Hite releases school action plan built on 'bold expectations'

Hite releases school action plan built on 'bold expectations':



Hite releases school action plan built on 'bold expectations'

Despite enormous, ongoing fiscal challenges in the Philadelphia School District, Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. is thinking big.

How big?

Every 8-year-old in the city reading at grade level. Every student graduating ready for college and careers. Every school with a great principal and teachers. Full funding for great schools.

Centering on those four goals, Hite's 42-page blueprint for the future of the district, to be issued Monday, is full of "bold expectations," the superintendent said.

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Read: Hite's Action Plan (.pdf)

Incoming School Reform Commission Chairman Bill Green is fully on board with the plan, an aspirational document that emphasizes "evidence-based strategies" and counts on significant changes in the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers' contract, now being negotiated.

"The current rules in schools will not lead to better outcomes for children," Green said in an interview. "If a principal can't choose the teachers, if we can't reward teachers based on performance rather than time on the job and degrees held, we're not going to be successful."

Green, who along with Farah Jimenez must be sworn in before an SRC meeting Thursday, said Philadelphia schools won't get the additional funding they need to operate unless those changes are made.

"If we can't do that, then we need to be looking at other educational choices for parents," choices like charters, he said.

Hite's "Action Plan v2.0" - the follow-up to his initial blueprint, issued in January 2013, contains four anchor goals. All are pressing, but the early-literacy goal will be the most urgent, Hite

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