Mayor's panel concludes problems are so severe big changes are needed

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

By Carmen J. Lee, Post-Gazette Education Writer

A long-awaited task force report on the Pittsburgh Public Schools says that problems in city schools are so severe that dramatic changes are needed in how the school district is run -- and who runs it.

Bill Trueheart, of the Mayor's Commission on Public Education, talks to Mayor Tom Murphy yesterday during the news conference at which the commission's report was released. (Tony Tye, Post-Gazette) More on the task force report Analysis: Task force gives Murphy yet another big challenge Online chart: Mayor's recommendations Full report online Read the full report, including charts, graphs and statistics in .pdf format

"Keeping the Promise: The Case for Reform in the Pittsburgh Public Schools" recommends that the city's mayor appoint all school board members, and that local commissions make recommendations on closing schools and improving student performance.

The 144-page report from the Mayor's Commission on Public Education lists a number of specific changes that it said could happen without much turmoil, such as reducing the size of the district's reserves of $83 million and cutting the tax burden on city residents by 2 mills, or offering financial incentives to teachers and principals who work with low-achieving students.

But, the report says, because the city schools "are beset by poor performance, high costs, high taxes and a very public record of failed leadership and governance and community indifference," the only sure remedy is a change in how school board members are selected.

"At the heart of our answer is the conviction that these core issues do not receive the priority of attention under the current governance structure," Mark Nordenberg, University of Pittsburgh chancellor and chairman of the commission subcommittee that studied district leadership, said at a news conference.

Making a change in how the schools are governed is likely to be difficult, however. The state Legislature would have to vote to amend the Pennsylvania School Code to permit a mayor-appointed school board in Pittsburgh.

Several local state legislators were less than enthusiastic yesterday about giving the mayor that power.

"Currently, the school board is directly accountable to the people," said Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side. "If you follow the report's logic, you might as well appoint the city council, and that is clearly a bad idea."

Superintendent John Thompson was in New York City yesterday and did not comment on the report. Other district administrators declined to respond to the recommendations.

Opposition from union

The report didn't get much support from some Pittsburgh school board members or teachers union officials, all of whom were noticeably absent from the formal release of the report at the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown.

"I am stunned by the level of negativity and misinformation in this report," said board member Randall Taylor. "The Pittsburgh Public Schools are not in any way as bad as it says. This is not a disaster area."

He and board member Mark Brentley Sr. said the selection of the board should remain with voters; Taylor noted that the commission did not recommend putting the question of whether the mayor should appoint the school board on a referendum.

"The voters would never remove their elected school board members," Taylor said.

Al Fondy, president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers, said the report "should be dead on arrival."

"The school district is the only governmental entity -- city, county or state -- in sound financial condition thanks to an elected school board," Fondy said.

But Mayor Tom Murphy said yesterday that he will "work as hard as I can to make sure this report becomes a reality. It is the least we can do for generations of children in the Pittsburgh school system."

He added that while he has not asked for the responsibility of appointing board members, he is "certainly prepared for it."

"It's not about me...it's about changing how board members are elected. I do fundamentally believe that school board members ought to be appointed so you get some minimum quality of understanding the educational system."

Commission Executive Director Eloise Hirsh said that although commission members want public support for an appointed board, they did not think a voter referendum was necessary.

"There was a feeling of urgency to do something about the system," she said.

Murphy appointed the 37-member commission more than a year ago after three local foundations -- The Heinz Endowments and the Pittsburgh and Grable foundations -- suspended nearly $4 million in funding to the city district. Foundation officials said discord among school officials had caused them to lose faith in how the district was being run.

The mayor's commission was divided into three subcommittees,one to study the district's leadership structure, another its finances and the third student performance. Yesterday's report was critical in all three areas and contained lists of recommended changes for each.

Current school board members, the report said, make themselves accountable only to the small constituencies that elected them. School board seats have been decided by turnouts as small as 7 percent of a district's registered voters, the report noted.

The commission recommended that board members be appointed by the mayor from a pool of candidates provided by a nominating committee, also selected by the mayor. The mayor's nominees would have to be approved by City Council.

"Vesting responsibility in the mayor will ensure that the schools are accountable to the city as a whole, rather than to small, well-organized interest groups," the report said.

An appointed school board could not levy taxes, so City Council would have to assume the taxing authority for the school district.

The Legislature also would be asked to amend the state School Code to clarify the division of duties between the school board and the superintendent. Under a mayor-appointed system, the school board would only set policy; the superintendent would manage the district.

Excess reserve funds

City school officials have tried in recent weeks to portray the district's $82 million in reserves as helpful in covering unexpected health care costs and delays in state funding.

But the commission said the reserves -- about 17 percent of the district's current budget -- are unnecessarily large and could instead be reinvested in education.

