I believe we have. Is Gwen Morris here? Oh, you want to come up and join us. I'm sorry. We have our Program Director here. I apologize.
She's going to slug me because I keep on saying Gwen 288 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Morris. Sorry about that.
Currently DHS, the Police Department, Office of Behavioral Health, when you plug in a child's name, all the worlds, all the agencies involved with that child immediately come up, tell if they've been in the Office of Emergency Shelter, so that you get the big picture of that particular child. Is the School District plugged into that system? Because it goes to the question how we can refine different systems talking to each other when we're trying to best serve these children.
Good afternoon. Just to identify myself, my name is Lynn Nichols. No, we are not plugged into that system. You're referring to DSS Cares?
No, we are not. We are hoping to be connected to that system because of what you just said, you can find out every system that's currently connected to that child. So we would like to be able to do that.
So when you say we're hoping to be connected, that means that there's been discussion and you're looking for the dollars to make that happen?
All right then. So let's move on to the Health Department. What role could the Health Department play when it comes to the number of young people who graduate; in particular, those young people who are pregnant? Do you have any thoughts about that, Mr. Vallas?
Yes. Absolutely. Well, the Cradle to the Classroom Program, which is part of the ELECT 290 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Program -- and as you know, we partner and contract out with community schools for this program. The program is designed to identify as many pregnant teens as possible and then to provide the pregnant teens with eligible social service support. So you go and you identify the pregnant teen. You assess the pregnant teen's needs, their income status, et cetera, because a lot of this intervention is triggered by income levels and things of this nature. And then you make referrals to various social service agencies. So the ELECT Program, the Cradle to the Classroom Program or early childhood program --
It's run by Donna Piekarski. Donna Piekarski is our Director of Early Childhood Services.
In the 291 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. School District?
In the School District. And she is part of a coalition of early childhood providers, which include social service agency supports. And all the City departments -- in fact, the drive to revamp this program was started by Alba Martinez, who is now at the United Way and has made this United Way's principal focus. But if there's one program that's very well organized and well coordinated, it's the early childhood program, in part because of the early work by Alba and other work by the United Way. But referrals are made. Referrals are made to -- if a child is homeless, referral is made to the appropriate department. If a child is being raised by a single mother who is in need of income support, the appropriate services are made. The appropriate services are made to the Department of 292 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Health if a child is in need of social service support, healthcare, et cetera, et cetera. We provide special interventions on our own, though. We go in and we do the vision, the hearing tests, the healthcare exams, things of this nature. So we just don't fulfill the academic function; we also provide some social service supports on our own. But most of our early childhood programs are now off campus with off-campus providers, because they can serve more kids much less expensive than we can. They don't have all the mandates and all the requirements that we have to house these programs in our schools. They can do it much cheaper than us. But I think we're very -- we're much more effectively coordinated on this level than we are in addressing some of the needs of the elder kids.
Okay. The Chair and I were discussing the next 293 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. steps after today, and clearly, we need to come up with recommendations which will reflect the kind of testimony we're hearing. And so to the Blue Ribbon Commission report, there's still opportunities for systems to do better in servicing young people. Is there one central office at the School District that calls DHS or the Health Department or is it, for obvious reasons, scattered throughout the system? For example, does the Office of Specialized Services, a counselor from a school calls the Office of Specialized Services and that becomes the center point --
Yeah. There's three main coordinating entities in this department. The first is the School Safety Council, which on school safety 294 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. issues, school climate issues, as you know, created by the Mayor a couple years ago after the shooting outside Strawberry Mansion. You have all the law enforcement and crisis intervention entities meeting, talking on a daily basis, exchanging information and doing coordinated intervention. That's number one. Number two, when it comes to the social service side and even though the Office of Alternative Schools and obviously truancy, our tenets office, focus on those things, Brenda Taylor and Specialized Education Services coordinates among the critical social service agencies, in particular the DHS, when it comes to making referrals, when it comes to making referrals for children who are truant, children who have been neglected, children who have some serious crises problems, and they're constantly in contact. I cited the example of the child who had not been enrolled at school 295 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. visited by an assistant principal and a special education coordinator from Brenda Taylor's office, who in turn contacted the case manager and referred the case manager to this case and to the problems that this child was experiencing. So there is a lot of coordination. I think what's emerged from the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Task Force, though, are recommendations on how coordination can be improved at all levels, not only truancy, truancy prevention, but also student behavioral support and things of this nature. And I think the recommendations offer a good blueprint, not necessarily a call for more financial resources, but rather a call for better coordination of services --
-- and I think the recommendations are there. There is good coordination, but the coordination is 296 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. nowhere that it should be.
One parent referenced the CEP, cited concerns expressed about CEP. What is the role of the School District once those contracts have been approved, particularly for CEP? What type of monitoring/evaluation is done to make sure they are indeed delivering educational services to the behavioral students?
Well, first of all, our office that manages student disciplinary programs also oversee the alternative school providers. And there's just not one provider; there's multiple providers. And let me point out that when we arrived, there was, in effect, three alternative schools run by the District disastrously. We were spending like $30,000 a kid, and the schools had like 50 percent attendance. So they were extraordinarily inefficient, and then CEP and they had one building. And so over the past five 297 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. years, we now have seven different schools, and we have a diversity of private managers who, in effect, provide those services. Now, every one of these private managers signs a contract with us. The contract is performance-based, in that all the schools are evaluated using the same criteria and same standards that we use to evaluate all of our other schools. The kids have to be tested. The kids have to report their attendance. They have to report graduation, dropouts, all those things. So when those contracts come up for renewal, we scrutinize those schools as we would maybe a charter school. I don't want to say a public school, because charter schools and alternative schools are not subjected to the same scrutiny that the public schools are subjected to, because we run them on a day-to-bay basis. But the bottom line is, they have to test the kids and we look at test scores. 298 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. In addition, we commissioned Temple a couple years ago to go in and do an analysis of CEP specifically and to survey parents and to basically get a general idea of -- give us a general assessment of how the school was performing. I will tell you this: One thing working against us -- and, you know, any time anyone wants to take a surprise visit to any school, just give me a day, just call me in the morning and let me know the day you want to come so nobody paints you a pitempt convillage (ph) and I'll be more than happy to have you taken to any one of the schools, be it CEP, be it Camelot, Boone or be it one of the transitional schools that we run up in the Northeast that takes the overage underachieving kids out of the Fels School. But one of the things that works to our disadvantage is, the State says that students who commit serious, serious offenses, when you transfer a 299 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. child out of the District, you can only do it for a year. So that child has to be returned to their neighborhood school within a year. So these schools become very transitory. You have 50 percent, 60 percent mobility in the school. So the kids are moving out of one school and into another and then back into the neighborhood school and then back again and forth again and back again and forth again. So the state laws are kind of crazy, and that undermines the ability of that school to kind of have a stable student body just as they struggle to have a stable faculty. But we look at their test scores and their attendance rates and things like that, and it is --
Does that type of placement make a difference for children in terms of improved test scores and improve the attendance when you separate them?
I'll submit to you 300 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. our own analysis of that. I believe it has. Look, students who enroll in alternative schools and transition schools, in 2002 in this District there were like 2,500 students who were, in effect, released from correctional facilities, et cetera, and they were sent back into the District. One high school got almost 200 students, one high school. Okay? One high school. So we want to talk about dropout rates? One high school, 2,500 kids. Our data tells us that only half of the kids released from these facilities actually physically return to school. And then let me tell you, half don't graduate. Half return and then most eventually fail to graduate anyway. And I'll be more than happy to give you some of the harder statistics on that. When we began to expand the alternative school network and we began to open these transitional schools for overage underachievers or for individuals 301 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. who are being released from correctional facilities and when we set up a program called RETI-WRAP where if a child was released from the correctional facility, we would put them through this two-week RETI-WRAP system where they sat down, counsel them, evaluate them, health check, all those things, tried to get them back on track. And the RETI-WRAP program we've been running for the better part of three years with a lot of success, and we do that in coordination with City agencies and many of the community-based organizations, community agencies, the courts. They're all involved in RETI-WRAP. What we discovered was, we got about 85 percent of the kids to re-enroll. And so these programs are having an effect. They're having an effect. And what we need to do is, we need to find a way to take them to a larger scale. Right now we have RETI-WRAP, but a lot of these kids are 302 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. sent right back into their neighborhood schools. They're either sent into the alternative schools, which are not always suitable for them, or they're sent into the neighborhood schools. If we had more of these transitional schools, the likelihood that those kids would return to school and stay in school and graduate would probably be increased, because a transitional school is not like an alternative school. An alternative school is for discipline-problem kids. A lot of times you have kids who have had problems but they're not necessarily violent or threatening, and sometimes they're overage underachievers, sometimes they are mischievous or they're disruptive, but generally they've kind of dropped out and they don't need to be sent to a CEP or a Camelot. They can be put in a transitional school at Fels or they can be put in a program like YouthBuild or some of those programs. So if we can expand that number 303 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. of alternative school offerings, we can get a lot of these kids who are trying to re-enroll in school. We can get them into the more appropriate settings. Right now it's either the neighborhood school, which sometimes is unacceptable for kids who really have a bad track record -- and, look, how many times have I gotten beaten up with accusations that I'm letting violent kids back into school or we're letting kids that dropped out of school back in and they have a bad record? I mean, how many times do we get calls on that or we've gotten reamed on those type of things? So having a greater and more diversified offering of alternative schools, schools for violent kids who are serious offenders who need to be put in those type of programs and then kids who are just overage underachievers who are academically struggling and really need to be in the right environment. I mean, having the diversity of those type of 304 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC.
programs would help us, I think, save more kids and get more kids -- right now as we speak, since the Youth Collaborative, since our press conference where we announced this year's re-enrollment, we've been in the process of re-enrolling something like, I don't know -- what is it, Al? How many kids were we re-enrolling after the Youth Collaborative? About 500 kids. But we had something like 800 applicants or something. So we've been re-enrolling kids into programs, getting them back into school, but sometimes it's finding the right setting. Because if we send them back to the neighborhood school without the appropriate supports or if we send them to some big behemoth neighborhood high school, they're just going to get lost. So that's where we're at.
My final question, the hard choices that you've 305 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. had to make regarding the current budget deficit, were any budget cuts made to programs that are serving the very populations we're talking about, truant young people and young people who are on the binge of dropping out?
