Hi, I think this is an excellent piece on public education!
I’m “a product” of the School District of Philadelphia, although I was fortunate enought to attend Masterman, then I became a school social worker in a charter school.
When I was in graduate school I followed the debates regarding school vouchers and supported that charter schools promoted “school choice.” As a school worker for 7 years I came to realize that accessing education was based on who you knew and not FAPE (Free Access to Public Education) as well as other laws surrounding education, or any other type of moral or ethical justification.
In PA, I think this crisis was initiated at the state level via politicians and those with the most to gain economically. If we really want to improve education and promote productive members of society, before we tear down the system, we should follow/explore the money trail to understand when things started to fall apart. From what I’ve read in the papers, Philadelphia’s current city controller has been “following the money” and maybe more people should look into this.
How is it that as a society we have already and are going to allow our politicians make the same type of “changes,” thinking it will produce different results. How did “we” allow the stakeholders of our public education system to not include the children, parents and teachers?
Hillary L.
