Tag: Charter Renewals

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.

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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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Will New Board Leadership Bring New Priorities?

Ears on the Board of Education: December 15, 2022

by Diane Payne

Students, educators, parents and community members who attended this action meeting waited in vain for the Board to discuss solutions for problems that had been in the news in the past few weeks:  unsafe conditions at district schools, in particular Dobbins High school. Neither Board President Wilkerson nor Superintendent Tony Watlington mentioned the developing crisis.  The Board stayed silent on the Dobbins crisis at its November 17 meeting, even after a Philadelphia Inquirerstory published just the day before.   A December 9 Inquirer article quoted several district teachers about the administration’s failure to keep them and their students safe.  Why won’t Board members and the superintendent discuss these crises at public meetings?

This meeting saw a change in Board leadership, with Reginald Streater taking the reins as Board President. In addition, Deputy Superintendent Uri Monson, the district’s CFO for years, has been tapped by PA Governor-elect Josh Shapiro to serve as his Budget Director; this was his last Board meeting. Watlington has increased central administration staff to address “customer service” (a term steeped in a corporate, product-oriented mentality rather than public service). Maybe the Board and Watlington could begin to address improved communication with a “no-cost” effort to publicly address concerns like those mentioned here as a first step to engagement and transparency.

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Watlington Launches Administration with Questionable Contract

Ears on the Board of Education: June 23, 2022

by Diane Payne

Dr. Tony Watlington’s tenure as superintendent got off to an inauspicious start with his request to the Board, made before he was sworn in and granted by the Board without deliberation at its last meeting, for a major contract with Tennessee-based Joseph and Associates that came with a $450,000 price tag. The three-phase consulting project begins with the firm focusing on the “development and execution of a 100-day entry plan” for the new superintendent.  When the Board conducted its months-long superintendent search, with members of the community devoting significant time and effort, did they make their final choice with a caveat from the Board that Dr. Watlington was not prepared to take on the job as soon as he got here? Is this the message the Board and Dr. Watlington want to send the school communities—that their priority is not funding classrooms but outside consultants?  That a new superintendent wants to conduct business as usual? 

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