Well, Sandra Dungee Glenn wouldn't let me. I mean, I tried to tweak a couple programs, but she should have been CSI, like the forensic, because she went through the budget with a forensic fine-tooth comb and said, No, that doesn't do it or that doesn't do it. Even in cases where I said I think we can get some federal money to reimburse us for that, she says, Well, when I see the federal money, then we'll count it. So I think we've really tried to minimize that, but as Councilman Goode pointed out, we need to do more. Just sustaining the reforms that we've enacted is not enough. We've got to take some of these things to a larger scale, and if that means reprogramming some of our 306 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. dollars in the next budget process, we're certainly willing to do that. But I will tell you in all honesty, I mean, you all know that privately I've always lobbied you for more money and more resources and things like that, and I've always done it in a very -- maybe I should have been more public about it. Maybe I should have done what some of my predecessors do and just say, Well, I can't do that, they won't give me money for that or without an equitable school funding formula, I can't do this or can't do that. We need to do a lot with the resources we've been provided, but to really show progress on the issue of dropouts, we're going to need to fund the initiatives identified by the Youth Collaborative. And I'll tell you this: Charlotte-Mecklenburg is considered to be the model urban school district. We've all heard about Charlotte-Mecklenburg and their performance and everything like that. 307 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. When Education Week came out with their study on dropout rate and graduation rates, our graduation rate was a half a point less than Charlotte-Mecklenburg, even Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The so-called Shangri La among large urban districts has a graduation rate or at least in the year studied, 2002-2003, of 56, 57 percent. So the dropout problem is a national problem, but I think we over the last four or five years have been able to identify some things that are having success and the degree -- and our ability to expand them to a larger scale, I think, can translate into additional success.
Thank you for your testimony. Madam Chair, is the Youth Collaborative scheduled to testify?
Good afternoon. I'll make this fast. I don't think this question was directly asked. On the issue of class size that the parents were talking about earlier, does the School District have, I guess, what I would call an average target class size? And, secondly, they gave the amount of $20 million. Does the School District have an amount of money that they think could realistically meet the goal?
Yeah. In order to get all class sizes below -- and let 19 me point out that you're always going to 20 have aberrations, because some schools 21 sometimes will have an extraordinarily 22 large 4th grade class, but in order to 23 get every child in a classroom of less 24 than 25 kids, we would have to hire 25 probably close to about 800 teachers. 309 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. That said and done, there is one teacher for every 25.3 kids, but as I mentioned, a lot of your poorer schools with Title I dollars have smaller classes because they get hundreds and hundreds and sometimes millions of dollars in Title I money and we pressure them to go out and hire teachers. In the rest of the schools, the class sizes are 30, 31, 32. So $20 million would allow us to purchase about 250 teachers. For every one teacher you hire, you, in effect, reduce the class size in four classes. So if you had 250 teachers, you'd reduce the size of a thousand classrooms. That's the way the formula works. For $60 million spread over a two, three-year period, I think we could, once and for all, address the class size problem, and I will try to do that on a gradual basis, every year add $20 million to the budget.
Thank 310 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. you. Thank you, Mr. Vallas. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much. Just a follow-up. I'll only ask two questions, because there's so many people still waiting. But do we still have parole and probation officers in schools where we have big problems?
They've deployed them regionally, I believe, Madam. And as you know, Judge Dougherty is now the head of Family Court, and he's come up with a strategy to increase their effectiveness. So I believe they're almost deploying them on a regional level, which is effective. He's got more on the street and he's got -- and they're assigned regionally and they work with the schools regionally. And so I feel pretty good about his approach. He's very aggressive about getting resources out of Family Court and into the schools.
Did 311 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. you, by chance, read the article that the Notebook put out on the CEP schools recently?
Yeah. We'd be more than happy to invite CEP in and let them defend themselves. I have a tendency to think that sometimes there can be a bit of a bias against private managers. CEP is certainly well equipped to defend themselves. I think CEP does an adequate job. There aren't a lot of high-quality providers. I believe CEP does a far better job than we ever did. So I do want to point that out. But let me point out that CEP's contract comes up for renewal, just like everybody else, and what we've done is, we've expanded the number of providers, so we've reduced our dependency, Councilwoman, on CEP. And so now we have Camelot, now we have Abraxas. There's a number of other providers. And with the new round of charter school applications, 312 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. I've been inviting charter school proposals that are for alternative placement. So I think CEP has more competition. I also want to point out that we've gotten a considerable increase in our funding for alternative schools, something that we did not have before, and part of the reason is because of CEP's lobby. The Legislature has earmarked alternative schools money to the District to help us finance our alternative schools program, and obviously CEP has been very instrumental in that.
Yes. I had been involved and very supportive. My complaints generally come from the community, because with the advent of uniforms, they see the kids in the street. So that's the problem there.
CEP also takes the toughest kids. But, again, we'll be -- all of these providers will be 313 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. scrutinized, and over the next budget year they'll be scrutinized even more as we try to -- this budget will certainly make us more vigilant when it comes to looking at existing programs to see how we can reprogram the dollars.
I'll mention one other issue and then call on Dee Phillips. I didn't realize Ted Kirsch or Dee Phillips or Jerry Jordan were here, but she's still here to present his testimony. And one of the issues that they mention is layoffs, people who have lost their jobs. She'll make her own testimony. And then I've had people who have called me about the central administration office, like Budget and Finance Department, and who gets laid off and who doesn't, and one case in particular where a gentleman has about 18 months left and what happens when people get laid off. I've been going through this with the Water Department and housing 314 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. departments, how they get cut down so far, as opposed to being able to leave on basically the same level, especially when they're that close to the end, how we deal with layoffs and who gets laid off and a general response to the employee issues.
Well, let me make a general comment. We eliminated 175 positions, and any time you're going to do a reduction in force, you've got a lot of obstacles or there are a lot of issues that you need to be careful with. You want to make sure it's fair. You want to make sure that you're not discriminating on all levels, not just race discrimination, age discrimination, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so a lot of times you like to go in and do a strategic cut and make a judgment that this is a strong person, this is a weak person and make your decisions accordingly, but you can't do that. You can't do that. Legally you can't do it, 315 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. and it's probably not the right thing to do anyway. So in doing these cuts, we really looked at doing a reduction in force across the board. We want it to be even. We want it to be equitable. We want it to be non-controversial. We also wanted to eliminate functions that could be picked up by someone else. So we really kind of followed a template. Because any time you're going to do a reduction in force, you're going to risk challenges. Now, that said and done, as I mentioned, about 47 of the positions were currently vacant and about 53 of the individuals actually moved into other vacancies within the District, as is their right under their collective bargaining unit. So that left us with 81 actual layoffs. Now, the individuals who have been laid off we're trying to help get placed. And I have to be really delicate 316 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. with my language, because going out and saying, Hey, you got laid off, but here, I got another job for you, that would not be -- that could be viewed as inappropriate. Someone could say I got this person the job, but I didn't get someone else a job, even if the job wasn't in the School District. But creating the job bank and connecting people, letting people know what jobs are available and then helping facilitate the connection between those people and those job opportunities we think are going to help us reduce -- to place a large number of these people. I'm going to keep the job bank up and running until everybody is placed. I'm not promising that that's a possibility. I'll also tell you this: Union employees have -- and the job bank is on the website. You can look up the job bank. It lists all the jobs that are available. We're probably going to keep the job bank up permanently. 317 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. But individuals who have been laid off, if they're union types and there are other vacancies in the District, they have the first right to move into those vacancies. They will have re-call rights. So if you're a member of the union and suddenly there's a vacancy in a department that you're eligible for, you would have a right to claim that vacancy. Also, if you're a non-union member and we have a vacancy that is budgeted, we will inform you of that vacancy in this non-union position for the non-union member, and that individual will have an opportunity to apply. So some people may be re-called in the next budget year as new vacancies open up. We're not going to be restoring any of these positions. I mean, we may -- you never can tell what will happen from budget year to budget year. We make decisions on how we're going to reprogram and reprioritize in the next 318 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. budget year, so I can't say that we're not going to create some new positions, but the bottom line here is, as vacancies open up, individuals will have re-call rights. But hopefully most of the 81 will have been placed by then and there will be very few people who will need to exercise their rights because they'll be working with other providers. CEP, for example, because the Legislature gave money to expand the number of slots CEP has for alternative schools specifically and as part of that expansion, they have ten vacancies.
They are going to the RIF list and they're recruiting from among the RIF list individuals to fill those vacancies. There are many schools with vacancies that we didn't identify that people don't necessarily bounce into, and they're going to the RIF list and offering people positions. So hopefully most of these people will be placed before we're done.
Thank 319 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. you very much. We'll call you about any individual cases.
Thank you very much. We're going to call Dee Phillips and then this 9th grade student who has been here all day and then any kids. I know District Council 33 has kids. We're going to take care of you youngsters. Okay? Young people.
And I'll get Councilman Goode his statistics promised. If we can get the names, Councilman, of the 386, we'll tell you what their education history is. We'll work on that. Give us about a week on that, though. Okay?
And, in fact, Mr. Vallas, if you submit it to the Chair, we'll make sure everybody gets it.
We 320 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. would also like to thank Councilwoman Tasco for being here this afternoon. Ms. Phillips and then our 9th grader and then kids, kids with programs. Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Thank you very much. Thank you for your patience.
Oh, you're quite welcome. Good afternoon, Chairwoman and other members of City Council. I am Dee Phillips, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. I hold the proud position of Vice-President of the middle years, and I have with me my colleague, Arlene Kempin, who is Vice-President of the elementary grades. Unfortunately, Ted Kirsch had a conflict in his schedule today and our General Vice-President, Jerry Jordan, is out of town, so you got the two of us.
So, again, I thank you for inviting the PFT to testify. Some of what I'm going to say 321 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. today I know you've heard, but I think it bears repeating, and on behalf of our 18,000 members of the Federation, 10,400 which are teachers, we're glad to be here today. Our message is that education cuts don't heal. When principals pack 30 to 40 children in classrooms as they have in nearly 200 classrooms around the City and expect that every child is going to be proficient in math and reading, or when schools force teachers to teach 30 or more students from two different grades simultaneously, or when the District cuts Saturday, after-school and summer programs designed to help students succeed, they are inflicting education wounds that will not heal. Despite statements to the contrary, these policies, many of which were implemented even before the current round of budget cuts, will cripple our students academically. 322 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. PFT members are extremely concerned about the mid-year layoffs, the surprise deficit and the impact of budget cuts on our students and staff. With no fanfare last summer, the District cut a significant number of teaching positions because of the NCLB requirements. They cut 47 non-teaching assistants, 33 secretaries, 30 climate support assistants and school library 12 jobs. Last week it laid off more than 80 13 hard-working employees and demoted and 14 cut the pay of many others. Meanwhile, 15 there were 172 overcrowded classes. I'm going to repeat that. There are 172 overcrowded classes and 71 teachers who are assigned to teach grades simultaneously. That's commonly called split grades. While school resources are being cut, administrative expenditures are rising. According to Standard and Poor's independent school evaluation service, Philadelphia is in the 23rd 323 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. percentile statewide in instructional spending, but its administrative costs are 45 percent higher than the average school district in the state. This equation, not to mention the District's spending priorities, must change. The PFT remains steadfast in its advocacy for students. Parents and teachers want early childhood education for all pre-school children in Philadelphia; significant reduction in class size and to end educational indefensible split grade classes; programs that identify at-risk students early and target them for proven interventions that reduce the likelihood that they will drop out; safe, healthy and orderly schools. Cuts to non-instructional staff have taken a toll on school safety, and deferred maintenance cost one PFT member three fingers this year. To combat the well-documented dropout problem, the PFT additionally 324 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. recommends the School District to transform high schools by offering a variety of programs that help students make the connection between what they are learning in school and their futures. Offer more work study opportunities and better career and technical training. They should make more extensive offerings of career, technical and college prep classes available. Students must be able to choose a high school based on course offerings or thematic orientation and extracurricular activities that meet their needs and interests. Students should have choices among non-selective and selective public high schools that will meet their individual needs. Improve discipline and order, enforce rules with real consequences. Surveys of high school dropouts show that they are distracted and confused by too much freedom. Students say that there are no consequences for roaming hallways, cutting classes or 325 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. performing poorly. The Mayor's truancy initiative should be supported. To eliminate the deficit, we have urged the SRC to reexamine and cut true administrative costs.
