vote was taken.)

Karel Kilimnik told the SRC that Deep Roots’ application had “holes big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through”.

Click here to see the Charter Office’s reevaluation of Deep Roots.

SRC Perpetuates Expensive Farce

Click here to read the rest of the post.

Defenders of Public Education testify at the May 25th SRC meeting

SRC 5-25-17

On May 25th, 2017 the Philadelphia School Reform Commission met to vote on the budget for the 2017-18 school year.

See In surprise. SRC approves Deep Roots charters with conditions | The Notebook – May 25, 2017 (read Lisa Haver and Rich Migliore’s comments) and
Philly’s SRC approves nearly $3 billion budget | Inquirer – May 25, 2017

This is testimony of parents, teachers and members of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools in defense of public schools at the meeting

Click on each of the pictures below to view individual videos. Speakers are in order of appearance at the SRC meeting.

Click here to see all eleven of the videos.

Note: The problem with the camera angle and interruptions in the field of view are due to placement of the camera. The SRC has confined our camera to a “press box” which is located in the middle of the audience thus the quality of the video.

Testimony of community member Tomika Anglin at the May 25th SRC meeting.

Tomika Anglin SRC testimony pic 5-25-17 — Click the picture to view the video.

Testimony of community member Mama Gail at the May 25th SRC meeting.

Mama Gail SRC testimony pic May 25, 2017 — Click the picture to view the video.

Testimony of teacher Robin Lowry at the May 25th SRC meeting.

Robin Lowry SRC testimony pic May 25, 2017 — Click on the picture to view the video.

Testimony of APPS member Lisa Haver at the May 25th SRC meeting.

Lisa Haver SRC testimony pic 5-25-17 — Click on the picture to view the video.

Testimony of APPS member Debbie Grill at the May 25th SRC meeting.

Debbie Grill SRC testimony pic 5-25-17 — Click the picture to view the video.

Click here to read the transcript of Debbie’s testimony.

Testimony of community member John Temple at the May 25th SRC meeting (including a comment by Commission Green about John’s testimony at the end of the meeting.)