What does a School That Works look like?

When I travel and visit high achieving schools and ask the administrators or the teachers what makes this a School That Works they always respond with a single answer --  it's our culture. Culture is not an easy concept to describe.  What is meant by culture?  What was the culture of the school you attended?  

Here's a definition of school culture from the Glossary of Education Reform.  

Over 35 years in public education, I've seen aspects of quality school culture that indicate the values of the administration, teachers, students and parents.  Here are a few anecdotes:

• Every time I walked into East Hills Elementary School I was greeted by the principal - Dick Nicklos - who was always in the front hall available to staff, students, parents and visitors.  

• On a visit to Reizenstein Middle School I watched Principal Maxine Klimasara pick up rubbish as we walked through the halls, reprimand a student who was out of dress code, hug another who was doing much improved work, congratulate a teacher on a job well done, manage a cafeteria of over 300 students and calm an angry parent at the front counter. 

• I watched Principal Tina Chekan at Propel McKeesport Charter K-8 interact with students in a manner that demanded respect, discipline and hard work.  The students positively responding to her very high standards.  This resulted in a school, which had one of the highest levels of poverty in the state, attaining the highest achievement in the state on the PSSA.  

• I watched teachers at Peabody High school take ownership of their hallways and demand that their colleagues (including me) help enforce a culture of students and staff being on time, acting respectfully and achieving at a very high level.   

• At Fulton Elementary School, I watched Vonnie Holbrook, an intermediate mathematics teacher/coach work with the entire staff to improve mathematics achievement at the school and succeed.   

• I watched teachers, administrators and social workers at City Charter High School look at extreme student behaviors, not as a deficit or a reason to be punished, but as an indicator that the child needed their support, encouragement and love. 

• After an altercation in a high school cafeteria, I saw 30 students volunteer to help the staff clean up the room, put the furniture back in place and make sure the room and its occupants were safe.  

• As a result of looping with the same teachers for four years, I observe City Charter High School's graduation where the entire senior class walks silently across the stage to obtain their diploma and hugs each of their teachers and administrators.  Everyone is crying. Everyone is bursting with pride.    

• I met a very small, young, compelling 2nd grader at a turnaround charter school in Milwaukee.  The school was one of the lowest achieving public schools in Milwaukee. The school was turned over to a local charter organization to run.  In the two years since being turned over the school was making huge gains in achievement.  It had an extremely charismatic principal and engaged staff.  Here was my discussion with the young 2nd grader I randomly met in the hallway:

Me - Hello young man.  My name is Dr. Wertheimer and I'm visiting your school today from Pittsburgh, PA.  

Student - Hello.. my name is _______ (we shake hands).

Me - I notice that you have a book in your hands.  Are you a good reader?

Student - (pulls paper out of top pocket).  I have my most recent reading scores right here.  I'm reading at a 3.4 level and I'm only in second grade.  That tells me I'm a good reader.  

Me - That's great... you should be very proud.  So what book are you reading?    

Student - It's called ___________________.  

Me - What's it about?

Student:  You can learn what a book is about by reading the back cover or the inside sleeve.  Here, you can find out for yourself (hands me the book... I was quickly learning that this young man was quite a character).

Me - Seems like an interesting book.  Also as I look through it, it seems like it is challenging with some difficult vocabulary.  Would you mind reading this paragraph out loud to me?  

Student: OK... (reads the paragraph fluently).

Me: - So what does it mean?

Student: It means (student provides the correct meaning of the text).  

Me:  That's great.  There were a few really hard words in the text.  Do you really know what they mean? 

Student:  Here is what that word means.  What you're supposed to do is use your context clues.  They will help you define the word.  

What an amazing young man.  At the age of 7 he is becoming an empowered, confident reader.  His interaction with me suggests he is becoming a critical thinker and clearly, building his self-confidence.  His academic presence is a result of becoming empowered by a school that sees no limits to his learning.  To turn around a school this quickly necessitates creating a new, all encompassing, culture of success.

These very simple anecdotes reveal attitudes, beliefs and accountability. They reflect school communities where all efforts are focused on support and achievement.

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There are a group of inner city schools - public, charter and independent - that are defying the odds and creating high student achievement in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The schools are all high poverty, high special needs and predominantly students of color.  The schools are members of a consortium called Schools That Can - Milwaukee.  STC-Milwaukee's goal is to create 20,000 seats of quality education by the year 2020.  They are well on their way.  

STC-Milwaukee suggests that if you walk into a successful urban school you will see a number of key behaviors.  The list of 8 behaviors follows.  It provides a roadmap for parents who are looking at their children's school and trying to figure out if they are succeeding. Pittsburgh might be interested to know that there are four Pittsburgh schools who are members of the national STC network and are high achieving based on their criteria.  Two are charter and two are private - City Charter High School, Manchester Academic Charter School, The Neighborhood Academy and Pittsburgh Urban Christian School in Wilkinsburg.  I would suggest that there are additional Pittsburgh schools that exhibit these behaviors - public, private and charter (public).  

1.  Teachers Are Intensely Committed to Student Success - Teachers are prepared with dynamic, powerful lessons within their classrooms and are expert at classroom management and instructional methodology. There is a constant focus on student learning throughout the school, and teachers work collaboratively and reflectively to deliver excellence in the classroom.

2.  Time on Task - The academic day includes a minimum of 90 minutes of mathematics and 90 minutes of English Language Arts instruction.  The school calendar and day are often extended.  Students are expected to be on task at all the time. 

3.   Sweat the Details –  Students must comply with the following:

○    Be on time for school and class - Leaders and teachers relentlessly enforce punctuality and take issue with any tardy for any reason. Tardiness is clearly defined.

○    Comply with school dress code - Leaders and teachers relentlessly enforce dress code and uniform requirements, paying attention to the smallest detail, including color of socks, non-white undershirts, or style of shoe.

○    Complete all homework daily.

○    Be silent when others are speaking.

○    Students are on task and engaged in academic work at all times especially when teachers, leaders, or peers request it.

○    Sit up or stand in a respectful and appropriate manner.

○    Refrain from “tisking,” “eye rolling,” or any verbal or non-verbal disrespect of teachers.

The school has a consistent and diligent system in place to positively reward students who follow these expectations and to enforce consequences when expectations are not met.

4.   Focus on Student Performance Data - Leaders and teachers regularly use data to review student progress and to drive instructional decisions for individual students, both on the micro level with daily checks for understanding and on the macro level with interim assessments. Leaders and teachers accept responsibility for student achievement and are persistently designing new ways to support students who are not reaching benchmarks and challenge those students who are.