We have also recommended that the SRC place a moratorium on new charter school approvals and/or the expansion of existing charter schools. Not that we have anything against charter schools, but they will cost $250 million this year. It is fiscally irresponsible to approve more charter schools without the financial resources to pay for them. We urge the SRC to end the practice of hiring outside lawyers and accountants, retired principals and private consultants and stop privatizing management and services. The savings from outsourcing work is short term, and over time costs rise and the quality of this service diminishes. The District should utilize fully the enormous pool of talented employees and jettison 326 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. consultants and outside contractors to save money. We urge the SRC and the administration to consider the people who daily give so much to the District. These are the working men and women who live in our community. They have families. They rely on salaries and healthcare, and they help our school system function efficiently. Finally, in this era of accountability, teachers and support staff are held responsible for raising test scores year after year. The City Council should demand accountability from the SRC and administration. School District employees are paying the ultimate price for the incompetence of District officials and SRC Commissioners. What about those responsible for faulty assumptions, bad math and fudged budget figures approved by the SRC last spring? Student progress, of which we have been proud, is in jeopardy. The 327 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. future of the City's children, as well as the economic vitality of Philadelphia, hang in the balance. So, again, on behalf of the 18,000 PFT members who work in our schools and the nearly 200,000 students who attend them, we urge City Council to hold the SRC to the highest standards, because their spending priorities and decisions will affect Philadelphia's children for the rest of their lives, and education cuts don't heal. Thank you. Do you have any questions for us?
Thank you very much. We thank you both. Arlene, would you like to comment?
Dee said that I'm one of the Vice-Presidents of the PFT, specifically of elementary schools, but my staff position is that I represent the PFT at the administration building in the Office of Human Resources, and 328 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. specifically last Tuesday when 38 of our members and in addition to 38 of our members, there were a significant number of other non-PFT members who were laid off, several more, 56 of our members but an additional number of non-members, were demoted either to ten-month positions -- they had held 12-month positions -- or five-day-a-week people who now will be working four days a week. This is a significant cut in their salaries. They've lost percent of their 14 salaries. These are not the people that 15 deserve to be punished for these 16 mistakes. 17
Thank 18 you very much. 19 Any questions? 20 (No response.)
Thank you very much. Our 9th grader. (Someone talking from audience.) 329 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC.
All right. Then young people come. Mr. Mayer Krain, we'll get you next. We'll get the kids. You've been very patient. Thank you. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Thank you.
To start, my name is Andrew Broggins. I'm years 12 old. I would like to thank you for the 13 opportunity and honor for me to be up 14 here speaking. 15
Okay. I'm a freshman in Community College. I've gone through almost every program that was mentioned in here. I was a dropout of high school and I've reintegrated into the community through a GED. To start back, during middle school, I started going through some problems. I was kicked out of 7th grade 330 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. and sent to CEP for about -- I didn't complete the program and was integrated back into that same high school. It didn't work out too good. Still more problems. I was always told I was an intelligent student, I just had bad behavior, absences, latenesses and about 30 or 40 suspensions a year. And it went from there to going on to Martin Luther King High School, more arrests during probation. At King I was arrested and sent to a facility for adjudicated male youth delinquent. And I came home, sent to RETI-WRAP, Vision Quest, vocational programs such as DeLaSalle. Wow.
Were they good programs? Was RETI-WRAP good, as we've heard? Did it help you? Obviously you look very nice and you are really on point, and I've seen you here before, so apparently your environment and obviously believing in yourself has helped you and hopefully believing in the 331 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. good Lord above has brought you far.
Of course. Of course. RETI-WRAP, it was the only way back into school, because I didn't want to go through vocational. I didn't want that type of future. So I dropped out of that and I dropped out of Martin Luther King. I mean, I went to Germantown after RETI-WRAP. I don't think it was that good of a program, though, to tell you the truth, but it was a good integration. It was a good integration. I guess the only way back into school. I didn't have a choice really. But through RETI-WRAP, I went to Germantown Twilight. I was in Twilight for a few months before -- I was on probation for about seven years at the time, and this was just last year, same time last year. And my probation officer forced me into the E3 center. The E3 center is where I was told once again I was intelligent, but I still wasn't doing 332 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. anything with my life. The E3 center, I took a test. They said that I didn't even need to study for the GED, I could just take it. So I decided to drop out of Germantown and take the GED. I passed it with about a 3,000 or whatever. But I went from there into -- they got me a job and now I work at currently Prescott and Associates. It's financial advising consultants. I work there as a representative assistant. I also work with the Philadelphia Youth Network as a youth ambassador, and I am in Community College studying to be a doctor. And all this happened within about 10, 11 months. It started this year. I started trying to get myself together. And now I'm speaking to you guys. Hi. Other than that, there's a lot I had to say, but I decided not to even read off of this. But I was also in the international baccalaureate program, 333 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. because my grades was good but my behavior was like the worst. I couldn't get into any of the high schools and stuff, my neighborhood high school, so they sent me to that program. That didn't work out too well either, and neither for a couple other people in that program, actually. I wrote that down because I heard that in here, and I realized I was in a lot of these programs, you know, and I'm here to tell my story and I was told to say -- not to say. I wasn't told to say anything. I was told to tell my opinion about what will work and what wouldn't work, you know. And my opinion is that everything that's going on, I believe that the parents as well as the children should be held accountable -- well, their children should be held accountable for truancy. I think that the home situation should be looked at, because you go from home to school and from school to home, nine times out of ten, and that's where 334 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. everything starts at. So I think that should be looked at more deeply. Also, because I was truant like every year of school and I was never contacted by a truant officer, and I was truant over 120 days from 6th grade until I dropped out. They never contacted me. And I don't believe that if a child is not doing well at home, it's hard to do well at school. I believe that. Also --
You're saying you believe that if you're not doing well at home, then you won't do well at school?
No, because I know people who have done well at school and had the worst living situations. I believe that it's hard to do well in school if everything at home is not well, and some people don't have the same tools 335 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. as others.
I think that the problem is looked at on a very large scale. I think it should be minimized to a smaller group, even smaller than race, you know, because there's a lot of people who are in these groups that are, in certain groups, that are in many different races. That way you can learn more about certain people. I believe that students need better education, particularly in the schools I were in. I'm not sure about all of them, but the schools I were in were not teaching anything, like nothing. The math classes were the worst. I never really learned nothing after the 8th grade. Stopped learning, because they teach you things that were the 6th grade work in the 9th grade when you're coming from the 8th grade. I don't understand it, but -- I do understand it. A lot of 336 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. people didn't know. And I think they should start back as far as pre-K, because that's where people start learning, and a lot of subjects are progressional, you know. So I don't think that should be looked at as far as 6th grade. Even farther back than that, because a lot of things start off when school starts. Wow, there's a lot. And I think that parents should have more time home with their children, because a lot of parents overlook a lot of things because they are working too hard, trying to support their family and they're never home, a lot of parents. Some parents don't work and they're still never home, you know. But a whole other subject. And, lastly, I believe that it should be more than the parents that watch over the youth. I think it's a community job, because it takes more than that, and a child is going learn from 337 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. more than the parents. Some children don't learn anything from the parents and learn everything from the community. So I think it should be a community's effort as well to teach the children certain phases in life that he can't be taught by others. And that's all I have to say.
Thank you very much. We're very proud of you, and certainly this Council extends our arms to you. If we can help any way we can support you, you can come see any of us and we'll be there for you.
Thank you. Can you give us your name and then make your statement?
My name is Shadirah Bussey. I'm 15 years old and I'm attending Agora Cyber Charter School as a 9th grade student, and I'm here today to talk about the need for more counselors, nurses, the reason for 338 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. dropout rates and truancy. First I want to start off with the need for more counselors. First, if you don't have the proper number of counselors, how are students supposed to see their future or move on without talking to someone about it? There are approximately 800 students for one counselor. That's not enough. And I think it should be, I say, about 250 per counselor. And you wonder how you can't stop the truancy rate. If you stop sending students from one neighborhood school to another without providing transportation, we wouldn't have the problem. And we have tens of students, but you continue to shut out the arts and music in our schools, but you don't allow us to show our skills. How can you learn in an environment with 30 or more students in a class with one teacher? How about if you try it, see if you could learn? Because 339 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. it won't happen. We already have students having problems with math and reading who have never received the type of classroom support they needed. All we want is a fair education. You have yours. Let us get ours. And another thing I wanted to say was that Mr. Vallas said -- I think he said he never seen a homeless person, but me and my brother, we homeless. Our parents, our family is separated. (Witness in tears.)
It's all right. We work with so many people. On the 19th from 3:00 to 7:00, we'll have our party, and we're prepared for 2,500 women and children, and everybody gets a gift. Every year we do it, and we'll be at the Convention Center this year. So we have dinner, we'll have fun, we'll have a party, and we must make sure you come. So make sure that we know how to reach you. Okay? Are you with 340 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Mr. Johnson? (Witness nods head in the affirmative.)
Mr. Johnson, we'll invite him. He'll make sure that you come. So we're here for you. Mr. Johnson is always helping young people, so he'll help you. It's okay.
We bust our hide to take care of each other. And my mom, she going through a lot and it's not really -- we don't get no help. I miss my mom.
Okay. We'll try to help you. It's one of the things we do. And Mr. Johnson knows me very well for a very long time, and we'll help you in any way we can. Sir, young man, you're next. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Who, me?
