Category: Eyes on the Board of Education

Has the Board Made the District Better in Its First Five Years?

Preview: June 29, 2023 Board of Education Meeting

by Lisa Haver

uly 2023 marks five years since the reinstatement of the Board of Education after years of state control. Four of the nine original members still sit on the board.  What has the board accomplished in that time? Have they made education better for the city’s children? There are fewer school librarians than in 2018. Class size remains too high.  Standardized testing still determines where resources go and how students, teachers and schools are judged. Substandard charter schools continue to drain money, much of it for exorbitant CEO salaries. And when members of the public come to be heard on these and other issues, they find that the board’s speaker suppression policies bar them from speaking and give them a scant two minutes–if they are lucky enough to make the list. Recently, the board has actually barred members of the public from even entering the auditorium. What does the board tout as its biggest accomplishment? Goals and Guardrails, their new data system that labels schools “on-track” or “off-track”, and which they spend up to two hours analyzing every month.    

At this meeting, the board will vote on 104 official items and spend approximately $207, 084, 246. (Five items each cost $10 million or more, including Item 58 at $69 million.) Twenty-five of the items appear to be no-bid. Despite the number of items and the total costs, the board will still allow only 30 general speakers. 

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Funding for Classrooms, Not Consultants

 Eyes on the Board of Education:  December 15, 2022

by Lisa Haver

Irony, apparently, is not the Board of Education’s strong suit.  After imposing a number of speaker suppression policies, with no notice or explanation to the public, the Board now proposes hiring a firm for $70,000 to expand the district’s “capacity to engage families, students, staff and the overall Philadelphia community in authentic two-way engagement efforts.”  Are the Board’s action meetings not authentic enough?  The Board clearly wants to hear from a very limited number of families, students, staff and community members, and only for two minutes at a time.  The Board eliminated three of their four public committees, including the Parent and Community Engagement Committee, venues that were supposed to provide opportunities for more dialogue about issues of concern. The one remaining committee, the Policy Committee,  now meets only twice a year.  The Board’s Policy page does not even mention that there are meetings.  Governance by invitation is not a substitute for true public engagement. 

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Board Must Reject “Gag Order” Policies

Eyes on the Board of Education: January 27, 2022

by Lisa Haver

The January Action Meeting had been billed as a remote one until members of the community raised objections on social media. The Board reopened all District school buildings this year despite the lack of personal protective equipment, timely Covid testing, and adequate ventilation in classrooms, where there is no social distancing. Yet the Board, with a couple of exceptions, continued to hold only virtual meetings, with some Board members in the auditorium and others at home. Last month it was not clear whether Board Member Cecelia Thompson was present in any way as neither her image nor her name ever appeared. Every once in a while her voice was heard. Ms. Thompson spoke at a rally in Harrisburg earlier this month. There is no reason for her not to attend the Board meeting in Philadelphia. APPS expects all Board members to attend the January meeting in person.  The auditorium provides more than enough space for safe distancing. 

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Consultant’s Report Does Not Reflect Community’s Priorities

Eyes on the Board of Education:  December 9, 2021
by Karel Kilimnik

Why tell a lie when the truth is available?
Dionne Warwick

Almost every day we lose another Philadelphia student to gun violence.  Students from Feltonville, Strawberry Mansion, Fairhill and many other neighborhoods have been gunned down while walking down the street or waiting for the bus. Last month, APPS members stood with principals and other members of CASA to call on the district and city officials to act now to save our students.  APPS calls on the Board again to curtail or eliminate the Goals and Guardrails session and devote that time to finding a way to protect our students. Start by saying the names of the children we have lost just this month.

Rather than engage in true dialogue with the public, the Board contracts with public relations firms, consultants, and multinational professional services companies such as Accenture. Community engagement now means hiring outside vendors to hold public meetings that are highly scripted, then issuing a report based on selected comments. The Board and its consultants, in this case Brownstone Public Relations, have produced a glossy document rife with corporate language, devoid of educational knowledge or expertise, that looks and sounds more like a stockholders report than one about educational leadership. In fact, the first 17 pages of the 27-page report have nothing to do with the superintendent search. The obvious exclusion of community comments that were critical of the Board and its selection process serves to exacerbate the broken links between the Board and District stakeholders–parents, students, school staff, and the community. Outsourcing public engagement simply widens the divide. Last year, the Board implemented speaker procedures that limit the number of speakers (both student and adult) and shorten the allotted speaking time. APPS members attended many of the “listening sessions” but none of our comments are included–for example, that the Board should not consider any candidates trained at the Broad Academy.

Continue reading for description and analysis of Action Items