Who's Killing Philadelphia Public Schools? City Paper Cover Story

[JPZenger]

http://www.citypaper.net/cover_story/2012-05-03-whos-killing-philly-public-schools.html

"it was a plan to shutter 40 schools next year, and an additional six every year thereafter until 2017. The remaining schools would be herded into "achievement networks" of 20 to 30 schools; public and private groups would compete to manage the networks. And the central office would be reduced to a skeleton crew of about 200. (About 1,000-plus positions existed in 2010, and district HQ has already eliminated more than a third of those.) Charter schools, the plan projects, would teach an estimated 40 percent of students by 2017.

The plan is bold — after all, closing just eight schools this year prompted an uproar. It's also terrifying, says former Philadelphia School District superintendent David Hornbeck, considering the poor academic records and corruption at many charter schools. "What is being proposed, in effect, is 'charterizing' the whole district, when there is a lot of evidence that at best [charters] have no positive effect on student achievement, and there is a lot of evidence they cost more," he tells City Paper. And "charters in many instances, in Philadelphia and elsewhere, have served private interests — sometimes of public officials."

What's even more startling than the drastic overhaul proposal is who engineered it. The plan was prepared with the assistance of Boston Consulting Group, a major global-business consultancy and school "right-sizing" mastermind. Boston's previous accomplishments include recommending that New Orleans, which has decimated its teachers' union and put most schools under charter control, create the exact same species of achievement networks in 2006. Last year, Boston also recommended that Australian education leaders close schools and cut spending. Indeed, Boston recommendations seem like a forgone conclusion: Their website touts "reform" hallmarks like evaluating student achievement through standardized tests and undermining traditional teacher certification."