Committee Hearing, March 10, 1998

Okay. SUPT. HORNBECK: Mr. Nutter, could I just make an observation with respect to this. Because this is a point of real confusion out across the land.

Mm-hmm. SUPT. HORNBECK: And I think there are those who would like to say, you know, How do you get from 146 to 85? It must mean that you don't know how to count, you can't keep up with it, etc. In fact, I would argue that, as Mr. Armbrister has just demonstrated, that it's because we do know how to count and we do know how 255 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE to keep up with it. And each time we get some more cash, we tell the world we've got some more cash. And my hope is that next week, somebody will come along with some more cash, and it will go down to 80 or 78. And then, finally, the Governor will come along and give us $85 million, and it will go down to 0. So, I mean, every time we get cash, we add it in and we tell the world, Here's where we are in the course of things.

Well, I think one of the other realities of this process, though it may be that, for those who don't follow it either as closely as we do or -- I mean, people have other things to do so with their lives. They might argue that you could have known almost all of these things back at the last time you announced what was going on and, therefore, you're either playing a game, you know, with the public or, you know, you're going to take us through a death by a thousand cuts. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, they could say that, and Lord knows, they do say that, but it 256 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE just wouldn't be true.

Right. SUPT. HORNBECK: I mean, you could look at what those elements are. I mean, even the best analyst in the world can't know what the stock market is, and so we couldn't have anticipated that million. I sure could not have 9 anticipated that the Governor would include 18 10 million we didn't expect. 11 I mean, I didn't even know that, frankly, that this litigation was going on with the banks personally. So we couldn't have -- we and sure couldn't have known that after four years, the settlement would have taken place last week.

Right. SUPT. HORNBECK: The only one that maybe we could have semi-realistically anticipated was maybe the Mayor's suggestion of $15 million because you've all done it twice before.

Right. SUPT. HORNBECK: But it would have been a little presumptuous to --

That's the third 257 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE year of a one-time grant.

It was three consecutive one-time grants. (Laughter.) SUPT. HORNBECK: That's right.

Exactly. That's not bad.

Yeah, but let me just interject, it is my understanding that the deficit we're talking about now is a deficit that would prohibit us from continuing the already insufficient educational programs at the School District. SUPT. HORNBECK: It's a very important point, yes. If we could --

And, I guess, one of the reasons why it gets to be very, very important to me is because whereas we all -- everybody here would love to eliminate the deficit, but the fact of the matter is, if we could magically find a way to eliminate the $85 million deficit, it really doesn't solve our problem here. And when we -- I remind people, when we decided that we were going to avoid trying to cut 258 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE 50 to $75 million a year in back-to-back years to try to bring this thing into balance, we also decided that all that would do was further decimate already inadequate program, already inadequate programs. So that -- I mean, even if $100 million or 84 magically appeared, all we would be able to do is continue the status quo; same class sizes that are already too big, won't have any money for the after-school problems, do not have any money for the Saturday programs, and a lot of other things that we all know need to be done.

Right.

So from my personal point of view -- and I appreciate Councilman Nutter's -- do we really need to understand the changes in, you know, in the projected deficit. But I never -- I mean, I just don't want to ever lose sight of the fact that even if we could whittle it down and whittle it down, it still really doesn't answer our problem as we proceed to try to really fix what it is that is going in some realistic and rational way, because we really do need a lot more than to just balance 259 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE the budget and maintain the already inadequate programs. Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'll be very brief. And, Mr. President, I will have to ask to leave for about a half hour. There's a very exciting announcement to be made shortly regarding the public schools and the All-Star Game. The other question had to do with the cut strategy, the you-can-cut-your-way-out-of-this problem. And I think the President's made reference to it. Mr. Armbrister you highlighted some things in your testimony. And while I'm not an advocate of that particular process, I think it does need to be addressed very directly so that, again, people understand that we really are at a point where, as the President said, even if someone steps up to the plate tomorrow with the 85, it really doesn't address the longer-term problems. But for this purpose, during the budget hearing, if you could explain to us in more detail 260 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE what you would have to do in the face of no 3 additional dollars to get rid of an $85 million deficit, I think that that would be a very worthwhile, yet sobering, discussion. SUPT. HORNBECK: Again, this is without wanting to direct you to an exhibit, it is on the supplemental charts. And, basically, what we did was to see this projected deficit. And our first reaction was what it's always been: What shall we cut? And so we went and we identified all of the things which are non-mandated. And that is what arguably falls into the non-mandated category. And it includes, beginning at the top, museum education and music teachers. And then we would have to go back to November as the moment to level -- we'd have to get rid of all of the desegregation costs, all athletic programs, all early-childhood programs, etc., etc. And all the way down are laid out, down to the school police assigned to elementary schools, the token subsidy, the whole nine yards. Those are the things that would be on 261 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE the chopping block. And it was, in fact, having identified that bunch of expenditures that led, led the Mayor, led the Council President, led the Board and so on, to the conclusion that we simply could not continue to balance the budget on the backs of cuts, that would take us beyond the pale; and, thus, the strategy that we have undertaken. And, as the President just pointed out, even if we were to do all of those cuts, leaving only the mirage of a school district, we would be back to zero. We would not -- we would be behind where what is inadequate today. And that's the list of things. And even some of those things, quite frankly, are arguably not legal. I mean, we've got on that list two things that I think probably are illegal. One is getting rid of the desegregation activities; I think the court would look askance at that. And then it would also require getting rid of all of the comprehensive day care and parent nursery programs. And there is -- there are some who would argue that that's in violation 262 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE of what is often referred to as the "Salvatore Amendment." So even the ones that are on that list are arguably not eligible for cutting under the law.

Who was asking questions? SUPT. HORNBECK: Mr. Nutter.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter -- has gone. (Laughter.)

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Fernandez.

Thank you, Mr. President, I'm here. I want to go back to the conversation we were just on in terms of the kinds of reductions that have occurred since you made your original budget projections. And for this record, could you just review which of those are one-time gap fillers. Because I think there's a difference between revenue that is an ongoing, dependable source that would meet your budget every year, as opposed to a 263 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE one-time stop gap. They're good, but they don't deal with what's coming next year. Could you just review this for us?

Yes, I would, Councilwoman Fernandez. There are two things here we should keep in mind. One is that one with respect to the items that have changed between the October projection and where we were today, it is possible that many of these would not be one-time. I mean, many of these would be recurring but for, for example, the City's $15 million grant. But we would hope that in the Governor's budget, particularly as it relates to the increase in the ESBE formula and what has historically been the way that they have done it, that is to say, We'll give you basically what you got last year, that maybe we can rely on that increase. The PSERS reduction should recur. And unless enrollment --

Unless the stock market goes down.

That's right, and they could increase it, right. And if the stock market 264 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE goes down, then they could increase the rate. Again, that could go up, and our enrollment could certainly go up. But we've hit a temporary -- what many may believe to be a temporary flattening. We go back and look at birth rates five years out, and then that's the primary reasons for the reduction. But there could be, you know, an immigration, as we get the School District to be a much better school district. You know, there may be people coming back into the School District. But to get to your point regarding nonrecurring revenues, I think what I'd like to draw your attention to are the nonrecurring revenues that are in this year's budget, that will not be available for us next year, which is a fairly substantial number. I mean, the true, nonrecurring revenues that we cannot depend on and do not depend on in our 1999 budget. For example, we ended last year with a fund balance of about $33 million. Our fund balance projected for FY '99 is only $5 million. We lost the benefit of that $33 million. . 265 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE We also, through the good offices of the City, were able to benefit from the tax lien sale last year.

Right.

That's another $18.1 million that we benefitted from directly that's in this year's budget that will not be available next year. And, lastly, we benefitted -- the School District undertook a refinancing of some of its debt last year, which was able to push off, quite frankly, for this year, almost $30 million of debt service -- it was about 26. So when you add all those things up, it comes up to about $77 million that we do not have available to us as we prepare our budget for FY '99, that we have the benefit of this year. Those are the kind of nonrecurring things that we don't have. And, if you don't mind, I wanted to finish answering one of the questions that Mr. Nutter raised, which was, Where do we go from here? Because of the fact that we used those one-time things, we don't have a lot of room. 266 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE I mean, one-times aren't truly one-times, and you kind of run out after a while.

Right.

And so, his question was, Where do we go from here? As the Superintendent said, unless someone comes up with additional revenues, we're probably not going to be going much further than this $85 million, quite frankly. So there aren't a lot of other options. There's only so much debt you can re-fund, there are only so many tax liens we can sell, and we have squander our fund balance.

So the worse-case scenario would be the following year, 75 million that were plugged this year by one-time sort of gifts or windfalls would not be there. Plus, if we couldn't find this 85 in an ongoing -- or not 85 -- yeah, it's down to 85. If we couldn't fund the current deficit right now in an ongoing way -- in other words, fix it in a more structural way -- we'll be right back in the same hole --

Oh, clearly, if you -- 267 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

-- only deeper.

That's correct. At the end of my testimony, we did kind of look ahead a little bit. And, if you recall, we're projecting at this current rate, if we were not able to fill the $85 million gap, we would be looking at a projected deficit for the year 2000 budget in the neighborhood of $278 million.

Okay, so that's why at least, I think --

To get us back to zero.

