"Setting the stage for more dramatic change in city classrooms, the Philadelphia School District yesterday announced that 14 chronically low-performing schools are eligible for radical restructuring in the fall.
An undetermined number of the nine elementary, two middle, and three high schools, scattered throughout the city, will open under outside managers, as charters, or as district-run schools with big changes in the school day, staffing, and curriculum.
'We're saying enough is enough,' Benjamin W. Rayer, the district's chief of charter, partnership, and new schools, said at a public announcement of the overhaul plans.
Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said she saw the movement as positive, not punitive.
'This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for these school communities to have some say over their destiny,' she said.
But it's hardly the first time an administration has promised sweeping reform for city schools."
An undetermined number of the nine elementary, two middle, and three high schools, scattered throughout the city, will open under outside managers, as charters, or as district-run schools with big changes in the school day, staffing, and curriculum.
'We're saying enough is enough,' Benjamin W. Rayer, the district's chief of charter, partnership, and new schools, said at a public announcement of the overhaul plans.
Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said she saw the movement as positive, not punitive.
'This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for these school communities to have some say over their destiny,' she said.
But it's hardly the first time an administration has promised sweeping reform for city schools."