A scorching report on city schools makes enemies of allies

Sunday, September 28, 2003

By John G. Craig Jr.

I have extraordinary respect for the members of the Mayor's Commission on Public Education, many of whom are personal friends, and the contributions they make to the welfare of this community across a very broad front, but I am conflicted by the report they issued Monday after a nine-month investigation.

	John G. Craig Jr. is the former editor of the Post-Gazette (jcraig@post-gazette.com).

On the one hand, there is no arguing with reality, and most of what they describe is very real. But it is also reasonable to expect nuance, balance and hope in an analysis so important to the general welfare. The report, or at least the executive summary (which was published in the Post-Gazette on Tuesday), does not offer that. It is a lawyer's brief, and as such is selective in its use of information. The result is a picture of the city schools that is overwhelmingly negative -- perhaps an unintended consequence, but a consequence nonetheless, and a bothersome one.

Equally worrisome is the absence of a plan for how we get from here to there beyond a general statement that the authors hope their commission will morph into "an independent alliance for school improvement" that will galvanize community support for school reform. The mayor denied that there was no plan when we talked Wednesday morning, citing the five principal recommendations of the report, as well as its many other specific suggestions. Others who have been involved with the commission make the same point. But it is difficult to understand how there can be change when those who would be responsible for implementing it are identified as the principal "problem."

The superintendent, professional staff, teachers, unions, the financial managers, negotiators for both management and labor on pending contracts and the entire school board, among others, had no role in the report's preparation. They also are openly antagonistic to its primary conclusion: The board is not equal to the task of running an institution as important and complicated as the Pittsburgh Public Schools and there is no hope under an elective system to assemble a board able to do any better.

It is worth remembering that this is not a new conclusion. Neither is its principal companion -- school taxes are much too high because Pittsburgh operates too many schools and pays its teachers too much. The very same conclusions held sway in the mayor's office and sections of the foundation community almost two years ago when friction between them and the board first became a matter of public concern.

What is different is that the mayor and foundations have recruited allies and gone on public record: If the school board becomes appointive, if as many as one-third of the city's schools are closed over the next 10 years and if the mayor, with City Council's concurrence and the help of an independent community watchdog, is put in overall charge, Pittsburgh youngsters will be better educated at a lower unit cost than otherwise would be the case.

That proposition is arguable in all its parts. But it is very unlikely that such a debate will occur any time soon. The board, staff and teachers -- having been written off in public as "dysfunctional" -- are going to need time and attention if they are to become meaningful participants in the process. More important, the larger environment within which this proposed debate would take place is very unfavorable.

The mayor and council, who are being charged with taking over responsibility for the public schools, preside over a city that is financially prostrate. Also, if the order of the day is more countywide government and less separate city and county government, even a merger of Allegheny and Pittsburgh government, why, a reasonable man might ask, work to further entrench an inefficient district within an anachronistic 43-district county system? Why indeed?

You cannot debate intelligently the future of a school district like Pittsburgh's in isolation, which brings up perhaps the biggest immediate challenge of all: Harrisburg. Local school district problems, including Pittsburgh's, are largely made in Harrisburg.

One small example of state determinism: The district estimates that $16.3 million of an $87 million reserve fund it has accumulated in anticipation of new contracts will go in the next two years because of 25 percent pension increases the General Assembly mandated for all public employees in Pennsylvania. State-mandated but unfunded special education expenditures will eat up another $6.5 million during the same period, underlining the point that local boards (and mayors) have only partial control of their fiscal affairs.

The current standoff between Gov. Ed Rendell and the Republican majority in the Senate over the budget, property tax reductions and increased expenditures for the education of preschoolers will be similarly determinative about what is next for the city schools.

But enough cold water! What is done is done. Look upon the commission and its efforts as cathartic. But kiss and make up, forswear grand designs and immediately start taking short, positive steps.

The people running the city schools, as well as a majority on the board, want the same things for Pittsburgh kids as does the foundation community. If they don't stick together, there is no hope. Harrisburg will run over them.

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