A week ago the School District released the draft of its most recent 5-year strategic plan: Imagine 2014.  The Student Success Centers that PSU designed and fought for and that now exist in 10 high schools will be replicated to every high school.  Smaller class sizes and more guidance counselors are also long-standing demands that will finally be met.  These are reasons we have to celebrate that student and parent voices are being taken seriously by the new administration. 

However, we also feel a sense of déjà vu.  In 2001 the management of schools was opened to the public through a process whereby outside entities could apply to run schools.  The ‘diverse provider model’ was preached as the solution to the problems of low-performing schools.  Seven years and over a hundred million dollars later, six contracts were taken away from managers, including four from for-profit Edison Schools, and another 20 contracts were given one additional year of probation because of lackluster performance. 

Every five years or so we have a new district administration.  Our current leaders were not directly involved in the previous failures, but the community does not have amnesia.  We can now look back on the “Philadelphia Experiment” with the understanding that quality public schools have certain things in common – qualified and experienced teachers, small class sizes, a positive school climate, and student and parent voice – not a specific management model.   

Imagine 2014 also talks about shutting down low-performing schools and replacing them with charters, a strategy which seems to be lifted directly from Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 plan.  That plan originated with the Commercial Club of Chicago, a business organization that intended to create new schools as “neighborhood anchors” in areas with rising real estate values.  In the just-released study, “The Charter Difference: A Comparison of Chicago Charter and Neighborhood High Schools” findings so far from the Chicago plan indicate that charter high schools enroll fewer low-income students, only half as many English language learners, and fewer students with special needs than the remaining neighborhood schools.  Additionally, teacher qualifications were weaker in the charter schools, and test score differences were negligible.  Many families in Chicago found themselves pushed out of their neighborhood schools to make way for new charter schools, sparking intense community opposition to the plan.

“If they shut down my school and reopen it as a charter, I don’t know where I would go.” said Markeeta Hudgins, a student at Overbrook High School.  “As students we need the district to listen to us, not ignore us.  We need more qualified teachers, more college prep, more resources in our schools.  What we don’t need are ‘solutions’ that have failed us in the past.”