Matt Mantica | The value of a child

Inflam-Matt-ory | Five blocks can make a big difference in the education of a student in West Philadelphia

By Matt Mantica 07/31/13 9:20pm

Do all children have equal worth?

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself ever since I heard the news of the new Lea School University Partnership.

The main goal of this strengthened relationship between Henry C. Lea School, located at 47th and Locust streets, and Penn is to “build upon what’s already in place at Lea, and help to create sustainable, long-term goals that will allow for growth,” according to a recent article in Penn Current.

Caroline Watts, senior lecturer at the Graduate School of Education, was recently chosen to direct these efforts full time. Watts is tasked with “streamlining resources” and bringing “an array of services to the curriculum” of Lea, according to the same article.

I am optimistic that Watts will do all that she can to support Lea in this turbulent time for education in Philadelphia and at Lea in particular — the school is working with the addition of a new principal, as well as many new students from the recently closed Alexander Wilson Elementary School, formerly located at 46th Street and Woodland Avenue. All of this comes on top of a “doomsday budget” passed by the School Reform Commission about two months ago.

Despite my confidence in Watts, Penn’s “commitment” to Lea seems like a good answer to the question I keep asking myself: No, not all children are worth the same.

After all, the Penn Alexander School, located at 42nd and Locust streets, is also billed as a “partnership” school. However, Penn Alexander’s partnership with Penn involves an extra $1,300 per student per year from the University — on top of what the school already receives from the district. So while Lea will gain a dedicated Penn faculty member this coming school year, Penn Alexander will get more than $700,000 from the University.

Penn is choosing to provide one group of kids with almost three quarters of a million dollars in support, while sending a single person to help another group’s education. The only obvious difference between these two groups of kids is that they attend school five blocks apart — there is a significant difference in commitment to these children, ones who only seem to differ in the school they attend.

Penn Alexander, after all, is not even a special sort of school — it is labeled a “neighborhood school,” the same descriptor used for Lea. Neighborhood schools are meant to service the students who live in the area directly surrounding the school. Although Penn Alexander has moved into more of a gray area in terms of being a neighborhood school after moving to a lottery system for students’ entrance, Penn has provided monetary support to the school ever since its conception — long before there was any gray area.

When it comes to Penn Alexander, Penn is acting in its own self-interest. In helping create the school, which it did more than 10 years ago, the University was much more interested in creating a place of instruction for the children of its own faculty and staff than for the children of the West Philadelphia community at large.

If Penn would like to support its faculty’s children with the type of world-class education that can be found at Penn Alexander, I cannot hold that against them. After all, doing so would be a smart decision for a university hoping to attract as many top-notch faculty members as it can. However, supporting one’s own in the guise of helping the community is underhanded and disappointing.

If Penn wants to prove that it holds all children in the same regard — that it values the education of children who attend school at 47th and Locust just as much as they value the learning of those who go to school at 42nd and Locust — it can do so by throwing even more support behind the efforts of the Lea community.

I appreciate the fact that Penn has taken moves to build real partnerships with the community by creating a place for Caroline Watts at Lea. Until all of the students Penn claims to support are helped equally, I can only believe that the University is misrepresenting its true intentions when it claims in the Penn Compact to want to improve “local education, health care and economic opportunity.” And I will continue to believe that the University does not equally value all of West Philadelphia’s children.

Matt Mantica is a rising College sophomore from Okemos, Mich. His email address is mantica@sas.upenn.edu. “Inflam-Matt-ory” runs biweekly during the summer.

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