I'm Christine James-Brown, a member of the Board of Education and current Chair of the Education Committee. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss Philadelphia's public charter school application process. This is obviously not the most exciting component of this presentation, but I think it's important and I ask you to bear with me. As you know, the Commonwealth passed Act 22, the charter school law, in the summer of 1997. Because the School District, like you, believes in many of the underlying principles of the charter school movement, such as accountability for results, community ownership, local control, and deregulation, we have led the state in supporting charter schools. The School District has received a 71 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 total of 100 charter school applications since Act was passed, 38 of which have received the 4 Board's approval. In comparison, the other 500 5 school districts in Pennsylvania combined have 6 granted charters to only 41 applicants, but these 7 numbers should not be interpreted to mean that 8 it's easy to get a charter school approved in 9 Philadelphia. We, the Board, believe it's our job 10 to approve only those charter schools that will 11 offer clear and needed alternatives to the 12 District and that will have the potential 13 leadership and know-how necessary to operate 14 successfully. 15 In addition to establishing charter 16 schools in Pennsylvania, Act 22 also sketches out 17 the process by which school districts must review 18 charter school applicants. The law outlines basic 19 criteria that must be met by all charter school 20 applicants as well as the timelines that must be 21 observed by both applicants and school districts 22 throughout the process. Beyond that minimal amount of guidance, however, the responsibility rests with the school districts to supplement and define the application process to best meet the 72 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 needs in their communities. We in Philadelphia have taken this responsibility very seriously. The Board has adapted the generic one-size-fits-all charter school application published yearly by the Pennsylvania Department of Education so as to craft an application that more accurately reflects what it takes to be a successful charter school here in Philadelphia. The most important aspect of Philadelphia's charter school application process is a set of high standards to which the Board hold each application submitted to the School District. When the Board examines the application, we don't just look for the best five or ten in any given year; instead, we use a review process that is criteria-referenced, which supports our goal to grant charts only to those proposals that will offer Philadelphia's children an educational choice that is worth making and to insist on accountability measures that will allow parents to make their comparisons about the track records of charter schools versus the track records of regular public schools. 73 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 Also, we have supplemented our application with a comprehensive and detailed set of guidelines that assist the applicants in planning their school and in completing the application. These guidelines explain the selection criteria that the Board will use, and beginning this past year, they also laid out a set of priorities that the District established for where charter schools are most needed in the City of Philadelphia. Specifically, the guidelines state that the Board will show competitive preference for applications to established charter schools that are: 1. Located and serve public school students in over-crowded areas, specifically students in elementary and middle schools in the following clusters: Edison, Fels, Kensington, and the southern half of Bartram. 2. Will serve students from under-performing schools. 3. Will offer an alternative to students in comprehensive high school. 4.
Offer an alternative to students 74 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 with disciplinary problems. The Board recognizes the potential of charter schools to strengthen our all of our neighborhoods and to help stem middle-class flight. At the same time, the current charter schools already have a median poverty rate that is points less than the School District as a 9 whole, and three of the charters have poverty 10 rates below those of any regular District school, including are special-admissions schools and an those located in the highest-income area of the City.
You had given me four clusters -- well, I don't know if we even use those terms anymore, but we will for the sake of argument. Four clusters in each criteria -- this was overcrowding which was the one you gave for Edison, Fels, Kensington and. Bartram.
Then there was under-performing -- 75 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
So there's no 5 specific clusters that are identified as either under-performing or disciplinary issues.
Right. The under-performing criteria is citywide; it's just the schools that are under-performing. And, frankly, they're the schools that have now been identified as part of our empowerment plan for needing increased attention.
I think there's a different -- with respect to the under-performing schools, what we're saying -- what we were saying in the competitive preferences was, for example, if you're near a poorly performing school and you want to set up a charter in her that area that is likely to serve that community, we would give that -- you know, that should count in favor of the application.
But the under-performing and -- 76 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
Have you identified either the under-performing and the disciplinary issues? Are they also reflective of the overcrowded clusters?
Well, in some situations, there may be a relationship between the two, but we were looking in particular at how to relieve the burden on very overcrowded schools and we could those schools and those clusters.
But then we also wanted to address parents who may want to give their children a choice if their neighborhood school is a school that's under-performing educationally.
