Committee Hearing, May 8, 2008

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION - - - William H. Hunter Elementary School 2400 North Front Street Philadelphia, PA Thursday, May 8, 2008, 5:30 p.m. - - - Resolution 080261 - Authorizing the City Council Committee on Education to hold hearings to investigate the present state of secondary education in Philadelphia public schools and to explore ways to improve educational achievement in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Jannie L. Blackwell, Chair William K. Greenlee Frank Rizzo Maria D. Quinones-Sanchez Also Present: Councilman Bill Green - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Specialists 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 I N D E X WITNESS J. Douglass, Hunter School Principal.... Dr. Heidi Ramirez, SRC member........... 71 5 6 Panel I Dr. Cassandra Jones, SDP................ 7 Dr. Carol Fixman, Phila. Ed. Fund....... 13 8 Panel II 9 Diana Thompson, Mastbaum parent......... 30 Leslie Ramirez, " student........ 42 10 Melissa Cavanaugh, " " ........ 46 Monica Pedraza, Edison " ........ 49 11 Jessica Oliver, Edison " ........ 52 12 Panel III Y. Rodriguez, Willard ES/Jones MS parent 56 Eric Yates, W. Philadelphia High School 57 Dan Jones, Masterman student............ 61 Panel IV L. Jones Mahoney, W. Phil. High student 74 Breonia Robinson, " " " " 78 Candace Carter, Sayre High School....... 83 Panel V Karla Mota, Kensington student.......... 87 Ashley Rowell, " " ........... 90 Cheryl Gray, Olney student.............. 92 Panel VI Tyrone Hardy, public school parent...... 95 Bertha Brown, public school parent...... 99 G.J. Dettamore, Masterman High student 102 Phuong Nin, Bodine High student.........104 Dolores Shaw, Mastbaum parent...........108 3 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 (Index, cont'd.) WITNESS Panel VII Tina Sellers, Frankford parent..........113 A. Escherarria, Youth Svcs. Coalition 115 Panel VIII (Translator: Zach Steele) A. Lorenzo, " " " .......120 Irma Samora, public school parent.......121 Panel IX M. DelGado, Fair Hill H.S. Principal 124 - - - 4 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

May we have your attention so that we may begin? We would like be out of here in the allotted time, so we'd like to get started so that all of those who want to testify have an opportunity to do so. Let me thank all of you for being here today. You sure we're not in Center City or at the School District? Looks great to me. We want to thank you for being here today before the City Council Commitee on Education. This is a hearing pursuant to Resolution 080261, authorizing hearings to investigate the present state of secondary education of Philadelphia public schools and to explore ways to improve educational achievement. Before I make a statement and call on the bill's sponsor, our own Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, who convened this meeting at this 5 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 location tonight, we will ask the clerk to please read the title of the resolution.

Resolution No. 6 080261, authorizing the City Council Committee on Education to hold hearings to investigate the present state of secondary education in Philadelphia public schools and to explore ways to improve educational achievement in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. We note that a quorum is present. To my left is Councilman Rizzo; to my right is the sponsor of this resolution, Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez; to her right is Councilman Bill Greenlee; and to his right is Councilman Bill Green. Let me say that we have convened this evening for our hearing 6 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 on secondary education. All of us realize that the value of a high school diploma is invaluable, not only for one's future in terms of the professional world, but even for vocational education or professional training. Secondary school is vital to the link of the working world with its demands and its instruction. Having our young people grow and learn to complete secondary school also coincides with the community's goal of nurturing knowledgeable and committed and talented leaders who want to build strong families as a foundation for viable, stable neighborhoods. It is in our sincere interest that the young people of our great city and all over America attain the best education possible in order to prepare them and you for the challenges that lie ahead. So one of our goals is to initiate and support 7 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 programs, both academic and social, that help students acquire the level of competency required for graduation on time. We look forward to you raising questions and issues that are foremost on your minds so that together we may address them. We will now recognize the sponsor of this resolution, Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, for remarks. (Applause.)

Thank you. I will be brief, but I wanted to take a moment to thank both Justin DiBerdinis from my staff and Councilwoman Blackwell, who's chair of our education committee, and her staff for their support in putting together what we hope is one of many attempts of City Council coming down to the communities and listening to the constituencies that elect us. 8 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 This is by no means the beginning of a discussion; it is actually a discussion that's been taking place for a long time, and we hope that these hearings will serve to enlighten us about what we're doing presently that is good, what we need to continue to support, and what needs to be on our horizon as we move forward. We are very committed and we want to acknowledge that we have made tremendous progress in our schools in our lower grades, but something that has always troubled us is, what do we do with our high schools, and that's why we are here today, all as stakeholders looking for the solutions together; not always agreeing how we get there, but definitely committed to the young people. So I want to thank the chairwoman for allowing us to do this today, and I want to recognize our 9 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 principal and our host for brief welcoming remarks, Mr. Douglass. (Applause.) PRINCIPAL DOUGLASS: Thank you. And I welcome you here to the William H. Hunter School. I'm proud to say William H. Hunter School is fairly new; in 2004 we opened up. It became a K-to-8 school, and I'm proud to say that next year, we will be a pre-K-to-8 school. I feel as a neighborhood school, as a community school, we want to take our younger students and our younger people and grow them up with us in a community to be the leaders that we're talking about here. So thank you very much. And, again, welcome to Hunter. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. I would like to introduce to you a special guest who's here until 10 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 Saturday, who has Essence International School in Nigeria, Africa, and who is the editor of all of my publications, Miss Delores Mohammed, principal and CEO of her own school in Nigeria. (Applause.)

Thank you for being here and for all that you do. Let me call on Miss Quinones- Sanchez for our next introduction.

We wanted to acknowledge -- as you all know, the Mayor has made a significant public commitment to public education, and we wanted to acknowledge Laurie Shore, who is his chief education officer. Laurie? (Applause.)

Thank you very much. We would hope that in the future -- we did invite Miss Ackerman, 11 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 the new CEO, but unfortunately, she doesn't formally come on for another month or so, and so we look forward to having her participate in our hearings in the future. We also noted that Debra Kahn, the former Secretary of Education for the Mayor is here. We thank her and all of our special guests. We have Tom Massaro, who's a housing guy, but we'll still invite him as well as so many others of you. Thank you all very much for being here. (Applause.)

Thank you so much for being here. (Applause.)

Now we will call forward Dr. Cassandra Jones, Chief Academic Officer of the School District; Dr. Carol Fixman, Executive Director, Philadelphia Educational Fund. And let me note that I saw Al 12 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 Beechner when I was coming in, and he's always a special person who helps us a lot when it comes to public education. (Witnesses come forward.)

Good evening and welcome.

Thank you.

Please identify yourself for the record, then feel free to begin your testimony.

Good evening. Cassandra Jones, Interim Chief Academic Officer for the School District of Philadelphia. And I would just like to say that Dr. Ackerman had planned on being with us here this evening. She actually got ill, so she is ill. And also, Chairwoman Dungee Glenn and Tom Brady could not be with us this evening.

Thank you. 13 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

I'm Carol Fixman. I'm the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Education Fund.

Thank you. Feel free to begin your testimony in either order.

Thank you. I'm going to start. Dr. Jones and I are going to tag-team this. I wanted to first thank the members of City Council for inviting us. We very much appreciated this. I'm going to start off and talk a little bit about an overview of the process that we've started to create, a secondary education blueprint. The Education Fund, along with key District partners, organizations such as Communities and Schools, the Philadelphia Academies, Philadelphia Youth Network, recognize that the initiatives within the District would benefit from alignment and from longer-term planning across 14 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 grades 6 to 12. That would continue the secondary education movement that did begin in 2003. Equity was a key issue; in other words, creating quality education for all students. The Education Fund garnered the money, the funds to support a comprehensive planning process to create this five-year secondary education blueprint to cover grades 6 to 12. The sources were, and are, the William Penn Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Clinial Foundation. The Philadelphia Education Fund is the external partner, the School District the internal partner, and together we are co-convening this process. The process began in the fall of 2006. The District generated a White Paper summarizing past high school reform efforts. The Ed Fund 15 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 and the District convened focus groups of teachers, administrators, parents, students, and community members around secondary education needs. Since that time, over 800 individuals from inside the district and from outside have participated in school-based study groups, work teams centered on thematic anchors outlined in the White Paper, cross-district symposia, a steering committee, subcommittee and task force meetings. Fifty-four of sixty-two high schools participated. Forty-five high schools have participated in multiple events. Over 500 school-based staff have directly participated in this process, all high school principals. Over 150 middle grades and high school students have directly participated through surveys, focus groups, committees. Over 40 external organizations, the Home and School Association, representatives from area 16 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 universities and on and on. I'm going to turn it over to my partner to pick up from here. Cassandra?

