Thank you again very much. Thank you. Mr. Butcher.
Yes. Madam Chairman and members of the Board, the lady next to me mentioned about the Gay and Lesbian History Month. I just want to make a small comment on that.
Your 262 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 first name is William; is it not?
It has Gay and Lesbian History Month. For a long time in the school system, with 65 to 70 percent of the children being of African-American heritage, there's no 10 black history really. So they want to have a gay history month, but they're not giving the children, which are 65 to 70 percent, black history studies, which I think should be mandatory. I live in Philadelphia. I cannot go to Bryn Mawr, Devon, Lower Merion, Upper Merion, sit on one of their Boards saying, No more white history, we're going to bring in black history. They'd run me out of town. I could not even sit on one of those Boards, but we have Boards coming from out of town -- I mean people, I'm sorry, which I have no 24 problem with these people personally, but I think what goes on in Philadelphia 263 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 should be done by Philadelphians. I feel that we should have an elected school Board and just -- Leon is not here. He's a nice guy, whatever, but I went out to --
I saw that. I saw that. But I just want to say this: I was kind of -- not depressed. I don't know the right word for it. But Leon gave a press conference about two weeks ago and they were supposed to elect or -- no; appoint a member to the Board. So they said they would make that decision around the middle of February. Well, this was back in January when they had this press conference. But that morning, the Governor or someone appointed a qualified black female to the Board. Leon was -- and the people there were looking for a black qualified male to the Board. So I think that was underhand with the state. 264 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 Now, the last time -- that's what I have to say about that. Now, the last time I was here was the violence, youth violence, which is a year ago just about. It was on February the 8th. And at that meeting, Councilman Blackwell, what came out of that? Is any report of all the testimony that you have, is that somewhere where I could read those things?
As you see, we have a stenographer. Everything is a matter of public record, and we can -- that copy is available for you.
From our violence hearings, yes. We came back and we made a recommendation to the full Council from the Education Committee that they adopt it. I'll pull that for you. Mr. Christmas will make that available to you.
Thank you. And 265 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 I'm going to try to be brief what I have to say, but what was so beautiful that came out of that meeting -- in fact, I told you, girlfriend, that was a long day, you know. I mean, I just loved you more, you know.
But there's a lady, a Dr. Geralyn Radcliffe. , an ABPP, whatever that is, but she's got all these lists of things she's done, but her recommendations -- and she said, As I move forward, I respectfully offer these recommendations to Council or whoever. Number one, it says consider implementing empirical validated programs to reduce violence in a thoughtful way. Now, empirically means hands-on, not the theory that we get in the school. It's like seeing and touching. Just to give you an example was the children at West Philadelphia High School in their motor shop or 266 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 whatever you call it. They competed with other universities and General Motors themselves to create this motor that did something that they couldn't do. Now, these were just teenagers, but the theory was there but they also had the ability to have a hands-on. So I think that within this problem we have with dropouts, there's a chart here that comes from a kids count, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and it states here that children in poverty in Philadelphia are 36 percent compared to the 50 city averages, other cities, 50 of them, with only 28 percent of poverty. Then it goes on to children in single-parent families, city average, 50 city average, 43 percent; children in Philadelphia, 58 percent. And there's a last one that I just want to read off is children with no parents in the labor force, 50 city average, 14 percent; Philadelphia, percent. 25 Now, I'm with alumni of 267 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 Sulzberger and they gave me the task of dealing with poverty. I'm putting together a committee for that, and violence -- no. They wanted me to do the violence thing, but I put poverty there because I feel they both go together. And the way it is now in the school system we have, our children are not -- they're not ready for work because they're not getting the proper education. So when there's a problem in a city, in a country -- in the Civil Rights Movement I'll speak on, that's history, and we had the Kings and the Jacksons, but the ones that were out there going to jail more than the Kings and the Jacksons were the students. The students are really the ones that made that work. They made it happen. They didn't sit next to President Johnson when he was signing all those bills, but they were the ones that did it, and even you and other people who are in City government in high positions might not have gotten 268 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 there without those children. Maybe you would; maybe you wouldn't. So the children are looking at history, and I'm talking about mainly the black children. They're looking at the history that there was children involved in the Civil Rights Movement. There's going to have to be children involved in the Children's Rights Movement, the right to have a better life. The movement means that there will be health looked at, education looked at and their welfare involved. Those three things. And they feel that they have given enough through the politicians or the parents, because, see, the children can't borrow money, they cannot sign a contract under 18, they cannot vote, and they can't work 9:00 to 5:00. It's against the law for the children to be involved in those four things. But there's something they can be involved in. They can be involved legally in going into business. In Philadelphia, we have 269 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 650,000 supposedly people of African-American heritage, and less than one percent are in business. There's no 5 way that that should be that way. But who are the childrens blaming? Not City Council. They're blaming their parents. And this Children's Rights Movement will not come down to City Hall and raise hell, so to speak. They're going to go to their parents and say, Mother, Father, Uncle, whatever, friends, we got a problem, but I tell you what, we have a plan.
