Tag: Charter School Accountability

Board Must Respect Constituents’ First Amendment Rights

Board of Education Action Meeting:  March 28, 2024

by Lisa Haver

Over the years, we have seen people come before this board, and before that to the School Reform Commission, in order to advocate for better public schools. West Philadelphia community members showed up for months, asking that the board provide funds for pools so that children could learn to swim. Parents have come demanding that the board do everything in its power to remove the lead and asbestos and to make schools less toxic. Students have come to ask for mental health services, as many are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic lockdown. Just last month, PFT members led a rally before the action meeting, then in their testimony asked for an end to the oppressive and unfair practice that punishes them for taking their contractually allotted sick days.  Parents, students, educators and community members all come in the hope that the members of the board will hear them, respond to them, and do something to improve education for the city’s children. 

Outgoing Board Member Mallory Fix Lopez, however, sees them not as advocates but as impediments. Fix Lopez, during a presentation on the district’s lump sum budget, launched into a diatribe against “protestors” whom she blamed for the state’s underfunding of the city’s schools.  She claimed that when she attends “high-level” government meetings in Harrisburg, legislators cite news stories about the district as proof that the board and the district are “incompetent” and don’t deserve more funding. According to Fix Lopez,  people who may be “well-intentioned”  neither understand the issues nor know who they should be talking to about them. She said that when people “ask for things”–like pools,  libraries, schools, better technology, the end of leveling, more art and music, better ventilation in classrooms–they are actually doing it “with the intentional intent” to make the board look incompetent.

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Board Rejects New Charter Application

Board of Education Action Meeting: February 29, 2024
Members of the Caucus of Working Educators of the PFT present their petition for the end of the punitive 3-5-7-9 absence policy to the Board of Education (Photo by Lisa Haver)

by Lisa Haver

In a 6-3 vote, the Board of Education voted to deny Global Leadership Academy’s application for a charter high school. Board members cited numerous reasons for their votes, including the substandard proposed curriculum and the questionable affiliations with charter management organizations and legal firms. Two board members cited plummeting academic scores at GLA’s Renaissance charter, Huey Elementary. President Reginald Streater cited GLA’s failure to remedy an issue that the board cited in its previous denial–the organization’s claims that it was GLA but not really part of GLA.  As APPS’ Deb Grill said in her report about GLA CEO Naomi Johnson-Booker’s claim of non-affiliation: “That might be true if one doesn’t count the name, the academic model, the relationship with business consultants Charter Choices, and her position as CEO of GLACS.”  Grill, in her testimony, reminded the board that over half of the city’s charter schools are under-enrolled, thus there is no need for any new charter school.

The consideration of even one application for a new charter costs the district dearly in time and money. Two hearings preceded this decision. The Charter School Office must conduct an in-depth evaluation of the application and review hundreds of pages of attachments. CSO Director Peng Chao gives presentations to the board at several points in the 6-month process. At this meeting, Chao gave another extensive presentation on the GLA application, followed by a lengthy question-and -answer session from the board. In addition, the board’s deliberations just before the vote took over half an hour, and fourteen of the thirty approved speakers addressed this one topic. Three elected officials spoke in support of the GLA application.

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Board Message to District Charter Operators: No Consequences for Substandard Performance

Board of Education Action Meeting:  January 25, 2023

by Deborah Grill, Lynda Rubin, Lisa Haver

Board Caves on Charter Renewal                   
At this action meeting, the Board of Education sent a clear message to all charter operators in the district: no matter how inadequate the education you provide to your students, no matter how many barriers to enrollment you use to exclude children, no matter how precarious your finances–we will let you carry on. The Board disregarded the law and its own procedures and policies when it caved to obvious political pressure and voted unanimously to reverse its previous decision and renew Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School. Dawn Chavous, charter lobbyist and now co-chair of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s Education Sub-Committee, testified in favor of renewing the charter.  Board members offered a variety of rationalizations but never explained how this one charter managed to be reconsidered for renewal after two votes not to renew. As Lisa Haver pointed out in her testimony, the Board voted last year for non-renewal after an extensive legal process in which data and evidence were reviewed, public testimony was heard, and the charter administrators had time to explain their failure to meet standards. The Board was now reversing itself without presenting any new evidence or explanation, she said.  The Board’s round-robin of questions before the vote amounted to a charade in which they acted as if this was just another renewal consideration, not an unprecedented reversal that ignored all data and evidence entered into the record.  Only one Board member asked what would happen if SWLA failed to carry out the conditions listed in the agreement.  Charter Schools Office Director Peng Chao responded that they could note that in the next renewal evaluation in 2027. In other words, there will be no enforcement of the conditions in the agreement, which has set academic conditions even lower than those that Southwest had failed to meet in its last evaluation. Chao also stated that his office remained open to collaborating with the school to ensure they meet the conditions. No board member pointed out that the CSO can only do that by manipulating the current standards and conditions and that only the school’s administration and staff could make sure that their students received an adequate education. One board member, apparently unaware of charter schools’ enrollment limits, suggested that the school needed to get more students to boost finances. More funding for Southwest Leadership Academy would of course mean less funding for District schools. This 5-year renewal will cost the district a minimum of $10 million. When Board leadership claims, repeatedly, to be “child-centered”, it seems that doesn’t apply to children at substandard charter schools.

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Charter Operators Must Disavow Threats and Calls for Violence

Board of Education Action Meeting:  October 19, 2023

by Lisa Haver and Deborah Grill

For the second time in a week, charter operators held a rally in front of school district headquarters. At the first, State Senator Anthony Williams, speaking on behalf of the African American Charter School Coalition, targeted a district employee, disparaged Board President Reginald Streater, and called for violence at the next board meeting. Williams, a frequent beneficiary of charter supporter Jeffrey Yass,  accused Streater of harming children while acting “like he’s Mr. Black Man of America”. Williams also issued a veiled threat to Charter Schools Office Director Peng Chao, calling for his removal. He then incited violence against board members, district staff, and community members when he told charter supporters that he wanted to see “chairs flying around” at the next board meeting. 

No member of the Coalition disavowed Sen. Williams remarks when they returned to the steps of 440 just before Thursday’s action meeting. In her testimony, Lisa Haver reminded board members that this was not the first time that the charter operators had made unfounded accusations against Charter Schools Office staff and that the board failed then, as it does now, to defend them. She urged board members to have the “decency” to stand up for their own employees against these attacks. None of the board members responded. 

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