5.   Academic Intensity - As schools institute the 90 minutes per day of mathematics and ELA, they incorporate a more intense academic approach geared toward dramatically moving students academically. Regardless of the age of the students, there is an intensely rigorous approach to academics driving students to achieve above grade level, no excuses. School leaders and teachers are relentlessly committed to achieving dramatic academic gains with their students and constantly agonize over results.

6.  Joy - The school is filled with thematic motivational signs and slogans; teachers and school leaders use chants, poetry, recitation, singing, and other tools to bring a sense of joy to the learning process. School-wide management tools are used to positively frame expectations. Teachers and students are happy to be at school. Students are taught that the pursuit of academic success and success in life, while not always easy, is a joyful process. During the school day, teachers smile and regularly direct appropriate expressions of love and kindness toward students.

7.  Student Attendance - All attendance is taken and recorded in the school office within 60 minutes of the start of the school day. When a student is absent, the absence is challenged. All school office personnel and leadership team members share this mentality. Unless the illness is severe, a student must be in school. If there has been no notification to the school, the school leadership team takes action to get the student to school. 

8. Alumni are Tracked - Leaders intentionalize the process of tracking 100% of the school’s alumni as a measure of the school’s success and as a means for offering students continued support through high school into college.

If I were to add one additional behavior of a quality urban school it would be Communication. 

9. Communication - This refers to open, transparent, respectful and honest communication between School/Parents, Administrators/Staff and Teachers/Students.  

Notice that this list of behaviors is not overly sophisticated, it is based in common sense, and years of experience. Schools that succeed are those that focus all energies on the success of students. They do so by hard work, attention to detail, strong discipline, focus on data and creating a culture of success.

Can you imagine that they would include JOY on their list?  Quality schools are happy and secure places because they are safe, supportive and successful. Please note that these three adjectives are applied to all the people in the school community - parents, students and staff.  

You should visit your neighborhood school. When you walk into the school look around you. Look at the interactions, the environment, the facility and the demeanor of staff and students. See what the focus appears to be... is it on achievement, sports, discipline, extracurriculars or nothing in particular.  Is it welcoming?  Is it caring? Do the demeanors of the adults appear positive or punitive? Visit a classroom. See if all the students are engaged in learning.  Are they all participating?  Is the lesson creative, challenging and interactive?  Or does the lesson consist of basic skills, rote learning and you notice students with their heads down.  You will quickly see whether the school's focus is on student excellence.  You will quickly see whether it has a culture of success.  This is what leads to a School That Works.  

In my next post, I will talk about how we measure success and determine whether a school is a high achieving school or not.  

Who is a public school educator?

Next Tuesday I have the honor to join two distinguished educators - Dr. Howard Fuller and Dr. Linda Lane - in an A+ Schools panel discussion. Our topic is Equity and Excellence - Schools That Work.

Dr. Fuller, Dr. Lane and I have worked in public education for the last 5 decades. We have dedicated our professional careers to working in urban schools with students of color and poverty.  I don't think it is presumptuous to suggest that we are all saddened from an equity perspective by the lack of progress made in the 60 years since the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. Imagine what a professional educator, who has seriously grappled with Equity and Excellence in public education from the 1950's to 2014, has observed.

The decade of the 1950's included The Brown v. Board of Education supreme court ruling (1954) and The Murder of Emmett Till (1955).  Hangings, murders, fire hoses, dogs, degradation, the back of the bus, separate bathrooms, separate water fountains, separate and not equal, Little Rock, Arkansas, hate.






The decade of the 1960's included the assassination of two civil rights leaders - Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and the assassination of the president and his brother who was running for president - John F. and Robert Kennedy.  Riots, protests, civil rights marches, church bombings, Kent State, the free speech movement at UC Berkeley, a war in Viet Nam, the Moynihan Report.


The decade of the 1970's when states and school districts used forced busing to create integrated schools. This led to school riots with Boston leading the way, court cases, white flight to the suburbs and a changing urban demographic.  Crime, poverty, Watergate, rising gas prices, inflation, teachers unions and teachers strikes.







The decade of the 1980's, with the loss of steel mills and manufacturing jobs, forced a rethinking about the need for all students to graduate high school and attend college.  A Nation at Risk, federal defeat of the air traffic controllers union, the breakup of the Soviet Union, AIDS, continued flight to the suburbs, urban decay and the beginning of a new conservative movement led by Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher and the appointment of a conservative supreme court.

The decade of the 1990's gave birth to a technology revolution, while from an education perspective, American Schools became segregated again. Continued white flight and Supreme Court rulings overturning the use of busing for integration, Supreme Court rulings overturning Affirmative Action, the Clinton Impeachment, Charter School laws passed and a School Voucher law passed in Wisconsin.


The decade beginning in the year 2000 was tumultuous starting with the 9/11 terrorist attack, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, significant economic growth and an even more significant recession in 2008. Income disparity increased, bankruptcies, foreclosures, urban public schools floundering while the choice movement gains momentum, significant achievement gaps based on race and/or poverty.


The Dilemma

These three educators, who have spent a total of over 100 years in public education, were each confronted with a professional dilemma in their careers. All three are advocates for underserved populations. All three know that all students can succeed given the necessary support and structure. All three held leadership positions in public education. Yet all three made decisions that appeared to the liberal left as selling out.  What happened?  What were they thinking?

Consider....

• America's urban public schools, by any measure, are not succeeding with students of color and poverty.  It is 60 years since Brown v. Board of Education and the achievement gap is as large as it ever was. 
• Our profession knows what it takes to create a quality school in the inner city -  strong leadership, great teachers, high standards, supportive/healthy environment, culture of empowerment, child focused.  
• In the year 2014 there are many examples of Schools That Work.  Some are district public schools, some are charter schools and some are private/parochial schools.  
• The existing public school power brokers - unions, boards, administrators, University Schools of Education - consider charter and private schools as a threat to public education.
• Advocates for students of color and poverty are not willing to sacrifice their children to the needs of the existing power brokers.  

Our reaction to these facts is straightforward:  

It is morally and ethically unacceptable to settle for anything other than the best education for all of our children.  Nothing should get in our way from trying to provide Schools That Work for all of our students.  

"Nothing will get in our way" is a provocative concept.  This means that access to a quality education for our children is more important than any of the existing institutional players.  It does not mean we are anti public education or anti union. It simply means that the priority is to find a quality education for all students.  It's 60 years since Brown vs. Board of Education.

