Education activists ready to grade school district, PFT

A grass-roots campaign to improve teacher quality in Philadelphia public schools next year is moving into overdrive.

Yesterday, the campaign's members boarded a school bus to visit the respective headquarters of the Philadelphia School District and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Campaign members served notice that they plan to grade the district and union on how well they address teacher-equity issues in the PFT contract that the two parties are negotiating behind closed doors. The current pact expires Aug. 31.

Education activists have complained for decades that the city's highest-poverty schools have more teachers with little-to-no experience. The contract is partly to blame, the activists believe, because it allows half of teacher vacancies to be filled based on seniority.

"We're not here to blame either side but to let both sides know that we are counting on them to get their acts together," Lola Oladapo boomed to a cheering crowd of high school students and adult activists outside district headquarters.

The Cross City Campaign for School Reform and the Education First Compact, which organized yesterday's rallies, released a form they'll use to grade the district and union once the contract is ratified.

It calls for the contract to include stronger incentives to attract effective teachers to hard-to-staff schools, a requirement to fill vacancies by school-based committees, performance standards and evaluations for teachers that the group helped to create, and teacher-driven professional development.

Jerry Jordan, PFT president, said it was incorrect to suggest that all young teachers cannot do their jobs satisfactorily. Schools need a mix of young teachers with fresh ideas and veterans who can mentor them, he said.

"We met with the members of the Cross City Campaign," Jordan said. "Many of the things they care about, we care about."

Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said summer institutes for teachers and a grant-funded program to train nonteacher staffers to become teachers are already planned to boost instruction and the number of teachers.

"We're not standing around wringing our hands. We're working with several of the universities to see if we can get more courses and targeted resources toward helping our new teachers and aspiring teachers," she said. *