"Philadelphia schools crippled by budget crisis" PBS NewsHour 10/3/2014
Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): It’s a tough time to be a student, a teacher or a parent in the Philadelphia public schools. The nation’s eighth largest school system is experiencing a severe budget crisis.
Special correspondent for education John Tulenko of Learning Matters looks at the impact hitting the classroom and what’s being done about it.
JOHN TULENKO, Learning Matters: Last month, about 1,000 ninth graders marched to the football field at Northeast High School for a very different kind of kickoff ceremony.
WOMAN: We are doing a mock graduation. It’s an opportunity for our incoming ninth grade class to make a commitment. We want to put the urge in them that they promise they are going to be right back here in June 2018.
JOHN TULENKO: But hanging over this ceremony and the odds students will graduate is a school budget crisis that’s been called the worst in the country. Northeast has 3,000 students and two principals, Sharon McColskey and Linda Carroll.
SHARON MCCOLSKEY, Northeast High: In past years, operating budgets were probably 10 times what ours is right now, if not more.
Just the thought of opening the schools with what we have in the bank, real or in our budget, was really scary.
LINDA CARROLL, Northeast High: You know, we’re hoping that money will be coming, but I don’t know. We don’t have enough to even carry us through the end of this month, actually.
JOHN TULENKO: Since 2011, when the cutting began, Northeast High School’s budget for extracurricular activities has dropped to zero, its budget for books zero, and for supplies to $14,000. That’s roughly $5 per student to last the entire year.
What is that supposed to pay for?
SHARON MCCOLSKEY: Everything that makes the school run, books, supplies, toner, ink, paper.
LINDA CARROLL: Lab equipment, textbooks.
SHARON MCCOLSKEY: Technology.
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