The implication would be, then, that we're not looking for a one-time windfall.

Clearly not. We're --

We really need an adjustment in the funding formula that would help us deal with this financial problem.

That's a very important point to emphasize, that the revenues that we were looking to gain need to be recurring revenues, to fix what is in fact a structural 268 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE problem. And, you know, the only way to solve this is for ongoing revenues. And one such way to do that would be a change in the funding formula.

One question. I had to sort of go to a different topic. I know President Clinton, in his State of the Union Address, talked about the sorry state of school buildings across the country, and he really realizes it's a national problem. And I'm also aware that here in the City of Philadelphia, you did do a detailed analysis of what are the building repair kinds of maintenance needs in the School District. Could you just briefly for the record note what that is. I felt a little bit encouraged in reading some of the information that we may not be as bad off here as some of the other large school districts, like Washington D.C., that didn't even open --

For three weeks.

-- because they had such a mess. Chicago is evidently in an even more serious state of neglect than we are. 269 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE But it is a national problem. And the second part of it is, just briefly, the scope of the problem from your point of view. And then do you see this as primarily something where we need some federal assistance, perhaps, as opposed to State?.

I'd be happy to address that. Last year, we were encouraged by the fact that the President had included a proposal to do a major infusion of dollars for construction, capital construction for school buildings. Somewhat to our dismay and disappointment, that provision did not make it into the final tax bill. And the president again reiterated his support for that measure in his State of the Union message this year. So we are, again, heartened and anticipate, hopefully, that this year, it will pass. It was initiated as a result of a GAO report, in fact that I brought with me today. Think one of your staff members had asked me for it. And I will certainly make it available to all 270 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE of Council. But it was initiated through a GAO report that was started by senator Carol Mosley-Brown from Illinois. And the report indicated that, as you appropriately reported, that the state of public schools around the country was horrible, that they estimate -- and it was a projection -- that about $112 billion were needed to repair the schools. This initial report was done in February of 1995. And about that same time, the School District, pursuant to a recommendation of the Management and Productivity Task Force, and at the insistence of the Superintendent, had begun an assessment of its own facilities, a copy of which I have here, which was concluded in this big report called -- we affectionately refer to it in the District as the Perch Rooter Facilities Condition Assessment. And we literally went into every one of our school buildings. At that time, there were 257 schools, literally assessed every space in the school building. And after determining standards of what a school building should be -- i.e., in 271 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE terms of whether or not the windows are fixed and the floors are properly repaired and --

And painted.

-- Painted and things like that, the assessment indicated, back in 1996, that the School District would need to spend $765 million to bring the buildings up to just standards. Now, it's important to note, in raising our buildings to that standard, it did not provide for additional wiring for technology. It did not increase wiring for electrical outlets you need for computers. I happened to be in a school last week, a school classroom last week, and the computer for this particular classroom was up in the front of the room. And the teacher pointed out to me that that was the only outlet in the entire room. Many of our buildings, the average age of our buildings is 60 years old. We have a lot of work to do. So that the federal initiative would be welcome. And, in fact, the School District would benefit greatly from that. What it is, in fact, 272 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE as it's proposed, is an interest rate subsidy that would be provided to school districts who undertake construction. In fact, it encourages new construction, but I was invited down to Washington to speak with staff members of the Tax and the Education Committees, who are writing the legislation, and emphasized to them that for an old urban school district like Philadelphia, a different point of view might be more welcome; that is, to provide us money not only to build new schools, but to fix our current inventory of schools. I'm not sure how that recommendation is going to play out in the actual legislation, but we could certainly use a lot of help in the $765 million of work that we need, which we feel is inadequate to address the true educational technology needs of our students, i.e., for technology, for appropriate wiring, and things like that.

Yeah, that's what bothered me in looking over the report summary was the cost of getting the schools 273 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE properly wired for technology wasn't even included. And I guess if I had one thing I wish the federal government would do, it be to follow up on the goal they've set to have every, you know, child be technologically literate by the year 2000, I think I originally heard, which is right around the corner. But, again, how are we ever supposed to get young people technologically literate if the buildings aren't wired. So that seems to me a very important infrastructure investment and also a very important work force, economic development investment that I really do think is the appropriate role of the government, the federal government. I don't want them in here telling us, how to, you know what to do about the curriculum, but that is something they could do here and across the country that would, again, put some meaning into this rhetoric that, after a while, starts to make me pretty angry to set all these glorious goals, I think at both the State and federal level, but then we don't have the 274 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE resources to make it a reality in the lives of kids in classrooms.

That's right, that's right.

Which brings me to one last question, which is -- the question was raised in public testimony on Saturday about the issue of the cost for particularly high school students in our City to get to school when they have to pay for their own SEPTA tokens. And I think the point was brought up that we have one of the highest out-of-pocket costs for our students. And, again, in the light of the fact that so many of our students so come from lower-income families, this seems like a real barrier for some kids to actually get to school. I'm wondering, have there been any conversations with the School District, with SEPTA? Or is that something that the City or State could help us with? Again, if we're trying to reduce truancy, we're trying to get kids in school so they have a chance to learn, making sure they get there without having this financial barrier seems 275 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE like something we should look at. SUPT. HORNBECK: We agree with you. We actually subsidize ourselves, the tokens. But even after the subsidy, it leaves a cost of $36 a month for a child to get to school and get home those days or days. And $36 is a lot for 8 one child, but then -- 9

If you add it 10 up, if you had three -- 11 SUPT. HORNBECK: -- you have families 12 where there may be three. And it is not at all 13 unknown for a family to make choices among and 14 between which child goes to school this week and 15 which child goes to school next week for those 16 kinds of reasons. 17 And I think I'm right. I'm not far 18 wrong, I know, to say that we are the only school 19 district in the Commonwealth that charges its 20 kids. I'm not sure that's a hundred percent 21 right, but it comes awfully close. 22 And it's just another instance in which the circumstances of our finances are such that the burden ends up falling on our kids; and, of course, in the case of kids with low income, on 276 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE poor kids. So --

Well, actually, the young man who testified yesterday, Jose? SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes.

He said his mother was left supporting a family of four children, and he was working -- SUPT. HORNBECK: That's right.

-- to try to supplement the family income, so -- SUPT. HORNBECK: It's a very serious problem and one that we've discussed often. And, in fact, two or three years ago, when the fares for SEPTA were raised, we increased our subsidy so that the cost to the child didn't go up, but the cost did go up. And our subsidy of went up; in fact, it may have gone up to --

It went up to 21 cents; we cut it back to 10. 22 SUPT. HORNBECK: Yeah, we took the 23 subsidy up to 25 cents. If we cut it back to the 24 10 cents before the increase, that all by itself 25 would cost $1.7 million, which is one of the 277 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE things that's on that list. I mean, we could cut it, nobody makes us do it except good sense, but that's just the subsidy. Kids --

They still pay. SUPT. HORNBECK: We do give out free tokens to how many?

Well, the cost is -- SUPT. HORNBECK: It's $9 million worth of free tokens for kids that meet certain --

Is that the de-seg -- it's the de-seg travel? SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes, yeah.

I was thinking, as -- I mean, the immediate crisis facing the School District is the major, you know, funding program, and then SEPTA is facing a possible strike. SUPT. HORNBECK: Right.

But maybe, you know, as we go forward and as you're talking with the State on how they could perhaps come up with a package that might help us some, I would think 278 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE that that's something we should look at, to try to find a way to relieve some of the stress on your budget and also on the budgets of children from lower-income families. SUPT. HORNBECK: That's absolutely elementary. I mean, if the kids can't get there, we can't do anything with them.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.

Thank you, Mr. President. There was an article in the papers on Monday that referred to a debate that the Board had as well as around the issue of funding for administration positions, about 400 administrations, I believe, as opposed to books or teachers. Would you respond to that and how that impacts on Children Achieving, especially if we have all these monetary problems. Do we have to -- why could we not delay some things until 279 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE another fiscal year so that we could alleviate that problem and maybe not hire more administration folks as opposed to classroom teachers? SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes, I can speak to that. In the case of the reductions in the classrooms, it's what Councilman Nutter and I were discussing a little while ago. That's the consequence almost entirely of the reduction in the projected number of students. And so those would be the teachers we would have to hire if there were as many students -- I mean, if there were as many students who come to the School District as we had originally projected last year, and we're going to have 3,000 less. And so, in that sense, if we're maintaining the same allocation schedule, we'd need that many fewer teachers. So that's all the reduction at the school level is. It has to do with projections; not bodies, not layoffs, none of that. In terms of the administrators, there 280 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE is a net addition of about 30, which we spoke to yesterday, and they are all people that go directly to the issue of supporting the classroom. For example, there are two people on the list that would be in the offices of leadership and learning, whose job it would be to help coordinate the mentors for the 900 new teachers that we hired this year. Normally, we hire about 400 or 450 new teachers. This year, because of a lot more people retiring and so on, we had to hire 900. State law requires, and good sense requires, that each of those teachers should have a mentor. It is now March, and there are still some of the 900 who don't have mentors as new teachers. And one of the reasons is that we've cut so far back on administrative support, that there's nobody to go find the mentors. And so this isn't about doing something downtown; it's about helping new teachers in the classroom. A second example are the eight people that we project for Human Resources. , etc. And I know each member of Council has had a principal or a teacher or a parent say, you know, I've had nothing be substitutes in my kid's class for x-numbers of days. Well, the reason that we have projected an additional eight people in Human Resources is, again, not so something can go on downtown, it's so that we can add the recruitment staff and the processing staff that will find teachers to go into those particular vacancies. There are a couple of new places in the Chief of Staff's Office. There are two new or beefed-up areas there. One is related to discipline, and one related to schools that are having trouble producing with their kids. And one of the -- I mean, I guess, again, if we want to spend any time in schools, as I know all of you do, you will frequently hear the 282 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE problem with disruptive kids or kids who are returning from incarceration or the kids -- we had 1100 of those last year -- or the youngsters who are coming back to school because the welfare law was changed, and they've got to come to school in order to receive public assistance. Well, the people in the Chief of Staff's Office, the couple of extra people there are people who would help us cope with that great return; and, as a consequence, help teachers and principals in classrooms. It will be those people -- I think maybe there's a twilight school in -- I was think there was one at Audenreid High School, but we've got four now, anyhow, across the City.

