D.C. Solved This…Philadelphia Can Too.

by Cassandra St Vil, CEO, PCE

To the families of Philadelphia, 

Imagine you’re playing a game, and halfway through, you discover the referee is also playing for the other team. Every call they make, every penalty they issue, every decision about who wins and who loses, it all happens while they have a direct stake in the outcome. You’d walk off that field. You’d call it what it is: unfair.

That is exactly what is happening to your children’s schools right now.

In Philadelphia, the same Board of Education that runs traditional district schools also holds the power to approve, renew, or shut down public charter schools: schools just like district operated, seeking enrollment for the same students, the same funding, the same futures. A 2023 independent investigation by a law firm put it plainly: this is a conflict of interest. The board is simultaneously the authorizer and the competitor. And that conflict, that structural flaw baked into the very system meant to protect your children, is costing them.

We have watched, year after year, as good schools, schools our children love, schools where our children are thriving, face decisions made not on merit or outcomes, but by a system that fails to recognize the real progress being made in our children’s education and well-being. 

It gets worse.

When public charter schools believe they’ve been treated unfairly, when they want to appeal a denial, fight for a new location, or expand to serve more of your children - they face barriers designed to exhaust them into silence. Schools must gather 1,000 signatures simply to access an appeal. “Surrender Clauses” are written into agreements that strip schools of their rights before the fight even begins. These are not accidents. These are tools.

Here is what I need you to know: this is fixable. We know it is fixable because another city already fixed it.

Washington, D.C. faced this exact problem. Their solution was straightforward: create a fully independent charter school board; separate from the school district, approved by elected officials, composed of people with real expertise in education, finance, and community development. No conflicts. No competing interests. Just fair, accountable oversight.

The result? Both traditional public schools and public charter schools in Washington, D.C. grew. Both sectors serve more students, more effectively, because neither one has its thumb on the scale.

Proposed legislation would do the same for Philadelphia. A new Philadelphia Public Charter School Board, independent of the School District, accountable to the public, composed of unpaid members who serve because they believe in children, not because they have something to gain, would change everything. The 1,000-signature barrier would be gone. Surrender Clauses would be banned. Significant decisions, enrollment expansions, new school locations, changes in grade span, would be fully appealable if denied or ignored.

This is not about charter schools versus district schools. Every child in Philadelphia deserves a school system where decisions are made fairly, transparently, and without a conflict of interest built into its very foundation.

To every parent reading this: your child’s school deserves a level playing field. To every family who has watched a school fight an uphill battle against a school system stacked against it: you deserve better. And so do your children.

Washington, D.C. solved this. Philadelphia can too. But only if we demand it together, now, before another school year passes and another school pays the price.

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Dr. Cassandra St. Vil is the Chief Executive Officer of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence (PCE), representing more than 80 public brick-and-mortar charter schools that serve nearly 65,000 students, almost 40 percent of Philadelphia’s public school population.