Inquirer Editorial: Entire SRC ought to resign

Here's hoping the resignation of city School Reform Commission Chairman Robert L. Archie has sent the right message to the remaining SRC members, who ought to follow him out the door.

There should be little fear that chaos would result without this group running the 151,000-student district. This board has too often seemed asleep at the wheel during the more than two years that Archie has been in charge.

In resigning Monday, Archie said his goal was always "the best educational program for the children of Philadelphia." But there are questions about his true incentives that won't be answered until Mayor Nutter releases the results of an investigation of the SRC by the city's chief integrity officer.

The probe considered whether Archie played an inappropriate role in the competition between two charter-school operators, one with ties to State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), to run Martin Luther King High School. Former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman says she was pressured to support the operator favored by Archie and Evans. But she hasn't disclosed who did the pressuring.

It's a remarkable allegation, given that under Archie's leadership the SRC seemed to act as a rubber stamp, rarely making any public effort to counter Ackerman's authoritarian approach to running the system. It's hard to have any confidence in the SRC.

Archie said in his resignation letter that, "The mayor should have the opportunity to carry out his educational programs and objectives with a new group of appointees to the commission." SRC member Johnny Irizarry quickly tendered his resignation as well. That leaves Joseph Dworetzky and Denise Armbrister.

Former City Solicitor Pedro Ramos, who was on the city's old mayor-appointed school board, is waiting for state Senate confirmation of his nomination by Gov. Corbett to fill an SRC slot vacant since February. That Corbett left the seat vacant for months raises questions about his commitment to Philadelphia public schools.

That's why it's good to see an earnest discussion of proposed legislation that would end the 10-year-old experiment with a panel jointly appointed by the governor and mayor and return the city to a local school board that is more directly accountable to the people of Philadelphia.

Fears are being raised about the politics that will be played with an elected or mayor-appointed board, but it's hard to see how the politics could get any worse. To a large degree, it was Ackerman's inability to maneuver this city's political waters that cost her job. Even with a new cast, the SRC may not be the solution.