PARENT COUNCIL: 'NO CONFIDENCE'

AS THE SCHOOL Reform Commission meets today to vote on next year's budget and decide the fate of private managers of public schools, the commission will also learn that it has lost the confidence of Philadelphia's largest parents group.

Greg Wade, president of the Philadelphia Home and School Council, said the message will be conveyed by himself and a group of Home and School chapter presidents.

"Their five-year budget plan is a joke . . . and they did not include us as they promised to do. It's an absolute farce," Wade said of the one-page budget document posted on the school district's Web site.

"I'm initiating a vote of no confidence for the budget and the entire School Reform Commission," he continued. "With the exception of Sandra Dungee Glenn, I think they should all step down. I don't think they have a clue."

The Rev. LeRoi Simmons, of the Germantown Clergy Initiative, said he would attend the meeting with clergy members to speak against proposed budget cuts and the way in which the reform commission hired the district's new interim chief executive, Thomas Brady.

Glenn walked out of the May 16 meeting in protest, contending she knew little of Brady's background and did not know that a vote on him was to take place that day.

"I have no confidence in School Reform Commission Chairman James Nevels," Simmons said. "I don't see him focused on children. I see him almost playing a political game. He's not focused on the 200,000 children who are suffering."

Nevels, whose term expires in January 2009, said he is not going anywhere.

"I'll tell you the same thing as I would have said in 2001," he said during an interview late last week. "I did not want this job, but I had to take it because children in Philadelphia deserved leadership.

"To leave my children when there is substantial financial work to be done, when there is work to be done to find a new chief executive officer - I would never forsake my children now," he said.

Parents not closely affiliated with the Home and School Council, as well as education advocates, have voiced complaints similar to Wade's in recent days as the commission grapples with its worst budget situation in five years.

In addition to the $2.18 billion 2007-08 budget - which can't be balanced without new state and city funding and $99 million in cuts - their complaints have also centered on the six private organizations that manage 41 low-performing schools.

Many parents believe the private-management experiment should come to an end based on findings by independent and school-district studies that privately managed schools have performed no better than other city schools, despite the managers having received $107 million in extra funding since 2002.

"When there are four independent reports out there that say [private managers] have really not met the standards that were given to them, then I'm guessing there's some truth to that," said Mary Jo Kannon, who has a second-grader at the McCall School in Center City.

"If that gets waived because somebody wants to maintain the status quo and it takes funding from my school, then I would like some more transparency as to why that decision is being made," Kannon added.

"This is a struggle about how long will privatization hang on," said Helen Gym, whose daughter attends Powel Elementary School in University City.

"It didn't work in Chester Upland, and it's not working here. Why should our children be made to suffer?"

Said Ulrike Shapiro, president of the C.W. Henry School Home and School Association in Mount Airy: "I feel very strongly that, as all of the regular public schools have had to deal with major cuts over the last year and are dealing with cuts for this upcoming year, to go out and increase funding to an entity that has not proven to be any asset to kids is outrageous."

According to Simmons, private managers "have not proven to be effective. The reform commission should do an evaluation and the vast majority should lose contracts."

Key members of the state Legislature, however, have warned the commission not to cut the private organizations' funding if district expects to get additional state funding.

Thus far, those who have spoken up for the continued presence of the managers are state Rep. Dwight Evans, a Philadelphia Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, and State Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, a Republican who represents Dauphin and York counties.

The $99 million in proposed budget cuts is equally troubling, said Simmons, whose organization for years has worked to improve the learning environment at Germantown High School.

"At what point do we say education cannot occur with more cuts?" Simmons said. "Where is that point? I don't know. But there should be dialogue and respect for the community. There is no dialogue."

Nevels has said be believes private managers have added value to their schools and he is opposed to ending the experiment.

"You have five individuals who are going to rise to the challenge, find a great new leader, make some great decisions, and do that in a way that will serve children," Nevels said of the five-member reform commission.

Also at today's meeting, Denise McGregor Armbrister is to formally join the commission.

Appointed by Gov. Rendell, she is filling a seat made vacant when Daniel Whelan's term expired. *