Twilight school are places with kids with unusual needs, the kids coming back from incarceration go to school at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and go till like 8 o'clock at night. It's a different alternative way of coming to school. Well, the people that we're projecting in the Chief of Staff's Office, this discipline area, that would be one of their duties, is to 283 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE help start twilight schools, to respond to these needs. So these are not -- there's not a single one of these positions that is about somehow, you know, the sort of stereotypical downtown administrator or bureaucrat. It's about helping new teachers have mentors, helping teachers cope with discipline problems, helping get music teachers and science teachers into the schools. And, quite frankly, there are some places like those where, in our zeal to cut administration, which has resulted in our being able to put more money into classrooms and less into administration. There are some places where we want to far. And as a consequence, there was not the support there that teachers and principals need.

What's the status of the shop programs? We've been hearing about that for the last several years, about materials and those kids who want to go to school for trades. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, in the 284 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE traditional -- what I will characterize as a narrow way of thinking about trades, for which there are fewer jobs available, we are probably somewhat below the number of students enrolled in those programs today than we were five years ago. If you're talking about children who are involved -- enrolled in vocational programs -- and the way I would define a vocational program is a program for whom, for example, we get reimbursement from the federal government. We can turn in this many kids and get money. In fact, in the last four years, the number of kids involved in those kinds of programs has grown by about 300 percent because we place lots and lots of emphasis on preparation for jobs and careers and work, and not everybody's going to go to college. And you heard an excellent example of that yesterday afternoon in the Kensington cluster, where four years ago in the School District, there were 440 students involved in the School-to-Career Program. This year, there are over 3,000 in the School-to-Career Program. They are not the traditional shop 285 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE programs. They are the Cardiology Unit at St. Christopher's Hospital, it's the technology lab at another employer. I mean, they are serious jobs that are going to exist into the future. And what we've tried to do is to characterize in a sense what we used to call "vocational education," to redefine it into jobs that really exist as we reach the turn of the century, because our kids, it seems to me, deserve the same break at least on that front that the kids out in the suburbs do.

Would you update us on the Truancy Program. We certainly applaud Judge Pannapinto and all that he is doing. And we realize that if we don't have the students in the classroom, we're still losing, because we've got to get the kids in class, especially with respect to us technically having that one truant officer and the concern we feel when we learn that at each school, one individual is responsible or assigned to that task, but that individual, especially in a high school, would have no knowledge of that child and not 286 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE necessarily any relationship. How do we do on this end of it, on the school end of it? How do we have an effective truancy program? SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, let me begin with the good news. And that is, last year, 70 percent of our schools, 70 percent of the 259 improved their attends rate so that there's no 10 question but in measurable terms we're making progress on that front. In some ways, the most important thing that we've done is to identify attendance as one of those six things that count. Reading, math, science, promotion, student attendance, and staff attendance are the six things. And so we have said to all of us when you're think about what you pay attention to, one of the tiny number of things that count more than anything else is attendance. And so we've made it front and center in that sense. And school staffs have meetings just around attendance, and they design action plans just around attendance. So that's the second thing I will say. 287 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE The third thing I would say is that there have been a variety of programs initiated that, in a sense, have acronyms attached to them. I mean, they're programs in that sense. And those represent partnerships in some instances with the Recreation Department; in other instances, with the Department of Social Services. And they have as their common thread getting kids in school, getting them to come in on time, and staying in school. For example, we think that after-school programs, ironically even though they're outside of school, are a part of having kids in school. And so we now have 117 schools involved in partnerships with the Recreation Department in that kind of way. So there's that kind of initiative. And then we have the kind of undertaking that Judge Pannapinto and I announced whenever it was, ten days ago, the so-called Satellite Truancy Court, which, in an effort to make truancy not something that is punished, but something that is solved. We have moved the attention to it into the neighborhoods themselves, the first one being 288 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE in the cluster office in Kensington, and then in West Philadelphia, and then out in the chain cluster, where we place the consideration of truancy in a geographical location where school staff and parents and the court can all come together and solve problems. I must say that one of the -- one of the best editorials that I've seen recently was that one in The Inquirer the other day, where it actually described the give and take with the court and the parents and school and kids. And they considered -- that day, I think it was kids. And they actually mapped 15 out positive programs for 15 of them. And there 16 was one young woman out of the 16 who didn't get it; and she, in fact, is being evaluated for a more restrictive placement in the course of that. Finally, I would say that because of the focus on attendance, you get the kind of action that, I think, the young principal who was in here the other day, Eddie Torres, is a great example of, and I mentioned that yesterday, where he actually goes out each morning with a fistful of absentee slips and goes and knocks on the doors 289 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE of the kids that are absent that day from Kensington High School.

And with actions like that and with an attitude like that, Kensington High School, which, historically, has been just awful in terms of its attendance, in his first year, last year, he increased his attendance by about percent, 9 which was a remarkable achievement at Kensington 10 High School. 11 So there are a whole -- it's not one 12 silver bullet deal around attendance and truancy; 13 it's a broad-based trying to change the culture, 14 attack the attitudes, alter the basic perception 15 of what it means to come to school.

And certainly that reminds me of Marcus Foster and why he became such a leader in education and is so revered, because he did just that, went out into the neighborhoods. SUPT. HORNBECK: I think that's a great example. That was when I did my first tour of duty here in Philadelphia, and Mark was -- that was when he was at Gratz.

Yes. 290 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE SUPT. HORNBECK: And he developed the kind of relationship with the kids in which the kids really, really knew that he cared about them, that he wanted them in school.

That's right. SUPT. HORNBECK: He respected them. It was -- I mean, he was the best.

My last question is: What is your opinion and how would the Superintendent and the Board fit into a funding-follows-the-students-program that is being talked about in some circles in the State now? What's your opinion about it and how would it -- SUPT. HORNBECK: You mean a voucher program?

-- practically operate? Well, some call it "a voucher program" because it certainly would affect vouchers, it would affect every -- it would affect funding across the board if the money followed the kid. How do you see it, or do you simply see it as a voucher program? SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, I have not heard 291 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE it described otherwise.

Okay. SUPT. HORNBECK: And I think vouchers end up being bad for the large majority of public school students. The handful of kids that might be able to take advantage of a voucher, it might well help. And I don't begrudge them in that sense help. It -- I've never -- I've never been able to figure out why people think it would help the large number of kids or how it would help change the public schools. A lot of people say that the reason it would help change is because it would produce competition. And if public schools thought they were going to lose their students, then they would get better in order to retain their students. Well, if that would have any impact, my own view is we would have the best schools in the nation. Over the last about 20 years, Philadelphia has lost about 15,000 kids who have used what is in effect a self-funded voucher; that is, they left the City in order to get away from schools and take their money and kids out of the 292 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE City, into the suburbs. And if losing their kids was the things that was going to drive change, then we should have seen a lot of improvement by that -- by now. And, of course, it's the contrary. The other thing I would suggest about competition is, in my view, one of the most competitive endeavors around is the selling of food because it's a necessity, like in grocery stores. And you would think that if that great competitive market was the thing that was going to drive quality, we would see some really terrific grocery stores in North Philadelphia or east of Broad Street in North Philadelphia. And, of course, we have lousy grocery stores in the poorest parts of town. So this notion of competition that competition and using the market somehow gets the job done is, I think, a never-never-world. And I think that it gives to some people a way to escape their fundamental responsibility to do what's right by public school kids. Now, if you want accountability, which is the underlying feature of competition, then 293 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE I've got no problem with that. I know that public educators sometimes do but since Philadelphia is the only school district in the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that has an accountability system in which there are rewards for educators, based on school success, and ultimately penalties based on persistent or dramatic failure to work with kids, at least in Philadelphia, there's no problem with accountability. And I'd be glad, of course, to discuss that with anybody at anytime. But vouchers, you know, if you want to give some money to some individual sense and kind of save him in a sense, that may be the route to go for that child. But if one wants to deal with the great majority of the 213,000 kids in Philadelphia, there's no way that that's going to get the job done.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you very much. At this time, I offer my apologies. I'm going to have to leave the chambers for a few minutes. 294 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Councilwoman Verna will sit in the Chair. But I would like to make announcement or two. We had reserved the possibility of having a public hearing on Saturday. I guess that's the 14th of March. There will be no public hearing on Saturday, the 14th of March. We weren't fully committed to it, and there will not be a public hearing on Saturday, the 14th of March. We had also tentatively talked about a public hearing on Wednesday night. There will be no public hearing on Wednesday night. We will try to get through all the testimony this afternoon and this evening. If we need -- if, after this afternoon and this evening, if we need further testimony for any reason, we will have it. I would like to remind people that at this time last year, we adopted the ordinances that we traditionally adopt that authorize the School District of Philadelphia to collect its taxes. Some people have forgotten that. And we are here today taking testimony on two resolutions. One resolution is a resolution on the $15 million one-time grant for 295 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE the third consecutive year. And a resolution 3 which really authorizes us to look into and have a discussion of the current situation with the deficit and all of that. There may very well be other public hearings later on in the month and maybe even in the month of April, because as the situation changes, we will obviously want to stay abreast, so that we will take testimony this afternoon, we will take testimony tonight. There will not be a public hearing on Wednesday night or Saturday morning. And we will be prepared to at least consider finally the resolution authorizing the $15 million one-time payment. But there may very well may be other discussions that we have of other aspects of the School District's operations. Does any Member of the Committee have any questions about that? (No questions at this time.)

