This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.
A coalition that includes some of the District’s biggest unions, including the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, is urging the city’s educational leadership to demand adequate resources from Harrisburg instead of pursuing the strategy of closing District schools and expanding charters.
The Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, or PCAPS, released a 44-page report today that questions the assumptions and conclusions of the Boston Consulting Group’s report that set the District on an austerity course.
"Were it not for the deliberate underinvestment and disinvestment in Philadelphia schools by the state, and the misguided investment in an oversized and exceptionally costly charter school sector by the [School Reform Commission], the district could easily be enjoying a multibillion-dollar surplus instead of a deficit," the report says."Indeed, the supposed fiscal ‘crisis’ is largely a fallacy. The real crisis we face is one of misplaced priorities."
More to come later.