Yes. You don't want to speak? All right. Thank you very much. 341 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. We thank you. Thank you all. You've done a great job. After Mayer Krain, we're going to ask Sherman Harris. He has four students with him, unless he left. Oh, dear. They have an apprenticeship program that they work in conjunction with the School District. After Mayer Krain, we're going to ask Sherman Harris and the students to come forward, if they're still here, or we certainly want to ask him to talk about his program. Mr. Krain and then Sherman Harris. Thank you.
This is not from my original speech, but I just wanted to put on the record that charter schools are not really all banged up to what they're supposed to be. Today's Inquirer, it basically shows on page Section B, they overhauled the charter school, another financial problem. I think if maybe Council would read into that. There's been some overbillings and things like 342 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. that to the School District. And I'll start my speech. I just also want to make one other comment, that charter schools are not audited by anybody. No one audits a charter school. So any monies they bill or whatever they do goes right to them and they spend it any way they want to. Okay. Chairwoman Blackwell and all the other parties that are interested in the betterment of our children's education, my name is Mayer Krain and it's spelled M-A-Y-E-R, K-R-A-I-N. I'm here today as a concerned citizen of Philadelphia, who was born, raised and lived my entire life so far in the City of Philadelphia. I'm a product of the Philadelphia public schools, a graduate of Drexel University and a licensed Pennsylvania CPA for over two decades. I pay taxes to the City of Philadelphia as a salaried employee, wage tax; a business owner, business privilege and net profits; an investor, School 343 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. District income; a property owner in the way of real estate taxes; and various other taxes that are buried in costs charged to me. Some of those taxes go directly to the benefit of the School District. I, therefore, have a strong vested interest in seeing that the Philadelphia public schools, with its students, teachers and other employees, succeed in each of their endeavors. The Paul Vallas regime originally came en mass from Chicago demanding large salaries. The current term in education is NCLB, No Child Left Behind. For Vallas, NCLB means No 17 Comrade Left Behind. He brought them here either as School District employees or as subcontractors. Mr. Vallas was given $300 million from bond proceeds to supplement annual revenues to help in reforming the education of the School District of Philadelphia. This money has all been used up within five years. 344 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Vallas circled the wagons in order to keep the City Controller from independently reviewing the School District's financial records. He now has finally admitted to suddenly the appearance of a deficit of 73 million just after his contract was renewed for two more years. There were rumors of a $100 plus million deficit for the Fiscal Year '06-'07 prior to July 2005 and before the April 2006 testimony given before City Council. Vallas also yanked away discretionary spending from the principals last school year. The School District also claimed to impose a hiring freeze. However, if you go to the SRC's resolutions on the School District website, you will find additional job creations consistently being made after the hiring freeze announcement was made. If you add to that now the admitted $73 million deficit, the $38 million that Vallas is shorting the ten-month 345 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union members with the 27 pay periods, the School District administration's contention, versus the PFT's contention of pay periods, you will now arrive at 7 the $100 plus million deficit amount. If 8 the PFT union prevails with the 9 arbitrator's decision from its lawsuit 10 expected this month, there is $38 million 11 that has not yet been factored into the 12 current budget cuts. 13 Vallas has not offered to cut 14 out contracts to vendors that are 15 non-residents of Philadelphia or 16 Pennsylvania. The School District has 17 contracts with politically connected 18 for-profit companies from Tennessee, 19 which is Community Education Partners, or 20 CEP, and New York, Edison Schools, and a 21 non-profit from New Jersey, Foundations 22 Inc.
Many ex-School District employees 23 have left the School District and signed 24 on to these companies to do work for 25 substantially more money, while receiving 346 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. their School District pensions. They accept positions with these companies and even negotiated contracts on behalf of those companies with the School District, all within a year of leaving the School District. This is a violation of School District policy that appears not to be enforced. Vallas's budget cuts are basically on the backs of approximately 188 non-politically represented little guys right now at Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday time. Many of these people are residents of the City of Philadelphia. They live here, they work here, they vote here, they raise their families here and they spend their money here. They don't take their profits back to Tennessee, New York or New Jersey. Any new monies that the City provides should be earmarked specifically to restore those people immediately back to their jobs. There is a website called 347 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. org. From this website you can obtain information on the largest Philadelphia real estate tax delinquents and the total amounts of those delinquencies. At the School Reform Commission on November 10, 2006, I provided delinquent taxpayer accounts from the City's website, which showed three rowhouses with $1,500 in annual real estate taxes owing from $16,000 to $20,000. This is not an anomaly. I believe that the City of Philadelphia should collect the massive amount of delinquent real estate taxes and provide the School District with its share of monies. Any additional money that is provided to the School District should have restrictions attached. The State Legislature placed restrictions with the EMO contractors' monies. The City should be possibly reviewing the actual School District contracts. The City provides ten years of 348 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. real estate tax abatement on newly constructed properties. That may be great for the City for current wage and business taxes, but the School District receives nothing. As a matter of fact, it receives less than nothing. The real estate value of those properties and income of those people allows the State to decrease its aid ratio to the School District. However, the School District has the cost of educating their children. We have constantly heard from the Hornbeck and Vallas administrations that our children's test scores are rising every year. So why after 12 years of increasing test scores are our children not reaching a substantial amount of proficiency? Is this all hype, and then why is the dropout rate so significant? I just wonder what the real agenda in education is of our children. Thank you for your time and consideration, Councilwoman. 349 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC.
Thank you very much. We appreciate your involvement. We met you at the School District. Thank you for your patience. Sherman Harris, we certainly invite him, and students from District Council 33 apprenticeship program that is conducted with the cooperation of the School District. Thank you very much.
We're sorry we have to bring you in here like every day.
Thank you, Madam Chairperson. First of all, originally this testimony -- I was a guest to sit while someone else read the testimony, so you'll see it says Local 1637. Also, originally I had four students with me. They had to leave, but I would like to 350 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. just state their names, because they were here. Leah Exum from West Philadelphia Auto Academy, Calvin Harrington from the West Philadelphia Auto Academy, Brittnie Lewis-Norris from the West Philadelphia Auto Academy and Veronica Richardson from William Penn Health Center. I have two of their testimonies that I just would like to read before I read mine. I think they need to be heard, because --
I am absolutely so sorry. We were just there in June congratulating this Automotive Academy.
We're proud of them. That's one of our proudest achievements. We love them. First of all, the first testimony is from Brittnie Lewis. It says, "Good morning. My name is Brittnie Lewis-Norris. I'm a 10th grader at the West Philadelphia High Auto Academy. "My opinion as a student is to add more classes/electives to schools. I 351 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. think students tend to focus more with some excitement in education. When I say classes/electives, I'm talking about business culture, learning about different religions, cosmetology, culinary arts, dance, interior design, driver's education, et cetera. This would stop students from dropping out of high school. "For the young women who have babies, schools should add child centers or daycares. Most of the school dropouts are young mothers. The reason being is that they don't have the proper help to supervise their child, so they drop out. "At West Philadelphia High, we have a trade which is automotive and engineering. The school has helped me a lot. It's smaller, and the teachers are great. Learning is exciting." That's good to hear. "I like to learn and experience different things. West Philadelphia High Auto Academy helped me accomplish that. 352 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. I am happy to know that students can lift their voices and have the opportunity to talk about what they think is wrong, what they think is right. We've had can drives, trips, after-school programs. But, of course, these are rewards for academic success. Students appreciate these rights, not only as children but as young adults. "The Automotive Academy is the best thing that has ever happened to me. It has made me realize that knowledge is the key to success and dropping out isn't for me." This is from Leah Exum. "In the mind of most high school students, school is the last thing on their mind. The reason being is that all the eye catchers have been taken away, such as home economics and our uniqueness. Over time the graduating percentage has fallen a great deal and the survivors are not prepared for the future. For example, my goal is to be an 353 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. interior designer, so working with the Auto Academy has been very informative and will prepare me for the future and prep me in my lifelong dream of working with automobiles and materials. "My teachers and guides have really inspired me to keep my goal by having interactive days in the shop and choice and decision-making on a daily basis. "If we were given more money, I think West Philadelphia High School for Automotive and Technology will succeed and overflow with successful careers and so on. Every kid is not a master in biology and they are not a mathematician. So when they look at their report card, they can say, 'I have done my best in the hard subject, but I've excelled in my sewing class or cooking class, even in my auto shop.' "Please let us have more classes with the standard one we have. Keep the children interested in school, 354 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. and the world will change. The children are our future." That's nice. That's great to hear students talk.
I wish they were here, but we do work with the students. Before I read, we work with these students, and you'll be surprised by showing a little interest and a little time in them how you can change their lives, and this is a pretty good example of children that were probably somewhat wasted or lost in the streets that they're reaching. We are here because we, like many others, are seriously concerned with the Philadelphia dropout crisis. District Council 33 families have thousands of dependent children, many of them students in the School District of Philadelphia. Our members and our union work hard to ensure that the futures of 355 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. our children are filled with opportunity. We know firsthand that dropping out diminishes opportunities. District Council 33 has formally been involved with high school students for many years. We have a track record of success when it comes to keeping students in school. We come to you today to ask that you support and expand these successful programs. Since 1993, District Council 33 has partnered with the City of Philadelphia's Office of Fleet Management in an internship and apprenticeship program. The same program also exists in the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The program begins working with high school students in the summer between 10th and 11th grades. Students become paid interns, who are mentored by our members, who are skilled automotive technicians. They work full time in the summer and part time during the school year. The program requires that students 356 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. meet strict academic and attendance standards during the two and a half years they serve as interns. During this same time, they must master basic technical competencies as well. Students who successfully complete the program become civil service automotive apprentices. Since the inception of the program, DC 33 and its members have worked with over 100 students. Over 50 have become full-time City employees and approximately 35 remain working in the public sector today. But that's not all that we have done. This summer, in conjunction with the Philadelphia Academies Incorporated and the Philadelphia Youth Network, we hosted summer interns in our computer 21 lab for the weekly career exploration and 22 development component of their summer 23 internship program. 24 We know that there is no magic 25 pill for dealing with the dropout crisis, 357 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. but as the recent study on the dropout crisis points out, engaging students in career-oriented study helps. We knew that before the study. The union is already engaged in discussion with the Department of Public Property about launching an internship and apprenticeship program for the trades positions that are so critical in maintaining the City's facilities, including police and fire facilities. In conclusion, District Council 33 is a willing partner to the City and the schools in internship programs and apprenticeship programs. We believe that the more students are connected to careers, the more likely they will succeed. We ask that you're willing to work with the Philadelphia Academies and the Philadelphia Network to continue to develop more programs. We want to expand opportunities for students in career areas beyond the auto and Internet apprentice with the City. We ask that 358 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Council and the City Administration would support and help bring about resolve and resources to the table to expand opportunities for the Philadelphia school students to work with in City government. I thank you for your time. And I also would like to thank Council for their patience and diligence in this matter, because this is an important matter, even as a parent. I have two products of public school.