We want to talk about the mission, or "the blueprint," as Carol has started to refer to it. We're looking at accelerating the improvement of our middle grades and high school education for every child, making sure that we have equity for all of our youth. And, really, the face of high school has changed. I think if you look at high schools now, you know, we have a lot more -- there's a lot more diversity with our high schools. And so the five-year blueprint is, how do you put this plan together so people can see in one glance what the high school landscape looks like? What are the options for all of our students for high school? How do you access these options? And how do you make 17 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 sure that the options are distributed equitably across this city? So you have -- to form this, it's teachers, it's parents, it's our local elected officials. We've brought in national experts: Warren Simmons has been here; Deanna Bernie from the Annenberg Institute; Connie Warren, who's formerly of the Carnegie Corporation. And we've brought different people in. And we have students, you know, coming in and talking to us about what's working in high school, what are the challenges in high schools, what are the things that we need to be examining, and how do we do this better. The blueprint has to align multiple key processes that are under review. So we're looking at the District's strategic plan that's due to the Department of Education. That's a five-year plan. It looks at 18 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 everything that the District is doing: professional development, teaching and learning, assessments, policies, procedures, what the District is going to be doing over the next five years, and what about the facilities? We are fortunate to be in a beautiful facility today, but if you look across all of the schools, we don't have a beautiful facility. And so what's the facility plan? What's the long range? How do we know when all of the schools are going to have attention? The graduation and promotion policy. We know that we're in the last year of the policy that we're in now. That policy actually expires on June 30th of 2008, and so a new promotion policy is going to go in effect. We know that we have sent this policy out and we've gotten lots of feedback, and it has been revised for 19 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 several months now, and it's been a six- to seven-month process to getting that feedback, but what does it mean so that when a student graduates, that diploma means something? Looking at the school (indiscernible) our early-warning signs. We know we're looking at the middle grades and what happens for a child in 6th grades. What happens in 3rd grade with the reading levels? What happens between 8th and 9th grade? So you can't ignore these early indicators. And then what are we going to do collectively as a community? We look at some of the technology that has come in through different grants and then a policy like internships. The classroom -- the learning doesn't stop within these walls, but it's truly the city. And how do you incorporate all of those experiences? 20 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 And so the goal is to have this draft document ready for comments really -- and presented to the SRC by early August. And we are indeed eager for Dr. Ackerman to come in officially June 1st so that she can put her imprint on this particular document. So the blueprint is looking at ways to improve our high schools. We know that the dropout rate is far too high, and so what are we doing about that? We know that, looking at the enrollment, you know, it goes up, it goes down depending on the area of your school. We look at the diverse provider models that -- we have charters, we have other options. These are still schools, but how does all of this factor into the landscape for high school? So it's really important that 21 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res.

080261 we prepare these high schools so that our students can graduate and that that diploma will mean something, because a high school graduate needs to have that diploma so that they can move on to post-secondary options, which are college and career.

I'm going to talk a little bit about what's emerging from the blueprint planning process, so what are we finding? We've identified measurable targets aligned with Mayor Nutter's goals, and they're all aimed at equity, creating quality education for all students with equitable opportunities; it's terribly important. The targets are: First, online promotion from grades 6 through 12. Second, online 9th grade promotion; we pulled that out especially, as it's particularly important. If we can keep students 22 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 into the 9th grade and into the 10th, there's less of a chance they will drop out. Third, PSSA achievement -- those are the State standardized tests -- at the proficient and advanced levels. We'd like to increase the number of students reaching proficient and advanced. Increased high school graduation rates. Re-engagement of out-of-school youth. Readiness for success in post-secondary education and career pathways. And last, but certainly not least, school climate indicators, such as student and teacher attendance, suspension rates, and serious incidents. We've identified two major cross-cutting elements across all targets. We'd like to look at 23 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 teaching and learning, and we'd like to look at building the capacity system-wide so that any changes that are made are sustainable changes. This is not a one-shot deal. These changes should be sustainable. The key concepts that have emerged through all of the individuals that have participated so far include really important personalized learning units. This means small schools, this means small learning communities, academies, smaller, personalized learning units. The large comprehensive high schools need to be broken down into smaller units. There were -- and we're not only talking about size here; we're also talking about taking advantage of the small size to improve the personalization, the school climate, the quality of teaching and learning. The teachers need the tools and resources to create a community of 24 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 practice amongst themselves. The students need adults who know them and are dedicated to their success. Teacher quality -- we can't emphasize that enough -- is key. A district can only be as good as its teachers, and so we need teacher support. Professional development is a very good example. We have talked a lot -- many of the work groups have talked about getting teacher communities of practice more say, more support, time, resources to identify and implement their professional development. This means greater autonomy, with strong support from Central Office. We need to create communities of practice within small learning communities or small schools but also across content areas in the high schools. That's very important. Teacher equity across the 25 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 District. This means reducing the concentration of new teachers in low-performing schools. That's a problem at this point. (Applause.)

Distributed leadership in schools. This means creating leadership opportunities for teachers so that principals don't bear the sole responsibility for a school's success. (Applause.)

Quality teaching and learning -- and I can't emphasize this enough -- needs to be cultivated through investing in the full continuum of teacher development, from certification, recruitment, induction to retention. And this is really the key: We need to create instruction that is engaging and is challenging for every single students. We want to engage the students in problem-solving that's 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 related to the world they see around them and to potential career paths. Sometimes we call this "project-based learning." I'm going to turn it over to Cassandra to continue with the blueprint key concept.

The other key concepts is looking at attendance behavior, looking at your core subject areas. We're really looking at accountability. This is something that is not done by the District alone; it is with District and non-District stakeholders. It's about looking at the lessons learned and best practices. It's about taking ownership and looking at the lessons that we have learned. And we do know some things that we need to do. And so how do we then come together as one and make a difference? So we talk about small schools, we talk about coming together with a single plan. We know that 8th- 27 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 to-9th grade transaction is an issue. So those are some very quick things that we've talked about. What are we going to do collectively to turn that around? At a point, you know, the plan says what are the benchmarks along the way that we have to start to address? And then how do we engage the community as really partners, really being transparent, giving the information and engaging people not at the end, but as we go along, how do we really bring in everybody to the table so that we have a plan that won't sit on a shelf but that everyone will be able to read, to understand, an that we will all have accountability. So providing transparency to all of us and making sure that the decisions are truly joint decisions will make a difference, and that's the essence of what we will want to do as we get the blueprint for secondary 28 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 education. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Are there questions from members of the committee?

You mentioned that this report will be done in early August. What do you envision that process to be once the blueprint is shared with the SRC? And how are we going to re-engage community and feeding back into that?

We will never stop engaging the community. So even as we're going through the different task forces, the small work groups, that information is being compiled. It will be a public presentation with the SRC. It will go on the website. Then the committees will continue to work, because the writing part, though this has been intense, this is the easy part. The heavy 29 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 lifting will come after we have consensus to get the work done, so the committee and the engagement will never stop.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry. Could I --

Certainly.

This document is meant by all to be a living document, that it will be adapted as the five years move forward.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Let me introduce my senior legal counsel and say thank you, John Christmas. Thank you as well. (Applause.)

Councilwoman Quinones will invite the 30 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 next panel to come forward.

We're going to do this in groups of panels. Our first panel I'd like to introduce, and they're going to be focusing in on teacher quality and CTE issues: Diana Thompson. Mastbaum students Leslie Ramirez and Melissa Cavanaugh. Edison students Jessica Oliver and Monica Pedraza. So thank you, ladies. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. We'll ask each of you to give your name of whomever is speaking and then begin your testimony. And thank you for being here.

My name is Diana Thompson and I represent parents from Mastbaum. I want to tell you a little bit about me and then little bit about my experience at Mastbaum. I have 31 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 three children; the oldest graduated from Girls High School, the second graduated from Central. I have my son, my last, is a junior currently at Mastbaum. I'm a museum educator and I work very closely with schools in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, particularly Wister and John B. Kelly. I volunteer my time at John B. Kelly. My son has spent time at Fitler Academics plus and Conwell Middle School, so I've been around the School District a while. What brought me here was a situation that occurred last year, when my son was a sophomore. His geometry teacher was pregnant at the beginning of the year. The school knew about it, obviously, and she left in midyear, approximately February. To me from, September to February, was plenty of time to find a qualified replacement. However, that 32 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 didn't happen in his case. What they found was a permanent sub who knew nothing about geometry. They were given worksheets to occupy their time. And I -- this is crucial, because one of the things that -- everyone knows that Mastbaum was a Corrective Action II school. One of the things that the determines adequate yearly progress is, of course, math. And yet 150 -- roughly 150 kids were left basically to fend for themselves. I hired a tutor; I can do that, but not everybody can. And in terms of teacher hiring, I know from personal experience -- I have several friends who are teachers who have chosen to work outside the School District. They come out of school in May or June, their college loans come due in October. The School District does not start hiring until mid to late August; that's far too long for a recent 33 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 college graduate to wait to find a job. They have to have a job immediately, or they at least have to know in June. In terms of parent involvement, I am active in my son's school. The counselors know me, the teachers know me, the disciplinarian knows me. My son is a mentally gifted student. He is currently taking college classes at CCP. He's in programs that I had to find out on my own, not through anything that the School District ever told me, with the exception of MG. At Mastbaum currently, there's only one parent-teacher conference a year. And like I said, I have -- I had students at Central and at Girls High; every report card that came out I was there, every report card. My son chose the business and information technology program at Mastbaum specifically because of the 34 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 internship possibility with Lockheed-Martin. He was very excited about this program. And Miss Jones has already mentioned the importance of internships in her testimony. Lockheed-Martin was supposed to interview every two years anyone in their sophomore and junior year. This would have been an interviewing year. They're not interviewing because Lockheed-Martin is no longer involved at Mastbaum. I only found out about this because I asked a question of his business teacher at the only parent-teacher conference that was offered at Mastbaum. I think what I want to say is that programs like internships, like college select, like mentally gifted are only as good as -- are only good if people know about them. They shouldn't be hidden, they shouldn't be left to chance, like I found out about them. 35 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 School needs to mean something to high-schoolers. I had hoped that Joshua's attendance at Mastbaum would give him a reason to learn again, yet his words to me lately have been, "Mom, why should I try to bring up my grades? An A is just the same as a D. " Now, this child is attending CCP, so yes, he is going to go somewhere, but those are his words.