We will work hard to continue to ensure that the charter initiative serves all our neighborhoods and all of our student to the maximum degree. Looking ahead to the future cycles, our 77 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 charter school application will purposely remain a work in progress, as the Board will continue to use each year's experience with the charter school initiative to inform and refine the questions and criteria that make up the following year's application. The charter school application process, as mandated by the charter school law, is a vigorous one, both for the applicants and the School District. There are, however, a number of ways charter applicants can receive support from the School District, the State, and from other organizations. By state law, the School District's principal role in the charter application process is that of an evaluator of charter school applications. However, the School District has also made an ongoing effort to provide assistance to the charter applicants. The School District holds an information session for Philadelphia charter school applicants each year in the early fall, and District staff are available to answer applicants' question via telephone and e-mails year-round. 78 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 It should be noted, however, that extensive support to the applicants would be inappropriate for two reasons: First, more active support for the development of the application could create a conflict of interest with our role as evaluator of these applications; and, second, all resources we put toward these efforts come at the expense of the District's other schools because the charters receive their full share of all administrative dollars in their per-pupil application. State support for applicants comes from two forms: First, the Pennsylvania Department of Education provides start-up funding in the form of planning grants ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 to dozens of prospective charter school applicants each year. Applicants are free to use this money in a variety of ways as they attempt to pull together their charter school applications. The State also supports applicants by conducting workshops that guide applicants through the process. Finally, applicants in Philadelphia have access to one of the two State-endorsed 79 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 charter school technical assistance organizations: Drexel University's Foundation, Inc. is one of the few groups that has been working with Philadelphia charter schools since 1997. Foundations is able to provide applicants with a wide range of Philadelphia-specific resources and suggestions. Each year, many applicants utilize the technical assistance services provided by Foundations, and we have also seen an increase in applicants that have received support from education management organizations. This year's application cycle, the School District's fourth, resulted in 27 charter school applications. The applications proposed charters that would serve a wide variety of students, from elementary, middle, and high school students, to at-risk students and students interested in learning about technology and other issues, to make a few. We have received two applicants that propose to serve students in their homes by using the Internet. Once the School District receives the application, we are required by Act 22 to adhere 80 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 to an extraordinarily tight schedule. The Board requested that School District staff read each application and prepare a report assessing whether it met the selection criteria outlined in the application guideline. As required by State law, the Board then led public hearings, accepted any additional information that the applicants chose to provide after those hearings, reviewed the complete applicant and stat summaries, and voted on whether to grant or deny charters. All of this is done within roughly a four-month period.
The School District takes this process seriously and we commit the resources necessary to remain in compliance with the law's tight, tight frame. Over the past four years, the Board has approved, as I said earlier, 38 out of 100 applicants. While it would not be appropriate for us to discuss the merits of any particular charter proposal in this setting, I believe it is helpful to give you a general sense of the kinds of reasons that the Board may disapprove a charter request. I will do so using the applications received for the fall of 2000 as an example. 81 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 As you know, only applicants of 27 3 were approved this year. While the proportion of the approved applications was lower than in previous years, there are reasons: Two applicants withdrew before completing the process; Two were from groups based outside of Philadelphia and had no demonstrated ties to the communication, which they must have, according to State law; Six were resubmissions of applications that were rejected in previous years, and the new submissions did not show significant improvement to warrant approval; Among the remaining applicants, reasons for rejection may have included an applicant's failure to indicate that it would be able to obtain a building to house the program, lack of evidence of a sound financial plan, lack of broad, sustainable community support, concerns about impact on the District's desegregation plan, and/or inadequate descriptions of the curriculum assessment and instructional program. As I have said earlier, the Board of 82 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 Education values the potential of charters to give our students and parents solid educational choices. At the same time, founding a new school is a very complex venture -- logistically, financially, and educationally. And we want to be sure that each charter will be on solid ground. The Board take very seriously our responsibility to ensure that charters that we do approve have a real chance of succeeding. The final step that Act provides at 12 the District level is to permit applicants who are 13 not granted a charter by the Board to resubmit 14 their applications to the School District. This 15 year, we received a total of 13 requests from 16 applicants to reconsider their application. 17 According to the charter school law, the Board 18 must take action on the resubmitted applicants on 19 May 7th. Any applicants who are denied approval 20 at this stage may appeal to the State. 21 In closing, let me say that I look 22 forward to receiving comments on the charter school application process. As I stated earlier, the process is, and will remain, a work in progress as the School District continues to learn 83 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 more about charter schools and their important role in the education of Philadelphia as's children.
Thank you very much. Mr. President, you had more additional comments?
Yeah. I'm going to ask you, Mr. Chairman, whether you would prefer to do questions on the process before going on to my recapping of the --
Yeah. I have a few process questions that I -- I don't know if other members of Council do, but I'd like to talk a little bit about the process. My understanding currently when a potential charter applicant applies, they make a presentation and a panel of the School Board writes up an evaluation, which is ultimately used by the Board in its final deliberations. Could you explain what the charter applicant actually does -- I mean, who they appear in front of, what they put forward, do they do an oral presentation, what happens? 84 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
Councilman Kenney, let me clarify one thing. Two years ago, we -- in an attempt to make sure that we were approaching the review process in the most appropriate way, we actually asked a panel of educational experts to work with us to evaluate the proposals and to share the results of their evaluation with the Board. We discontinued that approach for this year.
That was my next question, but you can tell us -- well, I guess I'll allow you to answer my next question, which is, why did you discontinue that approach?
Okay. We found that many of the questions and concerns that were identified by the review panel could have also been identified by District staff in a much more efficient and effective way. It was very difficult to attract a group of people and ask them to volunteer a very substantial amount of time in a very tight time frame to the District. So that was one problem, the ability to attract and retain volunteers to the process. But in addition to -- 85 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
Without questioning the motivation of any School District employee, and certainly there's a lot of wonderful people working for the District and there's no doubt about that, isn't there -- considering the District's concern, just general philosophical concern over the loss in their view of resources, economic resources, as a result of the charter school phenomenon and Act 22, would there not indicate at least maybe some slight prejudice against approving too many of these, and that would not an independent panel of educators, despite the difficulties surrounding that, give the charter applicants a little more believe that the process is being handled in a fair and unprejudiced way?
