On Thursday February 16th The School Reform Commission of Philadelphia (SRC) voted to suspend a portion of the Pennsylvania Public School Code that requires a three-month window between an official public hearing on proposed public school closures and a vote to make them official.

According to legislative functions pdf available on the School District of Philadelphia website “The SRC may, upon a majority vote, cause to suspend at any time the operation of a SRC policy, provided the suspension does not conflict with legal requirements.” Thus granting them power to change the school code when they deem it necessary.

Regardless of why they have the authority to change the school code, the suspension of school code grants the SRC the power to close schools without any opposition from the public. We are looking at a major abuse of power and a complete disconnect from the SRC and the community. The SRC’s change in policy effectively shuts the door in our faces and is a blatant issue of accountability and transparency.

School reform cannot exist when the community is disenfranchised from the process. Who checks and balances the SRC’s power to silence us from school closings? We don’t appoint them. The governor chooses three members and the mayor chooses two. None of our parents or students sit on the commission so I don’t see how the SRC could go through with a major shift in policy like this without allowing our voices to be heard.

Community members were showing up in opposition to school closings, it wasn’t as if they weren’t showing interest. The community made it a point to be at the 21 community meetings around the issue of school closure.  As recently as March 4th, parents, students and other members of the Philadelphia community showed up on a Saturday to voice their opinions against school closings. The SRC’s abrupt change of school code hurts the community’s ability to be involved in the school reform process.

I know the SRC has a code of ethics which should have influenced its membership to make a more sound decision than to suspend such an important portion of school code. According to its code of ethics the SRC is supposed to include stakeholders in all communications, distribute relevant information about the district, as well as lead with respect and take full responsibility for SRC activity and behavior. However, actions speak louder than words and while members of the SRC may say it wasn’t a move to completely disregard the public’s persistence what else could it be viewed as?

In the meantime I hope for the well being of our students at the schools on the closing list. Where will they go? How will they feel when their schools are no longer available to them? Our students deserve better than this and our community needs to be central to the SRC’s decisions. The community can look back and say they did everything they could to keep the doors open but can the SRC?

Gov. Tom Corbett recently revealed his plan for education, pushing for vouchers as the new standard for education reform. On October 24th, the Senate Education Committee approved a vouchers program. Now, the Senate is poised to pass it. The Senate Education Committee’s support of vouchers is happening despite major opposition from students and parents across Pennsylvania.

Why fund private and parochial schools with taxpayer dollars? If public education weren’t always under attack by budget cuts, there would be no need to expand educational “choices” for parents and students. We know the real first choice of every parent and student is a high quality public school in their neighborhood.

If Gov. Corbett’s real goal was the expansion of educational choice for students he would be funding public education instead of vouchers. “Fixing struggling schools like mine is a process. It takes leadership from the principal and the district, student and parent involvement, qualified and effective teachers, engaging curriculum, accountability, and adequate funding. It is a process, but I know that my school can succeed if it is invested in,” said Baseerah Watson, a senior at  Sayre High School in West Philadelphia. There is no better choice for parents and students than a district of well-funded neighborhood schools.

Vouchers will only increase the disparity within already struggling districts. Many students, parents, and taxpayers will be left behind. They will be left behind because there is no guarantee that getting a voucher will lead to a better education. Even students who get vouchers are not guaranteed acceptance at private schools. Private schools can turn away students or kick students out for any reason, including a student’s disability, religion, test scores, background, or status as an English Language Learner. Even with a voucher, many students will be stuck in the same underfunded, under-performing schools, while more and more resources are drained out of their schools.

Vouchers will not benefit all of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, regardless of the promises being made by Corbett’s administration. These promises are empty promises. Can we really afford to leave anymore students behind? And, furthermore, would we want to?

With a five year plan and billions of dollars invested by the Obama administration to turnaround 5,000 of the nations lowest performing schools, there are quite a few red flags on the field.

In this policy, there are four models of school turnaround: turnaround, restart, transformation and closure.  Turnaround replaces a schools principal and no less than 50 percent of its staff and in addition increases learning time along with other reforms. Restart ultimately results in a school becoming charter school. Transformation also replaces the principal and increases learning time along with instructional reforms but doesn’t require the schools to replace 50 percent of its staff and lastly closure shuts a school down and sends students elsewhere to learn.

Any of the four methods of school turnaround could easily become the new one size fits all answer to fixing our lowest performing schools. However after the failures of No Child Left Behind are we ready to try on this newest ensemble? The push around school turnaround is going to foster the same tired thinking that, if it works well in some places then it’s bound to work all over.

When are the policymakers going to wake up and allow students, parents, and teachers; the real experts on education to create and implement our own turnaround? We recognize that the conversation is too centered around who manages the turnaround process instead of what the actual teaching and learning looks like. Turnaround should be centered around the quality of students education rather than test scores and graduation rates.

Turnaround feels more like a corporate matter than an educational process because in an educational process teachers, parents and students are the focus not the folks that manage the institution. The top down strategy seems more appropriate for turnarounds in corporations and other businesses. Schools are not like businesses and shouldn't be managed like one. The bottom-line should be quality education for our students not statistics.

For more information on school turnaround click here.