......it seems that the
WHYY - Radio Times: May 23: A critical look at Philadelphia's school reorganization plan
Last month, leaders of the School District of Philadelphia unveiled a radical reorganization plan that would transform – or “blow up” – the district’s structure, closing 40 schools over the next two years and more each year after that, slashing hundreds of administrative jobs, and creating entrepreneurial “achievement networks” to compete to lead groups of schools within the city. The plan has received some praise and at least as much criticism, from City Council, which is being asked to approve a tax-system overhaul for Philadelphia that could yield $94 million for
the cash-strapped school district. We’ve listened to the voices of the administration and School Reform Commission; now we devote an hour to critics of the plan.
Analysis
Take a listen to the audio report at the link above as they discuss the proposed changes to education policy in Philadelphia.
If I told you that IF you rolled back the clock to the early 1980's and replayed the conversations from the educational activists - you would hear the very same framework of arguments?
Back then the gap in funding received by "White school students" had been directed toward the Whites in Northeast Philadelphia and the well heeled suburbs to the west (Where Koby Bryant grew up). Fast forward 30 years later in which "The Whites" have significantly moved out of Northeast Philly - they now only make reference to Lower Marion and other places where there are wealthy Whites as a reference.
Fear not - this same scheme is the case where ever there is a "Mission Accomplished City" that has failed to deliver upon the promises that "The Black" bought into that allowed the machine to get into power. Recall several years ago Chicago-area Rev Meeks got on the bus and traveled to a small, rich, White suburb and threatened to register poor Black Chicago kids in the schools if the state did not allocate more money to Chicago. The key point that I exposed at that time was that the City Of Chicago had a "Per Student Spending Rate" that was higher than the state average. Rev Meeks knew that no one in the press would dare ask him the same questions that they ask about the costs of American health care: "IF your per capita spending rate is higher than a certain average - WHAT about your system is INCOMPETENT to deliver services at a given rate?" .
(OK - I admit I watched CNN's "GPS" special on global health care costs this past weekend. I just happened to notice that for Zakaria and other progressives - when the USA health care spending is higher than the global index they call for government take over. When the USA educational spending is higher than the global index - since the government already has a substantial hand in education - they demand more government money but not for more efficiency to drive the costs down. I'm just saying.......)
The Black American School Kid Is The Most Talked ABOUT Specimen In America......Also The Most Used
- School Policy and Governance
- Government Run vs Private Run Charters
- School Funding Shortfalls
- What BLACK PEOPLE MUST DO To Ensure Better Educational Outcomes For Their Children In Support Of Their Desired SOCIAL JUSTICE OUTCOMES
- What Incumbent Obligations Did A City Agree To Assume From The State Government As They Were Granted A City Charter. Does The Fact That "Favorable People" Are Now In Power In The Cities Absolve The "Corporate City" From Its Mandate To Retain An Environment By Which It Can Fund Its Local Services?
- DESPITE The Fact That The Locals Are Disinclined To Hold Their Locally Elected Officials Accountable (and thus ultimately themselves) For Failing To Produce/Maintain The Conditions By Which Prosperity In The Tax Base Enables Them To Fund Their Schools - Does This Mean That The State Is At Fault?
Do you see how upside down this all is?
The very same people that speak of "Black voter choice suppression" as the state exercises its constitutional mandates to deliver constitutional services, even if this means regulating the local chartered entities - are the same people who show the largest amount of disconnect between their lust for POLITICAL POWER (under the guise of helping Black people) and their incompetency at producing the actual "Return On Investment" - per their actions which compelled the community to invest as they had suggested.
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez
In order to understand how this line of thinking has metastasized we must first go back to its roots.
Back in 1972-1973 the case called "San Antonio Independent School District v Rodriquez" considered the issue of local school funding in which the franchise obligations of a local school system to raise adequate funding for its own operations versus how the state, which retains the ultimate constitutional obligation for the provision of educational services must still retain its funding obligations, despite the locally administrated operations.
Of course a reasonable person would conclude that the state can't simply wash its hands of all financial obligations for school funding just because the educational services has shifted from the state/county over to a locally chartered schools.
Yet from a management/governance perspective - the placement of local political operatives who understand that they have no obligation to retain a set of public policies that retain/grow the tax base because the state will always be there to cover for them this will set up a situation in which individuals are motivated to assume power for the sake of power, putting on a show for their constituency while ultimately failing to provide for them the governance that will grow the local economy leveraging the institutions that they now have control over.
Instead what we have will be the situation that this nation is quickly spiraling into: a constant national resource chase where one's local interest is ultimately focused on obtaining resources from the national government.
The ironic point is that the claim is that more state/federal educational funding is needed to develop the people so that they can become competent enough to run a prosperous local economy. When POLITICS becomes the measure of the success of this local machine they are likely to lose focus upon their original mission of education. The lack of funding due to the lack of national commitment becomes the primary point of obfuscation to explain away the local failure.
The development of the people so that the local economy is grown as a result must be the primary point that is enforced. Growing the environment out of its present condition will trigger a certain amount of discipline and priorities among the base. By contrast a system that allows the locals to aspire for a piece of the national pie that will never come in the size that they desire then the struggle for perceived "Social Justice EQUALITY" subsumes the direct aspiration of "Managed Outcomes".
This conditioned is evidenced by the group of people who is pacified about hearing their political enemies failures in education more than they show their own competence in addressing their own educational failures.
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