My son will graduate, but I believe his comments speak for many his age who don't choose to finish high school. And that's all I have to say. )

Thank you very much. We hope that Dr. Jones can perhaps, before we leave, respond to the issue. Unfortunately, we've had hearings every year, and every year, this whole question of hiring and of 36 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 people knowing where they are placed for the next year, whether they're new teachers or existing teachers, is a very important one and one that we get every single year. So perhaps Dr. Jones can respond to when teachers are hired. There was a time some years ago where we had hearings about when schools were settled. They weren't settled until really the beginning of November, so we've come a long way in having that done by the end of September, generally speaking. But perhaps she can respond to that issue and then maybe let you know something about Mastbaum specifically. Councilman Rizzo?

Thank you. Do you mind if I ask you a question? What I'd like to know is, you described something that troubles me a bit. You described two different levels, one at -- what were the other 37 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 two schools that you mentioned Central and --

Central and Girls High.

And Girls High. And then you described Mastbaum as having totally a whole different agenda. Not to point fingers, but why -- what do you think the reason for that is?

Excuse me for one moment, Councilman. We see State Representative Tony Payton. Please feel try to join us up here at the table as our special guest. And then there's Dr. Heidi Ramirez, a member of the School Reform Commission. Please free to join us upfront. Thank you. (Applause.)

Excuse 38 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 my interruption, Councilman.

No problem. thank you for doing that.

The only thing that I can think of would be probably lack of parent participation in parent-teacher conferences. I know that it is an issue. Even though I went to Girls High and I went to Central -- I mean, surely every parent that had children in that school didn't go to the conferences. I did. My kids are important to me. I show up. So, I mean, that's the only thing that I can think of. The only other thing too is that frequently, in my experience with Mastbaum, I've never met his MG teacher. He's a junior. I've had one brief encounter with his Spanish teacher at Back to School Night, and that's a class where she's -- he's having some issues, and I can't see her. So... 39 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

Maybe the District will further elaborate on that. Thank you.

Thank you Councilman. Councilman Greenlee?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Very quickly. Miss Thompson, I was just wondering, on the specific issue that you raised with the geometry teacher, I'm sure you asked some questions about why, you know, there wasn't some preparation. Did either of the officials at Mastbaum or in the School District generally ever give you an explanation why? Because what you said sounded reasonably, that they knew that the teacher was pregnant and was going to be out. Was there ever any explanation given as to why they didn't seem to give a teacher that had a lot of skills in that particular 40 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 subject?

All that I was ever told -- and this was in a meeting that I finally had with the math department chair -- was that there were no qualified math teachers available.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Bill Green?

Thank you. Thanks for coming in and talking to us today about some of your frustrations with the School District and in particular your son's school. I just had a quick question which is, why can't you meet with your son's Spanish teacher? In other words, are you asking for appointments and being told that they won't meet with you?

The one time I met her, she was very defensive. I 41 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 have spoken with her on the phone, and it's a lot of defensive behavior on her part. I have not contacted her simply because my schedule right now is very busy and it's the end of the year. So part of that is on me. But if she's having problems with my son in class, which shows up on the interim report, it's a two-way street.

Right.

And so if she's having some problems with my son -- anybody else picks up the phone; she has not.

Thank you.

I mean, I have heard from other teachers that they've had problems with my son's behavior and they call me. I'm available. They all have my phone number.

Thank you.

Thank you. 42 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 Dr. Jones, did you want to speak now, or did you want to wait until the end and if we get more issues?

I'll wait until the end.

That's fine. We'll wait until the end and hear the other panels and certainly hope that you can wait for a response. And certainly individually about your issues, I'm sure that Dr. Jones will be glad to check into them. Thank you. Give us your name first and thank you. MISS RAMIREZ: Hello. My name is Leslie Ramirez and I go to Mastbaum High School, where I'm a 9th-grader. I've been a member of YUC -- well, Youth United for Change for almost a year. Mastbaum is currently a Corrective Action II school, just like 43 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 70 other schools in Philadelphia right now. Corrective Action II happens under the No Child Left Behind law when schools like Mastbaum don't make AYP, which means adequate yearly progress (inaudible). Corrective Action II does not affect the school; it affects the people in the school, the kids in general. That is because when a school's in Corrective Action II, it has to go through major changes to try and bring the PSSA scores up. Last summer, the School District announced that they would be making plans for the 70 schools in Corrective Action II. They decided to divide the 70 schools into three tiers and ask the principals to have community meetings at schools but gave them very little time to plan it out. They announced that 50 out of the 70 schools would be getting a request for a proposal for outside management, 44 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 which could be EMOs. We would like to get more students, faculty, and parents involved. The School District has been doing things without letting us know -- the people who go to the schools -- know about what's going on with the teachers, tests, and school in general. And we want to ask for your support in our schools and community- based planning for Corrective Action II schools. We at Youth United for Change have been working hard to try and inform students and parents about Corrective Action II at Mastbaum. We have been running meetings, passing out petitions, and we've co-facilitated meetings, community meetings, met with principals and regional superintendents, and we have also held assemblies to inform all students at our school about what's going on with Corrective Action II. 45 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 We hope you will support us in our work and support other schools where students and parents are working to create plans to improve their schools. YUC has begun working on a campaign to improve academics and (indiscernible) our school. That started before the Corrective Action II plan. We already have done a lot of work to help our school improve, and we need people to listen to the ideas of students, parents, and staff at schools for ideas on how to improve them. Before I end, I just want to say one more thing: I know from experience that EMOs don't work. I went to an elementary and middle school, Potter Thomas, which was taken over by the Edison Incorporation. The school tried to keep it a secret, but the parents and students knew something was going to happen in the school. There was a lot of changes in 46 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 principals, there was a lot of new teachers who didn't know what they were doing, and there was a lot of useful work that was being given out. Do we really want this for our schools? I don't think so. We want the best, not what they think is the best. Do you really want to make the same mistake? We don't want this to happen at Mastbaum. With our plans, we can beat Corrective Action II. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. MISS CAVANAUGH: Hello. My name is Melissa Cavanaugh, and I'm a 10th grader at Mastbaum High School and a member the Youth United for Change. Last year, before the School District had the plans on Corrective Action II, Youth United for Change students were already working on a campaign at Mastbaum on how to make our shops and our academic classes 47 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 more better. We knew that Mastbaum students weren't learning what they needed to succeed in the future. Mastbaum is a career technical school, which means we are supposed to be prepared for college or a future job. We did research about the (indiscernible), which gives money to CTE schools. This law requires all aspects of the industry in our shops, which we think will make our shop classes better by making the academics and the shops more integrated. Even though I am in the nursing shop, maybe one day I may not want to be a nurse, and all experts in the industry will help give me skills like management, finance, and many more so that I am ready for college or a good job. We also believe that our school needs harder classes for students, which means academic rigor. YUC presented to the whole faculty at Mastbaum to teach them about all 48 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 aspects of the industry and get their thoughts and support for academic rigor. The other thing YUC has been working on is creating partnerships with unions so our shops have professionals to come in and help out. So far, we have an important partnership with the Temple Nursing Unit. We also have a commitment from PACCA, the apprenticeship program, for all the building trade units to work with YUC students and plan a daylong trades fair and workshops for students. The School District now wants to make changes to our school because we're in Corrective Action II, but the changes we need are right here in front of you. Students have a plan: Bring aspects of the industry to our shops, make our school more rigorous, and bring in industry partners. This is a plan that has support from our 49 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 principal, our superintendent, parents, teachers, and Councilwoman Maria Quinones. I'm here today to ask you for your support in our plans at Mastbaum to make Mastbaum a better school. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Pull the mic close. MISS PEDRAZA: Hi my name is Monica Pedraza, and I am a 9th-grader at Edison High School and a member of Youth United for Change. Edison High School is in Corrective Action II, and 70 percent of students are below basic. I know that our school has a long way to go to be where it should. I'm going to be talking about the things I believe can help improve Edison. First of all, we need better more and supplies and resources for our school. You can't expect us to 50 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 learn if we don't have the right materials for all students. There are many overcrowded classes at Edison that disrupt our learning because of the lack of supplies, space, and attention each student needs. We need to have teacher quality at our school. Only 86 percent of the teachers in the School District of Philadelphia are highly qualified, making it 58 percent for schools that are in Corrective Action II. Data shows that only 57 percent of Corrective Action II high school teachers are highly qualified. There is some very wrong with that, don't you think? Did you know that there are 131 teacher vacancies in the School District and that 57 of them are in schools that are currently in Corrective Action II? The schools in Corrective Action II make up 25 percent of the District. 51 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 Schools in other parts of City get more resources than the schools in our community that really needs it. Edison deserves to have the same attention and resources as those other schools. We do not want an EMO taking over our school. Facts show that EMOs haven't done well in the schools they are in, and not much has changed in the schools being run by them. Many are not even doing as good as schools in the School District, but they want them to run more schools. Whatever decisions are made for Edison will affect students in many ways. It's time for the School District to work with us, the students, parents, teachers, and the community to make Edison a successful school. So I ask that they listen to what we all have to say before making any big decisions that will affect us, our school and, most importantly, our 52 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 education. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you. MISS OLIVER: Hi. My name is Jessica Oliver, and I'm a student at Edison High School and a member of Youth United for Change. I'm here today to talk to about what a EMO is. EMO stands for "educational management organization." An educational management organization is a company that takes schools that are doing poorly and privatizes them. Data shows that 70 schools are in Correction Action II, and out of those 70 schools, 16 are run by EMOs. How can EMOs help our schools if they're not even improving their own schools? EMOs have fewer highly qualified teachers and more first-year teachers than any other schools. Corrective Action II schools need a 53 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 lot of help, but they need the appropriate help, and EMOs are not the appropriate help because data has shown that they do not work. What I believe that we need is more community engagement between students, parents, teachers, and principals in the community. If our community doesn't know what's going on, who does? And if the parents and students don't know what's going on in their school and what's going on with their education, there's a problem. A lot of people in my school, which is Edison, have no clue on what's going on; that includes staff, students, and parents. Before anyone makes decisions on what happens to my school, we ask that you look into what's really going on and that you reach out to students and parents and that you don't make the same mistake again by choosing a system that we know going to fail us, like EMOs have 54 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 done for the last six years. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions? (No questions or comments.)

