Can Phila. schools be saved?

It is time to get angry. It has been nearly one month since the Daily News published a cover story exposing the terrible conditions at Willard Elementary School -- the rats, the mice, the unreliable heating system and the lack of elevators to help a 10-year old with cerebral palsy, Joshua Kulda, make his way up and down stairs.

Unfortunately for Kulda and the other Willard students, nothing has changed since then. Their demands for a new building were effectively ignored, as School District Chief Executive Officer Paul Vallas asserted that "all areas are getting equitably treated."

Dale Mezzacappa, a Philadelphia Inquirer senior education reporter, has written about Philadelphia's education system for 18 years. During that time, she has become increasingly frustrated with the general public's "diminished sense of outrage" and her "inability to affect policy through muckraking journalism."

The Willard article, written by Mensah Dean, succeeded in stirring enough controversy for Vallas to make a public response. But Joshua continues to struggle up and down the stairs.

"That story got reaction ... but I don't think the dispute will be solved any sooner," Mezzacappa said.

Throughout her career, Mezzacappa has written about several major problems and scandals in Philadelphia schools. Still, despite her attempts to provoke the public conscience and to generate change, public education remains a system divided between haves and have-nots, as inner-city schools continue to be poorly funded.

For Mezzacappa, the inability to generate any major change is a frustrating reality that she is slowly coming to accept.

"The problems are too deep-rooted," she said. "The country has rather deliberately built a two-tiered education system -- one for the rich and one for the poor."

Penn students who tutor in West Philadelphia schools feel a similar sense of frustration when they encounter children whom they cannot help.

College senior Jenna Statfeld, who has tutored for three years, felt helpless when she encountered a sixth-grade girl, named Lisa, who was reading at a second-grade level.

"She was so far behind that there was no way to help her catch up, especially in 30 minutes or an hour per week," Jenna said.

Both Mezzacappa and Statfeld want to help these children. But neither of their efforts has produced long-term changes to Philadelphia's public education system. The deep-rooted problems remain entrenched in a system where urban schools are "expected to be dilapidated," Mezzacappa said.

I cannot argue that Mezzacappa -- who has more than 30 years of experience as a reporter -- is to blame for the general public's apathy toward her seemingly alarming stories.

But the articles that actually generate change are few and far between. And similarly, despite Statfeld's best efforts and good intentions, she simply could not help Lisa. Rather than accept this as an unavoidable, inevitable reality, we need to devise a plan that prevents students from falling so far behind in the first place.

As a society, we are approaching educational inequity in the wrong way -- or at least in an incomplete way. Short-term solutions, such as tutoring, must be combined with a more long-term approach.

Jesse David, a member of the Executive Board of Penn's West Philadelphia Tutoring Project, recognizes that his organization does not provide long-term solutions.

"We're trying to remedy educational inequity on a personal level," he said. "We don't go into every class or every school. We're trying to help as best we can."

The WPTP should certainly be commended for its efforts. Last semester, more than 430 Penn students tutored in Philadelphia public schools. By being exposed to problems at local inner-city schools, both Statfeld and David became interested in trying to solve those issues after graduation.

Even with the student tutors, though, how much will truly change two decades from now? Will there be 430 new Penn tutors and a different Inquirer writer exposing scandals without generating change?

In order for real change to occur, a fundamental transformation needs to occur in Philadelphia schools. The public must commit itself to give more than a passing glance to these alarming stories.

The demand for change will only come when politicians, school officials and parents read a story about the terrible conditions Joshua Kulda experiences every day, and see him as their own child.

It will only come when they say: This has to end.

Josh Pollick is a senior political science major from Los Angeles. On Point appears on Mondays.

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