Category: Charter School Accountability

Board Caves on Tax Abatements for Developers

Education Meeting, September 21, 202

by Lisa Haver

Members of the board paid tribute to two educators who passed away this week:  Temple President JoAnn Epps and former district superintendent Constance Clayton.  Board President Reginald Streater proposed that the board vote to name district headquarters “The Constance E. Clayton Education Center”. This type of action deserves more time and consideration. There have been many notable Superintendents and Board Presidents, including Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre, the first African-American president of the board.  As APPS member Barbara Dowdall pointed out in her testimony, Dr. Clayton was a strong supporter of school libraries and worked during her term to put a Certified Teacher Librarian in every school. Now, fewer than five schools have full-time librarians. The board can honor Dr. Clayton by restoring school librarians with full-time teacher librarians to every school. 

Continue reading

More than Half of Philadelphia’s Charter Schools Are Under-Enrolled

by Lisa Haver

In recent months, promoters of school choice lobbied Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to expand the state’s voucher program to include the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success Scholarship Program (PASS) which would divert an additional $100 million from public school districts to private schools. Already established voucher programs in the state include the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit and  the Education Improvement Tax Credit.

Shapiro, after intense pressure from public school advocates, reversed his position and signed the state’s $45.5 billion budget without the voucher provision. 

School choice proponents claim that public school students are “trapped” in failing schools, trying in vain to find an alternative.  A recent Sunday Inquirer editorial, written by wealthy suburban backers of more privatization of the city’s schools, painted public schools as “cages” from which children could not escape.  The only solution, they claim, is to take funding for public schools and give it to individuals to use as tuition to attend private schools. Their version of school choice does not acknowledge that the choice is not the families’ but the schools’–who can reject any applicant without explanation and can discriminate against students on the basis of sexual identity.  Most voucher money would go to students already attending religious and exclusive private schools.  Education policy expert Josh Cowen  writes that a decade of research indicates that  vouchers actually lower academic achievement. 

Continue reading here

APPS Scores Victories for Public School Advocates

Board of Education Action Meeting: August 17, 2023

by Lisa Haver and Deborah Grill

APPS members scored a significant victory in its fight against the Board of Education’s speaker suppression policies. APPS, joined by the student advocates of UrbEd, filed suit against the board in 2021 after it capped the number of speakers at board meetings and cut speaker time from 3 minutes to 2. The case was heard in court earlier this year, and the judge issued a split decision earlier this month. The judge agreed with the position of APPS and UrbEd that the board should keep a waiting list for those who signed up to speak but didn’t make it onto their limited list of 30. Board President Reginald Streater announced that in keeping with the judge’s ruling, the board would allow anyone attending in person to sign up to speak;  in the event that one or more speakers did not show, they would be called up. One community member did sign up at the meeting and was able to testify in favor of the community garden at Steel Elementary School. 

In another victory for APPS members and the community, the Board of Education announced that it would no longer be spending two hours of every monthly action meeting to analyze the data collected that month in its Goals and Guardrails program.  APPS members had asked the board several times–in meetings, in letters and in testimony–to conduct the G & G analysis in a separate venue. Last year, we lobbied the board to place public speakers before the G & G; the board finally relented. The board still needs to hear from speakers earlier in the meeting: in both June and August meetings, speakers were not called up until 9 PM. And even without the G & G,  neither meeting adjourned until 11 pm. 

Continue reading

Philadelphia’s school board must take charter school standards seriously — and act when they’re not met | Opinion

Some charter operators continue to rake in six-figure salaries — higher than the district superintendent — despite documented failures.

The following commentary was written by APPS co-founder Lisa Haver and published in  Billy Penn on August 16, 2023

The playground at Universal Daroff Charter School, which closed just before the 2022-23 academic year began. (Aubri Juhasz/WHYY)

At its action meeting this Thursday, the Philadelphia Board of Education will vote on whether to approve 5-year renewals for up to 19 charter schools. 

Unlike other local districts, Philly’s school board holds no public hearing to review the performance of charters before deciding whether it’s beneficial to students and the community to fund them for another five years. Rarely does the board vote for non-renewal. 

The projected cost of renewing all 19 schools up for a vote, based on the district’s 2022 budget, is more than $470 million over the next five years. Of the 14 charters the board has already indicated it will renew, eight failed to meet academic standards. Instead, their rating falls in the Charter Schools Office’s middle category, “approaches standards,” which allows schools that score above 45% to squeak by.

Continue reading