discipline: Philadelphia Metropolis

Takeover at Olney High

Olney High School was a troubled school: plagued with suspensions, fights, chronic absenteeism and dismal performance in math and reading. Then, the school district asked the Latino educational group Aspira to take over the school this year with a goal of turning a failure into a success story. Reporter Connie Langland has spent weeks at Olney and offers this special report from the front lines. (Comments)

Drunk and Blind

The thing that tends to get overlooked in the whole Bob Archie-Dwight-Evans imbroglio is that the reason the district sought to make major changes at Martin Luther King High School was because its performance sucks. Despite the presence of Evans' darling,... (Comments)

The New Home Schooling

Like many Pennsylvania children, eight-year-old Venus Kennedy has just begun third grade, but not in a new and unfamiliar classroom. She is doing all of her schooling from the comfort of her family home near Temple University. Kennedy is among the thousands of youngsters in the Philadelphia region for whom the start of school this year means pulling up a chair in their living room, dining room or bedroom and logging on to a computer. They are attending virtual schools - a fast-growing trend in K-12 education, enrolling about 175,000 students nationwide and estimated 23,000 in Pennsylvania. (Comments)

Finding the Light Within

As editor of this site, I must disclose that I hesitated before writing the headline that appears on this week's Cover Story.  I called it "The Stetson Miracle." though not without pausing to ask myself: Was I overstating the case?... (Comments)

The Stetson Miracle

Just a year ago, John B. Stetson Middle School was in deep trouble. Assaults. Suspensions. Disruptions. Its students among the lowest performing in the city. Labeled "persistently dangerous." The School District of Philadelphia acknowledged as much - and turned over the keys of the mostly Latino school to a charter group, ASPIRA of Pennsylvania. Stetson was a problem child in need of reform school, and that's what it got - reforms and renovations that stretched from fresh paint and new desks to a longer work day for teachers to a strictly enforced code of conduct for students. (Comments)