DN Editorial: A 'D' in civics

AMERICAN Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has entered the Philadelphia fray over the school budget crisis.

Weingarten sent an email blast to 140,000 AFT members across the country, urging them to sign a petition exhorting Mayor Nutter to fully fund the schools. The AFT says that as of yesterday afternoon, 6,000 have responded.

The missive's opening salvo: "After closing 24 neighborhood schools and laying off more than 3,500 teachers and school support staff, Mayor Nutter has done the bare minimum to make sure the schools open on time . . . "

It closes with "Tell Mayor Nutter to fully fund Philadelphia schools now."

Unfortunately, if a Philadelphia public-school student had written this communiqué, we'd have to give her a "D" for its many errors. And that's being generous.

The problem is, the mayor of Philadelphia is not in charge of funding the schools. That job belongs primarily to the state, which took over the city's schools in 2001.

The mayor does not have the power to close schools or lay off teachers. That belongs to the state oversight panel, the School Reform Commission, which approved the closure of schools and the budget that required layoffs.

Faced with a $300 million deficit, the schools asked the state, the city and the unions for help. So far, only the city has obliged, with a promise of $50 million. In fact, for the past few years, the city has increased school funding - $53 million in 2011 and $40 million in 2012.

As far as the current crisis goes, the state's response has been abysmal. It fell short of taking concrete action on finding new money, and the money it did manage to cobble together - $45 million that was diverted from the feds - comes with strings that will delay the writing of the check. Those strings have to do with reforms in the teachers' contracts.

So why isn't Weingarten laying blame where it belongs, on Gov. Corbett?

Sure, we know that in this, the week leading up to the Philadelphia teachers' contract expiration on Saturday, rhetoric is likely to get heated. In fact, the PFT released a commercial with a similar theme, blaming Nutter for failing to fully fund the schools.

We imagine that the intent is to generate enough headlines related to the mayor that the headlines stay off the $133 million that the district wants from the union - concessions at which the PFT is balking. They include extending the workday from 7.04 hours, having members contribute something toward their health benefits - they contribute nothing now - and changes in work rules that would allow principals to have a say in assembling their teaching staffs.

Fudging the facts and distorting history does not constitute best teaching practices. And we can't help believing that the rhetoric only adds disruptive drama for the thousands of children and their parents who face a new school year that is more fraught and uncertain than any in memory. The adults keep saying that we need to think of the children. But it seems like few are giving the kids much thought at all.