From Crooks and Liars: Arrests Made At Philly School Closure Meeting

Philadelphia closes 23 schools as another big city getting out of educating their children business.

In a tense, dramatic conclusion to a months-long battle, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission voted Thursday night to close 23 schools across the city - and spare four it had considered shutting.

Taylor and T.M. Peirce Elementaries in North Philadelphia, Roosevelt Middle School in Germantown, and Robeson High School in Southwest Philadelphia were all on the chopping block but will stay open.

The vote capped a long series of protests, rallies, and public outcries against what appears to be one of the largest mass school closings in the nation's history. And it happened after 19 people, including American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, were arrested when they tried to block SRC members' entrance into the meeting.

Earlier, addressing a crowd that officials estimated numbered at least 700 and that shut down parts of North Broad Street, Weingarten was adamant.

"Philadelphia is being watched across the country," she shouted, standing on a concrete pillar outside the Philadelphia School District's headquarters. "This is a city that is under fire."
After the final votes were taken, the audience erupted.

"Shame on you!" people shouted. "SRC needs to go!"

Retired teacher Lisa Haver, a lifelong city resident, told the SRC that it was "the saddest day ever."
SRC Chairman Pedro Ramos said the large number of closings was the result of years of delayed decisions and a financial crisis for the district, which recently borrowed $300 million just to pay its bills for the rest of the year.

Ramos said the night was "excruciating, difficult, and emotional for all of us. Nobody wants to do this - much less at this scale."

But, he said, it would have been irresponsible for the SRC to have put off the closings for a year, as many had called for.

Initially, 37 school buildings were proposed to shut at the end of the school year, but Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. amended his recommendations late last month. The SRC did not vote Thursday on the recommended closings of Dimner Beeber Middle School and M.H. Stanton Elementary.

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