The children have a children empowerment plan, and it's a little bit of Martin Luther King in it, a little bit of Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey. This is Black History Month I'm talking about. And WB Dubois. But mainly they're going to have a whole lot of Donald Trump and Bill Gates and the rest of those republican corporations. See, the children know that their parents, whatever it is, vote -- most of them vote democrat. The majority 270 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 vote democrat. But the majority of their parents spend money with republican corporations. And they do not appreciate them, because what they do is outsource to make a better profit. You can't even get an x-ray in most hospitals and get it back. It has to go to India or China and then bounce back over here. So the point is that where are our children going? Who has a solution? Well, the children have a solution. They are going into business. Now, you might think that it's kind of silly, but children are smarter than we think they are. But here's the deal: They can't run a business, but they can own it, but they can also have an advisory board to advise them on their employees or whoever. They'll have MBAs on the advisory board, CPAs. They even going to have doctors on the board or dieticians, because they're going to eat different food in the school system now. That grease is going. They even going to 271 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 tell their parents to have different food in their house. So what's going to make this work, they're going to have a union. See, the teachers are educated. They have a union. You have all these strong men, trash collectors, SEPTA drivers, government workers, they have a union. So the children are going to have a union, and as a union, you don't have to be afraid of them striking, walking out of the classroom. It's the Philadelphia Student Achievement Union, and the person they're going to speak to will be their parents, not you guys. They will tell their parents what they want, and then with their union they will negotiate with the state. Now, just to go this way: Lower Merion, Devon, Bryn Mawr, children out there get 14, 15, I don't know, a thousand dollars a year compared to eight or nine here in Philadelphia. Out there they pay six percent sales tax. They're 272 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 affluent. The poverty-stricken people here pay seven percent. People who work in Philadelphia that live outside of Philadelphia pay a lower rate of City wage tax because, Well, we don't live here, we just work here. But when someone goes out to Radnor, wherever, outside of the City, on their payroll they pay City wage tax and they don't work in the City. So it seems that the affluent has a better deal than our little babies. So in closing, I would like to say there is a union already. We have not come up with anything new. There's something called a Philadelphia Student Union. They have about five or six high schools. And this report is a few years old, but they have an operating budget of like $320,000. I'm quite sure it's more than that now. But 73 percent of that goes to salaries. Now, that's salaries. That's not rent for the building on Locust Street. That's not for office 273 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 supplies or whatever. So there's not very much left over, as I can see, for the students, but, of course, they get 90 percent of their money is raised through foundation and grants they get. Now, these people that came here before me are all -- they're subsidized by federal and state governments and private foundations or whatever to represent mostly black children. Is it a job or is it something that's helping the children? I don't know. We are not here -- well, first of all, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is William Butcher. Maybe I didn't say that. And I'm a children's lobbyist. That's why I'm so into this, because I lobby for the children.
So I'm here to let you know that next February of Black History Month I would like to come and not say one word, but have the children make a presentation of what they have acquired in a year with their plan. 274 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 So I would like to thank each and every one of you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
And Councilwoman Brown. And I don't know the new Councilman's name.
