Mayor Parker was right in her squabble with City Council over school board nominees, but students must be the top priority | Editorial

The fight over Joyce Wilkerson’s nomination to the Philadelphia school board exposed a deeper divide about the direction of the long-troubled city schools. It also sparked a rift between Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and City Council that could hamper the new mayor’s efforts to implement her broader agenda just months into her administration.

For now, at least, Parker outmaneuvered Council after it voted to withdraw Wilkerson’s nomination for a new term to the Philadelphia Board of Education. Rather than accept defeat, Parker asked Wilkerson to continue serving on the school board until a replacement is found.

Good for Parker to flex her muscles. She is the city’s top elected leader and should be afforded the opportunity to assemble a school board she believes will best serve Philadelphia students.

After all, Parker will be the one held accountable for the success or failure of the schools — not the unnamed Council members who did not even have the courage to hold a roll-call vote or public hearing on Wilkerson’s nomination.

Wilkerson deserved better.

She is a longtime public servant who has been devoted to the city for decades. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and earning a law degree at the University of California, Berkeley, Wilkerson worked at Community Legal Services.

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In 1992, she went to work for then-Council President John F. Street. When Street was elected mayor in 1999, Wilkerson became his chief of staff. In 2016, then-Mayor Jim Kenney appointed Wilkerson to the School Reform Commission, the state-controlled board that was the precursor to the school board.

Over the last eight years, Wilkerson helped guide the Philadelphia School District through funding challenges and the pandemic. Her tenure has not been perfect. Enrollment has declined while the school district’s current $4.5 billion budget has increased by $1 billion since 2020-21. Test scores have increased some but continue to trail much of the state.

To be sure, that’s not all Wilkerson’s fault. After all, serving on the school board is an unpaid, part-time position. The city is fortunate to have someone of Wilkerson’s caliber willing to do what is often a thankless job.

Council never made clear why it opposed Wilkerson. A variety of reasons were floated but none were convincing.

The main claim appears to involve Wilkerson’s role in not approving or renewing Black-led charter schools. An outside letter-writing campaign urged Council to reject Wilkerson and fellow board member Reginald Streater, claiming “a disregard for the educational welfare of Black children.” Council eventually approved Streater to another term.

Suggesting that anti-Black bias was at work seemed to be a bizarre rationale. Wilkerson and Streater are both African American. More to the point, the facts do not support claims the school board targeted Black-led charters. Of the 17 charter schools closed between 2013 and 2023, nine were Black-led and eight were not. That’s essentially an even split.

The charters closed because of dire financial trouble, poor academic results, or both. Some imploded on their own. Not to mention, there is a lengthy process involved in revoking or issuing charters that is set by the state.

If anything, the school board should be more aggressive about holding all charter schools accountable both financially and academically. The future of thousands of students’ lives is at stake, while the adults get bogged down in petty power plays.

Lurking behind the Black-charter school debate is Council President Kenyatta Johnson’s wife, Dawn Chavous, a spokesperson for the African American Charter School Coalition.

In 2020, the coalition claimed Black-led charters were subject to inequities and racism. But a report commissioned by the school board found no “intentional acts of racial discrimination or bias.”

One of the Black-led charters that closed was operated by Universal Companies, which is run by music producer Kenny Gamble. Johnson and Chavous were charged in 2020 with taking bribes from two Universal executives. The couple was acquitted in 2022 and Gamble was not accused of wrongdoing.

Chavous was involved in the effort to defeat Wilkerson, sources told The Inquirer. But Chavous said the coalition did not take a position on the school board nominations and she did not use her position as Johnson’s wife to block Wilkerson. Either way, Chavous’s role raises concerns about perceived or real conflicts of interest when it comes to Johnson’s handling of school district matters.

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Other red herrings were raised as well. Naomi Johnson Booker, head of the Global Leadership Charter School, sent a letter to Council claiming Wilkerson’s leadership was “marred by a series of failures and disregard for accountability and transparency in decision-making processes.” Booker also pointed to a lack of a facilities master plan and Wilkerson’s “rude behavior.”

But how much of Booker’s beef is personal? In March, the school board denied Global Leadership’s request to open a separate high school for a third time. The majority of the board raised academic and operational concerns about Global Leadership.

Those concerns seem well placed. The K-8 charter has an enrollment of 672. Just 18% of Global Leadership’s students were proficient in reading and 1% in math in 2021-22, records show. Meanwhile, Booker’s total compensation topped $475,000, according to the most recent filing in June 2022. That’s roughly 40% more than Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.’s salary of $340,000.

Whatever the root causes, the fight over Wilkerson’s appointment highlighted larger divisions between traditional public schools and charters. As is often the case, what is best for the students was lost in the adult squabbling.

Parker struck the right tone by calling on Council and her administration to work together. Providing a high-quality education for all Philadelphia public school students should be a top priority. A generation of children are counting on it.