Why switching Philadelphia to an elected school board would be very complicated

“Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with news on the city’s public school system. Furious over the Philadelphia Board of Education’s vote to close several schools, City Council Education Committee Chair Isaiah Thomas wants to explore changing the board from one appointed by the mayor to one that’s elected. But doing so would be an immensely complicated and politically daunting process. State lawmakers would need to pass legislation that the governor would need to sign. The mayor would need to give up the power of appointing board members, and voters would have to approve this change. And switching to an elected board could also strip the City Council of much of its influence over the district. That’s because those and other legal changes could ultimately grant the school board major authority it now lacks: the power to tax. The proposal from Thomas follows a citywide uproar over the district’s decision to close 17 schools , which he vehemently opposed; he’s promised to sue to halt the closures , although no such suit has materialized so far. His push to overhaul how school board members are selected highlights longstanding conflicts between different political power centers in the city. It also channels concerns that unlike for every other school district in the state, Philadelphia residents lack direct representation when the board makes significant decisions about spending, charter school expansion, curriculum mandates, desegregation initiatives, and more. In the current setup, the school board members and the superintendent must go every year to the mayor and council to push for a share of city taxes sufficient to help the district meet the needs of its students, after many years of what a court deemed were inadequate levels of state funding that violated the Pennsylvania Constitution . That forces board members and district leaders into an annual tussle with the council over the budget. What’s made that even more stressful is the district’s longstanding structural deficit. For 2026-27, the board just adopted a $4.6 billion budget with $225 million in cuts as it attempts to cope with a projected shortfall of $300 million . All that means if the school board gained its own taxing power and could rely less on city government, it “would be a huge structural shift in how the city and the school district operates,” said Christopher McGinley, a former Philadelphia school board member who also served as superintendent in two suburban districts with elected boards. It’s unclear what if anything would convince city officials to relinquish their current power over school funding and school board members. Thomas said last month while he is in favor of an elected school board, he does not support giving it taxation power. Mayor Cherelle Parker picked all nine current board members at the start of her term. Nominees are first vetted by an Education Nominating Panel , which is also appointed by the mayor. They are then subject to the “advice and consent” of the City Council. (Board member Joyce Wilkerson was appointed by Parker but never got the council’s approval , and now serves as a “holdover” member, which has caused additional controversy .) Parker’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An elected school board might spawn new political problems in Philadelphia even if it eases current ones. Still, some believe that the existing process is inadequate for dealing with the district’s myriad challenges. Lisa Haver of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, a longtime critic of the board, pointed out that at neighborhood hearings on the proposed school closures, nearly every speaker opposed them, to no avail. To her, an elected Philadelphia school board is also an issue of fairness. “Why should every other school district in Pennsylvania have an elected board and Philadelphia does not?” she said Pennsylvania school boards have taxing power — except Philly’s The most direct influence an elected and not appointed board could have on schools in the city would be the power to raise money through taxation. In all the state’s other 500 school districts, the elected boards of education levy school taxes, while municipal and county governments raise taxes for other needs such as infrastructure and social services. The educational and civic governing bodies are separate entities with their own taxing power, geographic boundaries, and sources of revenue. For instance, Montgomery County has 62 municipalities and 22 school districts. Shifting from an appointed to an elected school board by itself would not automatically include the power to tax. To give an elected school board taxation power would require a vote by the state legislature and amendments to the state school code. It would also require voters to approve changes to the 1965 education section of the city’s Home Rule Charter. But unlike other jurisdictions, Philadelphia is its own county as well as its own school district. That means even if an elected school board were granted the power to tax by state government and voters, it would lead to the City Council and Board of Education drawing on the same sources of tax revenue. Richard Feder, the former chief of legislation in the city law department, said all of those changes would mean “cutting City Council out of the process” of funding schools, which would likely lead to the kind of staunch opposition from the council that Thomas has already expressed. Besides the considerable political problems, Feder said he doesn’t think giving an elected board taxation power would be a good idea fiscally. “I spent my career fighting for more school funding,” Feder said, “but we shouldn’t have two competing taxing bodies fighting over the same limited tax base.” Susan Gobreski, the former head of the advocacy group Education Voters PA, said Philadelphians already elect the officials who provide the funding for schools. The council “is not a single-issue body” like the school board and can put all the city’s needs into perspective, she said. At the same time, she said, the feeling that the board is accountable to no one is real. Even if an elected board ended up lacking taxation power, Gobreski said allowing the public to pick its members would still be worthwhile so voters could feel they had a say in choosing who to hold accountable for decisions around education policy. Electing school board members could open Pandora’s box But there’d be one more complication about a change to an elected board. Feder said to meet state requirements, voters in Philadelphia would have to approve a change to the city charter to allow for a partisan election. Or state voters would have to approve an amendment to the school code allowing Philadelphia to hold a nonpartisan election. McGinley, who served on the School Reform Commission that previously ran Philly schools and was superintendent in Lower Merion and Cheltenham, worries that electing school board members would open a political Pandora’s box by giving more leverage to interest groups “that would play their cards” on various issues. But Elaine Simon, a retired urban studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has co-authored an upcoming book on the last wave of school closures in 2013, said an elected board, especially one with regional representatives, would be more sensitive to the needs of different areas in the city. “Now, the school board members are not representing a neighborhood,” she said. Unsurprisingly, Board of Education President Reginald Streater is skeptical of what benefits Philadelphia would gain by electing its school board members. He said more time should elapse before contemplating another major upheaval of district governance. It only recently emerged from an even less democratic period when a state commission ran city schools from 2001 to 2018 before returning control to a local school board. He pointed out that the state is moving toward school funding adequacy after a historic Commonwealth Court decision, and that in Philadelphia measures including test scores, attendance rates, and dropout rates are improving . Conditions “are getting better … why change this now?” he said. Chalkbeat Philadelphia bureau chief Carly Sitrin contributed to this article.

Summary generated from the RSS feed of Chalkbeat Detroit. All article rights belong to the original publisher. Click through to read the full piece on www.chalkbeat.org/detroit.