City and state still talking as school deal looms near

With tonight's deadline for an agreement between Philadelphia and Harrisburg on school privatization fast approaching, many local educators are not happy.

According to an agreement between the city and state, the two governments must agree on a plan of action for Philadelphia's ailing school district by the end of today. Gov. Mark Schweiker and Mayor John Street have been in negotiations for the past two weeks and have tentatively agreed to turn control of the 60 worst performing schools over to a private company, such as Edison Schools Inc.

Edison was hired in August by former governor Tom Ridge to develop solutions for aiding the district, plagued by a debt of $216 million and poor test scores. Schweiker then presented a plan based on this report on Nov. 1 -- a plan which would have given Edison a large role in the central administration of the district.

Street initially rejected such broad privatization outright, but the two have since agreed to use a private company to help run some of the most troubled schools.

But many city educators and residents have been resistant to any form of privatization, and hundreds of protesters interrupted the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Broad Street Wednesday night.

According to Barbara Goodman, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the union opposes privatization primarily because they have yet to see any evidence that privatization produces good results.

Goodman said the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was against the idea "primarily because it hasn't been proven to work anywhere that it has been tried.... Fundamentally, what we believe is that it is time to stop experimenting on Philadelphia students."

And Alan Liebowitz, principal of Philadelphia Regional High School, said that he wanted the scope of the impending privatization to be made more clear.

"I'd still like to know how they're going to define what those worst-performing schools are," Liebowitz said.

The issue of privatization is not split along traditional party lines, with many Philadelphia Democrats, including state Rep. Dwight Evans and state Sen. Anthony Williams, endorsing the plan of the Republican governor.

Susan Furhman, dean of Penn's Graduate School of Education, said that the issue, a fairly recent idea, does not fit conveniently into any traditional political ideology.

"I think it's a relatively new issue in education and I don't think the lines are clear," Furhman said.

But Furhman also said that she does not feel the plan under consideration by Schweiker and Street is particularly radical. The plan currently calls for a partnership of many entities, including non-profit providers as well as community groups.

The plan that is finally implemented "could be many different providers including non-profits, and that would be quite typical of the average school district," Furhman said.

Although the state and city must reach an agreement by tonight, Henry Levin, director of Columbia University's National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, said that any agreement will be beset by problems due to the current controversy surrounding the issue.

"I think what is unreasonable is to expect that [improvement in the district] is going to happen under conditions of resistance and political anger," Levin said.

But Levin said that while the state and city governments wrangle with each other and with their constituents over the issue of privatization, Philadelphia children continue to suffer. He said it is a necessity that some kind of action be taken.

"If it's true that these 61 schools are really problematic, which it may well be, and have been that way for a long time... then something's got to be done," Levin said.

And in spite of the protests, Schweiker and Street are continuing talks. According to Gretchen Toner, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, both Philadelphia and Harrisburg are aware of the timeline to which they are committed.

"The deadline that is in the memorandum of understanding is a real one," Toner said.

Toner went on to dismiss the significance of the protests, saying that in a district of 215,000 students, a few hundred protesters are not a majority group.

"We think it's important that you put these protests into perspective," Toner said.

And Toner said that the protests were standing in the way of the future of Philadelphia's children.

"These protesters are also people who are defending that status quo, and the governor refuses to defend the status quo that's been failing so many kids," Toner said.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.