Today, 200,000 children carrying Philadelphia’s future with them head back to school. Last night, my children were full of anticipation (if not necessarily excitement) as they packed up their supplies, talked about friends, and wondered what to expect from their teachers. For them, the night before school is always full of hope.

Conventional wisdom has it that this is the year of opportunity.

We have a Mayor who has put education as his top priority, a governor and legislature that delivered on hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding (though it backed off a new funding formula), and a city council that kicked it all off by throwing in more than $20+ million annually through a transfer of real estate tax revenue. We’ve got a former state budget secretary as our CFO, and an SRC, state and city leadership that’s politically aligned for the first time since the state takeover. We’ve got a new CEO who’s trying to refashion the role back into “superintendent” and has the vetting of the Governor and Mayor.

What this can’t be is a year for folks to say, “Hey look at how much we gave the schools” and walk away. After all, look what happened to the hundreds of millions Vallas and the SRC got at the beginning of the state takeover.

This also can’t be a time for extended media honeymoons with a new CEO or reading in the papers endless reports and announcements made by various talking heads. As Amy Goodman said, the media wasn’t created to be a megaphone for people in power. In the past few years, we’ve shown what happens when we demand responsible and relentless scrutiny of the District’s budget and build public outcry around our schools. A lot of that has come from community groups and independent media like the Public School Notebook; until recently, not enough from our mainstream papers. A few notable exceptions last spring has led however to a rather dull summer of reading.

The odds, we know, are stacked against Philadelphia’s kids. It’s not just the end results of truancy, drop-out rates, increasing stats on violent incidents – but the limitations of living within the challenges of a poor urban district. Less than 50 percent of the teachers in Philadelphia, according to the PFT have more than five years teaching experience, and too many of the poorest schools in the city have a disproportionate number of those inexperienced teachers.

Class sizes remain among the highest in the state; plenty of high school students in the neighborhood schools will find their first turn-off begins when their classes don’t even have enough seats to hold them – some welcome. I worry about whether my kindergartener will have space to play and time to actually eat her lunch (lunchtime is a usually a time of stress rather than relaxation). My daughter, who is entering 6th grade, is thrilled to take her first art class ever – plenty other children are still waiting for that opportunity. Three-fourths of the elementary schools lack a librarian; and with the average age of school buildings around 70 years, it won’t take long before my other daughter comes home disgusted with the undersupplied bathrooms and lack of basic facilities.

Certainly a lot of promises have been made to our children, but none of the promises or even the money, will mean much if our children and staff and families don’t see and feel change in their schools and classrooms.

• It won’t mean much if District, City and State leaders take the all too common “we know best” approach and disengage from the parents, students and teachers who have ridden out administration after administration (Philly’s on its fifth superintendent – including interims – in 8 years).

• It won’t mean much if the billions of dollars the District received from the state gets locked into the same failed privatization ventures, no bid contracts, testing services, patronage, overpaid positions, and politically favored companies.

• It won’t mean much if offices and names change for the 440 bureaucracy, but our schools continue to languish with limited resources.

• It won't mean much if the City and State don't set long-term funding plans to boost both local and state revenue for our schools instead of being satisfied with how we rank in the state averages.

• And it won’t mean much if the media doesn’t continue to scrutinize, challenge and demand transparency with a significant amount of spirit and vision for the schools.

My oldest daughter said today that she “sort of knew what to expect” from 6th grade but she didn't know exactly how it would turn out. We sort of know what we can expect from our schools given the problems above, but it doesn’t mean it has to turn out that way.

Our public schools will either be our greatest hope or our greatest burden. When it comes to things that matter, unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot in between.