Let's see what all this looks like in real terms.  

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Dr. Howard Fuller received his B.S. degree in Sociology from Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1962 and his M.S.A. degree in Social Administration from Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1964.  After graduating with his Masters Degree, he became involved in community organizing and the Black Power movement. In 1969, he helped create the Malcolm X Liberation University in North Carolina. The university aimed to educate and prepare students to go to Africa and help those nations with their independence. Although the university closed in 1973, Fuller continued his work in education and activism. In 1986 he received his Ph.D. in Sociological Foundations of Education from Marquette University. Fuller worked for a number of government and non-profit organizations until 1991. He then made a decision that changed the trajectory of his life and education reform in America.

From 1991 - 1995 Dr. Fuller was the Superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools.  During his tenure, Dr. Fuller implemented a full voucher program into the district.  The Milwaukee voucher program provided tuition payments for public school students to attend private, often parochial, schools in Milwaukee. Typical of rust belt cities, Milwaukee was suffering from loss of jobs, loss of the middle class to the suburbs and the loss of the city's tax base. Due to changing demographics, financial restrictions and leadership that was at a loss as to how to succeed in these trying times, the achievement of Milwaukee students plummeted. Fuller decided that providing choice options for poor students in Milwaukee was the best opportunity they had to get a leg up on quality education.  As you might imagine Fuller came under attack from the liberal left.  Providing tuition vouchers to attend private schools was seen as an attempt to destroy the district, destroy the union, and privatize education.  

He was vilified as a "tool of billionaire conservatives."  In a recent interview, Fuller defends his actions:  

In a recent conversation, he stressed the urgency of reforming our education system. The problem, he says, is “there’s a lot of activity around protecting the status quo.”

In spite of the rhetoric and talk about reform, Howard feels strongly that we don't, at the deepest level, “have a commitment to solve the educational problems in this country for our poorest children, a disproportionate number of whom happen to be children of color.”

Although we talk about our children being important, he explains, “the reality is that the interests of the adults are more important.”

While Fuller is not anti-union, his views differ with the teachers’ unions, specifically regarding how they function and their overall impact on kids.

“I’m not a person that believes that what you need to do in order to make change is to get rid of unions…but I am someone who understands that in order to make significant differences inside traditional districts, you have to do something about the level of power and control that teacher unions have.”

Because of his strong viewpoints about the “status quo” and his movement towards school choice, Fuller has also at times been categorized as being against public education.

He says he does not accept this assumption.

“I believe that one of the things we have to do in this country is create an alternative structure to the existing traditional public school structure. I don't think that’s an issue of being opposed to public education.”

Since leaving the school district, Fuller founded the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University which led to his co-founding the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).  He remains an advocate for school choice via charters, tuition vouchers, magnets or any means to help provide options to families that are poor and limited in educational options.

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In 2011, Dr. Linda Lane was appointed as the first female African-American Superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. This was the culmination of a career over four decades as an elementary schoolteacher, executive director of human resources, chief operating officer and deputy superintendent in Des Moines, Iowa.  Dr. Lane is a 2003 graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy.  

Dr. Lane came to Pittsburgh in 2007 as the Deputy Superintendent under Mark Roosevelt.  When Roosevelt left the District in 2011, she was chosen as the District's Superintendent.  Dr. Lane began her tenure as a Superintendent during a particularly difficult time in Pittsburgh public education.  The District was losing students to the suburbs and charter schools, financial revenues were down and downsizing would cause the closing of schools and teacher layoffs.  As I have articulated in previous blog posts, the rust belt saga occurring in Pittsburgh and most urban centers in the Northeast was wreaking havoc on the city schools.

At the same time, Dr. Lane was charged with implementing three major grants recently awarded to the district to fund the Empowering Effective Teachers (EET) program. EET was focused on improving the quality of teaching and learning.

The Pittsburgh Public Schools received a $40 million grant over 6.5 years from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and $37.4 million over five years from the federal Teacher Incentive Fund. The district also won a three-year $14 million federal School Improvement Grant. Thus the Pittsburgh Public Schools had over $90 million to improve teaching.  What made the Pittsburgh Public Schools an interesting prospect for these organizations to invest in was an agreement between the District and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers to work closely on developing a quality evaluation and teacher support system. 

RISE (Research-based Inclusive System of Evaluation) was co-developed by the District and the union.  RISE is a multimodal methodology for evaluating teacher effectiveness that includes Classroom Observations, Value Added test results and student surveys.  In addition, the district and the PFT agreed to a new five year contract that included the evaluation and compensation proposals that came out of the Empowering Effective Teachers project.  This included New Career Ladder Positions, a volunteer pilot performance pay plan and language pertaining to using the RISE system of evaluation.  There were raises in pay, no increase in health care costs and no mandatory performance plan for teachers on the traditional salary schedule.  In essence, the union agreed to participate in the development of RISE and the implementation of pilot programs in exchange for raises, financial incentives for the pilot programs and maintenance of all aspects of the health care program.  

As you can imagine, Dr. Lane was walking a fine line to get the district, the union, the funders and the state to embark on this new initiative. The goal was an admirable one - quality teachers for all students. The project was moving along relatively smoothly until 2012.  The budget for the 2012-13 school year called for the closing of a large number of schools and the need to layoff 400 teachers.  This would be the largest layoff in the history of the school district.  According to the PFT/PPS Collective Bargaining Agreement, layoffs should occur based on system seniority - otherwise known as "last in... first out".

Due to the grants and work on creating quality teachers, pressure was brought on the District to layoff not based on seniority, but based on teacher effectiveness. The district was in the midst of a $90 million project to create effective teachers, thus, it was suggested they use RISE to layoff the least effective teachers.  A groundswell of support for layoff by effectiveness began. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published an editorial supporting this notion. Members of Pittsburgh's foundation community wrote an editorial supporting this notion. The district's Board of Directors agreed and tasked Dr. Lane to negotiate with the union to get their support.  Dr. Lane took the proposal to the union and their response was an unequivocal NO. The union stated that Pennsylvania law said seniority must be the methodology for handling layoffs. This is true, although the law also states the district and union can change this locally if they agree to a new methodology.  A+ Schools, a parent focused education policy group, entered the discussion and stated:

A+ Schools asks for courageous leadership from the union and district. We believe they can work together now — as they have done successfully in the past — to find a way to make layoff decisions that uphold the importance of seniority while also keeping our teachers who help their students learn the most, regardless of how long they have taught in the district.

