Every year with the coming of the summer solstice, Philadelphia School District honchos put up a hue and cry for money to put a band-aid on a total debacle. Every year we hear of cuts beyond the bone and the prospect of school not opening the Fall. I wonder if it would matter given the level of education currently being delivered.
As in life, repeatedly crying wolf is tiring, has diminishing returns, and ultimately results in collective tone-deafness. The latest “rescue “got Philadelphia the power to levy a $2 a pack cigarette tax; hardly a growing or dependable revenue source, which yields a veritable drop in the ocean compared to the state budget. What’s more everyone agrees that this does not cover the deficit.
This past week Philadelphia’s Mayor went “on location” to the State Capitol for the play by play. He proclaimed that Philadelphia school children were being held hostage, the victims of nefarious political dealing, and literally tied to the tracks with a locomotive fast approaching. Philadelphia state senators and state reps chimed in. Heroes all against villains comprised of many Republicans and that insensitive Philadelphia basher, Governor Corbett.
The problem is that both the heroes and villains have championed the charter school. Studies indicate that charter schools have drained as much as thirty percent of the School District Budget. At the same time they had made grateful multi-millionaires of some charter school founders. This translates into lots of political contributions all around. Indeed the circle has been is unbroken.
As always the media ramped up the dramatic. One columnist waxes nostalgic for Vince Fumo and his brand of deal-making. Now there’s a role model for Philadelphia children! Clearly the principal beneficiary of Vince’s deal-making was Vince. Witness the array of toys: mansion, beach places, a farm, cars and tools, not to mention vacuum cleaners. But then, not to worry, he’ll return consistent with Pennsylvania tradition, where politicians turned felons returned to the scene of the crime as lobbyists, further enriching themselves and their clients all from the public till.
Unfortunately, the problem with the School District is hardly new. Furthermore it’s not simply about money. Back in the 1970s it was top-heavy with administrators (a/k/a political hacks). Leading Philadelphia politicians like Ed Rendell wouldn’t hazard their kids to the public schools. All along the underlying finances of the School District were prey to financial gamesmanship headed towards decline. In 2001 the School District had a deficit of $216.7 million on a $1.7 budget. Branding it “distressed”, the Commonwealth came to the rescue with legislation creating the “School Reform Commission” The effect was to add state appointed political cronies to the mix. We all know how “reformed” the Convention Center, SEPTA, and the DRPA are thanks to appointees from Harrisburg. We’ve had more than ten years of reform, characterized by one embarrassment after another at the board level. All the while, no one can claim that the education actually delivered has improved. The most telling information I’ve had comes from a family friend; a thirty year teacher regretfully surrendering to retirement as chaos has triumphed over any semblance of educating children.
While money doesn’t solve woes, at the individual school level there isn’t much left to cut. The problem is that our heroes and villains in Harrisburg have the School District in a box. The deficit isn’t being funded and they’ve barred the School District from being able to go bankrupt, unlike the rest of us. In reality, all of this sanctimony was about chump change compared to the money routinely wasted by the state and City on special interest boondoggles. Every year, billions of “economic development” grants are made across the state to companies run by politically connected fat cats who could get their own financing. For example, time and again the State and City have spent millions to subsidize the multi-millionaires running COMCAST, guys who can well afford to pay for their own buildings. And who can forget the tens of millions of dollars in the State budget for the Barnes art collection of all things? These are anything but lapses in judgment. Time and again our elected officials demonstrate their real priorities which are not Philadelphia children. The fact is that government has turned into a transfer mechanism to take money from what is left of a middle class and give it to the rich. Last week’s heroes and villains know it all too well. These priorities are what keeps them in office.
We are told that we get the elected officials we deserve. I’m sorry. The families and children dependent upon the Philadelphia School District don’t deserve the present class of pols. It is time to forget thinking about them as our advocates and instead characterize them as civil defendants who need to pony up money. There is a body of law alive and well that “disabled “or “special education” students are entitled to a “free and appropriate public education at public expense.” As a lawyer and uncle, I succeeded in having a suburban school district pay for private schooling of a nephew. That school district paid what was then a multiple of the cost of this country’s most elite prep schools.
Public education, not public warehousing of kids, is a fundamental obligation of government. Philadelphia School children have a right to open schools that actually can function as opposed to simply warehouse, not necessarily protect, kids. Perhaps it is time for the Courts to recognize the equal protection argument that all Philadelphia school children are “special”.
Mark D. Schwartz is a Bryn Mawr based lawyer who worked in the 1970s as legislative assistant to then House Majority Leader and later Speaker K. Leroy Irvis.
Photo by versageek