Philadelphia Council calls for moratorium on school closings
by thenotebook on Jan 25 2013 Posted in Latest news
by Tom MacDonald for NewsWorks
As Philadelphia City Council got back to work for the first time in 2013, one of its first actions was approval of a nonbinding resolution calling for a one-year moratorium on public-school closings in the city.
The financially struggling Philadelphia School District is proposing to close 37 schools in the fall. City Council approved the nonbinding resolution by a 14-2 vote, saying the District should wait a year before closing any schools.
Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who wrote the bill, says Council needs to have a say in the closings.
"We want the opportunity to have inclusion in the discussion about which schools close and to make sure that all the issues that involve the transportation issues, the turf issues that could get some kids killed," Blackwell said. "We want a chance to have those kind of discussions before they close schools."
Comments (3)
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 05:48.
Grandstanding by the crooks on council.
Now with AVI city council intends to jack up taxes on middle class taxpayers and at the same time actually lower the property taxes for low end housing (that often blights neighborhoods) to a $100 a year. Goal to create a new class of dependent machine voters.
$100 is not enough to pay for trash pickup let alone fund schools or pay for other collective needs. And even this $100 is optional if your councilman lets you join the 20% of properties citywide that are many years delinquent.
Driving out taxpayers while creating new classes of government dependents has been city council's MO for decades now. Of course, this policy is not at all consistent with funding quality schools. Philly voters are too dumb or too corrupted by city council's pay-offs to recognize this obvious contradiction. This is why the SRC exists in the first place...
Council likes to pretend there aren't any choices in this highly-taxed resouce-constrained city. They pretend this because they will always make the wrong choice, they will always paying off their interest group sponsors while screwing over kids and taxpayers alike.
Submitted by Poogie (not verified) on Sat, 01/26/2013 - 13:30.
It is a feel good thing for the council members. They know they have to close the schools.
If they really wanted to stop this thing they could cut off the money to the SRC but that would involve doing something. The last thing they want to do is real work.
They know the moratorium is totally pointless but they get to say to there voters they voted to stop the closings.
The fact that the vote was pointless will not register with their constituents since they are usually public school products and thus not too bright.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 01/27/2013 - 23:34.
City Council does not fund the SRC. Maybe they didn't teach that in private school.
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