H.R. Edmunds closes and becomes charter

[FKD19124]

There was a press conference earlier in the week about this.
Sad. I went there for 8 years. The school is another casualty in the imcompetence
of a dysfunctional school district.

Anyone know about the String Theory Charter Schools?

[annie]

Philadelphia School Partnership gives out $3.8 million in grants to four schools | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

String Theory is the same organization that runs the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter and has never run another school before. The Philadelphia School Partnership, which was founded to support "high-performing seats" in Philadelphia schools, has given String Theory $2 million to renovate Edmunds and start the new program.

You see, because the school has been given to a charter operator, under PSP's philosophy the school and its seats are now automatically high-performing even though the school year has yet to start. Magic!

Our district schools, however, have received no such support from PSP. There are so many that would love to have the kinds of building and arts/music program support to have "high-performing seats" that Edmunds is being given, now that it is operated by a charter organization.

[billy ross]

Philadelphia School Partnership gives out $3.8 million in grants to four schools | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

String Theory is the same organization that runs the Philadelphia Performing Arts Charter and has never run another school before. The Philadelphia School Partnership, which was founded to support "high-performing seats" in Philadelphia schools, has given String Theory $2 million to renovate Edmunds and start the new program.

You see, because the school has been given to a charter operator, under PSP's philosophy the school and its seats are now automatically high-performing even though the school year has yet to start. Magic!

Our district schools, however, have received no such support from PSP. There are so many that would love to have the kinds of building and arts/music program support to have "high-performing seats" that Edmunds is being given, now that it is operated by a charter organization.

Your attitude is ridiculous. First off, If String Theory presently runs PPAC then how has it never run another school before? I have friends who send their kids to that school in South Philly and they really like it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that both PPAC is a good school and that Edmunds was a bad school. Thus I don't see how your temper tantrum that you threw above makes any sense. Pretty much everyone but you and a few troglodytes is on board with the program of closing 50,000 seats in failing schools and creating 50,000 seats in high achieving schools. We all know what your plan of throwing money at the system got us - where we are right now, which is knee deep in muck.

[annie]

Another school besides PPAC. They've never done a "turnaround" school before.

[FKD19124]

I graduated from Edmunds in 1984 and back then it was one of the or the best public school in the city.
It did start to go down hill in the late 90s. The addition to the school was put on back in the mid to late 90s.

Your attitude is ridiculous. First off, If String Theory presently runs PPAC then how has it never run another school before? I have friends who send their kids to that school in South Philly and they really like it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that both PPAC is a good school and that Edmunds was a bad school. Thus I don't see how your temper tantrum that you threw above makes any sense. Pretty much everyone but you and a few troglodytes is on board with the program of closing 50,000 seats in failing schools and creating 50,000 seats in high achieving schools. We all know what your plan of throwing money at the system got us - where we are right now, which is knee deep in muck.

[annie]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that both PPAC is a good school and that Edmunds was a bad school. Thus I don't see how your temper tantrum that you threw above makes any sense. Pretty much everyone but you and a few troglodytes is on board with the program of closing 50,000 seats in failing schools and creating 50,000 seats in high achieving schools.

You suffer from poor reading comprehension and I'm the troglodyte? You call me a troglodyte and I'm the troglodyte? Okay.

PPAC requires a six-page application for its lottery including an "arts survey" asking where a child has "trained," how many hours a week are the lessons and what performances the child has been in including professional experience and welcoming parents to attach a "portfolio." A "pre-school progress report" is also among the documents required. Edmunds, though it will be operated by a charter under the Renaissance program, will still be a district neighborhood elementary school and have to accept students from its catchment and certainly shouldn't be allowed to have an application form like that. With Thomas Darden gone from the district, the Renaissance schools likely shouldn't be able to weasel out of serving special needs students the way they have in the past though I'm not holding my breath on it.

