Dom Giordano: Kenney is blind to charter benefits

HAVE YOU noticed that Mayor Nutter, extremely likely-to-be Mayor Jim Kenney and major Kenney backer John Dougherty all have something major in common?

All three are proud graduates of St. Joe's Prep, one of Philadelphia's (and America's) great schools. What an endorsement of a Prep education, with a current tuition of $21,500 a year.

I mention this because I'm sure that the parents of all three wanted the best for their sons and struggled to give them an education that helped them to achieve great success. So, it's distressing that in last week's election, Kenney's opponent state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams was reviled for his support of charter schools for parents who want their kids to succeed.

I was moved by a recent Inquirer editorial shortly after the election by four Philadelphia public-school moms who said that they are tired of waiting for funding fixes or grand-plan initiatives that would enable every child to go to a good school in Philadelphia. They correctly cited charter schools as the best opportunity for tens of thousands of African-American and Hispanic kids to get a great education right now.

They certainly didn't sound like tools of corporate interests that want to decimate public schools. Yet the rhetoric of many in the past mayoral campaign centered on conspiracy mongering depicting Senator Williams as a tool of shadowy billionaires from just outside the city funding his campaign in order to take over the schools. This theory is the refuge of those who are protecting the status quo of saying that the schools just need more money rather than innovation and choices for parents.

These views are represented by groups like Pennsylvania Working Families, major supporters of Kenney, whose director, Kati Sipp, told the Atlantic, "The primary was a big win for public education. Money men tried to buy this election, but they failed." Ms. Sipp was a guest on my radio show last Friday and could not even give me a ballpark figure of how much more money would be needed for the schools, but definitely saw charter schools as a negative force. Director Sipp particularly didn't like the fact that charter schools could reject or eject problem students.

This argument raises a major issue of concern for the Philadelphia public schools. I think one of their biggest challenges is dealing with disruptive students and negligent parents. I know from many years of teaching what it's like to deal with even a few disruptive students in a class. When we see new stories about violence and chaos at schools like Bartram High School, we should know that the students who are engaged and want to learn will suffer. The argument seems to be that we shouldn't let these good students escape to charter schools.

Sipp discussed with me and I think was interviewed by the Atlantic because Kenney's election was not just about education but about seeing the schools as an emblem for the debate over income inequality. Sipp and I sparred over the class-warfare battle intrinsic in the title of her group and Kenney's campaign signs, and reminded me of a proposal Kenney made in City Council that I think summarizes what he's about. Kenney may have elected to be our version of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Kenney was the sponsor of a resolution in Philadelphia City Council to make A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, a centerpiece of its high-school history curriculum. The resolution touted the book as an antidote to other books "that often ignore the influence that people of color, women and the working class had in shaping our nation's history."

Of course, Zinn calls the "Declaration of Independence" "a cynical effort to manipulate people into rebelling against the King for the sole purpose of enriching a handful of already-wealthy white males." Zinn was also a big fan of mass murderer Fidel Castro. This might be interesting reading for the tourists coming to Philadelphia to absorb our history.

I'm in the camp that says that Williams certainly didn't run a good campaign. But by choosing Kenney, Philadelphia might be embracing this big-city progressive wave. I bet this wave will be a rocky ride.