City School Stories

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Frank Murphy, May 24, 2011

In the School District of Philadelphia’s 2011-2012 proposed budget, Dr. Ackerman has made it clear that she intends to move forward with her plan to create additional Promise Academies.  These schools represent one of the key elements of the “turn-around” strategy Ackerman has devised for a select group of low achieving schools in the city’s poorest communities.  Six district schools have already been converted to Promise Academies and an additional eleven schools will receive this same treatment in the upcoming school year.

It is estimated that an additional $24 million will be lavished on these seventeen schools, while all other schools in the District will bear significant cuts to their budgets.   Ackerman has claimed that it is her “moral obligation” to continue to move forward with Promise Academies, despite the fact that there is little substantial evidence to support their effectiveness.

Two other budget items that Ackerman is reluctant to relinquish are the district-wide summer program and the tri-annual benchmark-testing program.  The summer program provides eighteen additional instructional days to less than twenty five percent of the District’s students, at a projected cost of  $22.9 million. The benchmark tests, which are standardized diagnostic assessments administered to students grades 3 to 11, are currently outsourced at a cost of roughly $21 million.  This is a cost that could be eliminated by utilizing school and district staff instead.

In these fiscally challenging times, our district leaders clearly need to cut spending.  This is a step that they have long avoided as they pursued their pet projects.  But even now in the face of financial ruin, they still refuse to cut funding to extravagant activities of dubious value and limited utility to the broader student population.

Instead, they propose to eliminate full day kindergarten classes, disband student transportation, increase class sizes, lay off staff, decrease funding for music and art, slash disciplinary schools’ day to half-day sessions and eliminate all of the current alternative education schools.  Dr. Ackerman and her senior team claim that these are the “right” areas in which to concentrate on cutting costs.   To use the word “right” to describe proposed reductions to these critical areas is a questionable language choice. It well might be necessary to reduce funding in these areas to protect the greater good. However, its necessity does not necessarily make it a worthy or honorable choice.

The elimination of and/or reductions to these areas will negatively impact the instructional programs of all schools.   The economic well being of district employees and parents will be greatly impacted by a reduction of the workforce and a scaling back of essential services such as student transportation.  Students who were given a second chance to graduate through alternative school options will now lose a valuable (and for some, only) opportunity to complete their high school education.

Increasing class sizes will lessen the amount of individual attention children will receive from their teachers and will disrupt the overall positive climate of classrooms and schools.  More students per classroom will create additional management problems for teachers.   Instructional programs will narrow in focus as art, music and all other non-core subject areas are reduced or eliminated from school rosters. As a result the rigorous, enriching and mentally challenging learning environment, due every child will be denied.

Educational funding should be spent on proven strategies that will provide the greatest benefit to all of the children enrolled in the School District.  While it is difficult to ensure that important programs will be left untouched when facing such an enormous budget gap of $629 million, keeping less essential activities of similar cost, such as the Promise Academies, benchmark tests, and a summer program is not

It is in moments of great crises that the moral fiber of leaders is tested.   What they choose to sacrifice and what they struggle to save during a devastating financial downturn tell us much about their values and beliefs.

Dr. Ackerman’s sacrificing of full day Kindergarten, student transportation, arts programs and so many staff positions in order to protect her legacy projects, speaks volumes regarding her convictions. It appears that she is more interested in enhancing her reputation as a school reformer than attending to the essential needs of the people she is charge to lead.  By making this choice Ackerman once again demonstrates that her moral compass is pointing in the wrong direction.