In the end, 285 teachers were laid off (the other 115 lost jobs were handled through attrition, and retirements).  Those laid off were the youngest and least experienced of the teaching staff. Many of them had been recruited out of college or from other teaching jobs to become teacher leaders in Pittsburgh.

Dr. Lane knows the history of urban education post Brown vs. Board of Education intimately. She also knows what a School That Works looks like. She chose to put her professional efforts into the traditional public school education model. The Broad Superintendents Academy trained her regarding the complexity of politics, finances and stakeholders in urban public schools. When the time came for Dr. Lane to grapple with the layoffs, she sided with the belief that laying the least effective teachers off first would benefit students the most. This brought great criticism from traditional public school educators, unions and the liberal left.  She grappled with the question of whether it is possible to be a public school advocate, a collaborator with the teachers union and do what's right for our children. Unfortunately it appears that these concepts are often at odds with one another.

Dr. Lane continues to work on creating Schools That Work within the District.  It is an ongoing fight. The case study on seniority and layoffs suggests that the statement "Nothing should get in our way from trying to provide Schools That Work for all of our students" is not necessarily true when you are working with legacy systems in a model created many years ago under very different circumstances.  

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Let me make clear from the start that I am not in the league of Dr. Howard Fuller or Dr. Linda Lane.  I hold them both in high regard... Dr. Fuller for breaking away and standing by our children even though he took a beating from his colleagues, the left and even the African American community... and Dr. Lane for remaining committed to the traditional public education model, yet working hard to get it to evolve to a District of Schools That Work.  She too has taken a beating from the public, the union and the parents.

I am including myself in this post because I have 37 years in urban public education in Pittsburgh and like everyone else, have a story to tell.  I worked for 23 years in the Pittsburgh Public Schools as a mathematics teacher, supervisor and Coordinator of Instructional Technology.  I taught at Brashear and Peabody HS.  I supervised the 105 mathematics teachers at the 14 high schools (prior to the district downsizing).  And I worked with all 93 schools (at the time) implementing instructional technology.

In 2001, we developed a very successful Microsoft program at Peabody High School.  We were certifying students in Microsoft Office.  We were having our greatest success with our most at-risk students. In an attempt to scale the program up I ran up against a high school principal and Director of Vocational Education, both of whom refused the program inspite of its success. After 23 years of fighting with the system to improve education, particularly at the tough schools, the schools with over 65% poverty, the segregated schools, I had enough. I believed we could create a High School That Worked. And the newly passed charter school law gave us a means to this end.

A colleague and I approached a local foundation who gave us a planning grant to take a year and plan a model 21st century charter high school from scratch. Once we had a model that was fleshed out, we approached the Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent, the Asst. Superintendent, the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and the leadership at Peabody High School.  We asked them all to work with us to open this model school from within the district. They all said no.

So we opened City Charter High School in 2002.  In 2014, there are 650 students attending City High, 65% from poverty, 59% students of color and 84% from the city of Pittsburgh.  The graduation rate is over 96% with over 91% of our graduates going to a two (27%) or four (64%) year college.  Of those that go to a four year college, 75% graduate in six years with a bachelors degree (as compared to the US average of 56%).  City High is a School That Works. In 13 years of operation, the school has provided a quality education option for over 2000 students. I know it sounds pompous, but I believe the school saves lives.

When I left the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) to start a charter school it was the worst and best day of my life.  Both my daughters attended PPS for elementary and middle school.  My eldest went to a PPS high school and my youngest went to City Charter High School.  I love the Pittsburgh Public Schools.  But they weren't moving forward.  They were putting obstacles in the way of progress... and our poorer students and African-American students were failing in huge numbers.  I had to leave.  It was a miserable day when I finally decided the district could not cure itself.  A lot of my friends and colleagues felt I was going to the dark side and forsaking public education.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  

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Dr. Fuller, Dr. Lane and I are all teachers, administrators and supporters of quality education. We simply want all children to have opportunity and success.  None of the people on the panel argue for school choice out of an abstract belief in free-market philosophy. None have joined some right wing conservative party or are educational laissez faire capitalists.  Frankly, and I don't speak for the three of us, I'm guessing we are all pretty upset with both political parties.

Our individual decisions to either break away and start a new model or stay within and negotiate to move the district beyond the status quo is based on educational pragmatism. Government initiatives, school reforms, financial incentives (grants) and Supreme Court rulings have failed over the years despite good intentions and civic enthusiasm.  Magnet schools, charter schools and vouchers are methods for students to have educational options. We are trying to provide quality education opportunities for families who can't afford to move or pay tuition and are forced to attend an underachieving local school.  Read this statement again.

It is morally and ethically unacceptable to settle for anything other than the best education for all of our children.  Nothing should get in our way from trying to provide Schools That Work for all of our students.  

I ask you this.  Consider your children, or your nephews and nieces, or your neighbors kids or your grandchildren or your siblings.  Is it too much to ask that they attend a School That Works?  Is it too much to ask for America to provide opportunities to all of its citizens no matter what their financial means, no matter what their race, no matter what?

The Common Core

What are the Common Core State Standards?  And what is the controversy?

The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA). These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade. The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live.

It is hard to argue with the concept of high quality academic standards.  It would seem.

Yet a controversy is brewing. The Common Core controversy is typical of any American public education reforms. The controversy has two parts: who controls education decision making and how are our current students doing academically.  As you will see, underlying these controversies are people who have a vested interest in the status quo.

The first part of the controversy is the assumption that all students in America would benefit from a Common Core curriculum.  

This would mean that all 50 states could agree on what students should learn.  The concept of a "common core" runs counter to the fact that education in America is a state/local endeavor. In our country, each state has a Department of Education that sets learning standards, assesses schools and districts through a common test and creates graduation, attendance and governance guidelines for its schools.  Each local school district (there are 499 in Pennsylvania) has their own school board, tax rate, superintendent, teachers union and program that is unique, yet aligned with the state guidelines. Thus the concept of a Common Core, that is created on a national level, is at odds with our history of state and local control.

It is important to note that the Common Core is not a federal initiative.  It is also important to note that participation in the Common Core is voluntary by state.

