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Private Companies, Public Dollars: Our Fight to Keep Public Schools Public

by Tamieka Tomlinson, Philadelphia Student Union | 04.22.2008

In Philadelphia right now, seventy schools are in what is called Corrective Action 2, because they have not made Adequate Yearly Progress on standardized tests. The School District has put forward a ‘menu of options’ for what can happen to these schools. These options include privatization, which involve turning over public schools to private companies, called Education Management Organizations. The following article was written by a student at King High School, a school that was taken over by a private company--Foundations Inc.--in 2002.

How can you put a price on education? Why should the quality of my education be determined by funds which are based on local property taxes rather than the needs of the students?

At Martin Luther King High School, students deal with issues associated with a lack of funding. Year after year, we suffer from a lack of experienced teachers, school books and materials, and the horrible physical condition of old school buildings. Currently, we are being run by Foundations Inc. which is a non-profit company in partnership with the school district. Since its initiation in 2001, M.L.K. has remained in Corrective Action II.

CA II schools make up 25% of the district.  Yet, 44% of all teacher vacancies in Philadelphia (57 of 131 vacancies) are in CA II Schools.  Nearly half of the schools that employ first year teachers are managed by Education Management Organizations (EMOs). Qualified teachers must be evenly distributed through out the district. It is becoming an issue for students. The faculty to student ratio is more than the staff can handle. Students are often pushed aside and treated as if we are just a number. It is essential that teachers make an effort to reach out to parents and try to understand what each student needs to succeed.

The school district should do more for us. Teachers are underpaid and that affects the way they teach. Teachers are not given adequate funds to conduct their lessons. Although King is a comprehensive high school, my Health related Technology course, which acts as a vocational class, is not as interactive as it should be. We need more wheelchairs, beds and basic equipment that are used in hospitals. Without these materials, our lessons are dragged.

This corrupts the curriculum, which should be challenging. We are not offered a wide variety of courses to choose from. School has become uninteresting. If the quality of my education does not mean anything to the School District then I do not know what does. If the EMO running my school cannot provide the students of Martin Luther King High School with fully qualified, experienced teachers and equipped classrooms, then they should not be in control. When students struggle to barely meet the states standards on standardized test, and about 50% of my graduating class drops out before their senior year, there has to be more than a ‘reform’ to once again improve our schools, and not to set us up to fail again.

I have faith in this idea of reformation but only when the community is given an opportunity to speak out about their students’ education. I was always told to be all that I can be. Foundations Inc. has yet to recognize my fellow peers and I as hopefuls of tomorrow. 



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