If PSP were about more than flim flam, they would frame their announcement as helping the seats at Edmunds under String Theory become "high-performing" rather than announce it fait accompli. But then it would raise all kinds of questions as to why district schools seeking the same results aren't being helped.

[Geno]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that both PPAC is a good school and that Edmunds was a bad school.

and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that PPAC can be selective and select students based on merit like a private school while Edmonds' population was made up of the poorer kids, and kids with learning disabilities that live in the area. It's definitely apples and oranges. The longer I am involved in education the more firmly I am convinced the main "problem" with public education is the dysfunctional American society at large. And, the more I find these discussions to be totally separate from reality.

[FKD19124]

exactly. My wife works in Strawberry Mansion and her complaint is that the surrounding community in general just doesn't value an education. It seems that if it wasn't for the law mandating your child be in school, I think
the schoold down there would be empty except for the few who actually do care about their kids.

and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that PPAC can be selective and select students based on merit like a private school while Edmonds' population was made up of the poorer kids, and kids with learning disabilities that live in the area. It's definitely apples and oranges. The longer I am involved in education the more firmly I am convinced the main "problem" with public education is the dysfunctional American society at large. And, the more I find these discussions to be totally separate from reality.

[Brenda]

It would be great if the organization that H.R Edmunds was handed over to could do a transformation of that school, but I have major doubts. When I first moved to this area from Jersey (2007), I had my daughter attend that school thinking "how bad could it be?". Horrific. After the first year, I had to yank my daughter out of the school and find an alternative. My daughter attended 7th grade there and the students in her class were WILDLY out of control. While my daughter was there, the school had called an emergency meeting for all parents of students in the 7th grade to discuss behavior. I was surprised that only a handful of parents showed up to the meeting despite the school making an effort to telephone each and every parent individually to make sure they would attend. I just don't see much change coming from that school when dealing with such low quality students and parents.

Now I'm exploring my options for my two younger kids who are due to start school in 2014 and while Edmunds is two short blocks from my house, it is definitely not on my list

[JackStraw]

Billy does not play well with other posters and has temper tantrums which causes him to indulge in namecalling or lying about others. It's funny how he doesn't seem to mind the school district "throwing money" String Theory's way, but objects when a public school gets it. Could it be that he only benefits when the charters get money, but none from the public schools?

[billy ross]

Billy does not play well with other posters and has temper tantrums which causes him to indulge in namecalling or lying about others. It's funny how he doesn't seem to mind the school district "throwing money" String Theory's way, but objects when a public school gets it. Could it be that he only benefits when the charters get money, but none from the public schools?

No, but I care deeply about the future of this city and our society in general. See below:

It would be great if the organization that H.R Edmunds was handed over to could do a transformation of that school, but I have major doubts. When I first moved to this area from Jersey (2007), I had my daughter attend that school thinking "how bad could it be?". Horrific. After the first year, I had to yank my daughter out of the school and find an alternative. My daughter attended 7th grade there and the students in her class were WILDLY out of control. While my daughter was there, the school had called an emergency meeting for all parents of students in the 7th grade to discuss behavior. I was surprised that only a handful of parents showed up to the meeting despite the school making an effort to telephone each and every parent individually to make sure they would attend. I just don't see much change coming from that school when dealing with such low quality students and parents.

Now I'm exploring my options for my two younger kids who are due to start school in 2014 and while Edmunds is two short blocks from my house, it is definitely not on my list

When the people that care are pushed out the door by the people who are apathetic or outright destructive of the common weal, that's a horrible situation. This is exactly what destroyed public housing in this country, and it is also destroying a swathe of public education and entire neighborhoods and towns with it. It is imperative that Philadelphia and other towns with failed school systems (Chester Upland, Camden, etc) offer quality choices so that parents aren't in the situation that the above poster is in. That is my agenda. I don't care whether it is accomplished through charters, publics, or even vouchers. I just want the people coming out of our schools to be citizens. If you want your kids to have excellent educational opportunities, you shouldn't need a tremendous amount of savior faire or to live in 'certain' ZIP codes in order to be able to get that. I want Philadelphia to be a relevant place for people to WANT to live in, all over Philadelphia and not just certain parts, and not only the very rich. It will be very difficult for Philadelphia to be viable when our schools are breeding grounds for future criminals. I am also concerned about the increasing emergence of serf and nobility classes in this country. I grew up poor, but I was able to access an education because my parents did believe in education, and I have a great life. It is important to me to maximize the chances of other mes out there staying out of jail and becoming productive members of society and leading full lives.

