Notes from the Field
Submitted by Frank Murphy on Jan 3, 2012
The latest wave of budget reductions in the School District of Philadelphia took effect on December 31, 2011. As a result, another 141 district employees were laid off. These individuals join the ranks of the hundreds of other essential, school-based employees who have helped this year to narrow the gaping district budget short fall by unwillingly relinquishing their jobs. Nurses are the primary targets of this latest cost saving effort.
Learning that you have been terminated is never pleasant news to hear. But the decision to send out lay off notices to these employees on the day before Christmas Eve is reminiscent of the worst behavior of Ebenezer Scrooge. The outrage over this action resonated throughout the comment section of a post published at the Philadelphia Public School Notebook. Also clearly articulated in the comments responding to this article is a distain and disgust for the many administrators hired by Arlene Ackerman who still remain in powerful positions through out the District. More than a few commenters asked, why weren’t any of these high salaried individuals given notice? Shouldn’t they have followed their leader out of the door?
The harm being done to individual employees as a consequence of drastic school district budget reductions is important news. But behind this sad and upsetting human interest tale is an even more important story. The financial meltdown of the School District of Philadelphia has yet to be brought under control.
The huge decrease in state aid, the end of federal stimulus funds and the lost of large sums of misspent money during the Ackerman administration have all contributed to the continuing havoc touching every school, every child and every employee in the district. It does not bode well for the long-term health of our district that cuts in school based personnel and programs are still continuing this far into the school year.
The task of redirecting our School District to a financially sound footing is the most pressing item before our newly appointed School Reform Commissioners. It will not be an easy challenge to confront. As these brutal holiday cuts illustrate, fixing our schools’ financial crisis will be a painful and thankless job.
But it is one that must be done before we attempt to move forward with any further attempts at school improvements. What is the point of initiating any kind of change, if we cannot afford whatever that change might be? This is a concept that Arlene Ackerman did not or more likely would not grasp. And it was this very basic denial of fiscal responsibility on her part that has landed us in our current miserable state of affairs.
In the months ahead, the SRC must find a way to stabilize the finances of our District. As they attempt to finally and responsibly balance the budget, there is no doubt that they will be required to make many difficult decisions. But regardless of the difficulties their choices will engender, they should strive to take into account the concerns and needs of all of the members of our school communities: children and adults alike. When they succeed at this task, they will not only have stabilized the District’s finances, but they will have also taken the first and most important step in attracting and hiring a competent and skillful superintendent. The best candidates for this position will only be attracted to our district when our affairs are in better order than they are now.
This melancholy little Christmas story of people losing their jobs in the face of the gift-giving season is a cautionary tale. The Ghost of Christmas Future does not paint a promising picture of the school district yet to come. We need to amend the direction toward which we are currently pointed. We are traveling down a path chosen by our past superintendent that has lead us to the edge of a cliff. Faced with the prospect of a great fall, wisdom suggests that we rethink the costly school reform strategies that she imposed on our school district. In particular since Ackerman herself has recently expressed doubts concerning their effectiveness.
In the spirit of New Year’s optimism, I hope that our newly appointed SRC members can eventually get this job done. And that come next holiday season, all of those people whose lives have been turned upside down by Arlene Ackerman and her “Broad Street Broadies”, will have had a better year to celebrate.