The nation's governors and education commissioners, through their representative organizations, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), led the development of the Common Core State Standards and continue to lead the initiative. Teachers, parents, school administrators, and experts from across the country, together with state leaders, provided input into the development of the standards. The actual implementation of the Common Core, including how the standards are taught, the curriculum developed, and the materials used to support teachers as they help students reach the standards, is led entirely at the state and local levels. (http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/frequently-asked-questions/)

Finally, it is up to the state to determine how student achievement will be measured once the Common Core is implemented.  Some states will create their own assessment, others will join one of the consortiums that are creating assessments that the state could adopt.  However, the state assessments may be used to comply with federal efforts to ensure quality education such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Frankly, any attempt at a national strategy for education must be filtered through the 50 states and the local school districts.  So part of the controversy is at the local or state level where politicians, parents, school boards, teachers unions fight any attempt at a more centralized control of curriculum, instruction and assessment.

The second part of the controversy is the assumption that students in America lag behind the world in academic achievement.

By most any measure of educational attainment, American youth, our children, are not competitive with the rest of the world.

"The results from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), show that teenagers in the U.S. slipped from 25th to 31st in math since 2009; from 20th to 24th in science; and from 11th to 21st in reading, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which gathers and analyzes the data in the U.S."

2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)

One cannot be comforted by our lack of achievement with respect to these other nations. However, there is a group of educators that are not bothered by these results. In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Diane Ravitch states that America has always been near the bottom on these assessments and suggests there is no correlation between these low scores and our economic health and well being as a nation.  She states:

"Let others have the higher test scores. I prefer to bet on the creative, can-do spirit of the American people, on its character, persistence, ambition, hard work, and big dreams, none of which are ever measured or can be measured by standardized tests like PISA."

So in some sense, part of the Common Core backlash is a disagreement with the assumption that there is something we need to fix in our educational system.  Many people, led by Ravitch, suggest we are doing fine and the only problem our education system has is too much meddling (tests) from federal and state governments and not enough funding from those very same governments.

2010 -11 Graduation Rates by State 

(Kentucky, Idaho and Oklahoma Not Reported)

However, there is also a disparity in education achievement within the United States.  Since there is no common test taken across the United States, let's look at high school graduation rates as a measure of education achievement.

The table on the right shows the graduation rates for 2010-11 by state and selected cohorts.

Total graduation rates range from 88% in Iowa to 59% in the District of Columbia.  For children with disabilities the graduation rates range from 77% in Texas to 23% in Nevada and Mississippi. The graduation rates for economically disadvantaged students range from 86% in South Dakota to 53% in Nevada.

And when you localize even further you can find outrageous regional discrepancies.  For example, graduation rates for African-American males are as high as 74% in Montgomery County, Maryland and as low as 20% in Detroit, Michigan.

Limiting the discussion to American education, you find significant disparities between states, cities, suburbs and rural areas. The education you get in Nevada is vastly inferior to that of Vermont.... the education you get in Georgia is vastly inferior to that of Wisconsin.  And if you have special needs, or are an ELL student, or an economically disadvantaged student, or a student of color your probability of graduating is very much dependent upon where you attend school.

The Common Core initiative is an attempt to level the playing field by providing quality benchmarked education across all public schools in America.

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As a classroom teacher, principal and parent (and admitted math geek) I have always been interested in drilling down into these curriculums and assessments to see what they are all about.

The Common Core suggest K12 education standards that should be the goal of locally created curricula, assessments and instruction.  Educators are beginning to look into what "Common Core" type problems might look like.  Here is an example of four math problems and where they fit into our classrooms.

1. Round 4298 to the nearest hundred.

a. 4298
b. 4000
c. 4300
d. 4290

This first problem is a standard rounding problem from 4th grade.  It might appear on a chapter or standardized test.  Use of multiple choice makes grading the problem much easier.  It also provides the student with possible answers to consider.  It is also prone to guessing.

2. Round 51,230 to the nearest thousand.   ______________

The second problem is an "open ended" problem where there are no multiple choice solutions.  It would probably appear on a teacher authored chapter test or quiz.  Since there are no possible solutions given, this might be considered a slightly harder problem.  The teacher can review the student's answer to ascertain whether the student understands or where they might have gone wrong.

3. Put the following numbers in correct order:

41235, 42135, 41345, 41609 and 40989

The third problem is a basic Common Core type problem to determine if students understand place value.  What makes it a Common Core type problem is that the problem is a little more common in the real world (order a set of numbers) and it attempts to assess a student's knowledge of place value.  It forces the student to work with a set of numbers.

 4. The San Francisco Giant’s Stadium has 41,915 seats, the Washington Nationals’ stadium has 41,888 seats and the San Diego Padres’ stadium has 42,445 seats.

Compare these statements from two students.

Jeff said, “I get the same number when I round all three numbers of seats in these stadiums.”

Sara said, “When I round them, I get the same number for two of the stadiums but a different number for the other stadium.”

Can Jeff and Sara both be correct? Explain how you know.

The fourth problem is a more complex Common Core type problem that addresses both place value and rounding conceptually.

As you might guess there is a huge controversy over the fourth problem.  Inherent in the solution of the problem is that the student must read, comprehend, understand place value and be able to problem solve by rounding the same number to different degrees (tens, hundreds, thousands and ten thousands).

Those who support the Common Core see the fourth question as being a synthesis of the skills necessary to succeed in the 21st Century: application of knowledge, problem solving and critical thinking.

Those who are against the Common Core see the fourth question as a bad question.  What does reading, writing and explaining have to do with mathematics?  The fourth question is hard and meant to confuse us.  This is the reason math is so difficult and so many people have trouble with it.

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Parent Perceptions

It might be of value to look at whether American's truly believe our education system is doing well. These surveys were conducted prior to the development of the Common Core.  Let's look at some Gallop Poll results.

What does this data tells us?

• The general public is split almost 50-50 over the quality of K-12 education in our country.
• Over a 14 year period, approximately 75% of K-12 parents are (completely/somewhat) satisfied with the quality of the schools their children attend.
• The perception of the public is that the more selective a school is, the better it is (private 78%, parochial 69%, charter 60%, public 37%).  

This data is a mixed review.  Parents are more satisfied with our education system than the general population.  Is that because they are more intimately knowledgeable about it, or is it because the general population works with graduates and are disappointed in their skills?  Or is because the media portrays the negative aspects of schools?

The more interesting part of the questions pertains to the perception by "type" of school.  The more selective a school is, the higher its perceived quality.  I would suggest that this Gallop data points out a uniquely American concept. In America, education is seen as a commodity that one obtains through home purchases (determining your school district), choosing a magnet or charter school, or through tuition at a private or parochial school. 75% of the K-12 parents surveyed were happy with their choices. This is different in other countries where education is seen as a civil right, is centrally managed/funded and is of a consistent quality no matter where you live or go to school.