Last year, we actually did two years of School District tax authorizations. If there are no questions, the Chair 296 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE thanks Councilwoman Verna for assuming the Chair. An recognizes Councilman Rizzo.

Thank you, Mr. President. Superintendent Hornbeck, I want to follow up before I ask my question on something Councilwoman Blackwell addressed. It's the admission criteria. Example, Roxborough Business Academy, Lincoln Environmental, Dobbins, I've gotten numerous calls and have received letters in reference to the admission policy. Could you explain the admission policy? SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes, Councilman Rizzo, I'd be glad to. I did receive a copy of a letter that was addressed to all City Council Members last week and signed by a number of people related to it, and I'll be glad to address this. And you should have, even today, in your office a response to that because there were multiple misstatements in that communication, and I think it would be good for the Council to actually have the facts about it. 297 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE But let me -- let me go back to say that in a number of schools, the Girls' High and Central High School, and some other special- admissions school, the admissions criteria are exactly the same that they've always been. They have to do with school performance and behavior and attendance and so on. There are a number of other places where the criteria were changed over the course of the last year. And the most common thread that exists in those particular ones has roots back in the fact that -- back in the fact that they received vocational money. And there's some history to that that Council needs to understand. In 1992, the Education Law Center went to Harrisburg and said, Is it legal to receive vocational education money if there are criteria used for admission for which there is no validated evidence that success in the program is determined by that? And at that time, the State Department of Education said no, it would be wrong to use things like attendance criteria and grades and so on, to do that. 298 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Subsequent to that, the Education Law Center sued the School District because we were using those kinds of criteria for various programs. And in 1994, I believe it was '94 or '95, we entered into a consent agreement that was based on that State Department of Education advice that said that there would be no admission criteria relative to ability and school performance and so on for small learning communities and academies in the cities and schools and vocational schools. It being the advice of the State Department of Education that if did continue to do that, we would lose our vocational money. Subsequent to that, serious issues were raised by a number of parties, including those that wrote you last week, saying basically, We disagree with that. And so we entered into what has now become more than a two-year conversation with them, with the Education Law Center, even trips to Harrisburg, trying to arrive at a point related to admissions criteria that would be satisfactory to everybody concerned. 299 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE As you can tell from the letter you got last week, we haven't arrived at that point yet. I am now told, though, and I got no paper to that effect -- they tend to not put things in writing, and maybe you could facilitate that, it would be interesting -- from the State Department of Education that the Department of Education disagrees with the old State Department of Education, and now they think it is okay. I am told, to use these kinds of criteria in order to exclude students. I'm not sure in making that statement that they've actually checked with the United States Department of Education, which -- under whose law they are governed. But, in any case, it is crystal-clear that the Education Law Center, who has this court order, doesn't agree with that, and is poised to enforce this court order.

Now about six weeks ago, I guess, or two months ago, we began the process of trying to set up a meeting with a number of people, including the people who sent you this letter and includes, I think, a couple of Councilmen. I think maybe you've been in one or two 300 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE of those meetings over the last couple of three months, and I don't know whether you're invited to the one that is scheduled for the 20th of this month or not. But if you have not been invited by the people who wrote the letter, let me be sure to invite you to come. Because I think it's important for everybody to be in that room. This isn't about something happening outside of anybody's hearing, and come to really understand what these issues are. It is my understanding that if we were to actually do what the people who wrote this letter want to do, that we would end up either being enjoined by the courts from doing it or losing our vocational money. And where we are right now is to have secured an agreement in the name of determining the interest of children in the schools, because there's often the specter raised of youngsters who go to Saul that don't like cows.

Perfect. SUPT. HORNBECK: And it seems reasonable to me that kids who go to Saul ought to 301 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE like cows. And so we had gotten to the point where we had reached a kind of an agreement with the people on the other side, the people who want to enforce this court opinion, that they would -- I don't know what the right verb is -- wait and see whether an interest interview to determine those kinds of things would be permissible or not. And that's where we were proceeding while, at the same time, having arranged this meeting for the 20th, when the next thing I knew, I guess so that there could be questions asked in City Council about it, you all received this missive from those with whom we have been trying to resolve this for a couple years.

Thank you, Superintendent. My next question has to do with an opportunity to save money. I'm not sure that my suggestion will save money, but if a saving to the District could be identified, would you consider merging or creating -- the new Police Commissioner Timoney indicated that he's very, very -- would like to merge the SEPTA police and also the 302 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Housing Authority police into the Philadelphia Police Department. If the District could save significant money, would you consider merging the School District Police and creating a Division of School Security within the Philadelphia Police Department? SUPT. HORNBECK: As I have said just about everything that has been suggested, I'm willing to talk about anything that meets one of two criteria: one that it saves money and one that helps kids. And if we were able to determine in conversation with the Mayor and the Police Department that some sort of new relationship between our school security and the Police Department would help kids and save money, sure. I'm skeptical about that being the case, but I wouldn't want to shut off that possibility without having the conversation.

Thank you. Hopefully, I'll see you on the 20th. SUPT. HORNBECK: Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank 303 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE you, Madame Chair.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller.

Thank you, Madame Chair. Good afternoon. SUPT. HORNBECK: Good afternoon.

Just a couple things, and then I have a question. I think it's kind of great that the School District is going to incorporate the School-to-Careers from K through 16. I attended a conference a couple of Saturdays down at the Sheraton. SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes.

Because, you know, I'm on the Gratz Resource Board. SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes, I heard.

You know, and having worked in employment and training, I just thought that that was a really good move, and I think it will be successful. I wanted to also say how I think twilight schools are really, really good 304 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE alternatives for kids that can't -- and I know that Gratz is interested in becoming a twilight school or putting a twilight school there. But my question is, when I sit here, and this is my third year of sitting here and listening to the School District budget, it seems the business of education gets real complicated. So this afternoon, I was sitting here saying, Well, we didn't have all that when I went to school -- elementary school. And we could read and we could do math and we could do science, and attendance was up. My question would be: What do we need to provide just basic education to kids? I know there are social problems and some other things that are happening now that weren't happening when you and I went to elementary school. SUPT. HORNBECK: Right.

But it just seems that it's so complicated. There are so many levels, there's all types of people. And then have you ever test results or performance from maybe 30 years ago to what it is today? And I don't think -- we probably spent 305 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE way, way less money then, but I would bet that the outcomes were higher back then versus now. SUPT. HORNBECK: Actually, not so much here in Philadelphia, but in cities and in schools, there have been those comparisons done because there is frequently the observation that we've sort of -- to use the phrase -- "gone to hell in a handbasket" over last 20, 30, 40 years. And that the good old days used to be, you know, really good, and people really produced. And what has been discovered -- it's really interesting. What has been discovered is that the actual achievement levels are just about the same today as they were then, maybe even a tiny bit better today than they were then. What has changed dramatically is what level of achievement is required today in order to do a good job or to be successful in college. And, thus, the gap between where we are and where we ought to be has grown, not the actual achievement level, but the gap between where we are and where we have to go. And when you put that in the context of what you mentioned, that is the additional 306 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE challenges that exist, it is -- it's that that really underlines the difficulty we face. Then if you move that observation from a sort of nationwide one, which is where those studies have been done, to the situation in an urban center, where the poverty levels have -- the proportion of kids in poverty, the concentration in poverty and the other things that are attendant to poverty, like poorer health and drug issues and so on, then you underline the challenge that exists for us. At the same time, I think what you say is absolutely right. It's no big mystery how you get the job done.

Right. SUPT. HORNBECK: It's hard to do but it's simple to know what it is. You've got to know what kids need to know, and they need to know more today than they used to. I mean, it used to be that you only needed a strong back. Now you need a strong mind. You need parent involvement, you need teachers who know how to teach what the kids need to know, not something they used to need to know, 307 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE but what they need to know today. You need to have kids begin early, and there were so many more instances in which kids, for example, had two parents 30 and 40 years ago. And one of them was more likely to be reading to them when they were a year old and two years old and three years old. That make the importance of preschool programs and kindergarten programs today even more important than it was then. So you put those kinds of thing together, and I don't care if you are poor, you're going to be able to read, progress through the grades -- as each of us would want for our own children -- graduate from high school on time, and go successfully either into work and/or into college.