Well, I do want to go back to the prior statement about the independent panel and I want to come to this too.
This is a work in progress and we want to get it right and we want to get it right for ourselves as well as for the children in Philadelphia answer that in a couple 86 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 of ways. I think the first way is that the reason that we decided to establish an independent panel was that concern, that we wanted to make sure that people understood that the Board wanted to approach this in the most objective way. But I also want to say that this school board believes that charters are in fact part of our public education system, and we are very committed to the success of charters. There is a great deal of detail in the charter law, in the requirements, in the criteria that it is important for people who are reviewing to go understand and have at their disposal quickly. We thought we were shortchanging the charters in many ways to ask people to come in and to work on the process on a very limited time basis without the substance of information that they needed to do it effectively. In addition to that, we felt that by laying out criteria in a very, very clear, objective way and asking a certain list of questions of all applicants and asking for that information in the same way, that we could make sure that the process was as fair and as objective 87 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 as possible.
I mean, I'm not trying to recreate the wheel and certainly not second-guessing your decisions; you're an independent board appointed by the Mayor and you make your own decisions as you see fit, but could that not same thing have been accomplished by using the independent board along with staff from a technical standpoint? Could a combination of that -- a hybrid combination of that independent and staff actually been more fair?
And, Chairman Kenney, if I may, I think you really underline, you know, one piece of what Chris said, which was that this is a work in progress for us. I mean, every year, we're learning something else from the process. And, you know, certainly, one of the things -- once we're through the reconsideration process, one of the things we have to do is sit back, you know, and take -- especially given, you know, some of the issues, we have, you know, more perception problems this year, look at the whole process and address some of those concerns. And that may mean going through some hybrid form -- or 88 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 yet invent another form, you know, and maybe that -- and, you know, looking forward to next year, try to, you know, improve.
In that reevaluation process that's ongoing, one of the things that has been brought up to us continually, as far as our investigation into this whole thing, has been that it's almost as if you give your presentation, you submit your application, and then you're either rejected or approved. There's no, Well, maybe we -- it's almost like dealing with L&I sometimes, where you go with your plans and you sit down, and L&I says, No, it's disapproved. And then you come back again and -- but no one tells us what it is you're doing wrong or what needs to be improved or what needs to be fleshed out or what needs to be evaluated better. And then come back, maybe a phase process -- I understand the timeline is tight, but is there any way to get comments prior to the formal rejection so they know where they messed up?
Well, I do want to go back to the prior statement about the independent panel and I want to come to this too. 89 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
This is a work in process, and we want to get it right, and we want to get it right for ourselves as well as for the children in Philadelphia. We have been meeting with representatives from the charter school movement and there are lots of ideas on the table as to how we can improve the process, including a peer review, where the other charters are involved in looking at potential charter applicants. There are issues there in terms of, you know, the intent and closing it and those kinds of things, but we want to get it right. So we are going to look at information that you collect as a part of this hearing and other things to try to get it right. But what I wanted to explain to you is, the independent panel was an experiment. We may reinstate it or we may look at another way to look at the issue.
You also pointed out another thing, Councilman, which is, it's a little bit more than put it in and then hear back.
Because there's the hearing process. You know, I think Chris mentioned the risk of getting entangled, and the other one is just sheer capacity. One of the things we're looking at in the context of the reorganization, which, you know, folks started hearing about yesterday, I guess, is looking at whether the District would be well-served by having somebody that's reporting to the CEO or to the CAO that is in charge of alternative schools, you know, a high-level person responsible for the relationship and for dealing with services not just of charter schools, but the array of alternatives to School District-run schools is increasing; for example, community education partners, some other type of contractual relations. So we would -- you know, one of the things that Phil Goldsmith is looking at on the managerial side is how to better manage the relationship.
And I know you didn't want to talk about any specific applications that were rejected or approved, but I 91 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 need to explore a little bit so that I have a better understanding as to what generally was much better or better for the three that were approved than the who were rejected. If you could give 6 me some ideas as to what it was about those three 7 that made them far and above the other 22 and then 8 led to their approval. 9
I think, in summary, 10 when we look at charters, the primary focus is on 11 the curriculum and instruction and the plan and 12 whether or not there is a research base to that 13 curriculum and how well-thought through it is and 14 how well it matches the vision for that school. 15 That, I would say, is number one. It's the amount 16 of care and thought that the applicants gave to 17 the curriculum and instruction component of their 18 application process. 19 The other two that tend to be the 20 Achilles Heel are the soundness of the financial 21 plan and simply the facility and whether it looks 22 to us that they will be able to go through the tremendous effort that it takes to move from the time that the charter is conditionally awarded to the time that they have to open. 92 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 And I think that this Council needs to understand that one of the things that the District has been committed to is not requiring that charters come into the process, as some districts do, with everything signed, sealed and delivered. In other districts, they're able to say, If you don't have a building and if you don't have all of your finances in order before you submit the application, don't even bother. We felt that that would take away from the community nature of the charters that we wanted to see. But by doing that, we set them up for potential failure if we don't see evidence in their application that they know how to go through the process, that there's a good chance that they'll find a building and a facility and go through with L&I and everyone else and everything that's required to be able to open a school with a safe building for the students.
