110833841
To the Editor:
Many thanks to Bill Chenevert for his comprehensive report on the lopsided opening of Philadelphia schools (“Pushing broken doors open,” Aug. 21). Citizens should note that drastic cuts do not affect charters and there is a reason for that. The overall plan behind [Superintendent William] Hite’s budget decision is nothing less than the dismantling of public schools so that they can be absorbed by private management groups as investments. The entire time that Hite was closing and merging dozens of schools across the city, he was executing the expansion of the charter school system.
Ironically, in Chenevert’s article, he mentions that the schools, due to a funding crisis in 2001, were originally taken over and bailed out by the state. Even more ironic is the fact that the deficit then was $75 million compared to $81 million this year. Can we be so bold as to ask why this fiduciary incompetence was allowed to continue for so long?
The only conclusion we can draw is all this “failure” was deliberate. Our political leaders, posing as so concerned for education, are actually behind the move to privatize public education for profit.
Only now that the November elections are getting closer, do we hear calls for a funding formula and closing tax loopholes among other revenue sources. Where was the oversight from Harrisburg as one superintendent after another encouraged one wasteful, bizarre experiment after another with a golden parachute at the end of their tenures?
The only thing this piece failed to mention was that the teachers and other school workers have been supporting the system by working without a contract since last Auggust. By not having raises since ’12, basically a pay freeze has saved the district tens of millions. Teachers have also been charged with maintaining their own classrooms, including paying for their own supplies. Do doctors have to buy their own bandages? Do police have to supply their own handcuffs?
Parents, teachers and all concerned citizens should unite in demanding full support for our school district, a return to local control and oversight and an end to carpetbagger leaders with political agendas.
110833851