Before we ask Councilwoman Maria Quinones- Sanchez to introduce our next panel, we want to recognize staff from other members of Council again. Councilman Rizzo has former Prisons Commissioner Leon King here, as well as Tyree Gladden, who's also on his staff. And we see Shoshana Brickland, who's here for Councilman Jones. Thank you very much. If I've overlooked someone, let us know, and tell John Christmas, and he'll let me know. (Applause.)

Councilwoman? 55 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

For our next panel, we have: Kathleen Tooks, parent of Mastbaum student and Edison graduate; Anthony Tooks, parent of Mastbaum student and Edison graduate; Eric Yates from West Philadelphia High School; and Dan Jones from Masterman. (Applause.)

Thank you. As they come forward, let me say that Bill Greenlee has Luis Colon here, a member of his staff who's also a Mastbaum graduate, so good things have come out of that school as well -- thank you -- in addition to all of the problems. (Witnesses come forward.)

Thank you, welcome. Pull the mic close. Whoever's going to begin identify yourself for the record and feel free to make your testimony or statement.

Good evening, 56 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 everyone. My name is Yamality Rodriguez, and I'm the parent of two children. I am also a member of EPOP. I am the (indiscernible) of parents welcome in schools. Parents need to be in school because we are about the environment, we care about kids, and every student deserves a good school. Parents help that to happen. Many parents don't feel welcome -- excuse me. Many parents don't feel welcome at schools. We get will treated -- um, excuse me.

Take your time.

Many parents don't feel welcome because of the way we are treated when we enter the school. There are times when I go to my child's school and staff act like we're not even there. It makes me angry, but I know that my kids are important. We need to find a way to make 57 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 parents and community members feel important. (Applause.).

Thank you very much. Very true.

My name is Eric Yates, and I'm a junior at West Philadelphia High School, which is in Corrective Action II: "Corrective Action II" is a label that is put on struggling schools. Corrective Action II schools are in every region in Philadelphia, but most CA2 schools are put in poor neighborhoods, in the school -- in schools that are considered hard to staff, with fewer resources and support. A school reaches this status if the students have not made adequate yearly progress on State tests for five years in a row. Why are schools in Corrective Action II? We believe that the root cause of the problem lie in issues with teacher quality and overall 58 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 support in these schools. These schools have had a lot of needs. They deserve extra resources and support. They need massive community involvement to make them work. EMOs (educational management organizations) are private organizations and companies seeking contracts with the School District's struggling schools. A nonprofit relies on the District for their existence, and the for-profit knows that they can only become profitable if they run as many schools as they can. EMOs now have had six years to prove themselves. Corrective Action II is being used as an excuse to hand schools over to EMOs when half of the EMO schools are in Corrective Action II themselves. There is still no 23 assurance to the public that EMOs that haven't lifted their schools Corrective Action II will lose these 59 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 contracts. Only 71 percent of teachers in EMO schools are highly qualified as opposed to 86 percent of teachers in the District as a whole. The EMO contracts are so weak, they make no 8 sense. For example, providers only have to improve teacher attendance by 0.5 percent, and student attendance by 0.3 percent; that's not even 1 percent. As a student at a CA2 school, I'm held to high standards to do well on PSSAs. When I took the PSSAs, I remember my teacher telling me that -- telling us that she knows we didn't go over a lot of stuff in some sections but to do our best and not to skip over anything. So how can students be expected to pass a test that they're not even prepared for? If we don't make don't AYP because we don't have the resources and materials and extra teachers, our schools get labeled and 60 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 have to suffer. But if EMOs are still running failing schools years later, they're just handed new contracts that are so weak that our schools will never improve, which I thought was the point in the first place. So now the District is looking to expand the reform that hasn't worked and they are not being transparent about why. The School District keeps talking about looking at the data. Well, according to outside studies as well as the District's own report, the EMOs have shown the least amount of improvement when compared with the other District schools and charter schools. The bottom line is that EMOs have been held to low standards. They must be held to the same standards that I am held to as a student in a Corrective Action II school. If they are not meeting their requirements, 61 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 they have to go. I don't want my education being experimented with. The money that is being spent on EMOs should be put back in the classrooms or driven towards an Office of Restructured Schools. (Applause.)

The Office of Restructured Schools began in 2002, and it was a specific reform model the District had gave struggling schools extra support and resources. Studies showed that the ORS has done a better job than the EMOs at living schools out of CA2. The ORS brought 14 out of 21 out of CA2. We have asked the District a number of times why the ORS was closed in 2005, and we still have never gotten an answer. (Applause.)

Thank you very much.

Hi. My name is Dan 62 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 Jones. I'm a sophomore at Masterman and I'm a member of the Philadelphia Student Union. So I wanted today to talk about the concept of choice and the diverse-provider model. The buzz word "choice" sounds good at first. Everybody wants choice, right? But are the majority of families and communities in Philadelphia really getting choices when it comes to public schools? And then there's the diverse- provider model; that sounds good too. Diversity is a good thing, right? But what does it all really mean? We're moving to a place in this district where there are different tracks for different kinds of schools and communities. We're moving to -- and I would say we're already at an apartheid system in this school district. (Applause.) 63 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

There's the Corrective Action II schools and the schools on the brink of being Corrective Action II schools, the struggling schools, the hard-to-staff schools. And then there are the schools that are safe, the schools where students and teachers want to be, the schools that have the resources and support that they need to succeed. Some schools get scripted curriculums while others get autonomy from the core curriculum. Scripted curriculums are supposed to be designed so that anyone can get in front of a classroom and teach. They're designed around repetition and standardization. Autonomous schools are designed so that experience and innovative teachers can figure out how students learn best and how to teach for what they need. These schools are 64 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 designed to produce students who are thinking critically and independently. Some schools have a high level of teacher turnover and a large number of first-year teachers while others have teachers who are more experienced and who stay at the schools for longer. Some schools have the materials and resources to attract teachers and to create a positive school environment; while in other schools, there's a sense of scarcity, which causes students and teachers to not want to be there, and that's where you get your high dropout rates and your high teacher turnover rates. And somewhere in all of this, we have the students and the parents, who have to try to interpret the ideology of choice and diversity when what we're really talking about is giving a new name or a different provider to the same old nonsense. 65 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 And we can't ignore that this nonsense, these differences I was talking about, these inequities are more than often drawn on the basis of color, race, and socioeconomic status. (Applause.)

And so the point is that we need real systemic changes and that these changes can come from nowhere else than the school community. And so we have to stop this conversation about community involvement and make it about community decision-making power. The District has attempted to get the community involved in the past and it's planning to in the future, but the problem is that it's never really sustained this community involvement. And we need this because no one knows how to improve a school better than the people who are in it every day. The District needs to redefine 66 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 how it looks at community engagement. Community engagement is not going to informational meetings but it's being allowed and encouraged to be an active part in the decision-making process. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez and myself are glad we have a few years to serve before you young people are ready to run to, but we welcome you, when the time comes, to consider politics. (Laughter.)

Any questions?

Yes.

Councilman Green?

The previous panel and your panel mentioned the School District's use of data and what 67 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 they do with it. And the data, the data that I always hear from the School District is -- and this is a question to all you guys -- is PSSA scores. And I would say that the data that is important, that you and the previous panel talked about, is class size, teacher qualifications, engaged principals, engaged parents, or a replacement for that, community involvement. And if we scored each school on those bases, I suggest that there would be a high correlation to PSSA scores. And so what I'm suggesting is that maybe we're measuring the wrong thing. (Applause.)

And what we need to look at is the things that we know make schools work, like smaller class sizes. (Applause.)

Do you guys 68 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 have any comments on that? No? You don't have to.

I mean, the only thing I probably wondered about it was the teacher quality. I mean, if my teacher is not qualified enough or, like, doesn't really know what she's doing enough to prepare me right for a PSSA, I can only guess on things I don't know about, so how can I pass it or, like, live up to the standards that I'm supposed to?

Absolutely.

