Wash. Post: PA. School District on Verge of Collapse, open with unpaid labor

[JPZenger]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/pennsylvania-school-district-on-verge-of-collapse-and-using-free-labor-to-stay-open/2012/01/10/gIQAuXAgrP_blog.html

Excerpts:

"A tragic story is unfolding in Pennsylvania’s troubled Chester Upland School District, where a combination of drastic budget cuts, poor management, student attrition to charter schools and other factors have left the immediate future of the traditional public schools in doubt... Some 40 percent of the system’s professional staff, and 50 people of its unionized support staff, have been laid off."

45% of the district's budget is diverted to charter schools, including:

"The charter school was founded by a lawyer and entrepreneur named Vahan Gureghian, who also owns and runs a for-profit management company that has a contract with Chester Community Charter School to operate it. Gureghian, incidentally, is a big contributor to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, having given more than $300,000 to his campaign, which made him the largest single donor. Gureghian also served as an education advisor on Corbett’s transition team after his 2010 election victory.

Chester Upland gets nearly 70 percent of its annual funding from the state but lost almost 20 percent of its allotment because of severe budget cuts.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board blames the state for the mess, writing: “The latest meltdown in the Chester Upland school system is a sweeping indictment of the State Department of Education, which has allowed the Delaware County district to persistently remain one of the worst in Pennsylvania. ... This sorry state of affairs could have been avoided. The district, reeling from state budget cuts this fiscal year, made a reasonable appeal to the state for an $18.7 million advance payment of the state funding that it expects to receive in June. But the Corbett administration so far has refused to help...

Why isn’t finding the money and expertise to fix it so all children can be served isn’t one of the alternatives? Why do we assume charters are the answer when they have no better record nationally than traditional public schools. It is a disgrace that an American school public school district is forced to depend on free labor from unionized teachers and staff to stay open. Why the people in a position to fix this in Pennsylvania don’t get that is mystifying."