PHILADELPHIA – The Mayor’s Office of Education today published the results of a city-wide survey about Philadelphia schools and the future Philadelphia Board of Education. The Community Survey on Education results were shared with the Educational Nominating Panel (the Panel) and are publicly available online as well.
The Community Survey on Education was designed to gather input from Philadelphians about the improvements they would like to see in schools, and identify the most important individual and group attributes for the incoming Board of Education. The results will be shared with the Educational Nominating Panel, which is tasked with recommending 27 applicants for the Board of Education to Mayor Kenney.
“The results from the Community Survey on Education will be very helpful in the Educational Nominating Panel’s deliberations,” said Panel chair Wendell Pritchett. “We have received many compelling applications for the Board and will refer to this feedback from the public as we narrow down our recommendations for the Mayor. We thank the thousands of individuals who took the time to share their views through the survey.”
Between December 12, 2017 and February 7, 2018, more than 3,000 respondents representing all residential Philadelphia zip codes completed the survey. Respondents as a whole identified improved school climate, investing in music and arts curriculum, and increasing literacy levels by fourth grade as their top school-improvement priorities. Respondents prioritized strong ethics and integrity, past experience as an educator, and parent of a student as important attributes in individual school board members, and wanted the overall school board’s formation to reflect members committed to public education, qualifications and background of members, and representation of various neighborhoods.
More information on the survey results – including responses broken out by stakeholder group – is in the published report.
The Panel received applications for the Board of Education from 458 individuals between January 10 and February 7. Applicants represent 96% of all Philadelphia zip codes.
More than half of the applicants indicated having attended Philadelphia schools:
- 45% did not attend Philadelphia schools
- 39% attended District-run schools
- 8% attended a mixture of District-run and charter schools
- 7% attended private or parochial schools
- 1% attended charter schools
- Six applicants identified themselves as current students
Half of the applicants indicated that they are parents of public school students and/or graduates.
- 37% did not have children that attended Philadelphia schools
- 32% had children that attended District-run schools
- 18% had children that attended a mixture of District-run and charter schools
- 8% had children that attended private or parochial schools
- 5% had children that attended charter schools
The Panel will present their recommendations to the mayor by February 28.