Just to add to that, what I'd say also is that when we see those thing come out, when we see those things given as suggestions is when we ask the community what they want to improve their schools. And we know the best things come out not when we talk about best practices so much as when we ask the community what they think needs to happen. 69 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 And so what I would say is that part of the problem with how the District is evaluating EMOs is, what they're doing is, they're taking a look at their scores and all their data in the aggregate without looking at it on a school-by-school basis. And so you can have schools that are struggling in the PSSAs and in all the areas that that the Councilman was talking about, and they can get kind of left behind and that contract can get renewed because they're not looking at the schools individually. And so all those reforms you're talking about, they come out when we ask the community what they need. And so the focus has to be on looking at schools on an individual basis and really asking and involving the community, not just telling them what's going on but asking them to tell us what should be going on. (Applause.) 70 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

Thank you very much. Excellent, excellent testimony. And we'll ask Dr. Jones, when she comes forward, to respond to the issue of parents being made to feel welcome. This is also an issue we've dealt with many, many years in many meetings like this, parents being welcomed into their children's schools in any neighborhood schools. Thank you. Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez will read the names of the next panel.

Our Panel No. 3 is: Lawrence Jones Mahoney from West Philadelphia High; Breonia Robinson and Candace Carter, if you could come forward. I'm also going to ask that our Panel 4 get ready to come forward, which is Karla Mota and Cheryl Gray. 71 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 (Applause.)

Before they testify, we would certainly welcome Dr. Heidi Ramirez, a member of the School Reform Commission to make a statement, and we invite her to ask questions or make comments with regard to any of the panels or the panel participants. Thank you.

First, I just want to say one how proud I am to be here and I apologize again for Dr. Ackerman. I think we've been running her really hard the last couple of weeks in getting her ready for this transition, and so, she's not in good shape tonight. So, one, I thank you for letting me feel in as best as I can, certainly not as a CEO but as a new member of the School Reform Commission. And what is interesting for me 72 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 sort of sitting here is, I've had the opportunity to hear from a lot of these young people several times over the last couple of weeks, both in smaller group meetings and at SRC. And I can't help but think about sort of two sides of this coin. On one side, we talking about -- we're spending a lot of their time talking about Corrective Action II, and they're incredibly articulate, and the work that they're doing with the Philadelphia Student Union or Youth United has really prepared them to be articulate on these issues, to be knowledgeable about them, to be reflective, and have a real strong sense of community in terms of how they're thinking about these issues, not just their individual schools but children across the District. So that is incredibly laudable I'm proud of these students. On the other side of the coin, 73 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 I think about what if we didn't have these 71 schools to be talking about in Corrective Action, and instead of spending a lot of time researching family schools and District policies and what may or may not be imperfect processes, but instead, they were spending this time mastering a second language, learning physics, studying AP calculus. And so, I'm very proud of this group. I hope that we all will work together so that have a time when we're spending less time talking about Corrective Action II and more about fulfilling the potential of an incredibly strong, brilliant group of students across the City of Philadelphia. (Applause.)

Thank you, Dr. Ramirez. Very important statements, and we certainly agree. Well, we've already had our 74 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 panel introduced. Please identify yourself for the record and feel free to make your statement.

My name is Lawrence Jones Mahoney and I'm a senior at West Philadelphia High School, and I'm also a member of the Philadelphia Student Union. And we need transparency in the processes for determining what's going to happen to these subject schools in Corrective Action II. Recently, education management organizations, or EMOs, were evaluated by the District on their last year's rushed one-year contract. Yes, you heard me right, last year. Even though the District has contracted these EMOs for over six years now, the District's only evaluated them on the last year's performance. The public was not allowed to see the score card on which the EMOs were evaluated, nor were they 75 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 allowed to have any input in how they would be evaluated. To their credit, the School District created a task force around Corrective Action II, which we, the Student Union, was involved in. The District took the 70 schools in Corrective Action II and divided them into three tiers. Tier 1 would be for Corrective Action II schools that made 70 percent or more of their performance targets in reading and math on their PSSAs. These schools would get minimum interventions. Tier 3 would be for the schools that make under 25 percent of their targets. These schools will be given supports like the Office of Restructured Schools offered before. Those supports would include, but not be limited to: smaller classes, more professional development, and common planning time for teachers. This was something that the task force liked 76 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 and applauded. Tier 2, which was for the 28 schools that were in between 5 percent and 70 percent targets met, 6 would be open to outside providers, 7 which means EMOs. 8 Last month, the District sent 9 a letter home to some parents in 10 Corrective Action II schools and 11 explained the tiers that I just 12 described. In the letters, it stated 13 that not only Tier but also Tier 14 schools would be open to EMOs. This 15 was done without the task force's 16 input. 17 West Philadelphia High School 18 is in Tier 3, and even my mom wasn't 19 notified. She had no idea about it. 20 And this decision was, once again, 21 made behind closed doors. 22 Originally, 28 schools were to 23 be professionally contracted out, but 24 now that Tier 3 is open, that number 25 shoots up to 51 schools that can be 77 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 contracted out to EMOs. That's a lot of schools to be open to EMOs at a time when the data shows that they haven't even improved schools as much as other District schools have. When schools like mine, West Philadelphia High School, have been involved in a planning process for re-envisioning our school, these are the kinds of models that the other schools could use and that the District could use, and this is a process that they could replicate. We know that there are political pressures to expand the use of EMOs; however, it's not justified by the facts at hand. EMOs have been proven not to work, and they've been recently been evaluated, using criminally low standards. It's time that we hold them accountable and give them higher standards, and if they don't meet those standards, they should be fired. 78 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 (Applause.)

Thank you, Lawrence. And, I tell you, Lawrence attends as many meetings as I do, so we commend him for his commitment.

Mm-hmm.

Pull the microphone very close so that we can hear you. MISS ROBINSON: Hi. My name is Breonia Robinson, and I'm a 9th-grader at West Philadelphia High School. I believe that the best solution for the problem at my school is to turn my large school into four smaller learning communities. Right now, there are hall sweeps every class period, fights, and fires. It's not as bad as last year, but the problem still exists. The building conditions are horrible. And some of my classes are overcrowded; sometimes there are not 79 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 even enough chairs. In one of my classes, I have no textbook at all. But if my school was a small school, classes would go according to the theme. Right now, I have urban studies and (indiscernible) business tech. in one little room all together, which is ridiculous. The climate would be better because the same academies -- if you are in the same academy with someone, you know everyone in the academy and you would have to come to a compromise. In 2003, it was announced that West would get a new building. We in the Student Union decided that we did not just want a shiny new building; we wanted opportunities to improve education. We started doing research about bigger high schools, better high school models. We also decided that we wanted to get the community involved in the planning for the new school. 80 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 We got William Penn Foundation to fund seven months of a community planning process for the new school, and more than 180 people participated in it. From this process, we created several recommendations for a new school. The first recommendation was to break the school up into four small schools on a shared (indiscernible). Small schools are successful. Ninety-seven percent of 9th-graders are going to graduate in small schools that we had visited, but in my school, 50 percent of 9th-graders are going to drop out. Because of the environment in the small school, no child slips through the cracks, no child slips through the cracks. And because the students have all their classes with other people who are interested in the same thing, attendance increases. In my school, attendance is 81 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. " Some students walk the halls and start fires because their classes are boring. They have all this time with nothing to do with it, so they start the disruption. I think that small schools are the new reform because back in the day, if you failed in school, you asked someone like a relative or a neighbor that was there for you if your parents are working. But in 2008, we don't have that. If we had that, students in small schools wouldn't slip through the cracks because the teachers and staff would help them, but I don't have that in my school. We know that making the schools smaller would not better them by itself. In order to make sure that the education improves, we want West 82 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 to get some other things that the Center City schools got. We still need to make sure that the principals for each year get hired a year (indiscernible) and money is there for the school (indiscernible) before the school is open. This will make sure that when the school is open, the staff are all there on the same page. If we did that for the School of the Future and Science Leadership Academy, why shouldn't we get that? We also think that since the new school would be a small school, it should be designed with several wings. Right now, the School District is designing it as one big school, which doesn't make any sense. Using old methods that are outdated and do not -- won't work, why we still using these methods that set students up to failure. I don't want to fail; I want to succeed. And in my 83 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 eyes, the best success for my school is small schools, not outside providers, not charterization. It is small schools that has proven to work.

And the school wants it, my school needs it, the community wants it, and so do I.

Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you. Pull the microphone close. MISS CARTER: Hello. My name is Candace Carter. I'm an 11th grader at Sayre High School. Issues of teacher quality and teacher equity are one of the main reasons why are schools are in Corrective Action II. The quality of teachers in a school has a big effect on whether or not students do well on the PSSAs; not only that, but if there is a high rate of teacher turnover and 84 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 too many first-year teachers, students get discouraged, start cutting class, and eventually drop out. What is going on, or not going on, in class can make the difference between whether or not a student is motivated to come to school every day. Corrective Action II schools lack quality teacher distribution. Eighty-six percent of teachers in the School District are highly qualified, compared with only 68 percent of teachers in Corrective Action II schools. Only 57 percent of teachers at (indiscernible) high schools are highly qualified. Even though Corrective Action II schools make up only percent of the District, 44 20 percent of teacher vacancies are at 21 CA2 schools. 22 So how do we expect these 23 schools to come out of Corrective 24 Action II if we don't figure out a way 25 to deal with this problem? 85 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 We had a graphic design teacher at my school that was a great teacher. Because she felt like she didn't have the support or supplies she needed, she left our school for a school with more resources and supplies. This was a big loss to our school. When we have relationships with teachers and they leave, it hurts us and it hurts our education. We believe this should be one of the District's top priorities. We believe the solution to this problem would be to put (indiscernible) incentives into teacher contracts like smaller class sizes, new-teacher coaches, common planning times, supplies and materials, extra support staff, and other incentives to attract teachers to hard-to-staff schools. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Thank you all for your 86 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 testimony. Any questions? Councilman Green.

