“And how are the children?”-Traditional greeting of the Masai people
Photo: Lisa Haver
Philadelphia School Board President Reginald Streater invokes the Masai question at almost every school board meeting. Apparently, he and the other eight members of the board believe that Philadelphia’s schoolchildren are fine. Last month, the board enthusiastically renewed, until 2030, the $367,700 contract (with 3% annual raises) of Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr., two years before its original expiration date. Streater cited “stability” as the reason for the move, even as Watlington and the board move to close more district schools, which will undoubtedly destabilize individual school communities and the entire district.
One board member praised Watlington’s “visibility”, yet his administration’s handling of the facilities planning process has elicited criticism from community members and organizations. Some serving on one of the district’s own committees worried that “the district is using them to add credibility to a flawed process” in which the district has withheld crucial information and cancelled meetings at the last minute. APPS members have questioned the administration’s appointment of several advisory committees, all of whose meetings were closed to the public in violation of the state’s Sunshine Act.
Teachers and principals who attended recent community meetings told reporters that their schools could be targeted for closure or co-locations “based on data that does not accurately reflect their schools”; community members said that “failing to holistically review their schools’ strengths and challenges could result in decisions that harm children and neighborhoods”. Even as the board’s final vote in December approaches, the Watlington administration has yet to release a list of the schools that may be shuttered. The children in those targeted schools will be less than fine as they are separated from their teachers and friends and made to travel even farther every morning and afternoon.
Watlington’s use of marketing language, along with his emphasis on test scores, raises questions about the administration’s focus on the daily experience of the district’s children. He repeatedly promises to make Philadelphia the “fastest improving” district, as if the district were a corporation competing for higher profits; he has relegated parents and community members to the role of “customers”. At the board’s October Goals and Guardrails Committee meeting, Watlington opened with a caveat that our children are more than just test scores, and he acknowledged that test-taking is a skill that some children are better at than others. He and the board then spent the rest of the 2 ½ -hour meeting analyzing test scores and extolling the schools who have increased student achievement, a phrase now synonymous to “raising test scores”.
None of the board members, including those who were teachers and principals, have questioned Watlington’s data-driven strategy, one that leaves little room for creative teaching and learning. Longtime Pennsylvania educator and writer Peter Greene describes the “Big Standardized Test” as “the very worst of the forces employed to dismantle and disfigure public education.” He reminds us that decades of data show that “school level results correlate directly to socio-economic demographic data.”
A data-driven district, by definition, is not a child-centered district.
Board members cited Watlington’s answering their questions as one reason for the contract renewal, but the board rarely asks the superintendent any truly challenging questions. It’s rare to see any board member take up issues brought by parents or community members for public examination or to get a commitment from Watlington about how he will address it. At the board’s September 25 action meeting, for instance, parents from Strawberry Mansion High School testified about the lack of academic supports for students with special needs–an issue that affects students across the district. None of the board members asked how Watlington would ensure the students received those vital–and legally mandated–services. At almost every meeting, a parent or educator advocates for the restoration of school librarians, but there are only two full-time librarians in over 200 district schools–both in magnet schools.
The administration can take some credit for a rise in graduation rates and a dip in dropout rates. They recently negotiated contracts with teachers and school police that avoided disruption to the system, and they relaunched its Parent and Family University at a number of district schools.
But the copious applause at meetings from board members, and the dearth of challenging questions, may give observers the impression that there is little room for improvement in the Watlington administration. That may be closer to the truth when district schools have functioning libraries, when kindergarten classes have aides again, when children with reading difficulties can again see reading specialists, when their classes are no longer overcrowded. Philadelphia’s children will be better off when they can come to school to learn and to enjoy art and music and their classmates, not to become proficient in checking the right boxes on standardized tests.
Philadelphia’s children will not be fine as long as the adults in charge do little more than maintain the status quo.
Lisa Haver is a former Philadelphia teacher and co-founder and coordinator of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools. (appsphilly.net)
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