Memo Madness Re: Philly Schools Report

You might remember Ellen Green-Ceisler from such posts last week as this one. She’s a lawyer who is running for a judgeship this year, but she also monitored the police department as head of the city’s Integrity and Accountability Office and prepared a report on discipline in the Philadelphia School District released earlier this month.

But whoops! Gar Joseph reports today on a memo accidentally attached to the report when it went out. It was penned by Green-Ceisler, and she wrote about how she felt the commission she did was simply a way for Paul Vallas to attack ex-school safety head Harvey Rice.

Accidentally stuck to the end of the report (”a large, stupid error,” said a schools spokeswoman) is a June memo exchange between Ceisler and Heather Frattone, the district’s director of policy and planning.

In it, Ceisler writes, “At different points during this project, Paul and [other] personnel expressed significant consternation about the OSSA [Rice's Office of Safe Schools Advocate]… . As my study progressed, I sensed that Paul and [others'] main concern was that I discredit the OSSA. In fact during one session with an… employee, I requested some data regarding student arrests. That individual, in my presence, called an employee from the School Police and stated something to the effect that I needed this information because I was hired to ‘trash Harvey Rice’s Office.’ ”

Ceisler goes on to say, “If I had reason to believe, at the outset, that the sole purpose of my contract was to ‘trash’ a critic of the School District, I never would have agreed to undertake this study.”

Even though the woman who authored the report admitted in a memo the district was mainly concerned with trashing Harvey Rice, a school district spokesperson lied, “To suggest that we would go to those lengths is a little absurd… the agenda was clearly not to trash Harvey.”

In other news, whoever accidentally attached that memo to the report has totally been fired.

Gar Joseph | Memo says Vallas hired consultant to fry Rice [Daily News]
[Photo via Al Día]
March 3: Ellen Green-Ceisler Will Attempt To Reform City’s Institutions One-By-One If She Has To

Ellen Green-Ceisler Will Attempt To Reform City’s Institutions One-By-One If She Has To

Inquirer, today, A call for help - then things got worse, about a lawsuit filed against the police department:

The Estevez case echoes the findings of a court-mandated monitor who reviewed six years of officer-involved shootings in a 2005 report.

Ellen Green-Ceisler, then head of the Integrity and Accountability Office, found that the “majority” of internal shooting investigations were “satisfactory.”

However, she wrote: “In some cases, investigators did not ask necessary and probing questions regarding issues relevant to the shooting, did not always address inconsistencies and ambiguities…”

She added, “In some investigations, physical evidence and civilian eyewitness statements that contradicted officers’ version of events appeared to be disregarded. These practices raise questions regarding the impartiality of some investigations.”

The Green-Ceisler report covered cases from 1998 to 2003.

Inquirer, today, Report: District losing control, about the state of the Philadelphia school district:

The Philadelphia School District’s student disciplinary system is plagued by inconsistencies, high turnover in personnel, and a lack of training, staff and resources - all leading to a breakdown in procedure and an insufficient transfer of problem pupils out of the schools, according to an independent consultant’s report released yesterday.

Some school personnel have become so frustrated that they have given up carrying out discipline in all but the most serious cases, said the 47-page report prepared by Ellen Green-Ceisler, who previously monitored the Police Department as head of the city’s Integrity and Accountability Office.

Her report describes classrooms where “little or no learning was actually occurring” and “many of the students in attendance were listening to headphones, sleeping, doodling or wandering around the room talking or shouting.”

Good job with the police and schools, Ellen Green-Ceisler! Now can you get to work on PGW, SEPTA, the Streets Dept., the Zoning Board and the Sixers?

Oh, and, of course, she’s running for a judgeship.

Report: District losing control [Inquirer]
A call for help - then things got worse [Inquirer]

Philly Schools Not Good Place To Invest In, Teach At

Great news for the Philadelphia School District!

First off, the school district’s bond rating has been lowered from Triple-B to Triple-B Minus (whatever that means). Triple-B Minus is Fitch Ratings’ lowest investment-grade rating. And pretty soon, an analyst says, the school district is going to be lowered again to junk-bond status, which means nobody should ever lend the school district any money ever.

And! The school district’s financial outlook has been lowered from “stable” to “negative.”

Meanwhile, a teacher at a Germantown High School was attacked by students because the teacher confiscated an iPod and the 60-year-old suffered two broken bones in his neck.

Oh, I’m sorry, did I write “great news”? I meant to write “horrible disgusting news.”

Philadelphia Schools Drop To ‘Negative’ Status [AP/CBS 3]
Police: Students Injure Philadelphia Teacher [CBS 3]

Pot, Kettle Call Each Other Black

There was some sparring at City Hall yesterday between World’s Greatest Leader Paul Vallas and Mayor John Street.

Vallas and Street’s back and forth was not really all that unexpected. The school district, you see, recently realized that (whoops!) it had a $70 million dollar deficit. It’s easy to realize how that could be misplaced. Street was not only angered at the deficit — he called it “a financial failure of the greatest magnitude” — he was angered that they just found out about the deficit now:

”I can’t think of a set of circumstances where somebody in the finance department wouldn’t know. I just can’t imagine that you just wouldn’t know that. Its just too much money. It’s 70 million dollars!… I have never seen anything like that in all of my 27 years in local government. I have never seen anything like that.”

Think about that for a second: John Street says he’s never seen anything this stupid. John. Street. Let that sink in. Yes, that’s how bad, uh, misplacing $70 million is. I guess.

Vallas, though, had some responses of his own, warning Street that “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” He’s using the nice old strategy of saying “Oh, you suck too, so it’s okay if I suck.” Excellent.

But Vallas’ real zinger came later:

“If I want schools to be adequately funded, I’d be better off petitioning Bloomberg in New York to make Philadelphia the sixth borough.”

Jesus. That was, like, what, a year ago? Last summer, even! People aren’t still quoting, say, Anchorman or making Napoleon Dynamite references, are they? (Uhh, don’t answer that.)

Mayor Street, Schools CEO Vallas Bicker Over Budget Shortfall [KYW 1060]
Monday: Enron, Adelphia Also Win Awards

Enron, Adelphia Also Win Awards

Currently on the front page of Philly.com:

Gee, was Terrell Owens on the list, too?

Vallas named among top U.S. leaders [Inquirer]
$70M in school cuts could soar to $100M [Daily News]

Leftovers: Don’t Let The Door Hit You, Etc.

• You go, Inquirer! Just a few days after the paper’s report on the city’s Department of Human Services’ failures in the deaths of several children, the head of the DHS resigns. Cheryl Ransom-Garner — who said, “I think DHS is doing a great job” in Sunday’s Inquirer report — escaped the fate of her deputy, John McGee, who was relieved of his duties. [Inquirer]

• A substitute teacher at Creighton Elementary school lost three of her fingertips after a defective window slammed down on them. There is one thing worse than being a substitute teacher in the Philadelphia School District. Being a substitute teacher in the Philadelphia School District and losing three of your fingertips to a defective window. [Daily News]

• A West Chester man is suing the makers of Second LIfe for confiscating his property after he figure out a way to buy it for a much cheaper price. (Or something like that.) Reuters’ Second Life bureau — yes, they have one — will surely be on this right away. [Inky]

• That Bill Giles trophy presentation last night? Apparently, the trophy is named after his father. Heh, who knew? [The 700 Level]