Thank you. I don't -- I'm very impressed with all the students' testimony and I want to thank you for it. I just also want to thank the members of the Education Committee -- Chairwoman Blackwell, Councilwoman Sanchez and Councilman Greenlee -- for allowing me to join them tonight for a brief time. I'm not a member of this committee but feel strongly enough about this to come hear what you guys had to say. And, unfortunately, I have to leave, but it's not because won't be working on this, and I'm sure my colleagues will fill me in. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Green. (Applause.) 87 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

And thank you for your interest. No, you didn't have to be here and we thank you for your concern for education. Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez will read the names of the next panelists.

Thank you, Panel No. 3. We're going to Panel No. 4, which is: Karla Mota and Ashley Rowell, Kensington High School students; and Cheryl Gray and Chaunae Berry from Olney. (Applause.)

If we can have Panel 5 get ready. Thank you. ) MISS MOTA: Hi. My name is Karla Mota. I'm a 10th-grader in Kensington Creative and Performing Arts and a proud member of Youth United for Change. 88 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 I'm here today to talk to you about the small-schools policy, that, research has shown, effectively works for many small schools in cities around the country. " because Philadelphia does not have one. Somehow, the School District doesn't think it will be effective on our neighborhood small schools. A small-schools policy would help ensure that inequalities we fact at Kensington would not happen. In Philadelphia, there are two types of small schools: new small schools and transitioning small schools. A transitioning small school is a large high school that gets converted into multiple small schools. 5 teacher allocation, which is one-and-a-half 89 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 teachers per every thirty-three students. Low-grade models start off with 9th grade and keep it moving. A hundred students per grade, common planning time, time for teachers to talk about the students and how to plan their curriculum activities so they can make the curriculum more interesting, which leads us to greater autonomy and flexibility in the curriculum and long-term partners. Research has shown that cities that have small-schools policy show outcome, they reduce achievement gaps, improve school safety and climate, improve relationships and instruction, and it is also cost-effective. We deserve the same quality of education that the new small schools have. Ashley is going to talk about us about (indiscernible) at Kensington multiplex. ) 90 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 MISS ROWELL: Hi. My name is Ashley Rowell, and I'm a 10th-grade student at Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School. I am also a member of Youth United for Change. By the time I got to Kensington, it was already split into three small schools. I'm going to talk to you about what happens when you do not have the policy. I started off fine until this year, when our vice principal was taken away from us three weeks before PSSA testing to go to a smaller school that would be opening in September 2008. She left Kensington CAPA High School to start a small school to open next school year in the Northeast. This was not fair because this was not what Kensington received when it was first broken up into small schools. What we received was a wall and doors that decided Kensington into CAPA and business. Because of the 91 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 wall and lack of planning and the separation of the school, there was confusion about what school students would enroll in. Apparently, our small school size are not how they supposed to be. Kensington Business has 234, Culinary has 159, and CAPA has 268 9th-graders. The size of the small schools is supposed to be 400, 100 students per grade. The Kensington Culinary is expected to receive approximately 231 new 9th-graders next year. This is not a true small school. The things like this do not happen in areas of Philadelphia that are mostly white and middle class, unlike my neighborhood. This is not fair because I know that the young people in my community have the ability to be whatever they want to be, but they are not given the same opportunities. ) 92 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 MISS GRAY: Good evening. My name is Cheryl Gray. I am a junior representing Olney High School's chapter of Youth United for Change. In 2005, my first year at Olney, the school was split in half, one for the east side and one for the west. Youth United for Change students have fought for small schools, but instead, we have given a wall done the middle, creating two medium-sized high schools. This created many unexpected and unreasonable issues that still need to be fixed.

Personally, I couldn't start school until a week later because of registration confusion and the different sides in uniform policy. Students felt as though because they were on different sides, the east side and the west side, they had to encourage conflict between those on the other side. During that one year, with my 93 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 own eyes, I saw over fights in one school day, many of them resulting in chaos. There were students bringing weapons to school, intentionally breaking school policy. I remember I once had a conversation with a student about why he got into a fight. He told me that he only does it to stand out to be and heard by adults. He wanted a voice in the school and it was obvious that there needed to be a change. He was not the only one. There were other protests against teachers who simply had no respect for students. This is why creating small schools is so important. Our plan to create small schools through a policy is to create high achievement in what is considered to be failing schools. We want to have site-based selection, which is one of the essential elements for small schools to ensure that there will not be disrespect from teachers 94 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 because they will have teachers who want to be in that position. 5 teacher allocations. These are some things trying to get through the small-school policy. Our policy is to create equity between neighborhood small schools and small schools in Center City, which were given an unequal amount of resources compared to schools like Olney and Kensington. A school like South Bronx that was worse than Olney shows us that creating small schools can have a positive impact on hundreds of students. If we can have a impact like that on a school like Olney, not only would it change our school but our communities. )

Thank you very much. Excellent. Any questions or comments? (No questions or comments.) 95 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

Thank you very much. Will the next panel already introduced come forward. Come forward. Thank you.

We want to get through all of the panels, so we're going to ask the panels if we can have five minutes so we get through them. I don't want anybody who prepared not be able to speak.

Thank you very much. Please introduce yourselves for our record and begin your testimony.

Okay. Good evening. My name is Tyrone Hardy, and I'm a member of the ACORN and I'm also a former special-education teacher in the Philadelphia School District. I'm going to talk about the issue of funding, and before I talk about the lack of funding that's 96 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 affected my ability to teach, I want to touch on how the problem with the Pennsylvania funding formula has put teachers and students at a tremendous disadvantage. Financial support from the State of Pennsylvania has been doing good since the 1970s, and last year, Penn ranked 44 of all of the states in providing state funds to local municipalities. This makes it impossible for cities such as Philadelphia that have low-wealth communities to fund the school system. The amount of money spent per students in a city such as Philadelphia as compared to the wealthy suburbs is staggering. The wealthy districts spend $17,000 per student, as opposed to $7,000 per student for Philadelphia students. This means that in a class of 225 students, a teacher has $250,000 more dollars to work with. We cannot let 97 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 this amount of inequity to continue. On top of this poorly funded school district, they spend up to 72 percent less per student to support services for well funded schools in Pennsylvania. These academic support services are very important to help struggling students. And the Philadelphia school system will continue to suffer from a lack of quality teachers, large class sizes, a shortness of textbooks, technology, and numerous other resources. Teachers need to make their own classroom successful. And I just wanted to touch on that information presented to me by ACORN on how this affected me as a former special- education teacher in the Philadelphia School District. We're funded at least $100 -- or we're allocated $100 each year by the School District for supplies, but 98 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 due to the astronomical fees that these stores charge us for materials, the money is quickly gobbled up and you have to wind up digging in your own pocket for resources. It made it very difficult for me to teach when our classroom aides were taken from my classroom this year and I couldn't address all the needs of the students to teach them effectively because I could not address their needs and problems first before I started to teach them. And then I also wanted to talk about the computers. Some of them were antiquated. Because they were so old, they half-worked sometimes, and other times they didn't work. And our books. When you have students in a kindergarten or 1st grade, they usually don't give 'em books, and you usually have to do a lot of photostatting and borrowing from other teachers, so it wound up 99 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 being a problem for me having to borrow from this one and that one and present packages and stuff like that. So that puts a tremendous strain on trying to teach if you don't have all the supplies, the things that a teacher needs to teach effectively.

Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you. Please introduce yourself and begin your testimony.

My name is Bertha Brown. I'm a member of ACORN. I'm a mother of five. (Applause.)

A mother of five. My two youngest children go to Annie B. Pratt School in North Philadelphia. To spare the efforts of much of the staff in the school, my child does not get the education they need 100 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 or deserve. There are 32 children per teacher in my children's class. How is the teacher supposed to spend any quality time with my child when there's 31 other children that need their attention? There are computers in my child's classroom but, of course, none of them work. My child is in the 1st grade. Sometimes she doesn't get any homework. It's not because the teacher doesn't want to give it to her; it's because there's no paper for her to give my child for homework, so it makes it kind of hard. I live right across the street from Annie B. Pratt. Often I want to stop in to see if I could help out or volunteer; yet, I have been refused entrance into the school unless I have a specific appointment set up well in advance. I believe that the community 101 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 environment could actually help me out with some of the funding problems plaguing our schools. But right now, it doesn't seem like my daughter's school agrees. Finally, I worry about my child's safety. Last month, there was a shooting in our pre-K yard. And the month after that, there was a child attempted abduction. So I am really, really worried as far as my children is concerned as far as that school, that is. The school is wired for cameras but, of course, they wired them for the cameras but never got the cameras. I'm worried about the safety as far as my children's school and stuff is concerned. To sum it all up, my daughter deserves the same education and opportunities that children in the wealthy suburbs get, yet they're hardly given a chance to learn as, 102 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 unfortunately, like so many others that are being failed by our understaffed school system. (Applause.)

Thank you. Thank you. Please pull the microphone up.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Gregory Jordan-Dettamore, and I'm a sophomore at Masterman High School, and I'm also a member of the Philadelphia Student Union.

Welcome.