One is a nurse and one is going to school to be a lawyer, and I think when we work on our school system as parents and Council and legislators, we benefit.
Thank you very much. I only regret that Paul Vallas is not here, nor the Mayor, but they understand how important this program is, and this is one of the programs that we talked about in our call for action as a way to reduce violence, and we certainly are trying to see what we can do. And the Mayor committed to 359 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. working with us on truancy to see if we could help get some programs funded and some coordinated with other funding sources so that we can have more after-school programs and for job training and libraries and rec centers and certainly in our schools. And we thank you for your commitment for all that you do. It's a wonderful program.
Thank you very much. Dr. James Roebuck was here. He left his statement. He could not be here. We will submit it in its entirety to our record. Dr. Arthur Evans, Commissioner, Department of Human Services, was due to speak on truancy. Our day has been too long. And we saw Pamela Crawley from Citizens Bank leave. So we regret that she could not stay. We see Shelly Yanoff, Executive Director of PCCY, Philadelphia Citizens 360 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. for Children and Youth. We invite you to come. We also have down Sheila Simmons, your Education Coordinator.
Madam Chair, I'm here today with the Youth Transitions, the group that's working on dropout prevention primarily. Could either I ask them to join me and then we'll move to Sheila --
-- or since it's so late, would you prefer if we reschedule? This dropout prevention issue is so important. Would it be more conducive to reschedule it or should we go forward?
If we had hearings on dropout rate later, I can't tell you when they would be. Thursday we recess. That's why we had this hearing today. Thursday Council recesses, and though we will be here in our offices, we don't have another session until January 23rd when the Mayor 361 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. presents his budget. So that's going to limit our time even further, because as all of you here know, once we're on the budget, we have to fight for time to get in our hearings. So we could have it, but it could be -- I have hearings scheduled on the 23rd and the 30th. It wouldn't be until maybe sometime around Valentine's Day and --
Well, maybe we can do some today and maybe we can reschedule it for a follow-up after Valentine's Day.
Okay. Mr. Vernard Johnson, we're going to call on you for testimony. We're going to call any and everybody here who would like to speak, will be considered, and your statement will be in full on the record. 362 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Also, as you're coming forward, we will submit testimony, as the President already said, from Alfred M. Brown, Point Breeze Performing Arts; Jane Kauer, Parents United for Public Education and Powel School; Greg Wade, Philadelphia Home and School Council; Reverend Robert P. Shine, who left his testimony as well. We will submit all of that for the record. Thank you. We welcome you all.
Thank you. And again, Madam Chair, I hope I'm not trying your patience too much, but --
No. 17 You're fine. We thank you for your patience.
Candace Bell from the William Penn Foundation has to leave in five minutes and she was a part of our testimony, so may she start and then I'll come back?
And certainly let me acknowledge that Mr. Len Finkelstein was here. He was the superintendent back when I was a kid in elementary school. He wanted to testify. He's worried about youth violence, as was Dr. Audrey Brunson, Pastor of Sanctuary Church of the Open Door and former Professor at Cheyney University. Welcome. I'm sorry. Thank you for your patience.
Well, thank you. I'm glad to have this opportunity to testify. My name is Candace Bell and I'm a Program Officer at the William Penn Foundation, and I'm in charge of their education-related grant making, and I'm here to speak in support of Project U-turn, which I think has been referred to by various names here, from Youth Transitions to the Collaborative to any number of other names, but we've been calling it Project U-turn. As you know, the William Penn's 364 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. commitment to education in Philadelphia is both longstanding and substantial, as is our commitment to ensuring the economic and social well-being of the City. The dropout crisis as described in the Project U-turn report, which I believe you all have had opportunity to look at, and testified to by those who are going to come after me here is one that has serious implications beyond school reform or quality of life in our neighborhoods. Philadelphia cannot move into the 21st century with close to 50 percent of its young adults not having a 12th grade level of proficiency. What employer is going to move here with half the workforce unqualified for jobs in this new high-tech economy? This is a ball and chain on progress at all levels that cannot be ignored any longer. It impacts the City's economy, its tax burden, its safety, quality of life and its civic life. The Foundation first became 365 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. involved with this issue through a national funders affinity group called the Youth Transition Funders Group in 2002. We participated in the design and funding of the seven-city initiative that has produced what I am calling Project U-turn here in Philadelphia, and similar initiatives are underway in Boston, New York, Portland, San Jose, Washington, DC and Las Vegas. Locally, the Foundation has invested $2.4 million to date in this issue as part of the local matching funds that is required by the National Foundations. We feel a critical element to the success of Project U-turn has been the participation of multiple systems in this initiative, because we feel this is a problem that goes beyond what the District can do on its own. We are proud of the fact that the District, Department of Human Services, Family Court and the Youth Council have set aside politics and brought their best minds to bear on this 366 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. issue. And I cannot underscore that enough. That has gone on in a way that we rarely see in this initiative. Not surprisingly, Philadelphia stands out among the other cities in its progress to date. In fact, Philadelphia has an opportunity, with Council support -- and I think that's really important and that's why we're delighted that you're going to actually have these hearings today and prioritize them ahead of some other things. This is why Philadelphia really is set to become a national leader on this issue. The William Penn Foundation for its part is committed to supporting Project U-turn going forward. National Foundation investment will also continue through the Youth Transition Funders Group, provided the City systems and the District continue to work together and prioritize this problem for investment. Thank you.
Thank 367 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. you very much. Your name again is?
Is Wyneshia Foxworth, City Year, still here? (No response.)
I know there were many folks here and they left. What about Greenfield School, anyone here from Greenfield?
Good afternoon. My name is Laura Shubilla. I'm the President of the Philadelphia Youth Network, and the Philadelphia Youth Network is the lead agency, the convening organization, in the Youth Transitions Collaborative, which has recently branded itself as -- and Project U-turn is the initiative the Collaborative launched this fall. I'm happy to be here today and speaking in front of you about what I think is a critically important issue to the City, as you've heard from many people who have gone before me. You have written testimony from myself and Pamela Crawley that's attached to the two reports that the Collaborative released earlier this fall looking at the issue of sort of the scale and the characteristics of young people who drop out of school in the City and also a set of recommendations about what we can do about it. So given the time, I'll be 369 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. very brief with my written --
I'm just going to highlight three things that I believe that we've learned through the work that we've done this year, and then other members of the Collaborative will go into more detail about some of the work. But the first is, we talked earlier about whether this was prevention or whether it was early intervention or whether it was reengagement and recovery, and I think what we've learned from the research on the projects that we've done this year is that it isn't any one of those things but it's all of them. So we must do as much prevention as we can, intervene as early as we find red flags and then continue to work with young 370 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. people through their transition into high school and on to college. The second thing that young people pointed out repeatedly over the last months is, it's about 7 connections, and those connections are 8 about young people feeling connected to 9 adults, whether it's adults in the school 10 building and adults in their community, 11 and making connections between what young 12 people learn in school and what they want 13 to do with the rest of their lives, 14 whether it's employment or college. 15 The third thing is that most 16 young people really want to come back to 17 school, and the obstacles they faced in 18 doing that are varied. One thing we've learned from the 500 young people we've been working with who came to Project U-turn or who have been calling the hotline ever since has been the top two obstacles they faced are child care and housing, and the top two opportunities that they're looking for are employment 371 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. and the ability to earn a high school diploma. Several of the recommendations that are in the reports I think sort of stress what we think are some of the key elements to the success of this. The first is really building multiple pathways to graduation. The second is ensuring cross sector collaboration, and the third is accountability. I thank you for your time.
Good afternoon. My name is Courtney Collins-Shapiro. I'm from the School District of Philadelphia and I'm running the new Multiple Pathways to Graduation, a program in the District, and the focus of that department is really to sort of identify all of the programs that service out-of-school youth and students at risk of dropping out, figuring out how we create new options for them so that they 372 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. can graduate and be successful. So, again, given our brief time, I have printed comments that I'll make sure that you have. I want to focus on five programs that we've created within the past months that we're either starting 9 or we've retooled so that we can really 10 reach this group of students. 11 First we have accelerated high 12 schools. You heard Mr. Vallas talk 13 briefly about those, called them our 14 transition schools. We have four 15 accelerated high schools in the City of 16 Philadelphia right now. We're serving 17 775 students and we have 830 students on 18 wait lists, who actively signed up and are ready to enroll if we had seats for them. We'll be opening 125 new seats in January of 2007. And when we look at our data in the School District of Philadelphia right now, when Mr. Vallas talked about overage undercredited students, we have about 7,100 students 373 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. currently enrolled in the high schools who are one or two years behind either in credits or in age to graduation. So we have a pool right now in schools of more than 7,000 students who could enroll in an accelerated high school if we had seats. Additionally, our researcher is not here any longer, but from the dropout reports that you have, the Project U-turn reports, it does show that there are about 8,200 students dropping out every year. So if you took those 7,100 students who are highly at risk and those 8,200 students who have dropped out, we've got a pretty large pool of students who need additional services through things like accelerated high schools. We also have our Educational Options Program that also serves overage undercredited students who are a little further along towards their diploma but have dropped out. We serve 2,000 students in that program now. We had 800 374 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. students earn a high school diploma in that program last year, and we estimate we have about 1,000 students who would be eligible for that program if we can provide seats. This year our sort of jewel in the crown is the Gateway to College Program. We just started that program at Community College of Philadelphia. The School District of Philadelphia and the Gates Foundation fund that program. We had 40 high school dropouts who joined the program in fall of 2006. We'll have 60 more students who will enroll in January of 2007. And if we get to our estimated full enrollment in 2009, we'll have 400 students who were previously out of school who will be enrolled full time, earning both a high school diploma and an Associate's degree at CCP. So it's a really great program. It requires an 8th grade literacy level. One of the things I think if Center for Literacy were here to talk 375 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. more about some of their programs, we find that about 90 percent of the students who apply to that program aren't eligible because they're reading below an 8th grade level, and these are high school dropouts. So we're creating -- 90 percent of the students who apply are not eligible because they are so low literacy, so we're starting to address that issue and create some new literacy programs for those students so that they can come back and earn their diplomas. And then two new programs that we've just started. One is the Dropout Prevention Specialists Program.
We're hiring trained social workers in seven high schools to focus specifically on the most at-risk 9th grade students in those schools and on students who have dropped out of those high schools who are going to be coming back to earn a diploma. So students who are coming back from juvenile placement, teen parents, that demographic. 376 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. So those folks are going to be doing this work starting in January. We're modeling after a program in Boston that's been very successful at bringing students back to school and keeping them in. And, finally, we have a program that's really targeted in school youth. It's called the Student Success Center Program. We have eight of them currently in neighborhood high schools. They provide college support, academic preparation, career exploration services and social support services. So we take School District staff and non-profit and community-based organization staff and resources, we pull everything together. We create like a one-stop shopping for students in high schools. So, again, we have those in eight neighborhood high schools, and they really are focusing on every student in the school and, in some cases, students in the community. So students can come in after school, before 377 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. school. There are summer programs that operate out of those centers. So those are five major things that the District is doing. And, again, in closing, everybody sort of talked a little bit here about we need funding, we need resources. You heard Candace Bell talk about how Philadelphia is becoming a national leader in these efforts. We've had folks from Annenberg in. We've had folks from Gates in to take a look at Philadelphia. They need to see that the City is investing in our out-of-school youth and our at-risk youth if they're going to continue to invest in Philadelphia. So thank you for your time.