Continuing to support failed schools because of myriad nonsense excuses (that I fundamentally don't buy anyway) is antithetical to my goals. It is obvious that we need to close failed schools and expand seats in quality schools of choice, and I am glad that the powers that be are on board with that program (to the tune of 25% of the seats in the Philly public school universe!), even if posters on a message board can only contribute naysaying and backbiting. You people need to face the fact that you're autoworkers working for GM or maybe even Romney's AMC and collapse is around the corner, since you've lost the battle for the hearts and minds - your customers have already defected in droves, with many more ready to spring for the exits. The only way that you're fending off even more people escaping is via 80's-style import quotas (i.e. enrollment caps) and then you have the gall to complain that the quotas are unfair because they engender a lottery system, a lottery system that wouldn't matter in the absence of the import quotas which keep your failed schools from emptying out even faster. Thankfully, unlike you the autoworkers saw the changes that needed to be made so they were able to preserve a much shrunken industry, and it seems as though the collapse of the industry has halted with the legacy producers maintaining around 45% of the market share, but not in time to save their home base of Detroit from becoming Third World. Note that the import quotas on Japanese cars today are meaningless because the Japanese responded to them by setting up production in the anti-union South; this isn't all that different from the charter school infrastructure that is going into place now, and I note that Geno supports the Japanese transplant system with his dollars; I don't know which system Jack supports, whether it be the legacy provider or the new way of doing business. Maybe he'll tell us what choice he made when given the opportunity.

I don't know what the public mix will be going forward, but as long as the leadership is what it is now - Hite and Jerry Jordan - that is, people who don't see parents as customers with choices who need to be catered to but as widgets to be forced to do with their children what they don't want to do, the public percentage will continue to decline. You can pout and stamp your feet about it as much as you want, but today it's all about choices, and the schools that offer quality choices will thrive, whether they be public, charter, or even private. This is an interesting model:

http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-0...ition-students

[OldMama]

Making judgments about the success of charters is impossible without data. I'm especially interested in data about the schools that have been taken over en masse by a charter company such as the Universals, and now String Theory. Given the fiscal issues facing the district, there may not be funds available for this. But we have a whole slew of graduate schools in the area. I know Penn has a bunch of Ed.D. and Ph.D. students. They are all presumably looking for a thesis. If I were in their shoes, I would compare the status of a school before and after charter conversions. I'd also collect data on transfers out of the schools and the reasons for those transfers. In college and grad school, I had clinical training. We were taught not to rely anecdotal evidence but to collect data and make decisions based on our findings. That just doesn't happen enough in education and it drives me nuts.

[JackStraw]

I support public school which teachers run. Hold us responsible, but don't keep saddling us with incompetent administrators. We can write up troublemakers all day long, but if the principal is hell bent on hiding problems it's pointless and refuses to discipline those students, forget it. Schools are only as safe as their ability to jettison thugs that just want to fight. Charters are allowed to do this, but public schools are not. Out of all the Philly schools 440 has yet to grant permission for one school to be run by teachers. Instead we get charters by lawyers, clergy, etc. who have no educational experience. The most recent attempt at a teacher-led school was shut down without a try. How can 440 and the rest say they are really trying to solve the educational crisis? They won't allow even one of them to exist. That's because charters make money for the politicians running them and their campaign contributors. God forbid a teacher-led school should prove effective. The public might start ignoring the charters. Why does it take so long for failing charters to be run down? They seem to run for years before the state/440 closes them. As far as choices we know that many charters find ways seeing that some parents are never given "choices". Until every parent has an equal opportunity at getting their children into any charter you can't call charters part of the "public school system". We take all including those the charters can't handle.