Do you expect that all three that have been approved will be open in September 2001?
The best information we 93 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 have is that they're planning to open on time.
But I do need to say that at any point in time, a building could disappear for charters. You know, charters are competing for a limited number of buildings that are out there. And they can, with all good intentions, have gone pretty far down the road and then the building disappears on them, and that's not through anything that they've done incorrectly.
Or you can hit a wall and find an "oops," which is going to cost you several months of environmental --
Another piece of the process, I just wanted to point out, Councilman, that I'm not sure Chris hit on is that in the resubmission process for these 13 schools that applied for resubmission, the Board -- I mean, there are two ways the Board could handle that. One is to say that it's a resubmission and all we will consider is the original record in a very legalistic way. And if, you know, unless you're clarifying something about the existing record, 94 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 we're not going to consider new information. Our posture has been, we do consider new information that's submitted in the reconsideration process.
What's the percentage of reconsiderations that are ultimately approved by the Board? And then what percentage -- again, if you don't have the information, we can get it. And what percentage of those are ultimately -- ultimately those that are turned down are instituted on appeal?
I don't know that we had done any yet. On appeal, I think there have been. . . 3 of 6.
By the Appeal Board, but we don't know how many have been granted -- or have any been granted on reconsideration by the Board? 95 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
And I do need to say that we were much more specific about the opportunity for resubmitting in this past cycle than we had been in the past, so we were much more specific about the opportunity to resubmit this time.
Do we know of the 14,000 charter school students currently in the system what percentage have come from the traditional public school and how many have come from sources outside of the traditional public school?
We can get you more detailed information. The testimony I gave said that with respect to 1st through 12th-grade students, the percentage that were previously not in public schools was 27 percent, I believe. And for the new schools that opened this year, that percentage was. . . 96 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
It was 36 percent. So it is -- they are students coming from schools other than School District of Philadelphia.
But two-thirds approximately of the students are coming from traditionally public schools.
I'm not great at math but I'm just. . . And I understand from your testimony that that two-thirds moving from the public to the charter doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in teaching staff.
It does some, but not -- (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.) 97 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
We currently budget around $10 million worth of savings, but that is up against around $76 million worth of --
See, that's -- part of what I need to understand is how 27 to 36 percent of new students in the charter system creates a $70 million burden, when two-thirds of the loss of students out of the traditional public school system creates a $10 million savings. How does -- in my mind, that doesn't compute. I mean, we're saving $10 million by losing two-thirds of the students who went to traditional public schools, but we're taking on a burden of 60 to $70 million for one-third of the students coming in from outside of the system. How does that work?
I guess my question is, how much detail do you want and do want it here or in writing?
No, just the -- the perception is that charter schools --
And I won't purport to -- 98 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 because this is -- a lot of this, just for me anyway, was very counter-intuitive. You know, how do you --
You know, how do you -- when you're paying out 75 percent of your average per-pupil expenditure, how do you not generate savings from that? And there are, you know, a couple -- and so this has been my own learning process. You know, first of all the lower percentage is taken into account that is pulling out things like categorical funding, transportation, special ed., each of which the charter public schools have an opportunity to get kind of on their own. And then you have the two problems -- two flaws, really, in the funding consume. One is that when you get approved as a charter school, now you're in the same financial boat as the rest of the public schools of Philadelphia, and to the extent that enrollment increases, we all know over the last 12 or so years that what happens is, the pie gets just cut up thinner, because while your 99 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 average, you know, revenues from the State may be, you know, between 3 and 4,000, the average new revenue from the State per student is 400-something dollars. So that's one that you're kind of in the same flawed funding system that affects all public school students in Philadelphia.
And that's more about, I guess, the 30-something percent. The second piece is the stranded -- you know, the stranded overhead issue. If you'd like, you know, I can call somebody up to, you know, give a slightly more detailed --
Is it safe to say in general -- and this is not your fault because you've inherited this system -- that the traditional public schools are simply more expensive to run for other non-academic reasons than the charter schools are, in that you have contractual obligations, you have traditional customary ways of spending, and the things that you do in general, because the system is what it 100 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 is and is as old as it is and is as cumbersome as it is, that it actually costs you more money per pupil to educate a kid in the traditional public school than in the charter. Because if they're doing it for 30 percent less dollars and you guys are not realizing the savings of a loss of two-thirds of the students involved in the charter school system or originally in the public school system -- and there's lots of reasons for that -- it would seem that in general, because of history, tradition, contractual obligations, that it's more expensive to run the traditional public school than it is the charter school.
Councilman Kenney, I would -- and, again, not strictly in financial terms, I think I'd want to say two things: One is that the assumption that was made in the charter law that there would be a dollar-per-dollar exchange, that as a student moved into a charter school, we would realize the whole savings, is not a valid assumption.
