Philly Back-to-School Blues

It’s back to school in Philadelphia. Thousands of students are returning to schools where there are no nurses, librarians or guidance counselors. And under the leadership of School Superintendent William Hite, there has been a precipitous drop in students’ performance on state standardized tests.

While there’s no money for classrooms, Hite found $1.2 million to hire bureaucrats for his already bloated administrative staff. Only in Philadelphia would a position be created for a “turnaround” artist whose former employers told him to turn around and get out of town. The Philadelphia Daily News reported that Eric Becoats resigned from his last two jobs “following accounts of his alleged misuse of public resources.”

City Council President Darrell Clarke has had enough. He sent a letter to Hite:

In a recent edition of the Philadelphia Daily News, it was brought to my attention that you have filled six senior level positions at the School District of Philadelphia. I am writing to request that you provide Council with detailed information concerning these positions, including a job description and the manner in which these individuals will contribute to life in the classroom.

Let me be clear about my concern with this announcement. As you may recall, during City Council’s consideration of the Mayor’s proposed fiscal year 2016 operating and capital budgets, you testified that you were seeking additional funding that would go directly to classroom support, including providing additional teachers to reduce class size and restoring counselors and nurse/health technicians. It is on the basis of your testimony that Council approved approximately $100 million in additional funding for the School District’s upcoming academic year.

Clarke added:

Given this background, I think it is important to understand how the hiring of these six individuals will enhance the educational experience of Philadelphia’s children.

It’s true that trouble doesn’t last always. However, that truism doesn’t apply to a school district whose superintendent inherited a fiscal hole and kept digging.

Why Murals Matter

June is Black Music Month. First observed in 1979 at the White House, I’m kicking off the celebration at City Hall where I will offer public comments at a hearing on the Philadelphia Housing Trust Fund. Some background.

Last year, the Pennrose Company demolished the John Coltrane mural in Strawberry Mansion. Pennrose has been feeding at the public trough of government subsidies for decades. But in an instant, the company erased a tribute to an American cultural icon.

While the nation celebrates the centennial of the birth of Billie Holiday and Mary Lou Williams, the Philadelphia Housing Authority plans to demolish this cultural asset.

Now, you might be wondering what is the connection between murals and the affordable housing crisis? Kelvin Jeremiah, President and CEO of PHA, said it best in his remarks before the City Council Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless on April 27:

It is my view that the affordable housing crisis that confronts this great city is also an issue of deep-seated structural poverty. … Solving the poverty problem will go a long way to solve the affordable housing crisis.

Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the nation. A whopping 40 percent of school-aged children live in poverty. There is a correlation between education and poverty. If the educational achievement of poor children is increased, fewer will end up on PHA’s 10-year waiting list for public housing.

A growing body of evidence shows that students with access to arts education perform better on standardized tests. In addition to improved student achievement, arts education contributes to the development of cognitive and social skills, nurtures a motivation to learn, increases student attendance and fosters a positive school environment. At-risk students cite their participation in the arts as a reason for staying in school.

Students involved in arts instruction report less boredom in school. Ask students why they dropped out of school, they will say they were bored.

The School District of Philadelphia has drastically cut arts and music programs; 25 percent of schools offer no music instruction. In the absence of arts education, murals may be poor students’ only exposure to the arts.

At the opening of the new Whitney Museum, First Lady Michelle Obama said the arts “could inspire a young person to rise above the circumstances of their life and reach for something better.”

Community-based public art inspires young people to reach for their star.

To be clear, it’s not about preserving brick-and-mortar. Instead, it’s about the transformative power of the arts to engage, motivate and keep students in schools.

It’s also not about money. Through digital and mobile technology, a mural can be recreated at a fraction of its original cost. Indeed, the cost of preserving this great city’s cultural heritage would be far less than, say, Pennrose’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions.

Philly’s School to Prison Pipeline

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.

[…]

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.

@PhillyEducation: Get Ready for Your Close-up

One screenshot is worth a thousand words.

Check out MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry on Philadelphia’s school funding crisis.