School funding is a problem in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. In November, a study was released commonly referred to as "The Costing-Out Study." This study aimed to show how much money is required to educate every student in Pennsylvania, 103 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 broken down by district. Factors taken into account included English-language learners, students living in poverty efforts, et cetera. For Philadelphia, it said they were spending about $10,000 per student while we need to be spending closer to 15,000. Thi9s amounts to a $1 billion increase across the entire District. Furthermore, the Costing-Out Study stated that 474 out of 501 school districts in Pennsylvania are underfunded; that's 95 percent. This means that school funding is not just a Philadelphia but a statewide problem. Governor Rendell has released a budget plan that provides more money for schools based on a new funding formula rooted in the Costing-Out Study. This provides us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to secure more funding for our schools. Currently, this budget is 104 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 pending Senate approval. Everyone needs to join together in an effort to lobby for more school funding. Parents and students need to reach out others across the State, and elected officials need to make this a priority and put pressure on the Senate, because our futures depend on it.

Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Mr. Dettamore spoke that from his heart. He knew that, he's lived it and studied it and understands it. Thank you. He's going far in this life. Thank you. MISS NIN: Hi. My name Phuong Nin, and I attend Bodine High School for International Affairs, and I am a part of the Philadelphia Student Union. Now, we all know that Philadelphia public schools are not 105 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 getting enough money for materials and things that are needed for the schools to be run, and most of our schools lack books, papers, even classes and even teachers themselves and so many other things. It's mind-boggling. These are a few, you know, things that we lack in our schools. And our schools themselves are deteriorating right in front of our eyes. I mean, like, half of our students here already told you that our schools are rundown, they break down, and just so many other things. And it's not just that, but even our food is unhealthy, and it's just crazy because it's funny, because in health class that we have, like they teach us nutrition and everything, but we don't have that in our schools, and that's kind of getting us a bit sick now. And we as students have to live through that environment every 106 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 single day, every single day. Not funny. And, you know, it damages us not just physically, but it also damages us emotionally, psychologically and, well, even spiritually. Our teachers tell us every single day that we can't do this, we can't do that. It's because we don't have enough money. And, well, that is a barrier that puts us, you know, Philadelphia students in this position of not being good enough, that, you know, if we're not good enough, that's why we're poor. That's just wrong. Philadelphia public schools receive about $10,000 per student, but however, Lower Merion receives almost twice that, and I don't understand why. Well, they say, you know, all this stuff. As Greg conveniently said, you know, the Costing-Out Study stated that public schools need at least 107 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 $15,000 per student in order to get a proper education. So Philadelphia public schools haven't been receiving the proper amount of money to educate Philadelphia students. Then, again, along with 95 percent of, you know, the districts across the State of Pennsylvania haven't been receiving the proper amount of money to educate their students anyway. It's shocking because that means that Philadelphia is not alone when it comes to being underfunded. So, you know, not let's not limit ourselves and think that we can't do anything about changing this ridiculous funding formula or system or whatever you call this thing, because we can. And, you know, people ask like, What can we do? Well students, for one, can make connections and build, you know, pure networks around 108 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 this issue, you know, talk to people about it. And parents can visit and pressure their legislators and, you know, the School District. And, you know, elected officials, they can make this a top-priority issue. If we actually with can do all of this, then we have an equitable funding across the State. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix our broken funding system, so why not start now, okay? Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you very much.

My name is Delores Shaw. I'm chairperson for the Eastern Pennsylvania Organizing Project. I'm the mother of three, grandmother of two, and a mother of a junior at Mastbaum Technical High School and also the mother of a young man who dropped out of school before he had a inkling 109 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 of the future that awaits him. The Costing-Out Study that was released last fall has given Philadelphia the momentum to move our schools forward to a more equitable school-funding formula. We all know the deplorable conditions under which Philadelphia schools struggle and Philadelphia students struggle every day. Most of our students, like has been said here tonight, lack basic essentials to get the education and to make gains in student achievement as the School District would want us to do and as the parents would want them to do. But right now, we stand at a historic crossroad in time. The question, though, will be what kind of legacy this will -- we will leave our children. Will we take this moment in time and use it to adequately fund our children? Will we ask our City Council members to join 110 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 together to lobby Harrisburg to make sure that every school gets all of the funding they need? We urge State legislators to commit to the long- and short-term legislation that builds towards educational equity for all and hopes that we will all live in a more viable society because of that. (Applause.)

However, the promise of a quality education for students cannot be fulfilled without the investment of City government. Philadelphia government must take the initiative to increase their share of funds to our schools. We have a responsibility -- (Applause.)

-- as citizens to make sure that the in investment in our young people moves them and this city toward a brighter future. Thank you. 111 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

Thank you very much. Any questions? Dr. Ramirez?

It's actually more of a comment sort of reaffirming what this panel particularly highlighted. We have this Costing-Out Study. I think most of the folks have been hearing about it. What it provides for us is an opportunity to really talk to folks in Harrisburg about our needs. If indeed, you know, we saw the kinds of changes that the Costing-Out Study called for, you'd see many of the District's key initiatives in much better shape, from reducing class size to turning around our Corrective Action II schools. So I really just want to say how grateful I am to the City Council for sort of continuing to raise this, 112 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 and I look forward to working with the chairwoman and your colleagues in sort of making some changes in Harrisburg as a result of partnership to make sure that these key initiatives are funded this year.

Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. Let me thank Martin from my staff who's also here. And Councilwoman Quinones- Sanchez will read the next panel's names.

Panel No. 6 will focus on dropout prevention and services. We have Tina Sellers, which is a Frankford parent, and Ana Echerarria from the Eastern North Philadelphia Youth Services Coalition. Again, I'm going to ask folks if they can summarize their presentations. We have another panel that wants to focus on language access and some additional folks. We need to 113 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 get out of here by 8, but we do want to hear everyone who's prepared. So thank you very much.

Thank you. And thank you for patience.

Good evening. I am a member of Eastern Pennsylvania Organization Project. My name is Tina Sellers, and I am a mother of two students who technically go to Frankford High School. Frankford is in Corrective Action II. I am like many mothers throughout Philadelphia who have children who no longer go to school. Oftentimes, we use the term "dropout," but in many cases, students have been pushed out of school. Because Frankford is in Corrective Action II, I know that Frankford was in trouble long before my children arrived there. That school, like many other schools, is not really a school; it's a place where students go every 114 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 day to be taught and where 50 percent of them are failed to the highest degree. Fifty percent drop out of school, and one can only imagine how many other children are in academic trouble. How can a place designed to educate not make academic gains in five years? My children deserve to be in a better place where caring adults knew who they were. Instead, I watch them struggle in a place where no one knew them, where they were not comfortable, and where they did want to be. It is hard to go to school in a place where there is chaos and violence all the time. While students are partially responsible, low expectations, a jail-like atmosphere and a lack of academic rigor and books and supplies are part of the problem. My children are like many other children throughout our school 115 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 district. One day off turned into two days off and so on. As City Council members, I urge you to take accountability for your schools that are failing children all over this city. Without reclaiming schools and working with parents, students, and community members, we will never be able to combat the dropout rate let alone our murder rate. I am confident that many of our city's issues can be addressed school by school, area by area. Now, my children are facing Job Corps, and they should not have to go that course. Job Corps is not a replacement for school and their school year experience.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Hello. My name is Ana Echerarria, and I work for the Eastern North Philadelphia Youth 116 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 Services Coalition, or ENPYSC. ENPYSC is a collaborative of nonprofit organizations that 5 provide to children and youth. 6 ENPYSC, in conjunction with Project 7 Youth Turn, is hosting a dropout 8 summit on Saturday, May 17th, next 9 coming Saturday, at St. Boniface. 10 As many of you know, 11 Philadelphia has an enormous dropout 12 crisis. Unfortunately, Latino 13 students have the worst dropout rate 14 in the City, with only 40 percent 15 graduating. That means six out of ten students are leaving our schools. There are several factors that lead young people to leave school at all grades and ages. The focus of this summit is to organize community members and leaders to develop an action agenda that promotes education reform and changes in the social service provision by community-based organizations. 117 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 We invite City Council to attend this summit and listen to concerned parents, students, and community members. More importantly, we urge City Council to work with this coalition of concerned citizens as they engage in the dropout crisis. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Any questions? (No questions or comments.)

Thank you. The councilwoman will read our next panel -- their names, that is.

Our next panel, Panel 7, will address the issue of language access. We have Irma Samora, Elio 118 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 Feria, Estevan Jimenez, Anastacia Lorenzo, Cleo Flores, Lourdes Lorenzo, Colito Menendez. And Zach Steele will do the translating. (Applause.)

