"Ramos said the SRC would continue to use the special powers given to it by the state. In addition to suspending portions of the code, the SRC can impose terms on unions and cancel contracts if the district is in fiscal distress."
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20121116_Philadelphia_School_Reform_Commission_suspends_parts_of_state_public_school_code.html
A coalition of groups has condemned the lack of transparency and demand for backroom dealing by the SRC. Folks on the list have experience with that aspect of crisis capitalism from watching my fight with the civic associations for over a decade. They claim back room dealing is absolutely required for "business efficiency" during a manufactured crisis.
But this tactic of giving dictatorial power to a group of "business technocrats" to cancel contracts isn't yet understood by the general public. It's been developing around the country, extensively in Michigan, and is being used against our brothers and sisters in Europe.
The education "reformers" have been working to deprofessionalize public school teaching of the poor and lower middle class into a type of low wage technician job like Burger King, for a long time. They pretend that a few great men and women at elite universities can supply interventions/curriculum, like magic bullets, that any low wage technician can deliver, without thought, to poor and middle class pupils. This psuedoscience will be used to justify the slashing of salaries now that the SRC has dictatorial power. Penn's education reformers et al. conspire with the plutocracy to advance the corporate agenda. It's lie, upon lie, upon lie.
Education reform isn't happening in wealthy districts, which have a completely different pedagogy and appropriate resources. Neoliberalism demands that all resources are collected from the poor and middle classes, and transferred to the wealthy. Schools like Sadie Alexander get unlimited resources, while the rest of the district gets stripped of resources.
Civilized countries understand that the best way to provide a quality education is to allow teaching to be a profession. This hasn't been allowed for decades in our backwards military empire and we are in the endgame for public education.
Wake up folks! Things will move fast now that the election charade is over!