And we know that and 101 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 we've talked about that. I think that whenever you compare one school to a system, the costs are either greater or less, and one of the things that the District is doing is spreading costs across. You know, high schools are more expensive, middle less. So those kinds of things are going on. As a city, as a community, as we think about the charter school movement, and one thing we have to get on top of as a community is that each one of those charter schools are not benefitting from the economy of scale. So that as each one of them starts to have to hire one of everything, and we don't look at how we can collectively as a city allow them to benefit from economies of scale, we're going to end up with a massive, massive problem, which is one of the reasons that, from a District perspective, we've been looking at a few things. One is, how can we structure ourselves to be more attractive and to provide opportunities for the charter schools to come to the District for services, and some of them -- in some places, that's already happening; food services, for 102 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 example. The other thing that we are doing is looking at where are the students coming from, what's been the impact on those schools, and how can we make sure realizing all the savings that we need to, and how can we really step back as a district and proactively start to look at how we can rethink where our kids are going to school and where schools are located so we can benefit from the savings of charters. You know, we really do have to realize it better, but at this point in time when you have overcrowded schools, you have to address that.
But at this point in time, the District's position is, not only are you not benefitting from the savings associated with charters, but there's actually more of a burden on the District because of the funding --
And I think you raise -- I mean, there's two issues here. One is -- and both of them are complex but also very interesting. One is, why is it that the School District loses 103 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 money? And that we can talk more about in as much depth as we want. The other one, which is more intriguing to me, is the question of -- 'cause I've already been talked to death about the other one -- is how is it that from the other perspective, from the charter school perspective, how is it that some of them can do some of the things that they do with the money that they have? And there's, I think, a lot of variables that, you know, it would be dangerous to try to oversimplify it. Some of the issues may be just with the, you know, with cost of labor and things like that. There are other -- a lot of other nuances, and I'm just toss some examples out just to give a flavor, because this is something we've been looking at and are very interested in. I went on a spying mission of Brien Gardiner's school to try to look at -- specifically in special ed. because I heard about some of the stuff they were doing and I was trying to see what ideas we could steal. But some nuances. Elementary versus high school, for example. We often talk about our average per-pupil expenditure. In fact, 104 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 elementary schools are cheaper, high schools are more expensive. The formula for charter schools is, you know, it needs to be simple, so it's based on an average. So, for example -- and there are, at least in one state, and I don't remember whether it was Illinois, the issue arose, should you be paying elementary schools less and high schools more? One of our experiences and one of the things you heard when we talked about preferences is, we would like generally to see good high school -- good-quality high school applications. And maybe one of the reasons we're -- you know, maybe one of the reasons elementary schools are being able to do some things and high schools -- and we're not getting more high school applications is because really in comparison, you're not talking apples to apples. Maybe elementary schools get relatively too much, although I think charter schools, because they're part of our public school system, are under-funded the way the School District schools are. But relatively speaking, elementary are cheaper than high schools, you've got more 105 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 elementary schools out there and fewer high schools. Special education. And many, many schools have fewer special-education students, certainly fewer that -- I mean, we have special-education students that could easily bankrupt a charter school in a day. We did a resolution about a month ago for one service -- one of the services that one child needed that cost $145,000. I mean, I don't know which charter school could sustain on $10,000, which is what we would give them, you know, that kind of hit. So that student's going to be in a School District school. Or it's not really in the School District school; it's someplace else and it's being paid for by the School District. Poverty rates. The -- as a group, charter schools have a lower poverty rate than the School District. With that, we all think comes some additional challenges, although they, as we, can apply for Title funding. And some of the other issues. You know safety is a -- you know, safety's an issue, and we're trying to do a lot there. That's 106 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 $25 million in security this year for the School District. And it's easier to manage when you're doing one school as opposed to a system. And that's just --
And maybe we're moving towards an argument that we should be decentralizing and maybe chartering the entire city. (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
And we're trying to learn, you know, first of all, whether, you know, look at the whether and then look at the how. And, you know, one of the issues that's a little bit easier to grasp is the difference of the cost between running an elementary school and a high school. But some of the other issues, you know, there are some areas --
But a lot of these charters are running both elementary and middle schools, too. So, I mean, they're not -- there's a --
Well, high schools are expensive. 107 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
And high schools are expensive, I assume, because of the teaching, the labor costs by tenured, more experienced teachers who are making more money in the high schools than -- what's the issue relative to the larger expensive high school versus elementary or middle?
I mean, I would be going far beyond my level of knowledge. But I expect, you know, issues are seniority. There's less -- you know, you have departmental responsibilities, you've got programmatically a lot more that's going on in the high school than in the elementary school. You've got the football team, you've got other things.
So that high schools -- I know it's a fact that they are -- I would need help to explain more in depth why --
Well, I'll be interested in making a request for information in the future that if you could give us an idea as to what the difference in cost is between elementary, middle and high and what factors into that 108 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 inflative cost of high school versus the other two.
