Seven failing schools to become charters

Seven failing city schools will be turned into charters in September.

Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman's Renaissance schools process will radically restructure 14 schools overall.

After nine school advisory councils met with six potential providers, they made recommendations to Ackerman, who revealed her picks at a School Reform Commission meeting Wednesday.

The commission approved the matches, 3-0. Commissioner Denise McGregor Armbrister was absent, and Chairman Robert L. Archie Jr. recused himself because he formally sat on the board of one of the providers.

Bluford and Daroff Schools were matched with Universal Companies; Douglass School matched with Young Scholars Charter School; Harrity, Mann and Smedley Schools matched with Mastery Charter Schools; and Stetson Middle School matched with ASPIRA Inc. of Pa. Another school, Potter-Thomas, will join five previously announced schools as "Promise Academies" - schools run by Ackerman herself.

West Philadelphia High, another Renaissance school, needs more time to make its choice, officials said. Its match will be announced and voted on at the May 26 meeting.

Two providers who qualified to run schools did not receive them. Philadelphia-based Congreso and Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins/Diplomas now were not given schools, though West Philadelphia's council has given signs that it's leaning toward Hopkins.

The Renaissance schools will see wholesale changes - longer school day and year, some Saturday school, and new curriculum. No more than 50 percent of the schools' teaching force can be rehired.

Teachers who want to stay in the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the city's teachers' union, may not return to the new charters. Promise Academies will be run with district staff.