So why is there a backlash against the Common Core from parents.  With 75% of American parents satisfied with their children's education, it is possible that they don't see the need for a Common Core initiative. It may be a coincidence, but 22% of American school age children live in poverty and seldom have the means to make a school choice.  It may be perceived that the Common Core is attempting to solve an urban or poor problem and is not needed in all schools in America.

Political Perceptions

The Common Core effort initially received a huge amount of support from all sectors.  

The state-led effort to develop the Common Core State Standards was launched in 2009 by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia, through their membership in the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). State school chiefs and governors recognized the value of consistent, real-world learning goals and launched this effort to ensure all students, regardless of where they live, are graduating high school prepared for college, career, and life.

43 States, the District of Columbia and 4 US Territories have adopted the standards.  All of these states agree that rigorous educational standards are the key to a quality education system.  Industry leaders, policy makers, teachers unions, universities all were on board with the Common Core.  It is not a federal program, nor was it developed by the federal government.  And initially, both the Republican and Democratic Party endorsed the effort. Frankly, that's quite an endorsement.  So who's complaining? Let's get to the "core" of the Common Core backlash. 

Crazy Politicians

June 20, 2014 (NPR) - Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Wednesday that he wants to cut ties with the Common Core State Standards, the benchmarks in reading and math that he helped bring to the state four years ago, and replace them with new, Louisiana-specific standards. "We won't let the federal government take over Louisiana's education standards," Jindal said in a statement. "We're very alarmed about choice and local control over curriculum being taken away from parents and educators."

Can you imagine "Louisiana-specific" standards for mathematics and language arts? Maybe mathematics and English are "different" in Louisiana.  Sadly, Louisiana has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country.  This is about paranoia, defensiveness, rationalization and loss of control. And it's going on across the nation.

April 8, 2013 (National Review Online) - “I don’t want to have a federal bureaucracy monitoring whether or not we are having the right programs in our schools,” said Virginia governor Bob McDonnell recently. “The bottom line is, we don’t need the federal government with the Common Core telling us how to run our schools in Virginia. We’ll use our own system, which is very good. It’s empirically tested.”

Texas governor Rick Perry, never one to mince words, said, “The academic standards of Texas are not for sale.”

McDonnell was recently convicted on federal corruption charges and removed from office. Perry was recently indicted by a grand jury on felony charges on abuse of power.  When politicians make decisions about our education systems they are viewing the situation through a political expediency lens, not an educational empowerment lens.   

Crazy Educators

July 11, 2014 (Politico) The American Federation of Teachers will open its annual convention Friday morning with a startling announcement: After years of strongly backing the Common Core, the union now plans to give its members grants to critique the academic standards — or to write replacement standards from scratch.  The AFT will also consider a resolution — drafted by its executive council — asserting that the promise of the Common Core has been corrupted by political manipulation, administrative bungling, corporate profiteering and an invalid scoring system designed to ensure huge numbers of kids fail the new math and language arts exams that will be rolled out next spring. An even more pointed resolution flat out opposing the standards will also likely come up for a vote." (Teachers union takes on Common Core)

So the concern is about creating an "invalid scoring system designed to ensure huge numbers of kids fail the new math and language arts exams".  This statement states that the Common Core has been "kidnapped" by people with a vested interest in making students fail (thereby discrediting the efforts of teachers and teacher unions). This level of paranoia is frightening.

By definition, if you raise academic standards initial test scores will be lower. This doesn't make the exam invalid, it recalibrates student achievement based on more difficult skills. Early exam data should inform educators and the public where we need to put our efforts. Ultimately, accountability will become a factor, as it should.  The unions backing away from the Common Core is about paranoia, loss of educator control and a concern about making public the low quality of achievement in our country's schools.  When unions make decisions about our education systems they are viewing the situation through a teacher advocacy lens, not an educational empowerment lens.  If the union had integrity, it would support improved academic standards, but would be leading the way for a more appropriate and well thought out implementation methodology, timeline and marketing strategy.  

Crazy Comedians

May 6, 2014 (Diane Ravitch at billmoyers.com) But when Louis C.K. started tweeting, the world sat up and listened. And he made sense! No jargon, no excuses, no false promises: just a dad wondering, What’s going on here? This stuff is nuts. It makes no sense.

He tweeted:  My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core! — Louis C.K. (@louisck) April 28, 2014

He tweeted: Everything important is worth doing carefully. None of this feels careful to me.— Louis C.K. (@louisck) May 1, 2014

He tweeted: Teachers are underpaid. They teach for the love of it. Let them find the good in cc without the testing guns to their and our kids heads.— Louis C.K. (@louisck) May 1, 2014

He tweeted:  I trust a teacher over Pearson or bill hates any day of the week. Don’t all be so defensive and don’t be such bullies.— Louis C.K. (@louisck) May 1, 2014

He tweeted: my favorite responses have been adults proudly announcing that they were able to solve these problems from a 3rd grade test.— Louis C.K. (@louisck) May 1, 2014

Ha...ha...ha... really funny stuff.  Let's get our education wisdom from Louis C.K.  His comedic persona is based on a whining, self-centered American.  He sure does nail it.

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The Common Core States Standard initiative is an excellent education effort with broad support.  The standards are very well written.  And shockingly, quality standards in Mathematics and English Language Arts are not state dependent. Assessment systems are being developed that are aligned with the standards. Not solely to evaluate the teachers. Not solely to evaluate schools. Not solely to provide parents with feedback on how their child is doing.  But to make educational decisions that are data driven. The assessments currently are the center of most criticism about the Common Core. They have room for improvement. However, I would suggest that given the same level of scrutiny, local assessments, teacher made assessments, the SAT/ACT assessments and most any standardized assessment would receive a similar level of acrimony.

As one might be able to predict, the implementation of the Common Core quickly became muddled. Teachers were not prepared and the emphasis was on the test before the standards were adequately implemented. If education leaders, governors, superintendents, principals or parents use low test scores to beat up teachers, than the adults are the problem, not the test.  Any education innovation that I've experienced takes at least 3-5 years to implement.  This concept of American education by public opinion is madness. Education is not a value or belief like religion, it is a method of empowering humans to reach their potential - physically, mentally and intellectually. Throwing out the test because it may be misused is a rationale used to protect the adults.

