Failing our kids, from Flint to Philly

There was another contentious meeting last week at the Philadelphia School Reform Commission. The issue was whether to convert yet another three traditional public schools into charter schools that would be privately managed with our public tax dollars.

At one point in the meeting, the city's leading advocate for charters -- Mark Gleason of the deep-pocketed Philadelphia Schools Partnership -- had the microphone and was addressing critics who said that in racing to privatize education, we were treating our kids just like Flint, Michigan, where a government scheme to reduce costs ended up contaminating Flint's drinking water with toxic lead.

I wasn't at the meeting, but attendees recorded and transcribed Gleason's comments (which were also widely discussed on social media). This is part of what he had to say:

"I started my day today reading the newspaper and reading about Flint, Michigan, where they were serving for more than a year contaminated drinking water to all the families in Flint," Gleason said. "Nobody tried to do that.  They were trying to do something good.  They were trying to save money.  They tried to find a better solution."

There's nothing outrageously wrong in Gleason's analysis -- except for the lack of any feeling or empathy for the nuance of a uniquely American tragedy. Saving money is NOT always the same thing as "trying to do something good." Generally, when the health and welfare of young children is in the equation, the idea is to spare no expense. At least in the suburbs, anyway. Apparently not so much if the place is urban and blue-collar and predominantly black like Flint -- an economic casualty of the end of the Industrial Revolution. where untold numbers of kids have now suffered irreversible lead poisoning and officials are probing whether tainted water caused 10 deaths from Legionnaire's disease.

In fact, a comparison between Flint and what's happened to Philadelphia's public schools over the last 15 years isn't unfair. It's apt. The state takeover of the schools, with its School Reform Commission, or SRC, in 2001 was spun as people saving money and trying to do something good. That also became the party line about the surge in charter schools that's happened under the SRC's watch. Flint got foul-smelling, discolored polluted water. Philly got schools with no nurses or guidance counselors and a fiscal crisis that has spun out of control. Both schemes placed unblinkered faith in the private market and sought to minimize the voice of the people -- while damning an entire generation of innocent kids in the process.

The Flint crisis in Michigan took place under the watch of a Republican governor, businessman Rick Snyder, who advertises himself as "One Tough Nerd" (that's even his Twitter handle), a guy who can straighten out our wayward government by crunching the numbers. Of course, the stereotype of nerds is that they aren't the best with people skills. And Rick Snyder definitely hasn't governed Michigan as a People Person.

In the case of Flint, the "tough nerd" created a system of faceless city managers and bureaucrats that overrode any sense of local democracy or empowerment yet was surprisingly timid and inept, incapable of changing direction even as signs of poisonous water emerged almost from Day One of the new drinking water regime that was imposed on Flint in early 2014.

How does this connect to education? Well, for one thing, Snyder -- elected governor in the GOP landslide election of 2010 -- has also imposed a schools regime in the struggling city of Detroit that carries echoes of both so-called "decision-making" in Flint and the Philadelphia education crisis. In the Motor City, a series of unaccountable short-term emergency managers have caused a downward spiral in both student enrollment and dollars, just like in Philadelphia. The most recent "emergency manager" for the Detroit schools had the same job in Flint at the low point of the water crisis. Coincidence? In recent days, some Detroit teachers have been leading a "sick-out" to call national attention to the deplorable conditions.

It's important to note that love for these undemocratic -- and unworkable -- government imposed fiascoes in poor communities can transcend party lines. In the case of Flint, local Democratic officials -- while stripped of most real power by the Snyder scheme -- were slow to rise up against the water pollution, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of a Democratic administration inexplicable bungled the response. Philadelphia's school crisis spiraled downward under Republican and Democratic governors. It's horrifying when indifference and ineptitude merge with inertia, regardless of political party.

In Philadelphia, the SRC took the first steps to convert these three schools to charters with little regard to elected city officials like new Mayor Jim Kenney who support public community schools, with health centers and other neighborhood services. In the case of one of the schools -- Wister Elementary in Germantown -- district superintendent William Hite had decided that improving conditions there meant it no longer made sense to turn management over to Mastery Charter Schools. But Hite and other officials were stunned when the SRC -- at the 11th hour, in a bombshell from previously silent commission member Sylvia Simms -- voted to flip Wister after all. The move carried echoes of the SRC's unadvertised, virtually undiscussed and anti-democratic move in 2014 to cancel its labor contract with the teachers' union.

There was one twist: It later emerged that the SRC's legal council has ruled that it wasn't a conflict of interest for Simms to vote on turning over Wister to Mastery -- even though Simms' sister had been hired in April to work for consulting company called Citizen Consulting Group that has been hired by Mastery. And to be clear, there's no evidence that Simms' vote was influenced in any way. But ethics guidelines should exist to prevent even the appearance of a conflict of interest -- and the appearance here is awful.

That's why it's important to point out the biggest difference between the Flint water crisis and the Philadelphia education crisis. The damage caused by lead poisoning in children is irreversible. The damage caused by the SRC and its conflicted, counterproductive regime can be reversed practically overnight. It's time to abolish the SRC and develop a new system that will once again give Philadelphia's citizens power over their children's education. The nerds, the bean-counters, the Rick Snyders and the Mark Gleasons of the world, have had their shot to "do something good," and it hasn't worked out for the kids.

They failed. For God's sake, give more power to the people.