King High School committee votes for Promise Academy

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Martin Luther King High School, one of the city's chronically underachieving schools, will become a Promise Academy in the fall and receive extra funding to launch immediate academic improvements.

King's advisory committee of parents, staff, students, and community representatives voted, 8-1, Tuesday for that option, the Philadelphia School District announced Wednesday evening.

The decision brings stability to the East Germantown school of 1,100 students, which has been buffeted for weeks by political controversy involving Robert L. Archie Jr., chairman of the School Reform Commission, and State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), who favored having a New Jersey nonprofit run the school as a charter school. King is adjacent to Evans' West Oak Lane district.

"The students have been in limbo for so long throughout this process," Conchevia Washington, a parent who chairs King's committee, said Wednesday night. "It brings us back to why we were doing what we were doing . . . and that is for the kids and their education."

District Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman's academic-improvement initiative - Imagine 2014 - calls for improving the worst-performing schools by making them district-run Promise Academies or turning them over to charter school operators.

Ackerman assured the King committee last week that it would get to choose the improvement model for the school after allegations of political wrangling and conflicts of interest prompted two proposed charter operators to back out of running King in the fall.

After an intensive review, the committee had voted, also 8-1, to have Mosaica Turnaround Partners, an Atlanta division of a for-profit education management company, take over King in the fall. The runner-up was Foundations Inc., the New Jersey nonprofit that had provided services to King for seven years and has worked on many education projects with Evans in Northwest Philadelphia.

A brouhaha over the school's future erupted when Mosaica withdrew its bid March 17, one day after the SRC voted, 3-0, to give King to Mosaica.

Archie abstained from the vote because his law firm represents Foundations. Right afterward, he summoned John Q. Porter, president of Mosaica's Turnaround division, to meet privately with Evans.

Archie has said the goal of the meeting was to find ways for Foundations and Mosaica to work together at King. Porter has declined to say what was discussed, but he said after the meeting that Mosaica did not want to interfere with Evans' long-range education plan for Northwest Philadelphia.

Foundations later withdrew from King as well. Chief executive officer Rhonda H. Lauer said last month that Foundations no longer wanted to be involved in the district's turnaround plans for King. She cited a climate of "unrelenting hostility."

Last week, Mayor Nutter announced that he had directed Joan Markman, the city's chief integrity officer, to conduct interviews to find out why Mosaica had withdrawn from King.

As a district-run Promise Academy, King will have a longer school day, a longer school year, twice-monthly Saturday sessions, and family field trips. The school will get a new principal and replace half its teachers. The King committee will participate in staff interviews.

Washington said her committee had decisively chosen the Promise model after weighing that option against remaining a regular district school and returning to the charter-match process next year in the hope of finding an operator for 2012-13.

She said members were not sure what would happen if King went through the charter process again.

"Obviously, there was a lot of political involvement this time," Washington said. "Who's to say that wouldn't happen again?"

The committee also looked at the massive cuts to staff and programs that regular public schools face as the district struggles to make up a $629 million shortfall. As a Promise Academy, King will receive an additional $215 per student and be shielded from some cuts.

"We are getting so much more than through the turnaround process," Washington said, "and the good thing is, it starts now."