Deal on Phila. schools postponed

Mayor John Street and Gov. Mark Schweiker agreed Friday to postpone a state takeover of the city's ailing public schools for three weeks, pledging to use that time to bridge significant differences between Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

The announcement came only hours shy of a midnight deadline on which both the state and the city had agreed.

"This is a monumental decision in the history of this city," Street said at a press conference late Friday afternoon. "We believe that we should make every effort to resolve the ambiguities and differences that we have."

"We will only do this once, so we want to make sure that we get it right," Street added.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and Street agreed in August that the state would take over the schools if no agreement was made with the city to solve the 215,000-student district's problems of declining test scores and looming budget deficit.

Schweiker said that public school students, faculty and staff should expect "business as usual" today.

Steve Aaron, Schweiker's chief spokesperson, said that the governor's agreement to push back the deadline to Dec. 21 should not be interpreted as a softening in the state's stance.

"The governor remains committed that at the end of 21 days if nothing has been agreed upon, he's ready to move ahead to assume control of the district," Aaron said after Friday's late afternoon announcement.

Board of Education president Pedro Ramos, who will become Penn's vice president and chief of staff in January, praised the delay as being a "very wise move."

After meeting privately for two and a half hours on Friday, Street and Schweiker said that the major sticking point was agreeing upon a "common financial platform," which Schweiker would not elaborate upon.

As part of his plan to privatize at least a portion of the school district, Schweiker called for both the city and the state to contribute an extra $75 million per year. The school district faces an estimated $217 million deficit for the current fiscal year.

Street previously has said that the city, whose revenues are declining, cannot provide anything near what the state is asking for. Speaking on Friday, he did not change his stance.

"We're going to use our best efforts to examine the finances of the board, the finances of the city and all our options to be able to do as much as we reasonably can," Street said.

This will mean confronting the issue of "dueling experts" from both Harrisburg and Philadelphia, who each offer their own opinion about the financial situation.

"Some of what we will do is sit together and look at these people and say, 'How can you say one thing and you say another thing?'" Street said.

Ramos said that any discrepancies in the financial plans offered by the city and the state are of major importance.

"When you multiply any difference by 215,000 [students] you get a big number," Ramos said.

The decision to push back the deadline comes on the heels of Schweiker's concession on Nov. 21 not to hire the for-profit company Edison Schools, Inc. to manage the district's central office. Instead, Edison will now act as a consultant to the district's administration and may directly run up to 60 of the district's lowest-performing schools, though their level of involvement is still being discussed by Schweiker and Street.

Edison officials could not be reached for comment on the three-week extension.

Another item of contention between the two sides is the five-member school reform commission that would replace the school board in the event of a state takeover. Under the state's plan, Schweiker will name four of the overseers.

The mayor and the governor conceded that this arrangement also was not yet finalized -- Street wants to gain a possible second seat on the board.

During the last few days leading up to the Nov. 30 deadline, hundreds had taken to the streets to display their opposition to the state takeover and its threat of privatization. These demonstrations continued on Friday when at least 800 students walked out of Germantown High School in protest, and an unidentified number also walked out of King High School, located in Mt. Airy, according to school district spokesman Milton McGriff.

Protesters were pleased with the deadline extension.

"We've got more time to get people organized, more time to get the students to show that they're really not going to accept any privatization in their schools," said Eric Braxton, the leader of the activist group Philadelphia Students Union.

"We don't want any schools privatized," said James Clark, a junior at West Philadelphia High School. "They never asked the students what they wanted, because if they did, it would have been clear then just like it is now."

Aaron said that the state did not understand the motives behind the students' protests.

"I think these students are deserving better, and maybe they don't realize that," he said. "If these kids want to protect the status quo, that's what they're doing."

Street acknowledged that, "There will be some unhappy people no matter what we do."

Operating under the assumption that after Friday they would be stripped of their legal authority to operate, the school board met twice that day. Some school board members had already begun to clear out their offices. School board member Michael Masch, who is also Penn's vice president of budget and management analysis, said that the current climate of indecision has been trying for parents, students and teachers.

"It's very difficult... to operate on some kind of normal, rationale basis while all of this talk of change goes in the background," Masch said.

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