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Thursday, June 20, 2013

Stop School Funding Ignorance Now! A Philadelphia Story | School Finance 101

Stop School Funding Ignorance Now! A Philadelphia Story | School Finance 101:

Stop School Funding Ignorance Now! A Philadelphia Story

On a daily basis, I continue to be befuddled by the ignorant bluster, intellectual laziness and mathematical and financial ineptitude of those who most loudly opine on how to fix America’s supposed dreadful public education system.  Common examples that irk me include taking numbers out context to make them seem shocking, like this Newark example (some additional context), or the repeated misrepresentation of per pupil spending in New York State.
And then there are those times, when a loudmouthed pundit simply chooses to ignore reality altogether – and frame the problem as it exists only in their own cloistered world or own head. That brings me to this tweet:
Philly’s district as financially distressed & low-performing as I’ve seen. Stop propping it up. Bring it to an end. 
http://t.co/6QttBnjwzl

— Andy Smarick (@smarick) June 17, 2013
Perhaps I’m misinterpreting, but it appears that Andy Smarick in this tweet is placing blame for the financial distress of Philadephia schools squarely if not entirely on the city school district itself. In fact, he suggests that someone has been “propping up” the district. And that because the district – like all “urban” districts do – fails –