salon | “Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell. Pennsylvania's right-wing governor drains public schools of basic funds -- and the sickening details will shock you. Want to see a public school system in its death throes? Look no
further than Philadelphia. There, the school district is facing end
times, with teachers, parents and students staring into the abyss
created by a state intent on destroying public education.
On
Thursday the city of Philadelphia announced that it would be borrowing
$50 million to give the district, just so it can open schools as planned
on Sept. 9, after Superintendent William Hite threatened to keep the
doors closed without a cash infusion. The schools may open without
counselors, administrative staff, noon aids, nurses, librarians or even
pens and paper, but hey, kids will have a place to go and sit.
The
$50 million fix is just the latest band-aid for a district that is
beginning to resemble a rotting bike tube, covered in old patches
applied to keep it functioning just a little while longer. At some
point, the entire system fails.
Things have gotten so bad that at
least one school has asked parents to chip in $613 per student just so
they can open with adequate services, which, if it becomes the norm,
effectively defeats the purpose of equitable public education, and is
entirely unreasonable to expect from the city’s poorer neighborhoods.
The
needs of children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in
Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to
crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like
vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left
uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken
school system, so be it.
To be clear, the schools are in crisis
because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania refuses to fund them
adequately. The state Constitution mandates that the Legislature
“provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient
system of public education,” but that language appears to be considered
some kind of sick joke at the state capital in Harrisburg.
It’s
worth noting that the state itself runs the Philadelphia School District
after a 2001 takeover. The state is also responsible for catastrophic
budget cuts two years ago that crippled the district’s finances. And in a
diabolical example of circular logic, the state argues that the red ink
it imposed, and shoddy management it oversees, are proof that the
district can’t manage its finances or its mission and therefore
shouldn’t get more money. Fist tap Dale.
