William Hite's selection to the PSD is yet another demonstration of Philadelphia's ongoing inferiority complex.  Why is the 5th largest city in the nation looking to a place like Prince George's County, Maryland for educational innovation? Anyone who knows PG County should know why I'm asking this.  PG County is the runoff for Washington, DC's closing public housing and has a rampant crime problem, largely attributed to a poor educational system, high poverty-rate, and unreasonable cost of living.

One has to wonder what Philadelphia's infatuation is with the Washington, DC area? Arlene Ackerman, before starting her scandal-riddled tenure with San Francisco and Philadelphia was the Superintendent of the DC Public School System, which is one of the lowest rated systems in America (lower than Philadelphia's).  Mayor Nutter appointed, then gave an unprecedented off-schedule raise to Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who was the D.C. Police Chief, where they had a higher per-capita crime rate than Philadelphia, in a much smaller area with more concurrent law enforcement agencies on patrol.  Now, Philadelphia picks Dr. Hite from DC's worst suburb (which is ironic because Fairfax County, another DC Suburb has one of America's top 10 school systems). 

One has to wonder the political motivation for appointing those who come from places worse than our great city, not better; and why we as a city continue to perpetuate an inferiority complex that doesn't reflect the size and cultural diversity of Philadelphia.

We have ONE WEEK left to show up in force and start taking a stand against Public Corruption

In the last three weeks, our city announced a plan to raise your property taxes for the third year in a row to make up for stunning acts of abuse and waste at the School District, City Council voted to retain the wasteful DROP fund (despite the voter uproar), and PHA may settle yet another one of Carl Greene's sexual harassment lawsuits (that were responsible for a federal takeover of PHA) for $500,000.

WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR TO CONTINUE IF WE WANT PHILADELPHIA TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE AS A WORLD-CLASS CITY!
It is VITAL to come out to next week's Citywide Forum on Public Integrity in FORCE to show the public watchdogs on stage and the members of the media in attendance that the citizens of Philadelphia WILL NOT BE SILENT VICTIMS TO the pervasive CULTURE OF CORRUPTION that has existed in Philadelphia for upwards of a century.

We simply cannot afford it any longer.

Please tell everyone you know - friends, family, neighborhood watch, religious groups, political groups, neighbors, etc. to join us at the forum to TAKE A STAND!

As the flyer describes, this will be the 1st time ever that non-political members of the Federal, State, and Local watchdog agencies will be on a panel explaining how public corruption is investigated, by whom, and how it is best reported. Then they will take questions from the audience.

Just look at the three panelists:

Harvey Rice, who was the state Safe Schools Advocate (until it was nixed by the budget) - who is now Deputy City Controller (auditing the missing money at the Sheriff's Office and School District, etc.),

Pat Blessington, a former municipal prosecutor who led the State Attorney General's Public Corruption Unit - who just got brought over by District Attorney Williams to set up a City Anti Corruption unit within the District Attorney's Office,  

...and last but not least - John Roberts, the FBI agent who was part of bringing down Vince Fumo and put the bug in Mayor John Street's Office.

Many of us here in Philly kind of except corruption as a way of life. I put the guys together to show us how we can put a huge dent in it, especially by organizing the community in a way that acts a a watchdog for the elected and senior appointed leaders we employ.   My only problem of late is that everyone tells me citizens don't want to come to a meeting in the summer, or when there's no election talk. That's what the thieves in City Hall are expecting. I want to prove them all wrong and show them that we the people do care by coming out in force!

Can a Test Security scandal be the last straw for the Ackerman Administration?

For those of you in the Philadelphia area, the School District has been in the news considerably as of late.  First, Superintendant Ackerman's salary was made public, as she made a base of $348K and over $40K in bonuses last year.  Then she was caught cancelling a legitimate bid process after an award to then give the contract (no-bid) to a friend's firm.  When challenged by State Representatives (the Philadelphia Schools are state-controlled as the School Board was disbanded in 2002), she made a very public racial argument about it.  Then, the news of a $600M budget deficit surfaced at the School District, prompting many voters to demand the firings of the Superintendant and her whole administration.  However, when citizen's groups demanded her head, the Mayor and City Council defended her.

Why? 

Rising test scores.

Well, it seems that the recent trend of rising test scores at the Philadelphia School District may have been linked to what has been recently investigated in Atlanta, a widespread cheating ring.

Mayor Nutter Addresses the City in a Plea for School District Funding

Tonight at 7pm, Mayor Nutter came on TV to make a heartfelt plea to save our schools by supporting the soda tax. Note that he made no mention of the numerous instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in the administration of Arlene Ackerman that have heavily contributed to their massive budget shortfall.

If Mayor Nutter wants another tax hike, he needs to show us that we aren't flushing our hard earned money down a toilet of racism, violence, and corruption. You want my money, Mr. Mayor? Start with a clean sweep of the entire Ackerman administration at School District Headquarters. Replace her with a leader like Michelle Rhee (DC) who doesn't cater to identity politics, and place the school district under the jurisdiction of and open an investigation by the Inspector General.

Until such steps are taken, I strongly encourage any resident with common sense to go to council chambers at 9AM and SPEAK OUT against new taxes and fees in support of waste, fraud and abuse. If you can't make it, call your councilman and State Representative (you can get their number from the Committee of Seventy's Website at seventy.org)!!

Mark my words, citizens, this corruption will stand unless we make our voices known.  The primary was not the last word - we can vote in 5 new Republican at-large members to send a clear message to City Hall.

Do not let Philadelphia go down the same path of taxation and business alienation that was previously taken by Detroit, DC, and Baltimore City.