Ambitious 5-year Phila. School District plan unveiled

The final draft of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's five-year, $50 million vision for the Philadelphia School District is out, and it is even more ambitious than the last version.

The new plan - which the School Reform Commission will review at its meeting today - incorporates the comments of thousands of Philadelphians who attended community meetings about "Imagine 2014."

Ackerman first introduced her strategic plan in February. She proposed shutting down up to 35 failing schools and reopening them as charters or schools run by outside managers, reducing class size, and adding counselors at the middle- and high-school level, among other things.

The new version, released late Monday night, adds a call for more counselors in elementary schools; more school libraries and textbooks; and increased opportunities for middle-schoolers to learn world languages.

It also stresses that communities should be part of the process for revamping failing schools. The first group of 10 yet-to-be-determined schools are to be shuttered and reopened under a new structure in September 2010.

It calls for an expansion of breakfast and lunch programs, smaller classes at the high school level, and a curriculum more focused on real-world experiences. It calls for more chances for special-education students to participate in school activities.

The plan calls for periodic progress reports on goals each year. The district would make public its goals in October; it would publish a midyear report in March; and it would publish year-end report cards, both for the district and for individual schools, in September.

City schools have made steady, but incremental, progress over the last six years, but Ackerman has called for a dramatic acceleration in achievement.

By 2014, the report states, the city's graduation rate should be 75 percent, as opposed to the 53 percent it was in 2008.

Imagine 2014 also calls for 73 percent of city students to pass state math exams, and a 71 percent passage rate on state reading tests. In 2008, 49 percent of students passed math, and 45 percent passed reading.

Ackerman also wants more diversity among the teaching ranks. Now, ethnic minorities make up 34 percent of the teaching staff. She wants that figure to be 51 percent in 2014.

Today's meeting will be the first opportunity for the new-look commission to weigh in on the strategic plan. It is the first meeting for panel chairman Robert Archie and new member Johnny Irizarry.

The commission is scheduled to vote on Imagine 2014 next week.

Last night, a group of activists said they would ask the commission to delay voting on the plan. The activists said they were upset that the commission canceled a meeting scheduled for last week, when students were on spring break and able to attend a daytime meeting.

The commission shifted its planning meeting to today, and added a voting meeting for next Wednesday night.

"We want an opportunity to speak directly to the SRC before they vote," said ACORN leader Junette Marcano. "The process has been unjust at a time when the district is making plans for the next five years in our schools and communities."

To view the plan, visit www.philasd.org/

strategicplan.

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