Commission members also said the per-pupil cost in the district of $11,651 was 39 percent higher than the median cost in the state and 19 percent higher than the median cost in Allegheny County.

"We are paying an extremely high cost for a disappointing outcome," said Louis Testoni, office managing partner for Pricewaterhouse Coopers and chairman of the subcommittee that studied district finances.

Because of his group's findings, the commission recommended that even before attempting to change to an appointed school board, current board members should pare down the $82 million in reserves to about $50 million.

At least $21.5 million would be used to reduce taxes by 2 mills. Another $8.5 million would be used to pay for new programs designed to improve student learning.

Closing schools also would save money, the commission said.

Currently there are 93 school buildings for about 35,000 students, and that's an excess building capacity of 30 percent, according to the commission. That excess will grow as falling birth rates and a projected decline of school-age children continues to shrink enrollment by more than 10,000 students over the next 10 years.

While not calling it a recommendation, the commission estimated that the district would need to close three schools a year to keep pace with the declining enrollment. Closing schools could the save the district about $10 million per year over the next several years, the report said.

The report recommended forming an "independent schools consolidation committee" that would operate like the federal military base commission formed several years ago to reduce the number of military facilities in the country. The school board would approve or reject the consolidation committee's recommendation without modification or substitution.

Among the ways the report suggests to reduce the number of buildings would be to create schools with kindergarten through eighth grade.

The report also recommends that the district change its fiscal cycle from a calendar year to the state's fiscal year which starts July 1.

Performance 'intolerable'

Fueling all of the report's recommendations were student performance results which the Rev. Harold Lewis, pastor of Calvary Episcopal Church and chairman of the student performance subcommittee, described as "intolerable."

Citing recent Pennsylvania System of School Assessment results for grades 5, 8 and 11, Lewis read statistics from the report that showed that 54 percent of city public school students cannot read at their own grade level and 61 percent cannot do math at their grade level.

The results are even more disturbing, according to the report, when looking at the performance of low-income and black students.

Sixty-six percent of low-income students in Pittsburgh cannot read at grade level and 71 percent are not proficient in math. Among black students in the city, 69 percent cannot read at grade level and 75 percent are not proficient in math.

Lewis also noted that at some schools 91 percent of the students are reading at grade level but at others, only 3 percent can do so.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our school system is in serious trouble," Lewis said. "As a city we must not settle for these unacceptable levels of student achievement."

To improve performance, the report recommends offering financial incentives for highly qualified teachers and principals who work with low-achieving students.

It also calls for expanding extended-day, extended-year and early childhood programs.

In addition, the report recommended the creation of a committee called the "independent alliance for school improvement" that would monitor student progress and report regularly to the public.

This group also would push for the school reform measures outlined in the report, including lobbying the Legislature to support mayoral appointment of the school board, drafting legislation and generating support among residents and community leaders.

At yesterday's news conference, the three foundation officials that last year criticized how the city schools were run --Heinz Endowments Executive Director Maxwell King, Pittsburgh Foundation President William Trueheart and Grable Foundation Executive Director Susan Brownlee -- each said their organizations supported the report.

They also said their foundations were willing to resume funding to the city schools if school officials indicated that they were ready to make radical changes. Brownlee said accepting some of the recommendations, such as the creation of the school-closing commission, would be viewed as a step in that direction.

David Matter, co-chairman of the commission, said the group would appoint the alliance for school improvement committee within the next few weeks so that it could begin working on generating community support.

Some local parents said they were eager to read the report, and had their own ideas for what improvements were needed in the district.

Parent and public schools activist Celeste Taylor said it will take a collaborative effort to effect real change in student performance.

"Many of the schools, even the good schools, are big and so impersonal that students get lost in the shuffle," she said.

The state and foundations must also play a role and make available the resources for tutoring and other programs, Taylor said.

"Our words have to match our deeds and if that doesn't happen, we're not going to make any progress," Taylor said. "I'm hoping this report is not just lip service. It has to be empowering for families and students."

Both candidates for Allegheny County chief executive, incumbent Jim Roddey and challenger Dan Onorato, expressed support for the proposal yesterday.

Onorato proposed appointing school board members in 1997, when he was a Pittsburgh city councilman.

"No matter what a mayor or council tries to do to improve the quality of life, they have no control over the biggest issue of quality of life, which is the schools. This way, it brings both governing bodies together to speak as one voice for the city."

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, whose children attend city schools, said that he believe that governance is essential to solving fiscal and academic issues in the district. But Frankel said he would prefer a hybrid board, one in which some members are elected and others are appointed.

Nonetheless, Frankel called the report, "dramatic."

"It's conclusions are quite stunning," Frankel said. "I think the community needs to think about it."

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