Okay. Just one more question. I don't want to monopolize, but I just wanted to get one more question in relative to the initiative or the belief of the District, of the Administration that charter schools in some way will help us maintain middle-class, working-class families in the City. As I understood the testimony, and correct me on the testimony and on whether or not my assumption is correct, that charter school applications get additional points or get additional credit towards approval if they are doing a number of things, and that is relieving overcrowded situations in various schools, dealing with schools that are underachieving in their test scores, and schools that are experiencing disciplinary problems. So if you're establishing a charter around one of those schools, you have more of a chance or get a better score, I guess, as a result -- as it moves towards approval. 109 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 How does that reflect -- how do those three needs reflect the demographics and the socioeconomic status and the middle-class status and the working-class status of various neighborhoods? Are we not in some ways -- and this may be just my confused logic as I move to the end of this. If we weight the approval on those three issues, are we not naturally going to have less approved in more stable working-class, middle-class neighborhoods? And aren't we then -- (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
Correct. And in the end, are we not addressing the needs to maintain our middle- and working-class by refusing to approve charter schools in areas that are middle- and working-class.
I think that I can not disagree with the problem, and it's not as scientific as extra points awarded. We wanted to be very clear with the applicants that this is 110 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 where we really need some help, and it is where we knee some help. We also realize we need some help in certain communities that, you know, you could see the middle-class flight. That up against our responsibility related to deseg. and everything else that we do --
We're not talking about middle-class, working-class flight; I'm talking about every socioeconomic, every ethnic and racial group. When people get to a certain level, no matter what their background is or what their race or ethnicity is, when they get to a certain level of income and education, they are likely to consider moving, and they have the opportunity to move. So this isn't a white flight issue; this is more a middle-class, working-class flight issue. And I wanted to make sure that that's where I'm --
And that's how we're 111 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 taking it.
It is a balancing act for us just like it is for you, in terms of how do you make sure that where our services are most needed, you get them, but not at the expense of where you want to try to maintain the population and commitment.
And is it more likely, though, that in neighborhoods that are struggling, you will have less of an opportunity to have more people engaged in the educational process that you need to support both economically and socially and educationally what you're looking for in a charter school that you think is going to be successful. So the poor or the more deprived and more struggling the neighborhood, the less likely they may be able to meet the criteria necessary to say, yes, in fact, this charter school could work.
But, but, not necessarily, but it is indeed another one of the 112 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 challenges that we dealing with that -- and this is not a process where we can say that, you know, these are the rules, this is the waiting -- we're trying to, number one, make sure that we provide a variety of opportunities and are responsive to parents and what they want to see for their children.
But at the same time, we're trying to manage the fact that we are also struggling with schools that are tremendously overcrowded, that are under-performing. We also have to give those parents options. So it's a constant balancing act for us.
One of the things that we would seek in terms of legislative changes would be the ability to make this a less reactive process, 'cause one of the challenges is you end up -- you know, you have ideas about what you'd like to see happen, but the role you have is pretty -- you know, is just you responding to proposals. And one of the things that would make a lot of sense would be to be enabled to do a 113 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 strategic plan for charters that takes into -- weighs the issues of what areas are more neglected and what areas are more -- almost the way you did with the blight plan, and Debbie could talk about that. But getting the flexibility --
But I think what your point is, is that it really raises the question. We're all saying using charters strategically; what does that mean? And I think there are two aspects to using them strategically. One is the global sense that has to do with maintaining neighborhoods and keeping population and potentially even growing population in the City. The other area to think about is how to use them strategically for the sake of the 114 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 School District, meaning how do we complement what's already available within the School District, how do we use charters to be able to operate more efficiently and effectively. So I think there are really two roads and I think we can maybe get to both places, but I think you point out, you know, what those two roads are.
Thank you. You mentioned that that discussions are underway with regards to doing what can be done to amend the existing charter school law. How optimistic are you? I mean, the discussion has pointed out a number of flaws. Where are we with that process?
I think that, Debra, you really need to speak to it. But let me just say in general that there's a lot more support statewide so that the District does not have to be out in the lead on this and get ourselves isolated. A number of the districts are experiencing and a number of the 115 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 charters are now experiencing similar issues and similar concerns that will make it easier for us, I think, to move it forward. I do want to take this opportunity to thank you, Chairman Kenny, for having the hearing. And you did know in advance that I have a commitment.
I will read the transcript carefully, and it will be an important piece in our decision-making about how we can make the process much smoother for the future, and I think the need to focus on it strategically and a proactively, as you pointed out, is absolutely critical. And we'll make a commitment that that will be the way that we'll approach it moving forward, and that's been the way we've wanted to approach it, without the constraints.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Nutter has -- I'm sorry.
Yeah, I would just note that I know that Tom Gentzel is here from the Pennsylvania School Board Association, and he can 116 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 speak to this issue as well. We -- a number of committees in the General Assembly have held hearings on this, and as I mentioned in my testimony, I did go up, I don't know, a couple of months ago now, and speak to the Senate Education Committee, and it was really an interesting experience because we were one of about, I don't know, seven or eight school districts that had spoken at the time, and we actually came up last. And there were a wide variety of school districts -- Bensalem, Bethlehem, tiny Wilkinsburg, State College, and (indiscernible). They discussed really similar experiences. On the one hand, looking at charters as having the potential to provide, you know, complementary educational offerings for their students, but getting caught up in the difficulties of the application process, the fuzziness surrounding the accountability issues, and last, but not least, the financial aspects. And we talk about big numbers here, and they're a lot for people to absorb, but in a tiny school district, when you haven't anticipated or 117 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 counted on, you know, that kind of outlay either, I think, you know, that the consequences can be equally serious. So, you know, we're doing it, there may be several options to open up the law but we're going to pursue that as part of and in addition to the budget process as well.
