A new report by the U.S. Census Bureau found that voter turnout in the 2014 congressional elections was at an all-time low. The turnout rate of 41.9 percent was the lowest since the bureau started collecting voter participation data in 1978.
How low can voter turnout go? Well, in the birthplace of our democracy, a special election took place last week and hardly any voters showed up. The winners received a combined total of 6,185 votes.
Tuesday is Election Day in Philly. For the Philadelphia School District, it’s Groundhog Dog. The school district is facing yet another budget crisis. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
The city charter requires the school district to adopt its budget by May 30, but funding from the city and state are a giant question mark at this point, leading to the possibility that the district might violate the charter and go past its deadline for the second straight year.
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In a similar situation last year, the SRC [School Reform Commission] opted to wait until receiving assurances from Council on a sales tax extension and other measures before passing a budget in late June. Green predicted that Council and the mayor would agree on a short term fix to help close the district’s $85 million projected deficit while they wait on the state, but no one knows for sure.
According to a recent poll, education is the most important issue for Philly voters.
Still, City Council ain’t got time for education. They’ll deal with the school budget deficit when they get around to it. In the meantime, Council is scheduled to vote on a bill sponsored by Councilman Bobby Henon that would authorize the Commissioner of Public Property to spend up to $7.26 million to acquire the land to build a prison. The bill was introduced on April 30 and referred to the Committee on Public Property and Public Works, which Henon chairs. A Council rule was suspended to allow for a vote on the bill on Thursday.
Why the rush? The price tag for the proposed prison is between $300 million and $500 million. The proposed prison is just that – a proposal by lame-duck Mayor Michael Nutter.
The new mayor will have the final say on spending priorities. In response to Decarcerate PA’s mayoral candidate survey, Jim Kenney, the likely next mayor, said he will not move forward on Nutter’s plan to expand the Philadelphia Prison System. He supports a moratorium on the construction of new jails and detention centers.
Get this: Henon said he found the condition of the House of Correction “deplorable.” Has he taken a tour of our public schools? Students are trapped in 100-year-old buildings without librarians, school nurses, guidance counselors or air conditioning.
900AM-WURD host Solomon Jones has been sounding the alarm about the new prison. Jones was the keynote speaker at the school district’s Family Education Summit:
I’m trying to tell you about principles. The only thing that stands between our kids and that prison is us. City Council has its priorities. Our priorities are these kids.
Jones continued:
They know where that $300 million is coming from, but they don’t know where the money is coming from to close the school district’s $85 million deficit. We must make sure their priorities line up with ours. … The bottom line: If you have $300 million for a prison, then you have $85 million for the schools. Take it from the Capital Budget if you have to, but do what you have to do to fund our schools. ... Vote on Tuesday, and then whoever doesn’t do what’s right by our schools, vote them out.
Doing what’s right means stopping Philly’s school to prison pipeline. City Council and the next mayor must be held accountable. To do so, we must turn Election Day into Accountability Day.
It’s said that “blues ain’t nothing but a botheration on your mind.” I’m bothered that developers are erasing African Americans’ cultural heritage.
In Philadelphia, developers routinely – and without notice – build in front of or demolish murals that are paid for in part by City taxpayers.
Murals are part of Philadelphia’s cultural fabric. The Mural Arts Program creates murals that engage the community. They reflect a community’s history, identity, hopes and dreams.
City Council members can use Councilmanic Prerogative to require that developers of publicly-subsidized projects replace murals of social or cultural significance. Who will determine which mural meets that threshold? Let’s stipulate that murals that tell stories about events or persons who are the subject of books, songs, documentaries, national holiday, or City and congressional resolutions are culturally significant.
The how of replacement is negotiable. What is non-negotiable is that developers can erase African Americans’ cultural heritage because, to borrow a phrase from Al Gore, there is “no controlling legal authority.” A Council member is the controlling legal authority in his or her district. He or she decides which projects go forward and which ones go nowhere. While developers view murals as disposable, Council members must exercise their prerogative and demand that they respect that which came before.
If you are concerned about cultural heritage preservation, get involved with Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) Committee on Arts and Culture, which I chair. For more information, call ATAC at (215) 552-8785.
For updates, follow #BlackCultureMatters on Twitter.
Last week was D-Day for the School Reform Commission. On Feb. 18, the SRC held a public hearing at which it would decide the fate of 39 applicants for new charter schools. I arrived 45 minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin. After a 15-minute wait in the bitter cold, I was let inside 440 N. Broad and directed to go to Room 1075, the “overflow room.”