[OldMama]

Every good school I ever worked in was good because the teachers and principals collaborated to run a good program. Every teacher was treated as an expert and their input was valued. I'm so sorry that the Creighton teachers didn't win approval. Instead, we gave the school to Universal. I've yet to see evidence that Universal does any better at running schools than the district but we keep giving them money and more schools. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I guess it does if you're Kenny Gamble.

[seand]

So it sounds like this was a school in need of some sort of change. And the new company running it do have experience running a successful arts magnet school which does count for something more than Universal and Hardy Williams and various church and poltically connected charters. Rather than a mean spirited I hope it fails again and ruins a bunch of kids life to teach them poor kids can't learn because they are poor which seems too often the dominant meme for some people here is there any reason to especially expect them to fail at running a turnaround school? I am consistently shocked at how anti-kid some of the defenders of education come of in these threads. Some schools in Philly do need a reorganization. Instead of wishing failure on others on the kids they teach , how about a little planning on why the type of transformation you think might work don't get politcal traction instead of casting stones at educators.

Sent from my HTCEVOV4G using Tapatalk 2

[OldMama]

I never said I hope it fails. I just want DATA, not anecdotes and promises. I want to know what is working and what isn't. I have been working with children for almost 40 years. I hate to see them fail as done any teacher worth their paycheck.

I already know why teacher run schools are rejected. No one with political clout stands to make money on them. Witness Creighton. Yet another school given to a local legend who has yet to show substantive improvement in any area except his purse.

[seand]

I never said I hope it fails. I just want DATA, not anecdotes and promises. I want to know what is working and what isn't.

I agree 150 percent.

I already know why teacher run schools are rejected. No one with political clout stands to make money on them. Witness Creighton. Yet another school given to a local legend who has yet to show substantive improvement in any area except his purse.

Yet there are some examples of teacher-run schools establishing charters in other districts. One would think that teacher's unions would have an interest in supporting research and think-tanks about the practice, since obviously mixed in with sincere beliefs about school choice, at least some conservative backers of school choice see it as a tool to diminish the political power of teacher's unions. But instead the focus seems to be defend bad-old tenure practices, no matter what.

[OldMama]

We need to differentiate TEACHERS and teachers' unions. I was a member of the PFT for 36 years. Their job is to negotiate raises, working conditions, benefits etc. I needed them to defend me on one occasion when I was rather famously written up by a racist principal for sending Unicef cards. That's what I paid them to do. Their job is not to teach. I don't need the PFT to teach for me; that's my job. Their job is to look out for me so I can do my job.

To complain that teachers' unions fight for the working conditions of their members. That's their purpose. It the teacher's purpose to teach, not the union's.

The Creighton TEACHERS wanted to run their school. That's not the same as the PFT.

[billy ross]

It is my understanding that Green Woods Charter School was started by some teachers from Roxborough, although I can't say for sure. If correct, would that qualify as a teacher-run school?

I agree 150 percent.


Yet there are some examples of teacher-run schools establishing charters in other districts. One would think that teacher's unions would have an interest in supporting research and think-tanks about the practice, since obviously mixed in with sincere beliefs about school choice, at least some conservative backers of school choice see it as a tool to diminish the political power of teacher's unions. But instead the focus seems to be defend bad-old tenure practices, no matter what.

[seand]

They mean teacher-led turnaround schools, I think, as opposed to teachers starting a new charter from scratch which is actually the origin of the charter movement. I.E. a school that because of failing educational standards is forced into reorginzation. Basically for the union every time a conventional public is fired for non-performance they lost a lot of union members. You would think the unions would be all over alternative ways to maintain members but reinvigorate teaching and academic practices in troubled schools. Sadly not.