Okay, thank you, Dr. Hornbeck. I have one more question. Where did the 3,000 children go. Did these kids just go to private school or no 22 school? 'Cause I know they don't have to enroll until they're 8 years old so what happened to those 3,000?

Councilwoman Miller, 308 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE those 3,000, the difference in terms of our enrollment, what we anticipated it to be, was the difference between a projection and what it actually is. We had projected that it would increase by 3,000 students. And we went back and we looked at how we tabulate our enrollment and, in fact, have included a piece in the white papers that were presented to you in the blue folder. There's an explanation about how we calculate enrollment. But essentially, we went back and we looked at live births and noticed that there was a distinct drop-off. And so most of that reduction in the projection are, in many of the early grades, because of the reduction in the live births five years out.

Okay.

Thank you. Mr. Hornbeck, I did hear Councilwoman Blackwell ask you a question about the additional employees, and I heard your response, and I believe it was in the Chief of Staff's Office. Can you tell me how that will help a middle school in my district who, at the beginning 309 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE of the school year, had seven substitute teachers. I believe today, they still have seven substitute teachers. They have not had a librarian for two years. I don't believe they have a music teacher. I believe there's one special ed. class that apparently still has a substitute teacher. How is this going to help? SUPT. HORNBECK: Actually, there were a couple of those positions in the Chief of Staff's, Office, but neither of them relate to that issue. When I was speaking to that issue, it was the eight positions in the Human Resources Office.

Human resources, okay. And I think she also questioned you about the Chief of Staff's Office. SUPT. HORNBECK: I talked about the discipline and the troubled student issue there.

You're absolutely right, so this comes -- SUPT. HORNBECK: But in the case of Human Resources --

Human Resources. SUPT. HORNBECK: That's the Personnel 310 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Department. And what it will permit us to do is to recruit more widely, actually sending people more to colleges of education in State, sending people to hiring and recruiting fairs that exist, in fact, all over the United States, to designing additional programs whereby we bring kids up, for example, through high school and into college, preparing to be teachers so that we actually develop what I sometimes think of as our own farm team. We've gotten to the point where we --

That's going to take a long time before we actually see the fruits of that labor. SUPT. HORNBECK: That's right. And if we don't --

So what's going to happen at this middle school in the interim? SUPT. HORNBECK: They're going to go to a hiring fair and hire more people and assign them there or to one of the other schools in your district.

You know, you talk about sending people out into the various colleges 311 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE to recruit. I'd like to share with you that someone told me that she attends LaSalle College. And on February 23rd, they had a discussion at the school, "Employment Opportunities in the School District of Philadelphia." I understand the gentleman who represented the School District spoke about all of the benefits that they would derive. And one of the questions from the students was, "Don't you have to be a resident of Philadelphia?" And with that, the response was, "Oh, there's no problem. You have a year to move back into the City. And there's always a way of working around that after the year. You could always give an aunt's address if she lives in Philadelphia." Now, if that's the message that we're conveying, I think you know how strongly we in Council feel about residency. I was very shocked and very disappointed that we would have somebody going into the college and making remarks like this. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, it shocks me and 312 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE it disappoints me, and it does not conform to fact. The fact is that people, of course, do have the year. But, no, there is not a way to get around it. And, in fact, we end up firing people who --

Well, I think you should let your employee know that. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, I think, actually, they do. I would have been very interested to have heard it myself.

Well, in fact, I had several students that said they would come in to testify to that because I said I didn't believe it. I understand -- SUPT. HORNBECK: I'd like to know which employee. That would be helpful to --

Well, I have the name of the employee, but I think it behooves you to find out who it is, and I will not say it publicly. SUPT. HORNBECK: But will you share it with me privately?

I certainly will be more than happy to share that with you. 313 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE I also understand that he also stated that they were not looking for classroom teachers as much as administrators, and they would expect the student to teach for two to maybe four years, and then they would be able to move up to administration. Well, apparently, we're conveying the wrong message by your messenger all the way around, and I think that's something you should be looking into. SUPT. HORNBECK: I --

Because that's certainly not something that we here in Council, we would ever be supporting anything like that. SUPT. HORNBECK: I surely hope not.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Madame Chair. Dr. Hornbeck, I want to -- first let me make mention that I had been here earlier and left. There was a press conference just a little while ago announcing the location of the Public League All-Star Game, which will be held at St. 314 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Joe's University, out in Wynnefield. The School District in at St. Joe's came to an agreement, I believe yesterday, and the announcement was made this afternoon. And I had asked for -- (Applause.)

I just wanted to put on the record that the District and St. Joe's University and Father Rashford out at St. Joe's ought to be commended for stepping up to the plate and making sure that our young people, whether they are athletically or academically -- or in this case both -- talented, have the opportunity to participate in the game. And that the fans who are serious about coming to see basketball have an opportunity to see these games and that they get scouted properly. So I want to thank the District again. The Mayor yesterday, in his testimony or in his statement -- I don't know if we actually had testimony from the Mayor -- he made a statement, and I wrote it down yesterday when we were here, that test scores were up 92 percent. Did I take that down accurately? Or 315 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE was the Mayor accurate in his -- SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, 232 of the 257 schools showed improvement. Now, I don't know what -- somebody who's quicker at math than I am can calculate that. That's one way of -- I don't know what the reference is. There is material. Again, I hesitate to refer to it. But in this document call "Realities Converge" that lay out the student progress, they went up -- well, actually the 92 percent is in our document. It's -- Actually, I know where he gets that. There were about 10 schools, the remedial disciplinary schools, that were not in the mix. And so you reduced the 257 to about 247 or 245. And 232 over 200 and whatever that is.

45 is probably 92. SUPT. HORNBECK: Is 92 percent. That's where it comes from.

Okay. So the -- so it's a more accurate statement that test scores are up in 92 percent of our schools? SUPT. HORNBECK: That is an accurate statement. I don't know whether that's what the 316 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Mayor said or not, so I'm not sure whether it's more accurate.

Okay, all right. Because when said he said it, I took it down to be test scores were up 92 percent, in which case -- SUPT. HORNBECK: Oh, they are not up 92 percent. (Laughter.)

I mean, you know, as Drexel's pursuing canonization for Mother Drexel, you might find yourself in the same position. SUPT. HORNBECK: Right.

Or it may be an indication of how far down things were, we only had an upside. All right, so test scores are up in 92 percent of our schools, excluding the ten that were in some other assessment. SUPT. HORNBECK: Remedial, yes.

Okay. It's my understanding, and I share with you Dr. Hornbeck and Mr. Armbrister, that I had a series of questions. I asked my fiscal questions earlier, 317 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE and I think I actually left you with one of them. I'll read the notes of testimony to get the answer to that. And then I indicated that I had some programmatic or educational questions. And I have now come to understand that a part of what I wanted to talk about may have been partially addressed in my absence. That had to do with standards and admissions criteria at various schools. And many of these schools are not in the district that I represent, so I don't know a great deal about how they function and operate. A few of them are. So let me start with some of the basics. I guess in Children Achieving, and I read in Mr. Austin's testimony yesterday a number of times he used the words either "excellence" or "high standards." And I saw, I believe in a newspaper story recently where I think you were the photographed subject talking about the higher standards in the schools, maybe either for promotion or graduation, something in that realm. Is that correct? 318 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, it's been the steady drumbeat theme since August of 1994, so it could have been anytime from then till now. It's the key element of what we're up to.

Standards and having high standards? SUPT. HORNBECK: Absolutely.

It's the foundation of the -- SUPT. HORNBECK: Absolutely.

Okay, all right. And do I understand that there are some schools in the 257-some odd schools that have written standards and admission criteria that determine whether or not a young person, regardless of where they live, those standards and criteria determine whether they can attend that particular school? SUPT. HORNBECK: Central High School is a good example of that, yes.

Okay. Are there others? SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes.

Can you expand the list, I mean give me a half a dozen of them. 319 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, we have Central, Girls' High, Bodine, Carver Engineering and Science. There are, I think, eight that fall into that category.

Okay. And how are those criteria developed or established? I mean, is there a history to this, or is there something more recent to it? How did they arrive at those eight schools having admissions criteria? SUPT. HORNBECK: There is at least history, all predating me, and I don't know the precision. The standards that we've set for the whole district to which all of the schools are committed under the professional responsibilities system are, I will say, at least as high as those that are reflected in the standards that historically have only been used by the eight schools.

All right. So the history here is, those eight schools at least had standards. SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes. 320 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

In your tenure, you've decided that you want the whole district to have standards, and those standards are at least equal to those eight schools? That's your -- SUPT. HORNBECK: That's basically my premise.

Okay. If you could, what are some of the criteria of these standards for the eight schools? How do you get admitted to any of these particular schools? SUPT. HORNBECK: They revolve around test scores and attendance. Those are two of the key ones, for example, say, Central High School. They're different for the different ones; they're higher for some than for others. For example, Masterman and Central, I suppose, are the highest in the City.

