Stay and fight for Philly schools

The School District of Philadelphia begins the fourth year of severe crisis since Republican Gov. Tom Corbett took office in 2011 and cut education funding.

Jackson Elementary School

Educators marked the first day of classes Monday with pickets outside Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences which, according to teacher and union leader Amy Roat, has in recent years lost counselors, secretaries, a school police officer, assistant principals, noontime aides, science, reading, music and math teachers, and school nurse and social worker hours.

The School District of Philadelphia begins the fourth year of severe crisis since Republican Gov. Tom Corbett took office in 2011 and cut education funding. This year begins with 7,654 fewer staff members, according to the District, than in the 2010-11 school year, a reduction of 32 percent. More than 1,000 new layoffs are still possible if the legislature doesn't allow Philadelphia to raise its own cigarette tax to help plug a still gaping $81 million budget gap.

The message at protests across the city is simple: "This cannot be the new normal."

But in covering the schools crisis, I can, despite my best intentions, telegraph a message to parents: Get out if you can, for private school, charters or the suburbs. But many can't leave. And many others, motivated by a deep commitment to urban public schools, decide that they won't.

Take South Philadelphia parents who helped secure AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers to coordinate community programs at Jackson and Southwark elementary schools, and worked to get a green roof and a new playground at Jackson.

"I think it's important for parents who are shopping for a school and looking at a neighborhood school to really dig in, to go and meet the principal, to go the open houses," says Tom Wyatt, a member of the Passyunk Square Civic Association and chair of its education committee. Despite the crisis "there are scores and scores of great stories and tremendous principals making a difference in the lives of young people every day."

This is one such story: Wyatt and his wife, both lawyers who grew up in small-town Pennsylvania, are parents of a two young children who will attend Jackson.

"I'm a product of public education at every level, and so is my wife, and we're also very dedicated to raising our family in the city," he says. The option of having "a high-quality neighborhood school ... is fundamental to the future success of our city and the young people that are growing up here."

Young professionals allergic to suburban life are investing time and resources in diverse public schools across the city. Jackson and Kirkbride have support, he says from "people who want to live in a great neighborhood. And the only way you're going to live in a great neighborhood is if you have a great school."

Fundraisers are no way to run a public-education system, and depending on privately raised money increases the disparity between schools in wealthier neighborhoods — and poorer ones like Feltonville. And middle-class transplants aren't the District's lone saviors. Lower-income schools have organized to protest and fight off charter takeovers and closure.

But the mobilization underway highlights an alternative to a reform mindset that has generally favored top-down privatization of school management over community-led transformation. Just as "white flight" helped create our segregated school system, integration requires people like the Wyatts buying in. This is an awful time for schools, but parents across this city make me optimistic. The growing coalition of parents, representing Philadelphia's beautiful diversity, is something future governors can't afford to ignore.