By Jason Kleinman

This morning Dr. Arlene Ackerman, School District of Philadelphia Superintendent, appeared as a guest (mp3) on WHYY’s Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane. Ackerman primarily discussed her vision for Philadelphia’s school system, including her new five-year plan to improve city schools. Imagine 2014, which Ackerman referred to as a no frills plan, is still in draft form.

Following the recent trend, the school district is hosting a number of community meetings to allow the public an opportunity to provide its input before the plan is finalized. The first meeting was held last night at Olney High School in East Philadelphia.

During her appearance this morning, Ackerman spoke at length about the
plan’s goals to create great schools in every neighborhood, but didn’t
offer many specific details. When asked whether she had concerns about
implementing yet another new plan for the city’s schools, Ackerman was
quick to point out that her plan isn’t a new one. In an era where newer is
often viewed as better, it was odd (yet slightly refreshing) to listen to
Ackerman’s old-school approach to education:

“I haven’t come to this plan with lots of new, innovative ideas. I’m an old-time educator. I’ve been around the block several times. This is my 40th year in education. So, you know, I actually believe we already know everything we need to know about how to educate all young people well. We just need to have the political and adult will to make it happen.  So what you see in this plan are the basics. In fact, I think we should have named the plan “Back to the Basics” because there’s not a lot of frills and there’s not a lot of experimentation. Basically we’re saying: great teachers, small class sizes early on so young people leave their primary grades prepared to learn.”

Ackerman acknowledged that this approach may be controversial, but she is confident that it will be successful.  She continued:

“And it’s a shame that we’re back to the basics, but that’s what I believe will sort of take us out of this spiral-downward spiral-that we see in terms of high drop out rates, high truancy rates. Young people tell me they need a reason to come to school and you build those programs and they will come and they will stay and they will graduate.”

If, like us, you want to learn more about this plan, you can read the draft here. You can also attend the next community meeting on March 12 at the School of the Future in West Philadelphia. The complete list of meetings is available here.

Jason Kleinman is an intern for It’s our City and a Master’s of Public Policy candidate at Rutgers University.