The day that Helen Gym socked it to...the Philadelphia SRC
No I wouldn't put you on because it really did, it happened just this way/The day Helen Gym socked it to the Philadelphia S.R.C:
I believe in the possibility of school transformation and the role that community and parent voices play in concert with schools and districts. I believe in the value of the public sphere and the responsibilities it owes to the most marginalized of communities -- our immigrant students, special needs populations, and young people struggling with disciplinary issues.
I believe in choice options that co-exist to supplement, not destroy, a public school system. I believe in real, creative innovation in our classrooms, not the "drill-and-kill" test prep replicated in too many of these "high-performing" charters you tout. I believe in a vision of schools that is aspirationally led rather than deficit-based. Your focus on the bottom brings everyone down.
I believe our communities have always been there to pick up the pieces after administrations of hubris pass on. And I believe our public schools are worth fighting for.
What happened here today in Philadelphia was really monumental, so large that the city has yet to put its arms fully around it yet.
The public school system has been blown up.
I'm sure there was a lot of rejoicing today in the offices of those billionaire hedge fund dudes, the Amway people, Governor Corbett and the Tea Party, Archbishop Chaput, and all the others who'd like to see public education destroyed. They won. They didn't do it themselves, of course -- most of the devastation came from within, with Arlene Ackerman giving it the final kick. But the coming massive corruption of the privatization era is going to make people long nostalgically for the bad old days of the School District of Philadelphia.