Parents United statement on Corbett SRC appointments
Parents United for Public Education will seek to work with any and all appointees to the School Reform Commission. As parents, however, we believe the appointment of any new individuals to the Commission does not change the fundamentally flawed nature of an entity which is ultimately beholden to politics over effective governance.
The approval process for SRC commissioners is conducted in back rooms and through private conversations with select state senators. It is neither open nor transparent. SRC commissioners have no clear statements of qualifications or responsibilities and all too often exhibit a stunning lack of awareness of their obligations as public servants.
In the past year, the School Reform Commission oversaw mass school closings, which the District now acknowledges resulted in too many students ending up in schools worse than the ones they had previously attended. They have failed to deal responsibly with ethics and transparency problems. More than a year ago an independent advisory body drafted a list of recommendations to improve ethics and transparency in the district; to this date, the SRC has failed to even make the recommendations public despite calls to do so by the watchdog group Committee of Seventy. They are dealing with the fallout of one of the largest test cheating