PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — City Council on Wednesday examined whether the Philadelphia Board of Education is biased against Black-led charter schools.
Backers of Black-led charter schools want more action from the school board since the release in October of a two-year investigation conducted by law firm Ballard Spahr into bias at play in the way their charters are approved and renewed.
"The current process that the charter school office and school board uses to evaluate and determine renewals for Black-founded and led charters is broken,” said Dawn Chavous, representing the African American Charter School Coalition.
Chavous told City Council's education committee Wednesday that the school board hasn't done enough to eliminate perceived bias against Black-led charters.
The Ballard Spahr investigation concluded that, while the school board did not deliberately discriminate against Black-led charter schools, the approval and renewal process could be improved — and their report offered recommendations.
School board President Reginald Streater said the board had taken some steps, such as offering implicit bias training and providing more chances for charter schools to meet with school district leaders before charter renewal votes come up.
Chavous said it would be wrong to continue to operate under an approval and renewal framework that has been found to be flawed, but Streater said the board can't change standards without engaging other school communities.
"We are committed to moving forward the conversation to hear from -- so at that table, we'll include BIPOC schools, Latinx schools," Streater said.
"I believe that it would be, again, governance malpractice to not engage around certain big things that are going to impact those schools tomorrow without them being heard.”
Chavous said Black charters have been waiting too long for changes.
"Let's set the meeting, and tell us who else is going to be there. We'll show up. But it can't just be the same regurgitated conversation over and over again."
Streater could not, however, set a timetable for changing the process.