Do they look at issues beyond test scores and attendance? SUPT. HORNBECK: No. The reason I say they're higher is the test scores that are required, say, for Masterman, are higher than, say, any of the other ones.

Okay. But test 321 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE scores and attendance are clearly important? SUPT. HORNBECK: Those are two of them.

Do students have to go to an interview? SUPT. HORNBECK: Only at CAPA, where they call it "an audition."

Okay. There would have been no interest for me to express an interest in CAPA, as I am totally untalented for whatever it is they're producing there. SUPT. HORNBECK: Everybody -- all can learn.

Right, but all can't perform. (Laughter.)

All right. So test scores, attendance. And then why is that the eight schools have these criteria? And what are they for all the other schools? I mean, what does that leave us, 249? SUPT. HORNBECK: I mean all of this -- we did go over this with Councilman Rizzo, and let me maybe --

Well, I don't want 322 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE to be redundant. And so, I mean, if you've got other things that are on the record, you can tell me that they're there. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, there are things on the record, and there is a letter in your office, or about to be there, that responds to the multiple misstatements in the letter and attachments that you received on March the 6th, which you may have seen, by a series of people with whom you've been meeting for some months now. And where I was saying to Councilman Rizzo that there's even another meeting schedule, as I think you know, on March the 20th, to continue to explore this issue very deeply. But we thought it useful, since this was raised with Council, to respond to these misstatements.

Okay. SUPT. HORNBECK: There's an odd premise, in my own view, that high standards aren't real unless they're used to exclude students from access to certain programs, and that's just a premise that I reject. But we can -- we can either continue 323 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE this now or --

Well, I thought you would -- I thought we use standards to include people. SUPT. HORNBECK: That's what I would hope to do.

In the place. SUPT. HORNBECK: That's what I would hope to do, and that's the reason that they're real. But we can do this now or you can read the record or you can read this stuff that we've given in your office, or we can do it on March the 20th, or we can call another special meeting. We've been at this now for a little over two years. And, as you know, we're more than willing to continue in any forum to have this debate. I do want to say for the record that it is our judgment that the court opinion in Legare, and the law, as it was interpreted by the previous State Department of Education, and likely interpreted by the United States Department of Education is that it would be illegal for us to return to the previous criteria-based programs, at 324 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE least as it relates to programs that receive vocational money. And that if we did that, we would lose vocational money. And if it is the case that the present State Department of Education has changed its mind, as it has been reported to me, I would love to have a letter from them to that effect that is as clear as the advice was from the previous State Department of Education.

Now, are we talking about Perkins? SUPT. HORNBECK: I'm talking about Perkins.

Which schools receive Perkins dollars? SUPT. HORNBECK: All of the academies and Saul and Bok and Dobbins and. . . 13 comprehensives and the 4 vocational schools.

And is it the receipt of those dollars that makes them or gives them their status as vocational schools? SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes.

How much money are we talking about? 325 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE SUPT. HORNBECK: 5.6 million.

So it is the receipt of these dollars that either qualifies you or designates you as a vocational school subject to either the Pennsylvania Department of Education regulations or federal regulations as it relates to the establishment of admissions criteria. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, let me go back and repeat what I said a moment ago. That was its original source, 1992, the interpretation from the State Department of Education. Subsequently, a consent agreement that was ordered by the court in the Legare decision incorporated that into a court order. So there are, in effect, two -- same sources same conclusion, but two source. One is the vocational education funding route, as interpreted as I've suggested. And the other is this court order that was in '94 or '5.

Can you get me all of those documents? SUPT. HORNBECK: Be glad to.

Okay. And does it then work in the reverse, that if those schools 326 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE did not receive some portion of the $5.6 million, they would not then be designated either as vocational schools or would not be subject to either Legare or the Pennsylvania Department of Education regulations? SUPT. HORNBECK: Let me get you the materials because it really is a legal interpretation. You don't -- if you're a vocational program, then you fall under the Vocational Education Act. And now I'm setting aside the Legare decision, which doesn't care whether you're under the Vocational Act or not.

Right. SUPT. HORNBECK: But I think it would be more helpful to you if I actually got you the language of this, rather than our playing Jack Leg Law here in chambers on this.

I'd never argue the law with you, Dr. Hornbeck. Okay, I'd like to better understand what makes someone a vocational school. And your testimony was that all of these schools receive some portion of the $5.6 327 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE million in Perkins? SUPT. HORNBECK: The academies and the four AVTS schools.

Okay. Can you also tell me what the break-out is on the use of those funds by school and how much they individually receive and what they do with it? SUPT. HORNBECK: I can do it for sure down to the last piece; and, in large terms, even what they do with it, yes. If you have more questions after we give it to you, we'll get you more detail but all of your questions will be answered.

You must have seen the testimony last week -- SUPT. HORNBECK: No. 18

-- by some other person who couldn't answer all of the questions. (Laughter.) SUPT. HORNBECK: I almost never read the transcripts from City Council of other agencies.

I appreciate that. Lastly in this area, if it were not for 328 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE at least your belief -- and I'm sure what you receive in terms of advice from legal counsel, whether it's the vocational act or the Legare decision, if we could put those aside for the moment. And if for some reason, the federal government decided to just get out of funding the Perkins dollars, which I'm sure they won't. But is it your belief that schools should be able to set some admissions criteria if they have a particularly specialized program that does at some level require a student to exhibit not just a minimum threshold, but a high level of interest in the particular program? SUPT. HORNBECK: Let me say two things about that, without getting into necessarily my should's or should-not's. The Board of Education made a decision to which, as I remember in fact, you, in a sense, were a party a year and a half ago, that absent these constraints about which we've been talking, that entrance criteria of a certain kind, where attendance and behavior and scores and all of that, there was that -- you remember the business of about 25 percent goes to this and 15 percent 329 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE goes to that and so on?

Mm-hmm, sure. SUPT. HORNBECK: Whether it should or it shouldn't, that was the decision that the Board made absent these constraints arising out of Legare and vocational education. And we can debate philosophically whether that's a good decision or not a good decision, but that is the decision, and that's the one that we have been attempting to implement right up to and in some instances probably crossing the Legare and legal line, as we've attempted to do it. So that's what would take place absent these decisions. But let me say that everything we're doing with measurable results for the first time in quite long time, setting high standards, building an accountability system around them, and we are about to do the graduation and promotion requirements built around them, will in fact result in moving away from a historical situation in Philadelphia where, for whatever set of good reasons, the School District and, I don't know, Council and a group parents and lots of others 330 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE decided that only a smaller group of students were going to succeed, which has historically been the premise on which we've operated to one in which, given the graduation and promotion requirements, we expect, and I think the record shows, that we're going to move to a point where -- and we are moving, we are measurably moving in 92 percent of the schools, we are moving toward a point where greater numbers of kids meet those standards or better. So that at the moment, I think we don't need to fight about the decision over here about this group of schools or academies where the Board said, We'll do all that stuff to the extend that the law permits us, and then everybody will just get to watch the standards of all kids rise.

Well, we probably agree philosophically that a rising tide lifts all boats, but some of the boats are bigger than others, some need more help and assistance. And I feel that there is some level of inherent conflict, notwithstanding Legare and vocational school designation, because you'll get me that information and I'll read it thoroughly. 331 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE But we do have a system that has clearly designated that some schools have very high standards, with clear admissions criteria; and others, even as we raise the standards for everyone, are still subject to things like the lottery. Now, the lottery is a very exciting thing at two minutes to 7 at night. I don't necessarily subscribe to it as an educational route for how you end up where it is that you might want to end up, because there's no guarantee that you're going to be lucky on lottery day. So now if you have a particular interest in a particular program, it seems to me that we have to be able to create a system that at least ensures that those who are truly interested, because they've done the right thing, because they've gone to school, because they've studied hard, because they either did an essay or they showed up on the day for any kind of interview or discussion or anything, at least comprise then the pool of people from which there is apparently more demand than there is supply. But you at least have done something to 332 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE create a universe of people that reasonably assures you that they want to do X; they don't to do Y, they don't want to do Z, they don't want to do B; they want to do X. And even two years later -- and with all due respect, and you have worked on this and paid attention, and the Board has done some things as well. It apparently is still not completely fixed. It is an outstanding issue, it will not go away, and it needs to be resolved. Now, we won't necessarily resolve it here this afternoon, and we may not resolve it if we came back here in a week. And there will be another meeting somewhere else, and you'll get me information. But, I mean, I do have to say to you that it is probably, at least for this budget hearing this year, because, I mean, you're not asking us for any additional dollars, and all we're going to do, really, is look at the margins of what's going on and focus on the internal, you know, what we're getting out of this shop. So, I mean, we're not going to have a budget discussion; we're going to have an 333 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE educational discussion this year. And this is at the top of my list. We've got a couple of schools that are affected by it, there are a number of schools outside of the District that I represent that are in this pot as well. But I care very, very deeply about this, and I believe in standards as well. I think you know that. But we certainly should not have some students go into some of these schools who ultimately have no interest -- other than in not being in their neighborhood school -- going to a school, whether it's Saul, Roxborough or any others, that they think is a safer place or a better place, but academically are not interested in what goes on in that place. That for me makes no sense. So, I mean, we must resolve this. There has to be an answer to this. And I will read as thoroughly as possible and then give to better mind than myself the legal analysis for what we can do and what we can't do. Has the Legare decision, by any of our actions or vocational designation, have any of 334 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE those been challenged in the past two years? SUPT. HORNBECK: I don't -- I don't --

Has anyone stepped forward and said, We think you're in violation of Legare? I mean, has "Hickock & Company" come down, and as they, you know, kind of dis us on everything else, has anyone from that grand shop up there come down and said, And we think you're in violation of vocational designation policy as well? SUPT. HORNBECK: The people who think that we might violate Legare are the plaintiffs in Legare who have been -- the State Department of Education is not likely to charge us with violating Legare.