Let me finish with a story.  A good friend of mine was deeply concerned about the implementation of the Common Core at her daughter's middle school.  This friend is an educator, works in schools and has two advanced degrees.  She stated "I'm all for rigorous standards and demanding more from my daughter. However, this Common Core is a mess." "What's going wrong?" I said.  "Well, her math teacher stated that she needed to work in groups, cooperate with others and problem solve.  Unfortunately, she is doing all the work, yet they are graded as a group. It's not fair... and my daughter is being taken advantage of."

So I asked, "How are you handling this?"  "Well I went and spoke to the teacher who complained that this is how the Common Core was to be taught.  Give the kids a project and have them work together.  Then they are graded as a group. That's what I'm supposed to do."  

The problem is this is not what he is supposed to do.  Here is what the 8th grade math standards suggest are the Mathematical Practices that should be used:

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

These are higher level thinking skills.  And they do lend themselves to group work.  But the teacher has not been trained as to how to implement "Common Core" methodologies, or the teacher is being passive aggressive about the new curriculum, or the teacher does not have a clue about collaborative learning.  

I will repeat, it takes 3 to 5 years to implement a quality educational program.  If we don't get past the political fight, we will never improve our schools. It always seems to get back to the adults and their needs. When politicians, elected officials, unions, book publishers, the media and parents with a hidden agenda get involved in education, we end up with the lowest common denominator.  

Think like a parent.  You want the highest quality, most rigorous education possible for your child... for all children.  That's what the Common Core is getting at.  

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*By the way the question to #4 is that they both are right.  Sara rounded to the nearest hundred and Jeff to the nearest thousand.  

The City of Brotherly Love

The Philadelphia Public Schools is one of the oldest and greatest public school districts in the country.  I know this because my father never stopped reminding me that this was so. My father graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia in 1942. He stated that his diploma was the equivalent of a college diploma. I never believed him, yet if you look at the diploma, you can see he was awarded a degree of Bachelor of Arts and it is indeed considered the same as a college diploma. There were 252 graduates in his class. All men. 245 were white and 7 were black. They were the 178th graduating class of Central High which was founded in 1837.

My father passed away in 2005 at the age of 81.  When he died, the Philadelphia Public School District was bankrupt.  It was operating in debt.  It had lost tens of thousands of students and families as they moved out of the city to the suburbs. The achievement of the district's remaining student body was amongst the lowest districts in the state.  The school district was taken over by the State of Pennsylvania.  An appointed School Reform Commission (SRC) was managing the District.

Something went terribly wrong.  This demise of this once great school district is a sad story in three parts. 

Part I - The Ascension of the District from 1837 to 1964
The Birth and Growth of Public Education

"In 1837 the Philadelphia Board of Education—then known as the Board of Controllers—embraced “universal education” and opened the city’s publicly supported and publicly controlled schools to all school-age children, free of tuition. The board proudly proclaimed: “the stigma of poverty, once the only title of admission to our public schools, has . . . been erased from our statute book, and the schools of this city and county are now open to every child (William Cutler III)." 

The Philadelphia Public School story is inspirational. The district began by educating the poor and destitute of its citizenry.  In 1837 they opened the district to all students and worked hard to educate all of its youth. This growth began at the ward level and eventually was managed centrally by the Board of Education.  The District offered a basic education for all students, founded two noteworthy high schools (Central High School for Boys and Girls Normal High School) for middle class students, and created schools in poorer areas of town for black students.  

At the time, neither the district nor the state provided adequate funding for a truly progressive education, so the district pinched pennies for much of the late 19th century. This meant limited resources and a poorly paid faculty. 

In 1905, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed the Pennsylvania’s Public School Reorganization Act and in 1911 they gave the Philadelphia School Board the power to raise or borrow funds needed to meet the city's growing educational needs.  Thus began a period of significant growth in the district.  Schools were built, the quality of instruction was improved, teacher compensation was increased and the goals of the schools were expanded:

District President Henry R. Edmunds stated in 1911:  “There was a time when the public school was regarded as being simply a place for scholastic instruction. … To-day, a multitude of interests are being cared for by the public school system which no one dreamed of…medical inspection, vocational training, music, physical training, social centers, open air classes, evening lectures to adults, school gardens and summer playgrounds. … There is a growing tendency for the community to regard the school as the center of much of its social life."  

The district grew during the 20th century to over 200,000 students.  It expanded its programming to include schools specifically for college prep, vocational training, special needs and the arts. It built schools as the economy and population expanded through the two World Wars. The growth in knowledge about educating children and the growth of Philadelphia universities (U. of Pennsylvania, Temple, Drexel, La Salle) during the 20th century also contributed to the growth and quality of the district. The district was solvent, growing and succeeding at educating the post war baby boom generation.  

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Part II - The Demise of the District from 1964 to 2000
Voting With Their Feet

It is hard to tell when the demise of the district actually began.  The following essay from Philly.com makes a good argument for 1964.

The biggest events are always the ones you don't notice at the time, and in the case of Philadelphia that was de-industrialization. The Industrial Revolution was dying -- factories were already shutting down and people were moving to the suburbs, as the city's population had already peaked over 2 million in 1950. Upheaval brings unrest, and in Philadelphia, as in many other cities, the tinderbox was race.

This shouldn't have surprised anyone -- the years and months leading up to 1964 contained many warnings like 1963's "Folcroft Incident," a mini-riot that erupted when the first black family tried to move into an all-white development just outside the city. As noted here a couple of weeks ago, New Year's Day 1964 set the tone for this remarkable year when the threat of protests and then a court order brought the end of the embarrassing tradition of blackface in the Mummer's Parade.

The big picture was this: Black Philadelphians -- confined to ghettos like the stretch of North Philadelphia known then as "The Jungle" and with powerful complaints about police brutality and a lack of city services and job opportunities -- were ready to explode. White Philadelphians, complaining of social unrest and crime, were getting out, accelerating a period of so-called "white flight."

