$12M is earmarked to empower 85 schools

In an effort to break cycles of failure, Philadelphia's 85 lowest-performing public schools this fall are being assigned additional personnel and resources costing $12 million, district officials announced yesterday.

The Empowerment Schools Program is designed to remove "challenges" from the schools, thus allowing teachers to focus on teaching and students to focus on learning, said Arlene Ackerman, district superintendent.

"These are some pretty serious challenges that are in the way," Ackerman added.

During yesterday's School Reform Commission meeting, Darienne Driver, director of the Empowerment effort, noted that these schools have a host of problems in common, including: a lack of rigor in instruction and curriculum, incoherent instructional strategies, high teacher absences and turnover, high numbers of inexperienced teachers, little planning time for teachers, low parent involvement, poorly coordinated resources and many children in need of social and mental-health services.

The 46 elementary, 22 middle and 17 high schools have failed to achieve progress targets under the federal No Child Left Behind Act for multiple years.

Each school will get enhanced professional development for staffs and regular visits from three-member Empowerment School Response Teams.

The 15 teams will conduct demonstration lessons, train teachers, analyze data and implement reform interventions specific to the schools.

The 23 lowest-performing of the 85 schools will get the most help, Ackerman said.

Each of these schools will receive a social-service liaison, a parent ombudsman, a student adviser, a full-time auxiliary teacher, a part-time retired principal, increased nursing services, additional volunteers and instructional specialists.

The remaining 62 schools will receive a parent ombudsman, a student adviser and additional volunteers, school officials said.

For more information and a list of the Empowerment schools, go to www.phila.k12.pa.us.

In other news, the reform commission voted 5-0 to approve new one-year contracts with three of the district's five labor unions.

Members of the unions that represent school administrators, police officers and blue-collar workers will receive three-percent raises.

An agreement with the cafeteria workers union is expected in about two weeks but a deal with the teachers union will have to come later, Ackerman said.

The district's proposal to offer the unions one-year contracts rather than traditional four-or five-year deals has led to the standoff with the largest union — the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Ackerman said the year-long pacts will give the district and teachers union time to work out complex issues, such as how to lengthen the school day and create a differentiated pay system — raising all teachers' salaries and paying even more to those who are successful or who work in hard-to-staff positions and schools.

But Jerry Jordan, PFT president, said lengthening the school day was unproven as a reform, while teachers who obtain National Board Certification and those who work in hard-to-staff positions already are paid more.

"If there is something else that Dr. Ackerman has in mind, we have to sit at the table and talk about it. But I don't think it will take much time to talk about issues that we are already familiar with," he said.

Jordan said a longer contract would give teachers a sense of stability and thus would aid in recruitment and retention efforts. He noted that some 700 teachers retired this spring, up from the usual 350.

"There are teachers who are moving on to other districts because the pay and benefits are so much better. Teachers need to have stability in their lives — that's important to them," he said.

On lengthening the school day, Jordan said: "A longer day is not a better day. It's what we offer during the day."

The teachers union contract expired August 31 and has since been extended to Oct. 31.