Philadelphia SRC Approves 5 New Charter Schools, 4 Arrested During Heated Meeting
By Mike DeNardo, Jan Carabeo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — At a raucous meeting that lasted more than five hours, the School Reform Commission Wednesday night voted to deny 34 of 39 applications for new charter schools.
The meeting was frequently disrupted by protesters opposed to new charters, four of which were arrested.
The SRC granted conditional three-year charters to five schools. The schools receiving charters include Independence Charter School West, KIPP Dubois, MaST Community Charter-Roosevelt campus, Mastery Charter Gillespie campus and Tech Freire Charter.
SRC chair Bill Green says there was no effort to appease GOP leaders in the legislature, who pushed the district to approve more charters:
“There was no strategy there. We reviewed each applications on its own terms for merit, and called the balls and strikes that we thought were appropriate.”
Some spoke in support:
“Four years my son has attended GLA,” says parent Hanna Nunez. “He has received an extraordinary education.
While many others were clearly against, like Commissioner Marjorie Neff who voted against every charter application.
“There were deficiencies in all of them,” she said. “Some more deficient than others.”
The anti-charter group came out on top with the SRC approving just the five schools.
The district has an $80-million deficit, but Green says the five new charters won’t have a deep Philadelphia SRC Approves 5 New Charter Schools, 4 Arrested During Heated Meeting « CBS Philly:
