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From museums to Microsoft, partners work with Philadelphia school district

Ohanian Comment: Ok, I post this as 'news' because although it sounds like Smoke & Mirrors to me, I don't want to rain on anybody's parade. Yet.

I just wonder what, besides excessive hubris, causes the former national editor at Time think he's qualified to run a school. And why doesn't the media question any of this? If you're Bill Gates, then yoou're qualified for anything and everything. When money talks, the media listens.

by Susan Snyder

The Philadelphia-based National Constitution Center soon will take on a new educational role: It will run a public high school in partnership with the Philadelphia School District.

The project, which will stress democracy and citizenship, is the latest new high school venture between the increasingly entrepreneurial school district and an outside organization.

Seven other new or remade high schools are set to open in the next few years, with big-name partners such as Microsoft, the University of Pennsylvania, the Franklin Institute, and the College Board, the creator of the SAT and Advanced Placement program.

The effort continues the district's overarching goal of creating smaller, theme-based high schools. All the schools will have well under 1,000 students, several of them as few as 400.

District officials say the partnerships mean the schools can better capitalize on corporate and community resources as education funding gets tighter.

"Urban districts cannot do what we owe kids without bringing the best minds, money, resources that are out there," said Ellen Savitz, the district's chief development officer.

The district also maintains that the new options will retain middle-class families and lure them back to the schools, while giving poor neighborhoods new choices.

"These are like private school options being offered by the public school system," she said.

Each partnership works a little differently, but usually the groups provide expertise and time, help customize the curriculum, and participate in selecting a principal.

Microsoft's $50 million School of the Future aims to create an international prototype for the best and most cost-effective use of technology in education and school operations. That school, being built in West Philadelphia, will open in 2006.

Other large urban districts, including those in New York and Chicago, are engaged in similar partnerships as they overhaul high schools, national experts say.

"It comes out of a real understanding that we can't tinker around the edges with high schools," said Rochelle Nichols-Solomon, a former Philadelphia high school reformer now with the Academy for Educational Development in New York.

Savitz said the partners had expanded the district's reach. Her team recently went to a Microsoft conference with representatives from 30 countries, including Japanese software developers whose product might be used at the new school.

"It's great for Philadelphia. The world is watching," said Mary Cullinane, Microsoft's project manager.

Most of the schools will draw some students from their neighborhood and some citywide, with varying criteria.

The Constitution Center will look for students with at least a C average and good attendance and behavior, while the Franklin Institute may require higher grades in science and math, Savitz said.

All schools may use essays or interviews to gauge interest.

Financial arrangements vary among the partners. The district provides the buildings and pays for staff and operations.

The University of Pennsylvania school, part of a network of high schools focusing on international studies, may receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The school district gave Franklin Institute a planning grant; it will purchase materials from the College Board.

There are no plans to give funds to Microsoft, University of Pennsylvania, the Constitution Center, or Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth.

The Constitution Center became involved because it wants to expand its educational role, said Richard Stengel, museum president and chief executive officer.

"We want to make it more relevant to kids' lives," he said.

The proposed school, the Academy for Law, Democracy and Civic Engagement, will open in the former Balch museum building at Seventh and Market Streets, which the district is leasing. It will start in September 2006 with a freshman class of 100 and grow to 400 students.

The center will serve as a base of learning and might offer students internships and teaching roles.

The Franklin Institute's Science Leadership Academy will focus on "the business side of science," as well as the "entrepreneurial nature of people who work in the sciences," Savitz said. It will be based at 2130 Arch St., in a building previously used for district offices.

While those schools are still in planning, Parkway-Northwest, a magnet high school in Mount Airy, will change its focus this fall to the study of the discipline of peace and social justice. The nonprofit Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth proposed it as an alternative to the district's recently opened military high school.

Principal Ethyl McGee said the school, which has not yet been renamed, will offer classes and seminars on social issues, social development, leadership and global topics. Students, she said, will communicate with counterparts in other countries via videoconferencing.

The district is still in early talks with the College Board, which wants to put an academically rigorous program in up to three small high schools in the city. The organization, whose program readies students of all ability levels for college, runs two schools in New York and will open three there in the fall.

"We put in programs that will get them where they need to be," said Peter Negroni, the College Board's senior vice president for kindergarten-through-12th-grade education.

If the plan goes through, Ben Franklin High at Broad and Green Streets would be converted into the first site in September 2007, said Gregory Thornton, Philadelphia's chief academic officer. The two other College Board schools likely would not start until 2008.

District officials anticipate intense competition for enrollment in the new schools, especially the Microsoft model.

The Microsoft school will take 75 percent of its students from the neighborhood, using a lottery if more apply. The rest will come from a citywide lottery.

Marsha Brown, Home and School Association president at West Philadelphia High, said she hopes all the new schools primarily serve neighborhood families. She also wants more state-of-the-art schools built in all regions of the district, with input from parents and students.

"These are absolutely great options," she said. "But more information and involvement for parents is needed."
Contact staff writer Susan Snyder at 215-854-4693 or ssnyder@phillynews.com.


— Susan Snyder
Philadelphia Inquirer
2005-07-27
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/12230455.htm

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