The School Reform Commission (SRC) voted yesterday to waste another $36.1 million dollars of taxpayers’ money. It breaks down like this:
• $24 million in interest on a one year $500 million note. The note is necessary because the state’s budget, the city’s budget and the School District’s budget are not synchronized. If the SRC worked with the state and city to obtain funds earlier, this $24 million could be saved.
• $12 million on Educational Management Organizations (EMOs). Despite the fact research report after research report validated EMOs are worthless, the SRC voted to extend their contract one year and pay them $12 million. (The only research disagreeing with these reports was paid for by Edison Schools, the largest benefactor of the School Reform Commission, and rushed out in about three weeks). (It reminds me of a political forum I attended one week before our recent mayoral election. Tom Knox advised us his internal polls showed himself in first place and Chakah Fattah in second place. Of course we now Knox was in second and Fattah was in fourth, but that’s what happens when you pay people to tell you what you want to hear).
• $80,000 for job search to find a new CEO, plus an additional $15 thousand in expenses. Put an ad in Education Week and you’ll get plenty of resumes. Besides, Philadelphia is a high profile position. Everyone in education knows what’s happening here, and anyone interested already knows the position is vacant. It’s not like we have to advertise or recruit to get applicants.
The School Reform Commission is made up mostly of Bankers who understand how to make money, and obviously how to spend money. But does anyone on that board understand the needs of children?
On Wednesday the SRC voted in support of a resolution they called SRC 5. It requires the structure of every school not making AYP next year be altered. Public Schools not making AYP will be turned into charter schools. Charter Schools not making AYP will either get EMOs or be restructured. The EMO schools not making AYP will be restructured, and the restructured schools, which don’t exist anymore due to budget cuts, will get EMOs. Spin the reform wheel and where it lands and what we get nobody knows.
SRC 5 is admittance by the SRC that their own goals so confidently developed and stated in 2002 will not be met. When a group fails to meet their goals that is called being unsuccessful. It is generally not wise to repeat past mistakes, but that is what the SRC proposes to do in SRC 5. What ever happened to smaller class size which even the SRC admitted produced the largest gains in test scores experienced during their five year reign?
Please give us our school district back and our revenues on a timely basis.

Why are we letting people whose terms expire next year pick a new CEO? We need a new school reform commission and a new CEO which the new Mayor picks.