Hite's Plan for Schools

With all the woes that the School District of Philadelphia has gone through and is currently going through, Superintendent Hite is looking for new ways to improve the way the School District "does business."  Hite wants to allow the strongest schools to run themselves beginning in 2016, and turn some struggling schools over to private contractors. The plan would require more than $300 million in new recurring revenue from the city and state for the next school year and a total of $970 million over five years in order to execute. Hite's "Action Plan v3.0" would also reorganize the district. The current eight networks - groupings of schools run by an assistant superintendent - would remain.

But three networks would be added: a "turnaround" network for the bottom 5 percent or 10 percent of schools.

I understand that the School District is in a tough fix financially, but in my opinion, Superintendent Hite is going about this all wrong. He makes a good point that almost half of the district's students do not meet the state's standards  in reading and math, AND that the district has thousands of students that are over-age and have not yet graduated. I'm aware that the School District need urgent care, but I think that the solution is what it should have always been: provide public schools with the resources they need so that principals and teachers can do their job and so that students can have a quality education and actually learn. Simple as that. When is the District gonna learn?

Wolf's Roar

Any supporter of education in Philadelphia would have undoubtedly voted for Tom Wolf for governor over Tom Corbett. Now, with his kicking of Bill Green to the curb, I'd be surprised if he didn't have the support of all education supporters. Technically Bill Green was just replaced by another member of the SRC, Marjorie Neff, but nevertheless, Tom Wolf is the real MVP.

Tom Wolf only demoted Green after he ignored Wolf's plea with the SRC to not approve any more charter schools #karma. In my opinion, Neff should have always been the chair of the SRC because she's the ONLY one on the commission with actual experience in education. ISN'T THAT INSANE??!!? Anyway, Wolf's bold move was solely based on the fact that he didn't want any more charter schools approved, AND I DON'T EITHER!With every new charter school that is brought up in Philadelphia, a large chunk of money that would have gone to public schools is now gone. Charter schools hurt the district, and hurt the opportunity of the average student to get a good and affordable education. With that being said, I approve Wolf's decision to demote Green, although it is not yet known whether Wolf has that authority. No matter, I'm eager to see what else Wolf will do to improve education in Pennsylvania. Who knows? Maybe the SRC may be on its way to non-existence.