Other than “present”, “yes”, “no” and “abstain”, the public has heard few words from the newly appointed members of Philadelphia’s school board. The five new members of the 9-member board, selected by Mayor Cherelle Parker, did not introduce themselves to the public at the first meeting after their swearing in on May 1, nor did they appear at any neighborhood meet-and-greet sessions as their predecessors did.
The board held a special hearing last week at a district high school in the Northeast, with nothing on the agenda other than hearing testimony from parents, students, educators and community members. Yet not one of the board members, other than President Reginald Streater as facilitator, uttered one word. They didn’t respond to the parents, educators, students or community members. who came to ask about a number of issues including restoring school librarians, reopening pools in district schools, admission to magnet, and, ironically, better community engagement. Why hold a meeting in the community if you don’t want to talk to the people in it?
The Parker administration followed the precedent set by Mayor James Kenney in excluding the public from the selection of school board members. Unlike candidates for elected school boards, members of the Philadelphia board are not required to tell the public who they are or about their experience in education or governance. But that doesn’t mean they can’t. The governing body of the school district of Philadelphia–an independent political body–oversees an annual budget of $4.5 billion and makes decisions that affect not just the children of the city, but their families and communities. The public should have some idea of how they will do that.
Kenney, under our system of mayor control, appointed the first members of the reconvened school board after the 17-year rule of the state-imposed School Reform Commission. Those who fought to abolish the SRC were hopeful that the local board would implement reforms stifled by the SRC, most importantly changing the spending priorities of the district to stop the flow of money to outside contractors and consultants and ending the expansion of charter schools while closing neighborhood schools.
The Kenney board, soon realizing that funding eighty-seven privately managed schools was not financially sustainable, did halt the creation of new charter schools. Unfortunately, the board did continue to issue 5-year renewals to charter schools failing to meet basic academic standards. Ignoring the calls for public renewal hearings. They also failed to examine the exorbitant salaries and bloated administrations at many charter schools.
In many ways, the Kenny-appointed board, in its 6-year term, seemed determined to maintain the status quo. There is no initiative they embarked on that one could point to as their legacy. For example: news stories have lamented the loss of school libraries, and the parents and educators who pleaded with the board to bring them back cited study after study showing that they boosted reading scores. It wasn’t a controversial subject. But the board took no steps to bring back school libraries; they never even discussed it.
Their proudest achievement, sadly, was the creation of their “Goals and Guardrails”, an expansive data-analysis system that they trumpeted at every opportunity. The time and resources spent on creating, compiling, and analyzing the data, and the special meetings held every month to do so, could be spent on actually improving the educational experience of the students.
Will this new board serve the people of the city better than the one before it? Or will they too maintain the status quo?
The new board can begin by reversing the speaker suppression policies, enacted by their predecessors, that limited the number of speakers and cut their time. They can listen to their constituents’ concerns and enact the reforms that parents, students, educators and community members have been asking for before the many governing bodies of the district: school librarians, healthy buildings, classroom aides, mental health supports and small class size.
Lisa Haver is a former Philadelphia teacher. She is co-founder and coordinator of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools.
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