Good. I just want to make a few comments. If you pull up the report that I gave you at the last hearing, Councilwoman, if you look at that report -- and maybe if you could find it, you might share it with the other two 275 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 Councilpeople up there. But if you look at that report that's minus names, you'll find maybe 50 or 60 students that the School District -- I'm sorry Mr. Bichner left -- that the School District was aware of since -- they were aware those children had problems since I've known those children in fifth grade. They're now tenth graders. We did a quick history of those children by just pulling the profile, with the cooperation of the principal, and we were able to pull profiles of 50 or 60 children, Mr. Bruce and myself and the principal of Peirce School. It's time to start calling names of schools. And we were able to do that in 15 or 19 minutes. We were able to collect all 20 that data that went all the way back to kindergarten, analyzed the days that children missed from kindergarten to, in that case, it was eighth grade -- seventh grade, and then we broke out eighth grade by itself. And some of the students have 276 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 missed two, three, four hundred days of school from kindergarten to eighth grade. And no one did anything about it? No one said anything about it? I don't understand. And it didn't take any money to do it. And now those students are in high school. And I'm told the other day by Dr. Thornton, the Chief Academic Officer, is that we've done those children an injustice over there in that high school. But they knew about those kids, and they did absolutely nothing. They did absolutely nothing about their attendance. It wasn't -- last year it wasn't until students were being referred to Truancy Court last year when they had about 40 or 50 days of absenteeism. That's a long way from what I heard today when they talk about three days. The Truancy Court was backed up to the point that they weren't even able to get those kids in from the year before. So it's probably a good move on the part of the 277 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 Mayor to have that meeting at Temple and kind of like give everybody -- whatever you call it, you know, just wrote it off if you came to the meeting, because the courts couldn't keep up with it anyway, because they weren't doing anything. I mean, we know that. So I talked to the lady from Hopkins and said, What's the action plan? We got the data. Now what do you do with it? It doesn't make any sense to me. It seems like people were coming to talk about how to get their organization funded, and we need to be talking about how to support the kids in the School District and how to support the families of the children in the school. Just my view. So I just want to say this: There's a budget hearing committee meeting tonight made up of community folks like me and other community folks and parents. It's at 5 o'clock in Mr. Vallas' conference room. I've said 278 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 to Mr. Vallas, I think someone from the Education Committee should be invited to be a part of that meeting, taking the privilege to do that. But anyway, it's tonight at 5 o'clock. And we're told that if the School District gets the type of money that it needs to balance this budget and go into next year, that it will use the money towards classroom reduction size, towards programs around dropout prevention and towards classroom modernization. And I just -- I want to add a few pieces onto there. There needs to be a full-time nurse in every building. Our children are coming to school ill. Their parents aren't -- or lots of parents, not all, aren't getting those well baby visits, those well child visits, and so lots of our kids are in school ill. And so a school nurse to help the kid through the school day but also to educate the parent about the importance of getting those well visits could maybe help in improving attendance.
279 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 People have already talked about social workers in schools, and I think we do need social workers in schools to deal with the kind of problems and challenges that our students and children are facing every day. And maybe we could look at social workers that are coming out of Lincoln and Cheyney and Delaware State, as well as social workers who are coming out of St. Joe's and Temple and places like that. The reason why I say that is because maybe some of those students who are graduating from those historically black colleges and universities might have some roots in a city like Philadelphia and be more understanding of our children and not take so long to understand their challenges that they have in front of them. And the last part that I'd like to make some recommendations on is more academic coaching. As they continue to raise the bar, our kids aren't being 280 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 coached and counseled academically, so a lot of them have poor study skills, a lot of them can't read and write like we know. And I don't see the competition among the School District or among the EMOs to raise the level of the children who are at the bottom. It's easy to move the two or three or four, eight percent at the top to a higher level, but how do you do and what resources do you need to move the kid at the bottom? And in closing, I'd like to suggest that when Mr. Vallas came here, he said he was going to make sure this happened, because in a lot of schools that we visit and that we work in, it's not happening. There needs to be more coordination of services. A DHS worker might come in and say, Did Vernard come to school today? You say yes or you say no and they're out the door. Or a probation officer might come in and ask a question about Jannie Blackwell, and you say yeah, she was here, she wasn't here, 281 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 and you're out the door, and no one really understands why that probation officer or why that DHS worker or some other worker might be in the life of that kid. And Mr. Vallas said that when he first came that he was going to make sure that more services were coordinated so that the School District would understand what's going on in the life of a child. And I think the CSAP process, if CSAP was used, that we'd get to -- at least we'd find out if it was workable. But it's supposed to bring all the resources together so that you can look at a child from an academic perspective. And that's why I stayed here to say that. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Mr. Johnson, excellent statement. I'm glad you let us know about that meeting tonight. And let me say that these have been very important hearings today. Again, we apologize for Mr. Vallas. Due 282 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 to the accident that happened where someone was killed by a bus, he is not here. Jackie Barnett from the Mayor's office is with him, Secretary of Education. We regret that the Mayor couldn't be here. He said he would do the best he could. We also want to submit for the record the written testimony of Dr. Leonard Finkelstein and Honorable James R. Roebuck, our State Representative. Are there any other questions or concerns? (No response.)
That will conclude our hearing. We will recess subject to the call of the Chair. Again, thank you, everybody. And I will not have hearings in this room, this cold room, like this again. It's too hard. Thank you. (Committee on Education adjourned at 2:45 p.m.) 283 2/6/07 - EDUCATION - RES. 060807 - - - 284 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on February 6, 2007, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)