April 6, 2016
Part I of this series detailed how Mastery Charter is using the hostile
takeover methods of the corporate world to takeover more Philadelphia Public
Schools each year. But education deals with relationships between human beings,
not the industrial products and natural resources of the corporate world. Thus,
these hostile takeovers aggravate historic class and ethnic tensions (watch the video). Philadelphia schools have
struggled for years with underfunding at the state level; now charters bring
the added disparity in funding between public schools and charters within
Philadelphia. Philadelphia currently has 83 charters. Other charter companies, including KIPP (four
schools), ASPIRA (six schools), and Universal (seven schools) are looking to
expand their enrollment, but Mastery increasingly dominates the charter sector
in Philadelphia. Also, with many independent charters, Philadelphia is ranked
third in the nation for the number of students enrolled in charter schools with
currently roughly 70,000 of Philadelphia’s approximately
200,000 students being enrolled in charters.
Mastery Charter Schools
Mastery currently manages nine elementary schools, eight
middle/high schools in Philadelphia, and six schools (five elementary and one
high school) in Camden, New Jersey, in total, serving over 12,000 students. In its five-year budget plan,
announced
March 24th, at the School Reform Commission
(SRC) meeting, the District anticipates an additional enrollment of 10,000 more
charter students in the next five years. Adding to the District's problems, on
February 16, 2016 the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the SRC
had overstepped its authority in imposing enrollment caps on charters. That will
probably result in an increase in charter enrollment in existing charter
schools. The SRC also announced on March 24th its intention to add at 10,000
more charter students in the next five years and to close at least three public
schools each year beginning in 2018.
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