Mayor: Dissolve the School Reform Commission
In a major education policy speech this morning, Mayor Nutter called for the dissolution of the School Reform Commission and the return of a local board of education.
"Of all the policy recommendations I make today, none will have a bigger impact on Philadelphia than a return to local control," he told an audience of invited guests at WHYY.
After 15 years, Nutter said, "it's time for the experiment to end."
In addition to shifting power to a nine-member, mayorally appointed board, Nutter called for School Advisory Councils at every neighborhood school.
"While I believe that the SRC and its many members have functioned to the best of their abilities and with good intentions, we Philadelphians deserve to govern our own schools," Nutter said. "A return to local control would give us real authority over the education of our children."
He laid out a plan that would complete the transfer of power in September 2018. Conditions for the changeover would include "full funding for public education" by the state and a "student-weighted" education funding formula. This would allow the District, he said, to "adhere to its five-year financial-stability planning process that demonstrates the District's structural balance."
Then there would be a year of "public hearings on governance, debates, and forums on how best to improve education," said Nutter. "Only then will we be in the right place to govern our schools locally."
By 2017, he said, the District would put in place "new accountability practices" and begin the legal process for the transfer of power together with the governor, secretary of education, and the SRC. The changeover would occur the following September.
In Nutter's vision, the new Board of Education, like the one the SRC displaced, would have nine members: five appointed outright by the mayor, four chosen from 12 recommended by City Council.
The SRC can only be dissolved if the members vote the commission out of existence or if the state legislature changes the law that created it.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Mayor: Dissolve the School Reform Commission | Philadelphia Public School Notebook: