What’s happening on the District’s facilities management plan
(This post originally appeared at the Public School Notebook. We thank our attorneys at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, especially Ben Geffen and Michael Churchill, for their multi-year dedication to this effort.) What could possibly justify the closing of Northeast High School, the largest school in the city and each year bursting at … Continue reading
This summer the Court of Common Pleas upheld our right to make public the list of 60 schools identified for closure by the Boston Consulting Group as part of the District’s 2012 “Transformation Plan. ” This is the second victory on this case for Parents United and our lawyers at the Public Interest Law Center. In … Continue reading
How shocked should we be really? On Friday, Philadelphia School Partnership’s Mark Gleason embraced a stunningly blunt description of the District’s “portfolio model” at a session of the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting. Gleason was attempting to explain why the portfolio model depends on school closings in a system where multiple operators run schools. … Continue reading
[Updated] If it walks like lobbying and talks like lobbying, is it lobbying? That’s the question Parents United for Public Education and our partners asked a year ago to the City Ethics Board regarding an independent contract between the William Penn Foundation and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to re-make Philadelphia’s public schools. Our complaint … Continue reading
(This piece is a cross-posting of my article that originally appeared at the Philadelphia Public School Notebook) Pay to play” is a widely reviled practice in government, but that’s effectively what the District’s legal argument would establish through its challenge of an open records case in state court. For more than 10 months, Parents United for Public Education and … Continue reading
Parents at the former Wilson Elementary School in West Philadelphia have been protesting the un-monitored dangerous 1.2 mile walk to their new school, Lea Elementary. Despite bizarrely bloviated promises from the city’s Walk Safe Program – the directors said they would have 260 volunteers present daily for the 24 schools which closed last spring – … Continue reading
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter made an appearance last night on “All In with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC about the awful decisions made this year about Philadelphia public schools. From mass school closings to reckless charter expansion, from closing schools to opening prisons, from eliminating fundamental education responsibilities to laying off thousands of Philadelphians – what, … Continue reading
Parents United for Public Education has won its state Right To Know request to gain public access to the list of 60 schools identified by the Boston Consulting Group for closure and to the firm’s criteria for school closings — a request for information the District has consistently denied to the public. Last spring, the Boston Consulting Group … Continue reading
History is not made only by those with titles and power. It is defined and understood through the heroic actions of many. During the school closings process, PCAPS, the Notebook, and parents at schools like Taylor and McCloskey who successfully staved off their proposed closings, rallied to the cause with plenty of action. Here are a … Continue reading
After last week’s vote in the School Reform Commission, which closed down 23 schools in Philadelphia creating education deserts in communities already suffering from public disinvestment, I went home, turned out the lights and buried my head under the covers. The past week has felt like a collective sense of mourning for our schools and … Continue reading