Okay. SUPT. HORNBECK: Because Legare is plaintiff separate to extend equity to kids that have been historically failed by all of us. So that the people who have -- it would be the Education Law Center, and they have been a part of the discussion.

Right. SUPT. HORNBECK: And, in fact, one of 335 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE the things that will happen on March the 20th is that the attorney for plaintiffs will be in the room.

Okay. SUPT. HORNBECK: So that this won't be not just the --

I understand. SUPT. HORNBECK: -- old superintendent telling you something.

Right. We'll have all the players in the piece. Well, lastly -- SUPT. HORNBECK: Let me make one more comment, if I may, Mr. Nutter.

Go ahead. SUPT. HORNBECK: There is this image of the lottery you create that is the 7-o'clock-at- night lottery. I do want people to understand that that in the course of all of this, there has also been a change in who can get into the lottery. That is, any of the schools -- and we characterized it a little bit as "the-kid-who- doesn't-like-cows-that-gets-forced-to-go-to-Saul" metaphor that gets used. 336 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE And to that end, as you know, any one of these schools can exclude from the lottery, based on interviews, up to a third of the applicants because it's evident that even though the parent or the kid says, "I really want to go to Saul" or one of the other schools -- it usually is Saul that is the issue -- that the people doing the interviewing at Saul can say to him, you know, "You don't show enough interest in this" for whatever set of reasons.

For all the people who don't show up? SUPT. HORNBECK: It's up to a third.

Is that for all the people who don't show up or just a percentage of the people who don't show up? SUPT. HORNBECK: No, it's for a percentage of those who have demonstrated interest or not interest. And one of the ways you can determine some interest is based on people who don't show up.

Well, I mean, then let's walk through a hypothetical example. Let's say 500 people put on their EH-36 or -38 that they 337 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE want to go to Saul. There are 200 spots, and 300 people show up for an interview. SUPT. HORNBECK: You may not --

What happens to the other 200, do they get thrown into the lottery, or do they get automatically excluded because they didn't meet the minimum threshold of showing their little behinds up on the day that they were supposed to be somewhere? SUPT. HORNBECK: We look with skepticism at a situation where the exact number of people who deemed to have interest are the number of people for whom there are slots in a school --

You lost me. SUPT. HORNBECK: -- in a school that is as successful as Saul is.

I didn't understand the response. SUPT. HORNBECK: There was a year in which, for example, those who were deemed interested were exactly the number of students for whom there were slots.

Right. 338 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE SUPT. HORNBECK: That is a coincidence about which I am skeptical.

Okay. SUPT. HORNBECK: Given the --

What usually happens; do we have more interest than we have slots? SUPT. HORNBECK: We have more interest, sure.

Or do we have less interest than we have slots. SUPT. HORNBECK: No, we have far more interest than slots for a school like Saul because you know that if you go to Saul, your place in the sun is likely assured because it's a great school.

Okay. SUPT. HORNBECK: And genuine interest. I mean, kids who really want to go to Saul, who really like cows, to use the metaphor.

Right. Well, let me, I guess, lastly say, and we both know that we're going to have a lot more discussion about this. As much as I respect the law and love 339 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE the law, and I'm not a lawyer, but I'll argue with any of them. And every now and then I make law. I respect it but am not intimidated by it. And if there are decisions that have been made, whether it's the Legare consent agreement or there's vocational educational policy, if I accepted the viewpoint that none of that could be challenged or that none of that could be changed, I would not be sitting where I'm sitting today. . SUPT. HORNBECK: Sure.

I would probably be picking cotton somewhere. So if that is the foundation, I believe that it all needs to be reexamined. We know that the law is a living, breathing thing. It changes all the time, but someone has to push the envelope and someone has to make a decision that things are going to be a certain way. And I think that this issue is completely unresolved, steps have been taken, progress has been made but we are very, very far from the goal line. And I look forward to our future 340 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE discussions and, hopefully, there will be a final resolution in 1998 to this issue. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, I look forward to continuing the discussion as well, and I certainly agree with you that laws need to be challenged, as the Mayor and I and others --

You guys seem to like challenging the law. SUPT. HORNBECK: Presumably, including you --

Right. SUPT. HORNBECK: Did so yesterday. It's the first time in history that, I guess a mayor and a superintendent have sued a governor and a legislature for racial discrimination. I must admit that I don't think that this particular law falls into that category, and we could actually get into the should's now and what actually does extend equity to people who have been left out for a long time. And we can go back to having that discussion again. I've tended to do exclude that from my conversation here simply because the Board Education made a decision of how this would be 341 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE treated. If you're suggesting that the Board of Education simply ought not to follow its general counsel's opinion and, in effect, break the law as a way of challenging it, that's another step that you ought to bring up with the Board of Education. I will not recommend that, but goodness knows, lots of folks have a prerogative to suggest that.

Well, I can appreciate that. And I'll close, Madame Chair, with this 'cause the Chair will have a great appreciation for the hard and fast nature of legal opinions. The Chair is well aware of a particular situation where we were faced with a legal opinion about a particular matter. It went one way one day and I believe, Madame Chair, about a week later --

It went another way.

-- the opinion changed to the other way. SUPT. HORNBECK: It's the way lawyers stay in business. 342 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

It's magic, it's magic in the law, it just happened that way by the same folks. SUPT. HORNBECK: Yeah, that's a --

They just had a change of heart, so -- SUPT. HORNBECK: It's incredible. It's one of the most unforgettable moments in history.

That's right. We'll continue this discussion. Thank you.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Cohen.

I hate to be in the position of defending the integrity of the lawyers in the country or in the State, but I look around and I see no other of my colleagues present at the moment who are attorneys, so I'll do that, Councilman Nutter, and remind you that, you know, accountants change their rules for inexplicable reasons, just as lawyers and courts do. And that leads me to what I want to talk about anyway. Yesterday, I bedeviled you a bit with questions about the need to get out into the 343 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE communities and have them understand the policies that the Board and yourself and the Mayor, in setting forth this challenge, to the Governor. I'd like to pursue that a little bit further from a different angle. It's been my experience that you win or you lose politically basically, depending on how can simply identify issues and make them clear. Any question which requires a careful, deliberate answer, such as the one you gave in support of why there were increased in the staff, for example, shown in the budget. If you have to give that kind of an answer, there's no way you're going to win, because people are not going to pay that much attention. You have to know so much about the school system, about the fact that 900 new teachers have come in instead of the usual 400 or 450, whey they need special mentoring, why you're unable in some cases to provide it even this late in the year. And you will lose the people. So I ask really that now that you've taken this step, that you look at where the School District stands from a different point of view. 344 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE You've crossed the Rubicon, at least I hope you have. I hope you're not going to back down, I hope the Mayor's not going to back down. And, I have to tell you, I have some reservations to that question. But giving you all the benefit of the doubt that you've really made this decision, and I think it's a very sound decision, then I think you've got to reexamine your whole strategy. And I asked you to look at the budget so that your supporters aren't benumbed suddenly to read a newspaper story saying, you know, emanating either from the Governor's Office, because he has a good number of press people, and they're pretty good people, and they know how to do it, and they've already started on you, even though the press conference was just yesterday. They've begun laughing, Well, Philadelphia says it needs more money, but they're hiring more people. And they're talking about raising the level of education, so how they're taking teachers out of the classroom. You know, they've developed this art. So I'm just suggesting that you look at it. And 345 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE if the budget isn't final yet, and I assume it's not, 'cause just like us, we're in a hurry to get over the budget, even though we don't have to do it till May 31st, I just suggest you look at the budget now from a brand-new point of view. It's your fighting tool that you have. And if people who are against your position can pick little things, very simple things, which you can explain and justify, and I would agree with you, I liked your explanation very much, but not if you're going to have to make that explanation to the public, you're going to loss. If you can go over that budget and make it as battle-proof as you can 'cause you're in a battle now and all the Philadelphia kids are in a battle, you know, for a school system that they deserve and haven't been getting for a long time. And you're really deep in the trenches now on it. I would just like you to look at that because, I have to tell you, while your answers were thoughtful and fully worthy of support by people who really are knowledgeable, it seems to me that you're not going to win the battle with that.