The coil was so tightly wound that it didn't take much to blow everything up on the hot summer night of August 28, 1964 -- just a police traffic stop at 23rd and Columbia, a scuffle, a gathering crowd and a false rumor that cops had killed a pregnant black woman. While Philadelphia was "lucky:" in the sense that no one was killed in three nights of rioting, thus nothing compared to the apocalypse that was coming to Watts, Detroit and Newark, some 225 stores were burned or looted, while 341 people were injured and 775 were arrested.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Was-1964-the-most-important-year-in-modern-Philadelphia-history.html#kAwt4uf1oEKkMrb9.99

The decade of the 1960's in America brought 4 assassinations, riots in most urban centers, an awakening black population angry from hundreds of years of inequality and a war in Viet Nam that unsettled our country. The result of this tumult was a flight by the middle class out of the city to the suburbs. This movement out of the cities which began in the late 1950's continued for 50 years. Loss of the urban middle class (both black and white) had a profound effect on the city in general and the public schools in particular. In essence, the district went from a racially and socio-economically balanced student body to a population made up of the working poor and predominantly students of color.

Needless to say, the school district's changing demographics created a pedagogical and organizational dilemma.  Methodologies that succeeded over the last century, were not effective in this much more volatile environment.  Was the problem poverty, or race or cultural mismatch or simply that students did not come to school ready to learn?  Or was the problem that the schools were not prepared to meet the challenges presented by such a needy population.  Frankly, most urban school districts did not have a clue to the complexity of working with poor, disenfranchised populations.  Philadelphia, like most urban school districts, modified their programs around the edges, but did not change its core structure or culture.  It is often easier to maintain the status quo and blame the students, families and society.

At the same time that the schools were grappling with its changing demographics, the Pennsylvania state legislature passed Act 195 giving teachers unions the right to strike. In Philadelphia, there were 6 teacher strikes in 11 years.

"Between 1970 and 1981 the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) went on strike six times—job actions that greatly improved its members’ salaries, benefits, and working conditions but also dramatically increased their employer’s expenses. The school district’s budget more than doubled, from $312 to $711 million, during those years. At the same time, the city’s slow transition from an industrial to a service economy weakened the tax base. A rare combination of slow growth and hyper-inflation further compromised the district’s financial situation. The Board of Education was forced to raise class size and furlough teachers, angering parents as well as PFT leaders. It even resorted to carrying deficits over from one budget year to the next, prompting questions about its fiscal leadership. (William Cutler III)."  

Over 40 years from the 1960's to the 1990's the combination of middle class flight to the suburbs, a growing budget deficit and an educational program that was not aligned with the needs of a poor and alienated students had a negative effect on achievement.  By every measure - test scores, attendance, discipline, graduation rates - the students in the Philadelphia Public Schools were not achieving.

"By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, many Philadelphia parents had opted for suburban schools, charter schools, or home-schooling, and the School District of Philadelphia had become in many ways what it had originally been—a system for poor and disadvantaged children (William Cutler III)".

At the turn to the 21st century, the public schools seemed incapable of educating urban youth with all of the baggage that poverty inflicts. The situation came to a head in the late 1990's through a series of Pennsylvania Department of Education initiatives.

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Part III - The State takes Over from 2001 to the Present
Dismantling the District 

1993 - The Pennsylvania Department of Education froze the funding formula for school districts. This meant that the state would contribute less money per public school student in the future.  Two lawsuits were filed by the city and the Philadelphia School District in 1997 and 1998 to address these inadequate funding levels. One of the lawsuits occurred in federal court and accused the state of discriminating against school districts with large numbers of non-white students.  

1996 - On the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), which was first administered in 1996, students in most Philadelphia schools scored substantially below all other schools in the Commonwealth.

1997 - Pennsylvania joined the school choice movement by passing Act 22 of 1997  known as the Charter School Law.

2001 - The state took over the Philadelphia public schools in exchange for providing Philadelphia schools with increased funding and an opening of the district to school choice. The district was now being run by the School Reform Commission (SRC).

Thus began a decade of controversy.  The media portrayed this effort as a battle between the state and the local district, between public education and school choice, between public and private, between education reformers and the union. The politics of the controversy sold newspapers.  The media never portrayed this effort as a battle between the haves and the have-nots, the cities and the suburbs, the employed and the unemployed. They never discussed the root of the problem.

"By the time Vallas arrived in 2001, the Board of Education had ceased to exist, replaced by what came to be known as the School Reform Commission (SRC). Made possible by the Education Empowerment Act (2000), the SRC brought an end to local control of public education. Too many appeals for more money had finally convinced the governor and the legislature to assert state control. The district would be run by a committee of five, three chosen by the governor and two by the mayor. The idea that the city’s public schools should educate every child also faded. In competition with private schools, charter schools, and suburban school districts, enrollment in the School District of Philadelphia dropped by more than 45,000 students in just four years, from about 207,000 in 2006 to about 160,000 in 2010. At the same time, its proportion of low-income students reached more than 70 percent (William Cutler lll)."

By 2012 the School Reform Commission had turned 45 of its lowest achieving schools over to charter school organizations to run. This was the first indication that it was not business as usual.  This was taken as a direct attack on the previous school board, the union, the administration, the entire public school enterprise.  If the impact of lower revenues, loss of enrollment and low achievement could not be handled by the existing public school system, an alternative would be used.  

The Philadelphia public school controversy came to a head last Monday when the School Reform Commission moved to cancel the contract with the teachers' union, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. The commission was not able to get the union to negotiate a contract that provided a savings by making teachers contribute to their health care payments (a common give back in teacher union contracts over the last decade.) In frustration, they canceled the contract. This decision is the first of its kind in the country since teachers unions were given the right to strike 45 years ago.

There is a war going on in the Philadelphia public schools between parents, students, teachers, administrators, charter schools and the state government.  Philadelphia's public schools are broke - financially, academically, emotionally.  When middle class citizens left the city and moved to the suburbs, the nature of the demographics of the urban core, the tax base of the urban core and the vitality of the urban core changed radically. The problem with the school district is that it did not understand and/or have the capacity to adapt to these new circumstances.  An argument can be made that if by most any measure a school district is failing at educating its students, the district must find an alternative method to educate its children. Charter schools are a first attempt to provide an alternative.  This is often welcomed by the inner city student and parent who is seeking a quality education, but is seen as a takeover attempt by the district (and union).  Some charter schools are excellent and superior to the existing public school... and some are not.

This is a sad story with no upside.  177 years ago the City of Brotherly Love embarked on public education for all of its citizens.  At that time the leadership had a belief that the education of all students was imperative.  We live in a much more complex time.  But the imperative remains.  The City of Brotherly Love.

* Much of the background for this post is from two sources:

• William Cutler III essay: Public Education: The School District of Philadelphia and
• Eva Travers analysis:  Philadelphia School Reform: Historical Roots and Reflections on the 2002-2003 School Year Under State Takeover