Tony B. Watlington Sr.: We must position Philadelphia public school students for lifelong success

In June, I completed my first school year as superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia.

Leading one of the nation’s largest public school districts is a tremendous privilege, particularly in Philadelphia. Historians remind me that I stand on the shoulders of great education and political leaders. Students who have attended these public schools have had an indelible impact across the region and country by helping to build the middle class, developing the world’s strongest military, and growing the world’s largest economy during the 20th century.

But superintendency today comes with enormous challenges.

In recent years, the education sector has faced a variety of hurdles, beyond the increased stress, anxiety, and social-emotional challenges that emerged during the pandemic. Like other large cities, Philadelphia, home of the eighth-largest school district in the nation, has battled generational and systemic poverty and a continued rise in gun violence. It is hard to prepare our students — more than 80% of whom identify as students of color — to compete globally when they are facing societal barriers that impact their ability to learn and excel.

Despite these challenges — along with years of underfunding — we must remain committed to the success of public education.

I am a product of public schools, with a résumé that reads like a school district jobs board: bus driver, school custodian, teacher, principal, and district administrator. I know firsthand how public schools can serve as the bedrock on which the American dream rests. It is our job to best position our young people for lifelong success.

So how did we establish this new vision for Philadelphia public school students?

Immediately after the Board of Education hired me on April 1, 2022, we needed to review existing data and seek out additional data on how children are performing.

The numbers present a sobering picture: The majority of public school districts in other large cities continue to outperform the School District of Philadelphia across the core areas of mathematics and reading. But the data also presented some signs of resilience.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress — often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card — sheds light on our resilience in relation to other districts across the country. For example, while students nationwide experienced steep score declines in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math, Philadelphia students saw no score change from 2019 to 2022, with the exception of declines in fourth-grade math. Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education during this period, we considered this progress worth building on.

Our next step was to listen and learn from the people of Philadelphia: what the district does well, what needs improvement, and what they think needs to be prioritized. In my first 100 days, we hosted 90 listening and learning sessions that engaged more than 3,000 educators, school leaders, students, family members, central office and school-based staff, citywide groups, faith leaders, and community-based organizations.

We then assembled a transition team to develop recommendations to shape the district’s future priorities.

All of this work — alongside the engagement of more than 200 members of the district community — resulted in “Accelerate Philly,” the School District of Philadelphia’s new five-year strategic plan with five priority areas and 63 strategic actions, accompanied by supporting research. The district will begin to implement the year one strategies in the 2023-24 school year.

For superintendents, time is of the essence. The community wants results now.

We cannot teach kids if they are not in school.

That is why, during my first year, we also identified and began monthly reporting on four immediate focus areas: student attendance, teacher attendance, dropout rates, and graduation rates, based on new state requirements.

We cannot teach kids if they are not in school. So we became laser-focused on tracking student attendance and the dropout rate. We also began monitoring and reporting on teacher attendance, to ensure that children are consistently taught by high-quality teachers, not substitutes.

As a result of these efforts, we found that student regular attendance — defined as being at school 90% of enrolled days over the year — increased from 57% in the previous school year to 60% this year. Teacher regular attendance — also defined as showing up 90% of school days — increased from 77.3% in the previous school year to 83.6% this year. Student dropouts decreased from 3,917 in the previous school year to 3,652 this year.

Obviously, there is still much work to be done. I am eager to continue bringing our key stakeholders to the table as we launch Accelerate Philly and implement this new vision.

Tony B. Watlington Sr. is the superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia. He previously served as superintendent of Rowan-Salisbury Schools in North Carolina.