After months spent analyzing the Philadelphia School District from top to bottom, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.’s transition team presented its report to the public and school board Thursday — with 91 short- and long-term recommendations on how to fix the system.
The 100-member committee — under the leadership ofCommunity College of Philadelphia President Donald “Guy” Generals and Andrea Custis, a former Verizon executive and president of the Philadelphia Urban League — studied academics, operations, and equity, among other issues.
Though the 114,000-student district has strengths — namely, a return to fiscal stability after a time when officials had to borrow to pay bills, and an end of the state’s takeover of the school system — the team also identified significant challenges.
Tops is academics: Student achievement is consistently low, and relatively flat on local, state and national assessments. Citywide, just 36% of district students meet state standards in reading and 22% in math. Moreover, the district “lacks a clear theory of action on how it expects to raise student achievement. When initiatives are launched, they rarely go to scale as they come from separate departments in the central office and simply layer on initiative after initiative.”