Thank you. Very important testimony. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon again. My name is Brian Armstead. I'm the Director of Civic Engagement for the 378 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Philadelphia Education Fund. I also submitted written testimony, but I'm just going to hit the essentials since we are running short on time. But I do want to thank you, first of all, for having these hearings and encourage you, again, to follow up with Shelly and with Laura to really hold either continued briefings or hearings, because this is an issue that is going to require the entire City of Philadelphia community to really get our hands around. I think that it's easy just to have several people get up and start talking about initiatives that we're working on, but the true fact of the matter is, it's going to take the political folks in the City, it's going to take the business community, the civil leaders and the people at large to really make a demonstrated difference in this. And so, again, I would encourage you all to use the resources, the stature that you all have to really galvanize people and 379 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. influence ideas in the City working in conjunction with the steering committee from the Collaborative to really make a profound difference here. The Philadelphia Education Fund, our particular role in this process has been we were working with Johns Hopkins University to conduct the research that you all have heard a lot about today; in particular, tracking the cohort of over 12,000 Philadelphia students that entered 6th grade in 1996-'97 and followed them through to 2003-2004 to look and see who graduated, who didn't, what were some of the factors that can be pulled out to identify as early as 6th grade as being indicators that these kids are not going to graduate. And four things jumped out. The first is if the young boy or girl in 6th grade was failing math; second, failing English; third, had low attendance, which was attending school 80 percent or less of the time; and the 380 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. fourth was poor behavior, which was having a poor behavioral grade in the last marking period. With those four things, if a child has any one of those four things, then the way the study played itself out, nine out of ten of them, nine out of ten of those kids, will not graduate on time. And so the fact that we're able to identify these factors becomes very important, because by the time a child gets to 9th grade, normally they're hitting the trifecta or the quadfecta, whatever you want to call it, with all four. They may be failing math and English, have behavior problems, they're not coming to school. But in 6th grade, generally the child only has one, maybe two of those factors going on, so that we can apply much more specific targeted interventions. And we've started to do that. We've started working with the School District to begin to apply some of those 381 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. interventions and see what's the best way that we can steer these kids back on course to graduation. But, again, the fact of the matter is that working in 6th grade is only a part of the issue and that we have to make sure that the entire continuum of secondary education moves kids toward graduation. And so, again, with my limited time, I'm just going to say, before Shelly yanks the microphone from out in front of me, just, again, continue to encourage you all to exercise real visible leadership around this issue. Thank you.
My name is Kristin Shipler. I'm the Director of Civil Engagement with a community-based 382 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. non-profit organization called Congreso de Latinos Unidos.
We're the largest Latino social service agency in Pennsylvania and we are also a part of the Philadelphia Youth Transition Collaborative, because we do prioritize the issue of out-of-school youth within our organization. We want to thank City Council for prioritizing the needs of the Latino population in our great city, especially knowing that the Latino communities have unique challenges and they're actually a growing population in Philadelphia. Since 1990, the Latino population in Philadelphia has increased by over 65 percent, with our current population estimates now placed at over 145,000, and almost 50 percent of Latinos in Philadelphia are younger than years 24 of age. 25 Let me start by introducing a 383 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. statistic that was highlighted in the Project U-turn report. 2 percent. So we've been talking a lot about the 50 percentile, but we're actually in the Latino community talking about 30 percent graduation. Less than 40 percent of our population in Eastern North Philadelphia, which was where we are located, has graduated from high school. We know the crisis is real for all of our youth and it's especially so for Latinos. And when you look at the language and cultural barriers and the poverty that faces the Latino community, that's why we're seeing that the dropout rate is so profound there. But we've been in the community for 30 years, and our services reach more than 10,000 youth per year. Our client base is about 23,000. We're also working 384 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. with the parents of these youth. We view the schools as the heart of the community, and as such, we've strategically aligned many of our youth programs with the education system. Our contribution to the school system provides supports to prevent high school dropouts, and we need to address the root causes that lead youth to drop out of school in the first place, and we've heard a lot about that today. We realize this isn't enough. There are many youth already out of school who need the community's support. So in response to this, I've been asked to talk specifically about what Congreso does to serve out-of-school youth, and that is, by managing one of the City's E3 centers. The E3 centers were designed as intensive career preparation programs for youth age between 14 and 21, and students who drop out of schools are very unlikely to return. So that's why E3 centers are 385 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. really great for them, because they provide an appropriate and youth-driven context. Students who come to the youth centers actually have some decision-making within the process of how the program is run. And we help educate our clients toward reaching a high school equivalency diploma and we help them build skills that they need to enter the workforce. Members work with our staff to identify career interests, set goals and gain the skills they needed to achieve them. But this is hard work and it takes extensive dedication to each of the youth to ensure that they meet the goals set out for them. On average, currently $3,000 is dedicated to each youth slot in an E3 center. This is an amount that differs quite dramatically from upwards of 40,000 that can be spent on youth placed in residential treatment centers. The research demonstrates that 386 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. the primary critical factor in successful intervening with this population is a caring adult, and as such, we have committed a case worker to each of the youth that come into the E3 centers. This differs a little bit from what you see in the schools. But as such, we propose increased capacity within the current centers to fully address the myriad of needs that each of our clients present. In addition, we advocate for additional E3 centers that are substantially less expensive than the alternative of residential centers and, if implemented, can demonstrate the same outcomes if funded adequately.
With an emphasis on quality over quantity, we will more likely ensure real positive change in the lives of the clients we serve. We have seen in the year that we have operated the E3 center the absolute essential component of personal connections with adults. Again, 387 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. an adult connection is one of the most influential components that lead an out-of-school youth towards success. And I just want to give you one example of one of our students that goes there. Christina -- and this is not her real name, but she's a 17-year-old Latina who dropped out of high school when she was 14. She was in 9th grade. She became pregnant, and when her baby was born, her mother kicked her out of the house. So where does this leave Christina? She doesn't have consistent child care. She's been evicted three times from housing. She doesn't have relationships with her parents, the father of her daughter or other relatives, and she's an only child. And she's currently looking for work, but because of her child care situation, she hasn't been able to hold down a job. And this is very common for the students that we serve in these E3 centers. She's not a rare case. 388 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. But she connected to the E3 center in January of 2006, and so far, her skills have improved from 4th grade to 7th grade reading and math levels. She's currently enrolled in a GED program. She's completed a six-week program in computer repair, and she works to hours within the E3 center. 10 Just as important, though, through case 11 management she has found more stable 12 housing and child care. She's built 13 better peer and social networks, and 14 she's working toward involving the father 15 of her daughter in their lives. 16 So the E3 center is really a 17 wholistic approach, and case management 18 is very essential. 19 The connection she's made with 20 her case manager and the direction the case manager has been able to provide her have been the successful keys. But she's not quite there. We can't give up on her until she actually receives her GED and she receives sustainable employment. And 389 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. we're committed to get her there, but it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of resources. There are many Christinas in Philadelphia, and we aim to provide quality, outcomes-based results that will lead our clients to self-sufficiency. The collaboration of all these organizations here is significant, and we need support. With City Council prioritizing this grave issue of dropouts, we attend to, in tandem, the overrepresentation of Latinos and African-Americans in the juvenile justice system, the violence that's gripping our City, and the economic and social impact that's debilitating Philadelphia's efforts to become a more prosperous urban center. Thank you for listening.
Thank you very much. Very important testimony. Sir.
Yes. My name is 390 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Charles Rand. I'm with the Center for Literacy. The Center for Literacy is the largest community-based non-profit literacy provider in the country. On behalf of the Center for Literacy, I am pleased to be here today to discuss the needs of youth at risk of dropping out of school because of low literacy levels. During the 2004-2005 fiscal year, CFL, Center for Literacy, worked with 985 out-of-school youth age 14 through 21. These were high school 15 dropouts, both male and female, 16 representing all races. These young people came to CFL with goals, wanting a high school diploma or a GED. Who are these youth? They are under 21, and 77 percent were reading below a 6th grade level, and 87 percent had math skills below the 6th grade level. Some were in special education, while others were low achievers. Many have adult responsibilities as parents 391 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. and workers, and need support as they search for housing and strive to overcome barriers. The Center for Literacy's Citywide programs are open to these youth in neighborhood centers, in community programs and family literacy programs. Some of the classes were designed particularly with youth in mind. In others, the youth were integrated with adult learners of all ages. Starting in July of 2005, literacy coaching was in the E3 centers. At the same time, the Center for Literacy was developing a toolkit for teaching out-of-school youth with low literacy skills as part of the City of Philadelphia's response to the challenge of working with struggling youth using funding from the Youth Transition Funders Group, the Collaborative. The research and professional literature were analyzed for this project, and it can be summarized as follows: 392 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Serving the literacy needs of out-of-school youth, particularly those reading below the 6th grade level, is a complex task. Adolescence is a time for upheaval for the vast majority of people and is made more difficult by the kinds of situations that require youth to leave school early. If teachers serving the out-of-school youth population come to better understand how adolescents develop, how they are different from adults and how to provide quality reading instruction to meet their needs, these learners will be better served regardless of the educational setting. The toolkit contains a Literature Review, including research as well as reflections of the evaluator and several teachers, a professional development plan, standards and indicators of quality program, and sample lesson plans. Examples of the standards and indicators of critical importance to a quality education program for low 393 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. literate youth include direct reading instruction is systematic and structured. That's Standard No. 6. Which must work hand in hand with Standard No. 7, instructional methods capture the learners' attention and actively engage him or her in the learning process and, as we've heard time and again today, class size is kept small. That's Standard No. 12. Furthermore, quality staff development is critical to the literacy skills development of these youth. In implementing this toolkit, what have we found out? First of all, students with small group tutoring by reading specialists or a trained adult educator can achieve results of two to three grade levels in four months of instruction. Second, to enable these youth to continue in the program, they require a system of providing caring adult guidance. 394 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. There's a great deal of work ahead for all of us as we hope to provide promise to these youth.
We believe that the collaborative partnerships are essential in creating, implementing and bringing to scale the educational options being discussed, and we strongly encourage the leadership of Philadelphia to reflect on the impact low literacy has on our region's economic health and the power of literacy in helping youth contribute to the future of our great city. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today.
Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Shelly, too, for putting this important, important panel together.
Hi. My name is Meredith Malloy and I am speaking on behalf of YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter 395 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. School. YouthBuild Philadelphia is an innovative academic and job-training program for young adults to who 6 have dropped out of high school. 7 Students enrolled in the program rebuild 8 abandoned houses for low-income families 9 and refurbish computers for community 10 organizations. 11 As the young people develop 12 these valuable job skills, they also work 13 toward earning a high school diploma. 14 Students spend half their time on the 15 hands-on vocational work site and the 16 other half of their time in the classroom 17 where they receive individualized 18 instruction and life skills counseling. 19 Our unique program design draws 20 on the assets inherent in these young 21 people and provides at-risk, out-of-school youth an opportunity to become a positive workforce reversing urban blight, while rebuilding their own lives at the same time. 396 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Each year YouthBuild receives about four times as many applications as there are slots. We provide each student with academic instruction, job training, case management, in-house mentoring, life skills training, leadership development and career development. The program does not end with earning a high school diploma. We offer real supports and opportunities that create clear pathways for future success. Programs like YouthBuild are essential for out-of-school youth in our community. The level of service that YouthBuild provides cannot be sustained without a financial commitment from our community. When we commit resources to our youth, we make a wise investment in the community that reaps benefits for years to come. Young people come to YouthBuild depleted. They have significant needs that we are fortunately able to meet. Our ability to meet these needs of the 397 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. students so that they can become productive citizens requires an investment from the community. It's an investment that pays significant dividends. Since 1992, more than 1,200 young adults have graduated from the program. YouthBuild students have rebuilt 61 homes for low-income families and donated 1,000 refurbished computers to community organizations and schools. Over 80 percent of our last three graduating classes have gone on to meaningful full-time jobs or continued their education. These outcomes are impressive, but they do not come cheap. YouthBuild has successfully leveraged public funding from local, state and federal sources as well as private investments to achieve these results, and we urge your continued support for programs like YouthBuild. Thank you.
Thank you. Well, I will be brief, no matter how long it takes. My name is Shelly Yanoff and I am Executive Director of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth. We are the major trial advocacy organization in the region. You've heard a lot about young people who drop out and its impact on all of us. This is the story: There are 13,000 kids every year, 13,000 that we lose. If we're going to survive as a city with a future, we have to change that. There are things Council can and should do that can make a difference. The first is what you are doing right now, and that's pay attention to it. If 13,000 people were infected with a virus, they would close the bridges. We'd be a quarantined city. It would have been noticed. We would have 399 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. had lots of newspaper headlines. We would have done something about it. We would have found the money and found the solutions, because we were quarantined. Well, there are 13,000 kids every year who we're losing, and we can do a whole lot better than we have. It's not the School District's job alone. It's not the City's job alone. It's not the community's job alone. It's not the parents' job alone. It's not the students' job alone. It's all of our jobs. Most of the kids who dropped out said they had no one to talk with about school and school problems or about their own problems. Many said that their absences were not even noticed when they dropped out. Some who dropped out had been in foster care during high school. Between 70 and 80 percent of these kids drop out. You, the City, can do something about that. These kids are 400 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. known to us. You can provide DHS with support to place social workers in high schools to provide the counseling and help these youth need. We urge you to support DHS in taking responsibility for these young people who age out of care and drop out. You can support funding for follow-up with these youth and funding for reentry. We also urge you to look again at what's happening to teen parents. They give birth, they leave school. Again, many of these young women, almost 70 percent, will drop out if they have a baby during high school. Many times they would like to return, but do not have anyone helping them put the parenting, caring, school pieces together. These young women go to prenatal care. They need someone to help connect them back to school. We have in the City, in the City Health Department, in the hospitals, teams of nurses and other community 401 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. outreach programs that support new parents. Many of these are evidence-based services. They have good records. But there's not enough of them to pay special attention to teens and their needs to connect back to schools. Council could support such a team in the health centers in collaboration with local hospitals and outreach programs. You have supported those outreach programs over the years. You can make this a special initiative. The support would help two generations. We know that students who fall behind stay behind, and so we urge you to support a variety of efforts to assist these kids the minute they start to fall behind, whether it's in 6th grade, as Brian has discussed when kids are having trouble with math and reading and starting behavior problems, or in 8th grade or 9th grade. We know what to do. We just don't do it because we don't dedicate the dollars to it. You can do 402 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. this. Keeping clear of all of the other educational laws, you can do this as a city. We need many new pathways, and Courtney has described many of them that the School District has started, but she's also told you that there are huge waiting lists, and these are waiting lists of the kids that have been awakened. There's a gazillion kids out there that we haven't knocked on their doors that don't know to come in.
So you know what it's like to work with kids who are invisible. These kids have been invisible, and we've got to make them visible and respond to them. If ever there was a time to put more supports in our schools so that all youth could be engaged and connected, this time is here. Yet, once again, we're facing rounds of cuts, making regular school less and less inviting to many of the disaffected and disconnected youth. We are awfully glad that the cuts 403 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. that have been proposed are less than they could have been, but we didn't start with a fat cushion in this District. We need to spend more in our schools at the city, state and federal levels. We know what to do. We need to continue supporting successful projects that look out for kids, especially those that are in transition, like the reintegration project which supports educational transition for youth returning from placement. We need to provide extra supports for kids in 6th and 8th and 9th grades. The problem of youth not finishing high school is not new. It's not even particularly escalating. However, its impact is new. We do not have jobs anymore for kids who do not have a high school education. If they don't have jobs, they're going to get into trouble. If they get into trouble, we're going to end up paying a whole lot in many different ways for it. So it 404 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. makes sense for us as a city, as a community and as a school district to figure out how we can collaborate to really make a change, to really make a U-turn, in these kids' lives, and in doing so, we will have made a U-turn in Philadelphia's hopes for a better future. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you all for your very, very important testimony and your patience. Thank you all.
Thank you. Madam Chair, one more thing, Sheila Simmons from our office was going to talk for a minute, just a minute, on the City budget, School District budget.
All right. As she's speaking, we want Vernard Johnson, Southeast Pennsylvania Network for Family Health and Education and Welfare to know he'll be next. Did we hear from Carol Fixman?
No. She had to 405 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. leave.
Is there anyone here from Citywide Student Government? (No response.)
I guess Jerome Chaney, President of Nu-Juice, had to leave. I know Eric Ward, Keeping It Real, CEO, had to leave. What about John Hopkins University? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She had to leave.
Oh, it's all so very sad. So if er schedule it in two bits, then you miss the Mayor and the CEO of the School District and you feel disrespected. If we do it like this, it's called we lose, we lose. Is Courtney Collins-Shapiro here?
We had her. What about Build the Bridge International? 406 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. (No response.)
Nobody knows? Natalie Payne. Okay. Mr. Johnson, thank you. Ms. Simmons, begin, and then Mr. Johnson.
Yes. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 3 million budget deficit. It did so through a number of painful cuts to programs, services and personnel that had been instituted to improve the education of our children. Chief among the losses is the apparent lack of a commitment to smaller class size. In a May 2003 staff memo, school CEO, Paul Vallas, called reducing class size our number one priority. Finally, he said, We are eliminating the practice of staff reductions in a school due to downward leveling. Such efforts, 407 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. he said, would reduce teacher turnover and increase the District's ability to attract and retain highly qualified teachers. The result of such targeted attention was, in part, more stable learning environments and double digit test score improvements. SRC Chairman James Nevels cited the Council of Great City Schools in calling our gains among the largest posted by any of the 50 biggest urban school systems in the country. Among the reasons to which he attributed such results, he pointed to improving conditions for teachers by reducing class sizes in 2,300 classrooms and by adding 225 academic coaches who help teachers tackle deficiencies in literacy, math and science. " ROI is a finance term meaning return on investment, the comparison of the money earned on an investment to the amount of 408 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. money invested. Now, what are we investing and in what areas? We call on you to provide more funding. For kindergarten to the third grade, the national norm for class size is 25. In Philadelphia, the School District has capped class sizes at 30 students for kindergarten to third grade and 33 students in upper grades, and the PFT did testify that we now have 172 overcrowded classes. Numerous studies have pointed out the advantages of smaller class size. Chief among them is the well-known Project STAR, which is Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio, that looked at 7,000 students in 75 schools over five years. Some students were in classrooms with 13 to 17 students per teacher, and others remained in standard size classes with 22 to 25 teachers. That report found that students in smaller classes in K through 3 earned significantly higher scores on basic 409 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. skill tests in all four years and across all types of schools. The students from the smaller classes continued to achieve at higher rates than their peers, even after they returned to standard size classes in grades 4 and beyond. In kindergarten, 55 percent of the students who scored in the top ten percent on standardized measures came from the small classes. Once those students moved to the third grade, 78 percent of the top-scoring students were from the small class group. The effects of this study were largest for students in inner city classes. Other reports have shown that when teachers spent time with students, test scores rose and discipline problems dropped. Recent census data showed that nearly one in four Philadelphians live in poverty. We know that a quality education for our children and future workforce is the greatest determinant in 410 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. escaping this fate. We as a community need to set some priorities for what we envision of our public educational system. If many of these priorities are determined by funding, then it is time that we as a community fully explore the directions of that funding, including the expenses involved in educational management organizations, alternative disciplinary schools and any number of private contracts. While PCCY encourages such exploration, we also stress that no 15 further studies are needed to confirm the positive impact of smaller class sizes. Every day that our children spend in this scientifically discouraged environment is a missed opportunity towards improving our children's future and our own. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ms. Simmons. Thank you. Mr. Johnson, thank you. Thank 411 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. you for bringing the youngsters with you and for your work over the years in this field. Thank you.
They just wanted to know if you was providing supper for tonight. How are you, Councilwoman?
Good. I really after being here all day, I really don't have a whole lot more to add to what's been said, other than a few things. I believe the District could use more dollars to support the expansion of some of its efforts, and specifically I'm just going to talk about attendance, truancy, dropout, that kind of thing. If you don't mind, can I bring this forward? These are some students, about 50 students, that we've worked with over the last three or four years. They're students from a school in South Philadelphia. 412 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. If you look at where the names should be, I blanked the names out. You'll see unexcused absences and then you'll see excused and VOS, means out of school suspensions, the number of days that were assigned to those suspensions, and I believe there's a category for lateness. We don't talk about lateness very much. Maybe I'll spend some time talking about lateness. And if you'll flip the page, you'll see that the unexcused absences get progressively worse to the point that one student -- that was from grades K to 7 -- to the point that one student almost had an entire year, 340-some days, of unexcused absences. Nothing new, Councilwoman. We've been talking about, you and I and other people, have been talking about this for years. I mean, literally years. When Secretary of Welfare Richman was the Health Commissioner, I remember a meeting that we had in the Caucus Room with her 413 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. and the DHS Commissioner talking about this issue.
