PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia schools have made progress in the first year of School District Superintendent Tony Watlington's five-year plan. But with a budget deficit looming, he says they'll need more help.
During his inaugural "State of the Schools" address Tuesday at the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Watlington said standardized test scores are generally up, attendance is higher, the graduation rate is up and there are fewer dropouts, though there were some rough spots.
"In Algebra 1 and biology, we went in the wrong direction," he said. "Performance did not get better. It declined."
However, he also said the district faces a $400 million shortfall next year with the expiration of federal COVID cash and noted that the state is under a Commonwealth Court order to adequately fund schools.
"We want to make the case, quite frankly, that our children are worthy of additional investment — not just additional investment, but constitutional level investment," Watlington said. "We think our kids not only deserve a used Chevrolet, they deserve a Cadillac. And so we want to get them Cadillac funding."
Mayor Cherelle Parker agreed that schools have to come first. "Make the funding of public education during this budget cycle," she said. "They're given crumbles, crumbles, crumbles of funding when they really do deserve a whole loaf."
State Rep. Jordan Harris, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, pointed out in an interview that in the wake of the court ruling, the Basic Education Funding Commission recommended that Pennsylvania spend $5 billion more on schools over the next seven years.
"It's now the responsibility of us in the legislature to put that report into action," he urged. "We have a responsibility to pull ourselves into being constitutional with regards to how we fund schools."
For now, the nonprofit Fund for the School District of Philadelphia is stepping in, announcing a $40 million commitment to the district over the next 4 1/2 years.