Thank you. We have only one more panel after this, so we're winding down. Thank you. ) TRANSLATOR: Good afternoon, good evening. Honorable Councilpeople, we are a group parents from South Philadelphia organized and supported by (indiscernible). We are here representing all of the Latino parents from South Philadelphia. And we are here so that we can once again have an audience that will hear our petitions and concerns concerning different issues 119 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 that we have encountered in the schools of the region. One of the most urgent is the lack of interpreters, as we only have four Spanish-English language interpreters for the entire south region. In our basically encounters with different organizations within the School District, we have met with (indiscernible), and we were cordially received and we explained our petition to them. We know that they're in charge of contracting and distributing interpreters through the School District. They suggested that they would support us, but once again, we are planning this petition in front of you as Councilpeople and we hope that you will support us and hear us as well. With me here are other parents as well from the southern region of the School District, who are going to 120 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 give their testimonies. ) INTERPRETER: Good evening. My name is Anastacia Lorenzo. I am a mother who has three children in the School District in South Philadelphia. As my fellow mother explained, we have encountered many problems for the lack of interpreters, specifically when we need to communicate with the schools over any concern or problem that we might have with them, with teachers, with our children there. It's important for us to have this kind of support because sometimes there have been fights between children in the schools, and we have been unable to solve these problems for lack of communication with the school. We have to wait sometimes three or four days until there is an interpreter present to be able to resolve various issues. And so when 121 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 we wait, it's very hard to solve a situation that's immediate. So we are here asking once again for your support in this as we understand that there is more language access and bilingual support in North Philadelphia. Thank you. ). ) INTERPRETER: Good evening. My name is Irma. As I'm sure you have heard, my companions and I have the same problem. We're all from South Philadelphia and we have, in various schools throughout the region, the same problem. Why are there only four interpreters throughout this region for such a large Latino population, which is growing? I see that all of the different organizations here have somewhat different problems, but there's a common denominator, which is 122 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 the education of our children. We as parents are concerned that our children receive a decent education if there are some kids who don't receive books. In our case, we are not asking for books, but rather another tool, which is basic to education, which is interpreters, which can provide the communication necessary between parents and children in schools. This is not just a problem of one or two schools but a regional problem. We would like that our concerns and complaints be heard so that we can help and further the education of our children. Why do we want this? So right now, there are 70 schools in Corrective Action II, and if we don't take action now, then in two or three years, there might be 150, you know, so we need to take action now. And so other people here 123 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 brought up the fact that school success or failure leads to violence, so if we don't create some change, then we're going to have more violence in our communities.

I think that if there's not a true school reform where we are all taking into account, teachers, students, parents, everybody concerned for the education of our children, if we are not taken into account, then we're going to continue down the same path, or things will simply worsen. Thank you. )

Thank you. Any questions? (No questions or comments.)

Thank you.

Our final panel?

Our 124 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 final witness will be Marcus Delgado from Fair Hill Community Academy. And then we will allow, I guess, for Cassandra Jones for some closing statements. And I want to thank you. We're going to try to tie this up as quickly as possible. (Witness comes forward.)

Good evening.

I didn't think I'd be up here alone, but it's okay. My name is Marcus A. Delgado. I am the current principal of Fair Hill Community High School, one of the alternative accelerated high schools located in the City of Philadelphia. I work for a nonprofit organization called "One Bright Ray, Incorporated," and overall, we service 1700 kids in the North Philadelphia area. We've been servicing and educating at-risk youth since in this 125 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 area since 1980. We currently have 1200 kids on Erie Avenue at a pre-K through charter school, and we have 5 two alternative sites where we 6 re-engage out-of-school youth. 7 Our one location, Fair Hill 8 Community High School, serves 250 9 students, and our second location in 10 North Philadelphia, Community High 11 School, serves a hundred students. 12 Both schools are different. One school is more college-based, Fair Hill's more college-based and geared towards post-secondary placement, where our North Philadelphia school is a theme-based school of learning to work. Over the past four years, our program has been extremely successful. We've had visitors coming from as far as Oregon, California, New Mexico, Arizona, flying out to see what we're doing at Fourth and Sommerset. If you're familiar with the neighborhood, 126 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 it is a difficult neighborhood, but we are well-received within our community. I have been in the Philadelphia public school system for the past eight years: as a teacher at Kensington and Olney High School to a vice principal at one of our alternative schools, and now the principal of the alternative school in the City of Philadelphia. I have seen a lot of different things in my journeys around North Philadelphia. I have seen schools that are inadequately funded, I have seen schools that do not provide proper education for our kids. I come here today not as a principal; I come today as a concerned citizen of this area. I come here concerned about the state of our alternative schools in the City of Philadelphia. We have received a termination 127 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 letter for our contract at Fair Hill Community High School. I have newspaper articles stating that our contracts will not be renewed, therefore throwing my teachers in a state of panic about job stability. As a principal of a successful program in the City of Philadelphia that can be supported by Laurie, that can be supported by Maria, that can be supported by Mayor Nutter, it becomes difficult to maintain good, quality teachers that want to teach in the Philadelphia area without security, job security. I come here today to talk about the growth of public schools and charter schools across the City of Philadelphia, but I don't understand why nothing is being done to alleviate the overcrowdedness at Edison School, which is one of the biggest schools in the City of Philadelphia. I don't understand why nothing is being done 128 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 alleviate the chaos and the confusion that's taking place at Olney High School. I do not understand why nothing is being done to help the kids at Kensington High School. These are three high schools in our area -- of the North Philadelphia area that students are leaving. And they're leaving why? I think eventually the School District has to ask themselves, Why are kids leaving our schools and where they are they going? Between the three schools that we operate, we have over 2,000 kids on our waiting list. Why do so many kids want to come to our schools? is the question a needs to be asked. And if they do want to come to these schools, then what are we doing behind our doors that's making such a high demand? That's all I have to say. Thank you. 129 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Very important testimony and well received. Thank you very much, Mr. Delgado. Thank you. Dr. Jones. And then we're going to end our hearing after she makes remarks and certainly welcome my colleagues to have any statement they would like. (Dr. Jones comes forward.)

Thank you, Dr. Jones.

Good evening. Thank you again. Cassandra Jones, Interim Academic Officer for the School District of Philadelphia. Certainly I would like to say that the issues that you've heard here today have been embraced by the School District of Philadelphia. These are certainly issues that are high on the radar. We are working very hard to address many of these issues. 130 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 I would also like to say that as we look at this, we are going to prepare written responses, because a lot of the information tonight was not accurate and, actually, we do need to clarify. That put aside, the issues that you heard and the frustration, because people have been working and have not seen the fruits of their labor. And so, one, we thank you for having this forum as we lift these issues up and know that we have a new CEO coming in, Dr. Ackerman, and many of these issues and the conversations that we have had with her are certainly high on her radar and certainly issues that she is coming in with a plan, working collaboratively with the District and with the community and with our elected officials to address them. We also want to say that if 131 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 you look at the SRC priorities, these are certainly issues that are being addressed. And as we paint this picture, I also want to lift up the accomplishments of the District, because everything is not going in the wrong direction. There are certainly many things that are going in the right direction. And I would like to say that as partners with our community, what you will find is that this there is more than just one voice. And just as you hear one voice in the community saying that they don't like this, you have another group saying that these are things that are working. So everything is not rosy; we certainly understand that. And we are committed to continue to work jointly with you in these forums and to work side-by-side to make sure that we are going to have a quality system for all 132 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 of our students. So we do thank you for this opportunity to hear, to listen, and to learn. (Applause.)

Thank you very much, Dr. Jones. And let me say thank you to all of you for being here. We heard your concerns. When a young man mentions apartheid, we know that we have trouble. For people to feel they have issues because they may be poor, they may be from another ethnic background and they feel that their schools are left out or horrendous are really criticisms and indictments for our school district. We did hear Dr. Jones, who does care about -- that we will receive the response in writing, because all of this will be transcribed into a City Council report. 133 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 And we're very concerned that parents, again, as has happened in many years prior to this, feel not welcome in schools, and that's something that it doesn't take very much to correct. So, again, we thank you very much. And I invite my colleagues to make their closing statements. And, again, thank you all for being here. (Applause.)

I want to echo what Dr. Jones said. There are some things that are working well, and we want to applaud those. And I think everyone here today is committed to one thing as young people, and as I mentioned when we started, we don't always agree on how we get there, but let us all agree, and I think heard we heard it here today, that additional funding is necessary. But let there be no doubt that 134 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 there is not a lack of commitment both on students, parents, and the school administration to move these schools forward. So I'm very happy to be here. And as I said, this wasn't the beginning of the conversation and it's definitely not the end. And I encourage all us, as Dr. Ramirez said earlier, to work together to helping resolve some of these issue. So thank you. (Applause.)

Yes. Just very quickly, I certainly want to echo what Councilwoman Blackwell and what Councilwoman Sanchez said, and I congratulate both of them on putting together this great hearing. It was a terrific turnout here. And I particularly want to say thank you to the students. There's obviously a lot of students that care about what's going on in the public 135 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261 schools and that they're going to stay involved. And as Councilwoman Sanchez said, we hear you, we want to work with you, and we're going to be talking a lot in the future. So thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.)

Thank you. Dr. Ramirez, you'll have the closing remarks. But let me again thank the principal, Mr. James Douglass, for making us feel so welcome and for setting everything up so nicely for us, thank you. (Applause.)

Dr. Ramirez, you'll have the final remarks.

There's no 24 pressure there, right? (Laughter.) 136 5/8/08 - Education Committee - Res. 080261

I think most of what we're hearing actually, while it seems like discouraging news, it's actually -- because we have really high expectations for what our students will accomplish, how our teachers will support them and what our schools and systems deliver on, so if we take anything here, it's the resiliency of our students and community to do well and a continued commitment to high expectations. So, again, I applaud the Council for bringing us together to remind us that we do have high expectations. Now we have to work hard together to meet them.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you all. God bless you and good night. (Proceedings end at 8:30 p.m.) * * * 137 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings of the City of Philadelphia Council Committee on Education are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me on Thursday, May 8, 2008, and that this is a true and correct statement of same. __________________________________ JOSEPHINE CARDILLO Registered Professional Reporter (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)