DN Editorial: HITE OF AMBITION
Instead of retrenching, the superintendent has a bold plan for change
CONSIDER Schools Superintendent William Hite's first year. From the time he arrived in September 2012, he presided over the closing of 23 schools and a foundation-shaking $304 million deficit that forced massive layoffs, threatened to keep schools closed on opening day and cut into fundamental education basics - a deficit that has still not been met completely, by the way. For good measure, he inherited a cheating scandal and charter-school scandals and is about to see a change in the leadership of the School Reform Commission.
Given these events, it would not be a shock that anyone in his position would have thought twice about completely unpacking his suitcases, to say nothing of simply lying down in surrender. Which makes his bold new plan for the schools, released yesterday, all the more impressive. This is clearly not a guy daunted by adversity. In fact, we suspect that he must be a member of a highly refined class of The Undead. And we mean that in a good way.
The 41-page plan has ambitious goals, like having a 100 percent graduation rate and 100 percent of eighth-graders reading at grade level and getting 100 percent of the money the district needs.
The tone of the plan is as important as the content. It is commanding and urgent: "We are making our schools great. Period. And we say to everyone in Philadelphia and beyond: Join us."
Of course, all superintendents produce such plans, measurable road maps of how they intend to improve education and justify their salaries. Arlene Ackerman's was called "Imagine 2014." (Two months into 2014, current conditions make that title a bit sad.) There are many parallels between Ackerman's and Hite's plans. Hite's does not include artwork from students, and, unlike Ackerman's, his does not make progress conditional on budget fluctuations, but makes adequate financing one of his goals. That's an important difference. It's hard not to be moved by the ambitions that Hite has set out for the city's schools, and his belief that it can actually happen.
But getting the money that the schools need is one big "if." So far, the Legislature and the governor have shown little appetite for confronting the schools' fiscal reality. Another big "if": the concessions that will be needed from the teachers union on work rules and other issues that will give Hite the flexibility he wants. The two, though, are inextricably linked; we suspect that success in the contract negotiations will help determine his success at getting more money.
At heart is the question: Who has control of how we educate our children? In Philadelphia, "control" is a mutable concept. The Legislature has control because it determines how much money it will give. The teachers have control because their contracts limit the changes that management can make in their workday, in where they teach and how they get hired. The superintendent has authority, but Hite's plan serves as a gauntlet for greater control - over the financial investment we must make in education, and for making changes to the system that will make a difference. Change must come, because the status quo means a continually eroding system with continually eroding support.
