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Eyes on the SRC: June 15, 2017

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by Karel Kilimnik
June 11, 2017

The district continues to cry poor even as it accelerates the flow of money into the pockets of vendors, charter school operators, consultants, and pseudo-research entities like Cambridge Education, thus diverting funds which should be spent on services to our students. APPS has reported on this alarming escalation for the past two years of writing our Eyes on the SRC. Outside law firms continue to harvest public money. Who is really transforming education—entrepreneurs or educators?

Cambridge Education returns to drain more money from the District to conduct more “school quality reviews”. Their shoddy work provided the justification for the changes to 11 schools thrown into the Priority School category, Dr Hite’s latest plan for “transforming” schools” or to be more accurate forcing teachers out of their schools and destabilizing school communities.

Not only has the district failed to negotiate a contract with PFT, they continue to create chaotic conditions in our schools by forcing teachers to transfer from one school to another under the guise of “turning around” schools. The goal of the Hite administration appears to be destabilizing schools.

Dr Hite has announced his plan to close three neighborhood schools every year starting next year. This while the SRC approves more substandard charters. Where will the students and teachers of these schools go? Does Dr. Hite care?

We urge all of those who have been displaced by school closings—and those who will be—to come to APPS’ Requiem for Philly’s Closed Schools Thursday June 15^th at 3:30 as we remember the 29 neighborhood schools shuttered since 2011—and stop the district from closing more.

What If…?

What if the $19 million in contracts to vendors for the purpose of outsourcing district services were funneled back to the schools? CFO Uri Monson, in answer to a question from Commissioner Green, stated that it would cost $24 million to replace the librarians in every public school. $19 million would cover 75% of that. The priority of the SRC is to enrich private vendors by outsourcing and redundant “research” reports, not to enrich the education of our students.

If the SRC approves all resolutions, as it usually does, they will spend $205 million at this one meeting.

Next SRC Action Meeting: Thursday, June 15, 4:30 PM. The SRC has also scheduled one for Friday, June 30 at 4:30 PM. No explanation of why they need to hold a meeting on Friday of the 4^th of July holiday weekend. To testify, call 215 400 4180 before 3 PM the day before the meeting.

Note: After the completion of this edition of Eyes, the SRC posted additional charter renewal resolutions late Friday afternoon. We will try to keep you updated on this. See KIPP resolution at the end of the resolution list.

Click here to see Resolutions of Note and the APPS analysis.

School Reform Commission still a destructive agency

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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

Ears on the SRC: May 25, 2017

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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

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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.)