We remember when we even talked about trying to get places for them near University City High School, whether they should be emancipated adults and places for them to stay, all these issues.
The scripture says there's nothing new under the sun and I suppose there isn't.
Sometimes I wonder if I've been doing this too long, because we've seen all this come before us before. And this is not new, but the impact is more extreme in our neighborhoods. Programs come and go, Councilwoman, as you know. When the dollars are there, the programs are 414 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. there. When the dollars are gone, the programs are gone. And so I'd just like to stress that you hear very little about supports to the family. We heard about services to children in schools, programs to children in schools. Our families are in dire need of support. The Secretary of Education was just out in the hallway with one of my students trying to see how she can link services, and I appreciate that, trying to see how she can link services to a student of mine. I think that when the School District looks for homeless students, they look in shelters. That's not the only place people are homeless. You can be homeless living with your aunt, living with your uncle, but it's not your home and you're not in control of it, and that's what many of our students are facing. I now have about 25 students in 415 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. cyber schools that we're managing every day in my wife's non-profit. These children stay home three days a week, they come to us two days a week. We have students from grade levels through 12. 7 Most of them are undercredited, most of them. The students that spoke at the table today were not undercredited, but they're struggling, and if we don't watch out, pretty soon they won't be able to find a way into the classroom. So we put them in cyber schools at the suggestion of their parents. We provide them with the social supports, and we do that from our own resources. And I just wanted to say that a lot of the agencies -- and I preface that by saying agencies -- that provide our children and families with services come from outside of the community where the children live, and that the community-based organizations that are in those neighborhoods, I think we need to be looking at those organizations and 416 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. seeing how we could put a collaborative partnership together with those organizations and the William Penn Foundation so that those organizations that are going to provide the service with or without money -- and I think sometimes people take that for granted, but with -- I'm glad you're looking at that, because some of those organizations are listed right there in that book. That's a report that we gave to the School District last year. We gave it to the School Reform Commission. I know each and every one of those students by name, see them on the street. And 90 percent of those students still have poor attendance. And we gave that information to the SRC last school term. It's nice to talk about new programs, but what are we going to do with those students and far more students than those that I'm sure are in our classrooms every day? The Mayor talks about bringing students back into 417 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. buildings. What are we going to do with them when they get back into the building? Are they going to run the hall? Are they going to go to class? Are they not going to go to class? So those are the kinds of things that I wanted to come forward and talk about today. And I'm kind of wiped out listening to all this other testimony, but I really wanted to stay to the end so I can hear other people. And someone from the School District is here, so I'm sure that she'll go back and talk about some of the things I'm saying.
Thank you. So they go 6:00 to 8:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays?
No. It's interesting, because they can wake up at 8:00 in the morning or 12:00 in the afternoon and still get their lessons. They come to us from roughly 9 o'clock in the morning and they stay with us until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 418 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Our focus with them is, we do their health and we do their gym with them, their physical education, but we also talk to them about work, about careers. So now we're working with the Free Library downtown. On January the 11th in the Education Department, they're going to do a seminar for our children and their families on how to enter into a career. A lot of our kids got to go to work. We're talking about college, and that's great, and we can talk about trade school, and that's great.
They're between the ages of, I'd say, 13 and up. We have several girls from Girls High that got into situations and stopped going to school. So we have all kind of kids. All of them are bright. Just because they stay home and they're truant don't mean they're not bright. A lot of our kids are facing and trying to deal with 419 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. adult situations. If we could train and work with the parents and work with the families to handle their business, as the kids might say, so then the kids could handle their business, and that's going to school, and keeping them out of adult responsibilities and adult business and free them up so they could pay attention to themselves, then that's what we try to do. And so I'm not picking us up and putting anybody else down, but our children -- Ms. Bussey wants to go to work. She wants to help her family. And I've been here not too much in the recent years, but in the past years I've come in and the Health Department comes in and says that they have entry-level positions that go unfilled. We went over with my students here, we went over to the Municipal Courts to the Human Resource Department at the Municipal Courts and we talked to the lady over there, and she said we're going to have a lot of people retiring 420 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. over the next four or five years, but the challenge where the kids coming from the Philadelphia public school system for them is that they can't type 50 words a minute. They can't take words in constructive letter, because if they could do that, then there may be some entry-level position right here in government that our children could fill. So the only thing I'm saying is that a lot of our kids want to go to work. I didn't hear anybody really talk about work today. And, Councilwoman, you can keep that and make a copy of it and I can just get it --
I can get it -- what's today? Monday. I can get it Thursday when I come down. Is that okay?
Because I think 421 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. maybe that would be helpful to you. So if you have a student from kindergarten to 6th grade who has missed 200, 300 days of school, just unexcused, that family needs some support. Now, that's when the parent was more responsible to getting them to school, right? So now the student goes to 7th and 8th grade. We expect him to go to school on his own without stopping at the corner store? When the students come to school late, I'd take Mr. Vallas up on the idea about visiting schools. Go to any high school. When students are late, they get put into the auditorium. They miss first period class, and they go to class. There's an opportunity where you have them right there to begin to do something with them with the dollars and the staff that you have right there. So I'm not going to take any more time, but I just wanted to come in here and say that -- tomorrow we're 422 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. meeting with Brenda Taylor, a group of -- Ms. Taylor, she wasn't here today. She runs the Office of Specialized Services, is the provider of special services for the School District. We're meeting with her tomorrow and we're going to create a network over the next year of community-based providers. Those providers are -- the Boards of Directors are made up of people who live in the neighborhood where the organization provides services and have an operating budget of less than a quarter million dollars. Not very many organizations that were before you today fit that mold. So Ms. Taylor wants to meet with those groups so she can talk to them and get an understanding of what kind of services that they provide to see how we could develop a relationship. And all these dollars don't have to come from the School District. Because I heard somebody else up there today talk about there are other organizations out here 423 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. that have funding to do some of this work, and if we went and got them and brought them in, maybe we could convince them to pay more attention to children and families of school-age children and their families, is what I'm trying to say. So Greg Nelson and -- you understand what I'm saying? And Dr. Jones down there on Broad Street and his wife, Yvonne, who has a letter in there of Urban Solutions. There are all kinds of groups that are out here. The bureaucracy is such that sometimes those groups don't want to get involved with the School District. They don't always want money; it's just the bureaucracy. And I'm not saying organizations don't need money. I know you're not taking my words wrong, but there are a lot of people out here who would like to help the School District. The School District has to learn how to be a partner, not always be 424 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. the lead player, but be a partner at the table. And so I'm hoping that with your guidance and support and the guidance and support of your colleagues and people at the state level that we might be able to pull together a coalition -- maybe the Secretary could work with us -- to pull together a neighborhood-based type of coalition so that you can -- I used to chair Healthy Start. I'll close with this: I was the Chair of Healthy Start. We sit here and we talk about infant mortality. We talk about babies being born to teenagers, yet Lee Tolbert was the -- Francis Walker were Chairs before I was the Chair and yet you don't see those folks in schools the way they want to be in schools. So maybe there's a way that coming out of this meeting and going into the first of the year we can work together to bring the community-based providers and families together with people like this so that the William Penn 425 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC.
Foundation sitting at the table, well, let's spread it around, because when all those folks go home at night -- I don't know any other way to say it -- those organizations, the Tom Henrys of the world are at the Kingsessing Recreation Centers trying to figure out what to do. So when the Mayor says that schools should be open on holidays, so should the rec centers.
The rec centers are -- you understand what I'm -- without beating up on anybody, do you understand what I'm saying?
Yes, indeed. I remember when we had hearings on health emergencies after we had a child, a seven-year-old, die at McMichael School from bacterial meningitis. We had those hearings.
That's right. We had the library hearings with 426 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. Mr. Hornbeck when Hornbeck was here. The people from the library came. I had another group of students. We took those pictures with Hornbeck. We talked about how the City and the School District could work together to -- if you can't have a library in every school, why can't at least one or two high schools in every region have the type of library that offers students and families the opportunity to come in and do research and read together and those kind of things? So maybe the day is gone that you can't have a library in every -- I don't know how you run a school without a library.
Well, I'll tell you, during those hearings, we talked about if a school didn't have a library, there should be a school across the street from a library, like maybe Turner with Blanche Nixon Library. We know we have the Lucien E. Blackwell Regional Library on 52nd Street. But out 427 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. of that, one good thing happened. When we had an opportunity to fight for reopened libraries and books, the University of Pennsylvania worked with us at Lea School, but it was an initiative we had to fight for. We said, Okay, do we want to save the Alexander School? Then okay, then help us at Henry C. Lea School and help us to fix up a library, reopen a library, staff it, get books and then the school then could commit to a librarian. And they helped us also do a garden outside. So it's a battle.
But it does come down to what my philosophy is, as is obviously yours, that each of us has to be a committee of one to improve our community. If we see a need, we have to step in.
Whether it is a library or a garden or helping a senior, making sure a kid who 428 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. doesn't have things to do during day has some place and somebody who cares about him or her --
Last week my students -- and Mr. Bruce is back there -- we went out to Swarthmore College and we had an impromptu meeting with their President of Swarthmore College and then we met with the Director of Swarthmore's civic and social responsibility clinic, I'll call it. And we went out there because I had -- of all the students that we have in the cyber school, half of them are homeless. And so I thought it would be a good opportunity maybe to encourage my students to work real hard, and the harder they worked, with the right kind 429 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. of supports, maybe we could get them into Upward Bound this summer. It was interesting, because the Upward Bound program is being changed now. So you had to have a 2.5 grade point average to be considered for Upward Bound, and now some universities are pulling out and colleges are pulling out because the criteria has been changed. The criteria is now 1.9 GPA and back. And the reason why Swarthmore is pulling out is because there's not enough dollars, so they say, in the program that would allow them to deal with the social issues that a student with a D average or below would bring to the table, and at the same time, the students that the government know benefited from Upward Bound, the 2.5 students and above, that program has now been cut. So we're just facing cuts all over the place. I mean, everywhere. And so any way you can help us to -- I'll close with this -- put a task force 430 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. together with the Secretary, I'm sure, that would bring us to the table as community people and parents, maybe that's the thing I'm looking for coming to these hearings. Thank you, Councilwoman.
Thank you. We're happy to work with you. Thank you all. Is Mr. Matthew Zakochany still here, High School for Creative and Performing Arts? (No response.)
What about Carmen Rivera or Carmen Lebron? (No response.)
Pat Baltimore, would you like to testify? Not today. We're talking about the truancy rate in schools, the dropout rate in schools and the overall budget cuts. We have a $73.3 million budget cut. So we're talking about schools today.
Okay. Yeah. I 431 12/11/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 060806, ETC. know the schools.