I must tell you, I've been in a big way enlightened and better informed about your process. And two things I wanted to do mention that helped me as you're bounded by the State Department of Education with regards to application, correct?
And the additional criterion you developed are on top of what the State Department requires, correct?
That's correct. And I think that's the issue is that right now, the local school boards can, in fact, establish, as I think the Board called them, you know, "preferences" or "competitive advantages," but the local school boards are not permitted to limit their consideration of applications to those competitive 118 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 advantages. And that's when the Appeals Board would kick in and applicants would have the right, one, to ask for reconsideration; but, two, also to go to the Appeals Board. So that's right, it's something you can do as part of what is already a prescribed process, but it is not something that you can do only; it must be more open than that.
Finally, on of your testimony, you mentioned that reasons why an application -- or one reason why an application may be rejected is concerns about impact on the District's desegregation. Plan speak to that, please, further. What does that mean?
It was a part of Chris James-Brown's testimony. There are two general issues to my -- and this is one of the areas where, I guess, we have our equity and our legal folks weigh in on the application and review process.
But there are two general issues that I believe are reviewed: One is, what's impact on the neighboring schools and their 119 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 -- and their racial deseg. stability -- I don't know what the jargon is.
And the second is whether any -- what -- for the school itself, whether there are concerns about the school being racially isolated.
One of the concerns that has arisen generally is that many of the charter schools do have -- I mean, they're -- the charter schools, to some extent, reflect communities in which they're located. And because we're a city that is often fragmented by race, that's reflected in the charter school applications. One of the things going forward that, you know, that I've thought about in terms of things we could do differently is perhaps encouraging charter schools or perhaps requiring charter schools, and maybe even applicants, to say what they -- we already asked them what they're going to do to recruit.
But one of the vehicles the 120 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 School District uses for desegregation is something we call the "desegregation lottery," which, in essence if the applicant pool of students is not -- doesn't reflect the School District's demographics, that having, you know, a system so that, you know, perhaps a deseg. lottery that ensures a higher representation of minority students or, you know, whatever the case may be.
What I'm saying is one of the questions -- and this is very informal -- that I've asked is, you know, how do you do your lottery? And I've asked charters at least -- you know, I've asked at least one charter school whether they thought they had the power and the right to do a deseg. lottery the way the School District does the deseg. lottery. And I was pleased with the answer of that school, which was that they're not -- no 22 one's told them they can't, so one of the plans they have is to do that.
Okay, thank you very much. 121 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it was morning when you started and you've now crossed the dividing line. Good afternoon.
Let me just ask a couple fundamental questions for my own understanding of this. Who's in charge of charter schools for the District?
Well, the approval process is one that is under -- because it's a very Board thing --
-- because it's under the direction of the Education Committee.
In terms of staffing, it's been run -- the primary hub has been the Office of Policy and Planning -- I don't know if that's the 122 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 right name -- headed by Diane Castle Bono, and she's got two staff people, Judy Castle and I don't know Jason's last name, and Jason has the distinction today of being here. Judy just had -- Diane just had a baby and Judy's been very ill, so we've got the last man standing here. But there are responsibilities, you know, when issues come up that obviously tap into the School District. One of the -- we have a couple concerns about how we do it now. One is that we need to -- I mean, it's morphing. It started off as policy and planning because it was something new, and the people that were analyzing it became the people that ended up becoming the operational people.
I just often wondered who was in charge of that part of the operation. (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
One of the things that's 123 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 going on is Phil Goldsmith and his planning for reorganization is looking at where that office should report, whether to the CAO or to him, given the higher profile and looking to that office to be also a relationship office.
I mean, I understand that. And, obviously, the District has to organize in a way that it feels comfortable. You know, when it was three or four schools, or however many, you know, we initially kind of came out of the box with, I guess that's one thing. But, you know, as we've continued to evolve in these various management structures -- I think when I initially got here, we were still in regions, then we moved to cluster, and they, I think, expired the other day. (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
And now we're going to -- what are we doing, academic centers?
What we are doing 124 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 next is academic centers; is that the new game plan?
Well, there's a different structure in which we would have eight area academic units that are in charge of instruction and the people they have are people that are instructional, moving kind of the parallel administrative functions to other places.
Yeah. I mean, whether it's going from the 34 plus in operation today, approved but delayed, 3 approved and possibly going forward, so I mean, somewhere in the, you know, it's definitely 35, it's upward of 41. I mean, even in the old cluster model, I mean, that's got to be at least 2 going on maybe 3 clusters worth of schools just, you know, in total.
