West Philly HS – Dissing the community
Last month upwards of fifty people came out to West Philadelphia High to tell School District officials they wanted to keep the current team in place and build on the progress the school has made over the two years. Parents, teachers, students, and community leaders all went on record praising the dramatic improvement in school climate and expressing confidence that Principal Saliyah Cruz and a newly energized staff could deliver academic gains as well.
Participants were responding to the District’s expressed commitment to involve the community in the process of school turnaround currently underway.
But, based on what’s happened since, this promise seems pretty hollow.
"You will have an opportunity to decide what change looks like,” Arlene Ackerman told concerned parents and community members last week. But the Districtrejected an application by Principal Cruz and a community-supported team that would have positioned them to run the school if it is “Renaissanced,” using the Innovation model. Instead, indications are that the school will probably be made a Promise Academy, the Renaissance model run directly out of Arlene Ackerman’s shop. Both these decisions clearly run counter to community sentiment and have prompted protest.
The School District defends this course of action by pointing to West’s low test scores. Ben Rayer, the District’s Renaissance czar, told the Inquirer, "We are not going to back down from needing to make dramatic changes in schools where kids are just not reading, writing, and doing math at a level that allows them to get a job or go to college,” a theme he also repeated at the community meeting.
No one, certainly not the West Philadelphia community that has been historically victimized by the school’s failure, is going to deny the urgency of fixing the school.
But, as I see it, there are two problems with Rayer’s “no backing down” posture. First, is the failure to recognize how important the achievement of renewal at West has been. A school where violence was spiraling out of control, where staff morale