346 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE I would have a budget were I you that no one -- you know, look at it from the point of view of what would do you if you wanted to defeat the School District's fight? I would look at it from that viewpoint and try to pick out every conceivable weak point and correct it in the budget, because you have time to do that. And where you stand now is totally different from where you stood before you made that historic decision with the Mayor and got agreement from the City Administration, the School District to battle together on this issue. 'Cause I think you have a chance of winning. But you've got to be able -- we've got to be able, when we go out in the field, to address very simply this issue without our people picking up the newspaper the next day and seeing a very short comment from somebody in the Governor's Office, or from some legislator who may be opposed to what you're doing taking a serious swipe at you. You know, we know they'll take swipes but don't make it easy for them. You know, don't give them something that requires a lot of 347 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE elaboration. And I have a whole series of question but, basically, they all boil down to that. And I think you've done -- I think you've done a great job. And I think you're, you know, working so hard against all kinds of odds, and I think you've now taken the decisive step. And I'd like to see that won, not because you're raising it or the Mayor or I'm raising it, but because I think the kids of Philadelphia deserve it. And they're going to be the real beneficiaries. So my urge to you is simply, Go over the whole thing and make those changes that you think really prepare you for a very tough fight. I think this fight can be won if we can get it so that people really can understand it and support it fully. Thank you, Madame Chair. You know, no answer is required. I'd like to hear if you're prepared to. SUPT. HORNBECK: Well, let me just say that I think your observation is well taken. And I think that there are two, three things that we 348 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE have to bring together. One is that whatever the budget ends up being, we need to be able to state it in as plain terms as possible so that it doesn't get all convoluted into long answers. And there will be people better than I who can translate this into easier answers. Secondly, I do think that the budget needs to be pared down to the absolute bones so that it is as "battle-proof," as you put it, as possible. But, third, it's terribly important in my view that we do not reduce it so much that we lose our ability to continue to show gains in reading, math, and science. I think that one of the crucial stories to tell in Harrisburg and across Philadelphia is that our kids actually not only can but are improving their reading. And that is important because there are a lot of people in Harrisburg who think that even if they did give us more money, because our kids are poor, they can't speak English as a first language, or whatever, that they can't read better. So we've got to make sure that they're 349 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE clear that they've got to go find another excuse for not giving us money than the one that our kids can't learn. And so we need to cut it to the bone, but we need to keep it enough above the bone so that we continue what we've begun to demonstrate to do, and that is the improvement. So there are sort of three things that have to be taken together, it seems to me, if we're going to win that battle.

Let me disagree with you respectfully on the third thing. SUPT. HORNBECK: Okay.

Because the third thing is a much longer-range thing. You're in an immediate battle. We would hope that this battle is going to be won in a matter of months, not in a matter of years. If it's to have any real significance to the kids in Philadelphia, it's got to be won fairly short. SUPT. HORNBECK: I understand.

Judges are like regular human beings. It's true that we'll look at the law, but the law is often so gray that a 350 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE really good lawyer or a really good judge can sort of build a case on either side of the fence. And what frequently may be decisive is an understanding, is Philadelphia really sincere, or, gee, they read that morning about how the Governor said, Well, you know, is Philadelphia really in need of money? Look what it did, it said it was going to close its schools early but it put additional money in somewhere. I just suggest that's an awfully concept to get over. SUPT. HORNBECK: Gotcha.

I think if you've shown improvement in math or science, you've got it on the record. You ought to take a hiatus from fighting that point other than on your record over the last couple of years of gains you've made while you concentrate on winning this battle. And I say that to you very respectfully. SUPT. HORNBECK: I understand.

And I know that there can be different positions. SUPT. HORNBECK: I understand. 351 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

But sometimes when you're really in a tight battle -- and I've lived through many kinds of political battles over years, not only on the Council floor, but also in the actual court of opinion public opinion, you know, where the voters pass their decision. And I think I, you know, have some credits in that field over many years. I'm just urging you, don't -- you've proven enough already. That's why you have so much of Philadelphia ready to go with you. It isn't as if you're a new kid on the block now that has to prove something to somebody. Sure, there will be detractors,. Nobody's going to get Beyers to changes his mind, he's in there for that purpose. And, you know, he earns -- more than earns his salary probably trying to create, you know, an entirely different, very elitist kind of school system; not really a public school system at all. But I agree with points one and two. But on number three, respectfully I just urge you to reexamine it. SUPT. HORNBECK: Thank you. 352 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

And in my judgment, I think you're the best ultimate decider of what's needed because you're in the trenches, you've had the greatest experience going in and out of schools, being cheered at a few, maybe hounded at others, you know, and yelled at in so many other circumstances. I think you probably know better than anybody else what's really needed in this battle. SUPT. HORNBECK: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

So, Madame Chair, I'm going to finish with that. It's a comment rather than a series of questions because I want this to end in a real victory.

Thank you, Councilman. Are there any other questions of the Superintendent? As we've had people waiting to testify since o'clock this afternoon. (No further questions at this time.)

Thank you very much. SUPT. HORNBECK: Thank you, 353 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Councilwoman.

Paul, you're going to stay with us? SUPT. HORNBECK: Yes.

Great, thank you. - - -

Our first witness is Patti Brennan. After Miss Brennan will be Jayne Davis. (Patti Brennan comes forward.)

Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with testimony.

My name is Patricia Brennan. I'm a parent at Roxborough High School. Good afternoon. As many of you know, several years ago, the School District of Philadelphia eliminated admission criteria to many of the schools and programs across the City of Philadelphia. Last year, with the assistance of some of you, we were able to convince the Board of Education to restore criteria to many of our programs. Despite our efforts, programs still 354 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE remain in the school district where students are randomly selected by computer. I hope that you have had a chance to review the package of information that was recently delivered to your office. The Academy's programs have been successfully functioning in the School District of Philadelphia for 30 years. The Roxborough High School Business Academy is one of the many fine programs that are administered jointly by the School District of Philadelphia and the Academy's programs. I am a product of the business programs at Roxborough High School. As many of you know, I was trained extremely well. I am literate, and I certainly know how to write and speak. As I find myself exploring the employment market again, I find that employers are looking for certain skills and criteria. Most of you on Council have offices. In order to staff those offices and serve the needs of your constituents, there's a certain image that you need to project. If your office personnel do not present a friendly telephone 355 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE manner, a professional attitude, and timely response, you will not be able to serve district. And if you cannot serve your district, someone else will serve it for you. Therefore, when you are looking for staff for your office, I am sure that you are looking for someone that does not miss a lot of time from work, a person that presents a professional appearance, and has certain skills. These are basic requirements that all employers look for. Why is it unreasonable that a program such as the Roxborough Business Academy should look for interest, behavior, attendance, and grades in selecting students for this program. Isn't this a program that is expected to prepare students to work efficiently in offices across the City of Philadelphia. Instead of expecting interest, behavior, attendance, and grades, the potential students for these programs are randomly selected in the School District lottery. This lottery has many similarities to the one that is on television every night at 7. I do not know about you, but I 356 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE refuse to play it anymore because I seldom win. I have with me today a young man who found out the hard way that gambling doesn't pay. Bradley Slater is in the eighth grade, at the Shawmont School. Bradley spends every weekend in Schwenksville, working on his uncle's farm. He cleans stables, runs farm equipment, and spends almost all of his free time learning about agriculture. This young man clearly wants to be a farmer. W.B. Saul is the only agricultural high school in the state of Pennsylvania. There are only 13 agricultural schools in the country. Agriculture is one of the leading industries in the state of Pennsylvania. Bradley received his letter from the School District last week. Bradley met the criteria to get into the Roxborough High School Communications Corps, the Roxborough High School High-Tech Program, and was randomly selected by computer for the program at Mastbaum. Bradley didn't get picked for Saul. Just like every night at 7, the number he really wanted didn't come out. His dreams have 357 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE been crushed. Where does his future lie, what answers can you give him explain him? Can you explain why the School District of Philadelphia is allowed to reduce his future to a game of chance? This is Bradley.

Bradley, is there something you would like to add to what your mom has said?

I'm not his mother.

Oh, I'm sorry. BRADLEY SLATER: Why was I not accepted at Saul?

I beg your pardon? BRADLEY SLATER: Why does my future have to depend upon the lottery?

Well, I think the Superintendent is here, and I'm sure he'd be very happy to talk to you.

This is Bradley's father.

Hi.

Hi.

My name is Keith Simon, and I put together a letter, and I have some copies for Council. 358 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

Oh, that's fine. We can have them circulated. You have copies, did you say?

Yes.

Please identify yourself for the record and maybe you could read your letter into the letter.

Yeah, my name is Keith Simon. (Reading letter aloud.) Our son, Bradley Slater, is presently in eighth grade at Shawmont School. He put in an application to W.B. Saul High School, Roxborough High School and Mastbaum Vo-Tech. He was accepted to Roxborough Communication Corps and Roxborough High-Tech, of which both are based on grades, behavior, and attendance. His number came out for Mastbaum, but he was not lucky enough to hit the lottery for Saul High School. He wants to be a farmer, but his future was based on a lottery. We thought that farming was an important and respected industry in the state of Pennsylvania. Why doesn't the School 359 PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE District of Philadelphia agree? Bradley Slater is already involved in the future as a farmer. He spends every weekend working on his uncle's farm in Schwenksville. Do you really believe that someone's future should be decided by a lottery? We feel Bradley deserves the chance to further his education in a school with the technology to help him with career choice as being a future farmer of America. We feel the only choice for him is to be accepted at W.B. Saul School of Agricultural Sciences. We are appealing to each of you, as Members of City Council, to help us to convince the School District that they do not have the right to decide the future of our child by playing the lottery. Please help us to get our child into the high school that is best suited for him. Thank you.