I’m an art lover. The school district headquarters is full of art but it’s a joyless and soulless space. Room 1075 is a room with a view of the blues. So after a few minutes, I left and viewed the proceedings via livestream. I’m glad I did. Between the scheduled speakers and the unscheduled outbursts, the meeting lasted five hours.
When it was over, the SRC voted to approve five of the 39 applications. The SRC approved three-year charters (rather than the usual five-year agreement) with conditions for Independence Charter West, KIPP Dubois, Mastery Gillespie, MaST-Roosevelt and TECH Freire. The five schools represent 2,684 new charter seats. But coupled with the abrupt closure of Walter Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter and Wakisha Charter School, and the expected closure of underperforming schools, there’s no net gain in the number of charter seats.
Still, the SRC is catching flak from both sides. Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement:
The Wolf Administration continues to believe that the district’s financial situation cannot responsibility handle the approval of new charter schools. Governor Wolf remains committed to restoring cuts and delivering more funding to public schools across the commonwealth to ensure our children have the resources necessary to succeed.
More funding for Philly schools may be a casualty of the SRC vote. Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Turzai said he’s “disappointed” the SRC didn’t approve more applications:
If they’re not going to provide the charter schools for the parents and grandparents that want them, I think that negates the discussion [charter reimbursement budget line item].
The rejected applicants have 60 days to appeal the decision to the state Charter Appeal Board. Meanwhile, charter expansion critics are appealing to parents to stick with traditional public schools “for the greater good.” Please. What parent chooses a school based on the needs of other people’s children?
Charter critics invoke the old chestnut that if you can’t save every child, then no parent should have the option to choose their child’s school. Instead, their child must stay trapped in schools without librarians, nurses and guidance counselors.
It’s crazy to argue that parents should keep their child in a failing school because “all children” do not have options. Parents want what’s best for their child. They do not stand in loco parentis for all children. Try disciplining someone’s child and see what happens.
Let activists, teachers unions, elected officials and others fight over delivery systems. In the birthplace of our democracy, parents on charter school waiting lists want the freedom to choose the best educational option for their child.
Last week was National School Choice Week. To mark the occasion, a select group of bloggers was invited to participate in the Amplify Choice conference, a project of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity.
I’m a product of the New York City public schools. I’m also the beneficiary of school choice. I grew up in Bed-Stuy. I attended the neighborhood elementary school. To get a better education, I chose to go to middle and high school in Bensonhurst, where I was enrolled in a program for gifted students.
The concept of school choice is not a new phenomenon. From the education reforms of the Progressive Era to the Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights Movement, parents have sought alternative educational programs for their children.
In 1972, the Philadelphia Board of Education established the Office of Alternative Programs that was “designed to offer public school youngsters educational experiences different from those that have been offered traditionally and those that are currently provided in ongoing school district programs.” In a paper published by the Journal of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Robert C. Hutchins wrote:
Educational options are being provided through a network of alternatives that make it possible for students and teachers to choose an educational experience that they feel is most appropriate for them. Establishment of more public schools of choice is the direction in which Philadelphia is heading.
Fast forward to today, Philadelphia has 84 public charter schools with a combined enrollment of 67,000 students, or one-third of all public school children. African Americans represent 62 percent of charter students, a higher percentage than in district-run schools (52 percent). While the education establishment debates the academic performance of charters, parents are making their own assessment about what educational environment is most appropriate for their child.
According to a survey from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia Research Initiative, 62 percent of parents with children in traditional public schools have considered sending their child to a charter school. Among African American parents, 68 percent consider a charter school a viable educational option. The survey also found that 90 percent of charter parents rated their school as “good or excellent.” By contrast, only 40 percent of parents with children in traditional public schools think the school district as a whole is doing a good or excellent job.
Still, critics try to discredit charters by pointing out the leadership of the charter school movement is overwhelmingly white. So at the Amplify Choice Conference, I asked Virginia Walden-Ford, a cofounder of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, whether African American parents express concern that the face of school choice is white. Walden-Ford said:
Parents want to see changes. They’re not caught up on who is the face of school choice. No matter what the face is, they say this is something that will benefit their children. They don’t care what the face looks like.
Back in the day, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wrote “Give the People What They Want.” What did the people want? The “people want better education now.” As a songwriter, Gamble had his finger on the pulse of the community. So it’s not altogether surprising the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is a charter school operator.
Thousands of students are on charter school waiting lists in Philadelphia. It’s clear the people want more educational choices for their children.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this day in 1929. His legacy lives on in folks like the activists who will take to the streets on Monday and #ReclaimMLK Day.