You know, sometimes you kind of know where you stand in an organization depending on where you are on the organizational chart, and I don't have any issue with -- what is it, policy and planning, planning and administration, planning and planning, 125 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 whatever the office is. But someone does have to try to figure out what you're going to do with something new. It might be time in a reorganization -- I'm sure you'll address this. I mean, they need to be somewhere.
And I often have wondered, for instance, who do they call if they have a problem in the region system, cluster system, academic center system, you know, somebody's in charge of X-number of schools, you have an issue. I mean, I believe in a chain of command like everybody else. If you have an issue, you talk to the first office; if don't like that answer, you know, you go to the next office. I don't even know what it is in this thing, 'cause, I mean, it moved fairly rapidly, and before you know it, in the last three or four year, boom! 40-some schools, and now it's like a serious thing.
That's our plan for next year, is to do something like that. 126 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
It will be interesting to see how my last statement shows up in the notes of testimony. That would be B-O-O-M with an exclamation point. THE STENOGRAPHER: Thank you.
Let's talk about the issue that was raised earlier, and I made some notes to myself, and then I want to talk about enrollment and formulas and a couple of different things. The -- what was it, the Wissahickon School, I think, which was turned down, and it's technically across the street from the district that I represent, the location they were looking at, Thomas Mansion, which is on Wissahickon Avenue and in the 8th across, from the 4th District. The statement that was made by the gentleman that one of the reasons for the refusal was that it may affect the desegregation policy of the District. He said he wasn't particularly clear what that really meant. I mean, you were here, you heard that. What did that mean? What's that all about? 127 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
Well, Councilman, you know, one thing, we've -- it probably would not be a good idea, which I can't do, is get into the specifics of any one charter application. We do have -- this is an ongoing thing.
Forget about Wissahickon. (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
Do we have concerns about charters as it relates to --
Generally a comment like that, as I said before, could have to do with two things or either or both of two things. One is the impact on deseg. of schools around them, and the other is any concerns at the time of the decision that were unaddressed about whether a school's population is predictably going to result in being racially isolated or having some other kind of deseg. problem. One of the things just in terms of process, you know, and I don't want to talk about any individual case --
Right. 128 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131
But one of the things that the representatives from the Wissahickon School said in the testimony was that they had submitted information that they thought was responsive. They've testified this morning that they've submitted additional information, which they believe is responsive to all of the concerns that the District has raised. And we -- although a strict meaning of the law probably wouldn't require it, our policy has been to consider that new information when we make decisions on a reconsideration. So we will -- you know, we will take a look at how that is addressed in their request.
Well, again, not to -- I don't want to talk about the specifics of anyone's application but really more the policy issue at hand. When you say that you're concerned that any school -- again, forget about who testified or what they said. It seems like there is a policy issue for District as it relates to the charter school approval, that it may, quote/unquote, affect the desegregation policy. 129 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 Can you give me an example of what you think this negative -- potential negative effect may be by any particular charter school on the rest of the surrounding schools. I don't completely understand what problem we're trying to avoid.
I can do one of the things we do in law school, which is make up an extreme example just to demonstrate the point.
Well, keep it as within the bounds of reality as possible.
Well, I mean, let's just say, you know, let's say that, you know, 100 neighbors are getting together and creating a school. And under charter school law, the founding -- the founding coalition can have -- I think it has an automatic right to have their kids in that school. And the founding coalition's members are all white. One of the questions will be, you know, apart from are you trying to serve, you know, is this really an application to serve the public or is it to serve a private group -- a grouping of private interest is how do you further the 130 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 requirement, the need to have a -- you know, not to start racially isolated by definition up front. And we would want to know what your plan for trying to attract, you know, a broader constituency is, and to the extent that there are vehicles available for deseg., you know, you've addressed the other issues, we would want you to make efforts at desegregation. So the example there is, let's say it's 100 folks, you know, and you're all white and the enrollment of the school is going to be 100, I mean, that's an easy case.
Well, I get that one but, I mean, are you just also concerned that the establishment of this particular school may draw -- I mean, I think most of us basically understand what our desegregation problems are as it relates to the total composition of the School District. There are only, you know, so many folks to kind of go around as you try to have more integrated schools. Are you also concerned that a particular school may draw too many out of -- might potentially draw too many white students out 131 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 of the surrounding schools that maybe have a relatively decent balance so as to make the other schools more racially isolated and the reverse? Is that a part of the problem.
And we would also point out that there's another issue we're struggling with 'cause it's in the charter school law and we've got, you know, mandates of our own. And we're, you know, trying to make a good-faith effort as we go along in grappling with the issue.
Do you also recognize the one thing you don't really have any control over, which while it may, you know, upset some of your sensitivities on the one hand, you know, those same theoretical, hypothetical 100 people could just move.
And totally destabilize all of the rest of the schools around and you never a charter school. I think you lose 132 5/1/01 LEG. OVERSIGHT/EDUCATION RES. 010131 -- I think we, not you, I think we lose twice in that scenario --
-- because the population was destabilized for all the surrounding schools and we just that's a stone lost 100 families.
And I'm venturing beyond my area of expertise as a School Board member, but an observation is that the Philadelphia community is also, you know, when you take a snapshot now, there is a diverse population socioeconomically and racially, and class and race don't correlate the way they used to necessarily.