Join us at Philadelphia City Hall at 12:30 pm August 31st for A Prayer for the City: Celebrating Aretha Franklin’s Legacy. Aretha Franklin brought prayer to the top of the charts with, “I Say A Little Prayer.” On Friday, as the world says its final farewell, Philadelphia will celebrate her legacy through prayer. We’ll pray…

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For months, I’ve advocated for detailed annual audits of the nearly $3 billion the Philadelphia School District spends. Despite efforts by City Controller Alan Butkovitz to make that happen, those audits still have not taken place. Yet when I spoke with Dr. William Hite, the district superintendent, in a radio interview nearly nine months ago,…

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Top 5 Live-WURD Friday  October 23 1. Near-broke Phila. schools must borrow to make payroll Close to broke, the Philadelphia School District will soon have to borrow money to make payroll through the end of the year. The School Reform Commission will soon meet to authorize temporary borrowing that will allow the district to function…

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I was angry when I read the story of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, an Irving Tx., teen who was arrested at school after police said a clock he built resembled a hoax bomb. My anger didn’t spring from the fact that this boy is Muslim. I do not, after all share his faith. I wasn’t angry…

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When I was a child, the start of the school year was a time of giddy anticipation. That was many years ago, before perpetual deficits and the slow erosion of public trust made books, and then students, and then dozens of underutilized schools disappear. Sadly, the excitement that should accompany the start of a new…

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HAVE REPUBLICANS moved the federal government to a little country town? I ask because in the aftermath of President Obama’s victory on the healthcare law, John Boehner and his House colleagues seem to be living in Petticoat Junction. That’s the only explanation I can think of, because I’ve never seen anything so petty in all my life. For those who’ve…

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AMONG THE MANY things that are making me scratch my head in relation to the School District of Philadelphia’s current funding crisis is the strange bedfellows it’s creating. I recently got a media advisory from Public Citizens for Children and Youth about a press conference and parent briefing that the organization was doing with school district…

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IT’S ODD that anyone from Topeka, KS, would balk at having Michelle Obama speak at a high school graduation. It was Topeka, after all, that was at the center of Brown v. the Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that was supposed to integrate America’s schools. [blocktext align=”right”]”Schools today are largely segregated. They are…

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AS A BLACK FATHER, my concerns for my children are much the same as those of other parents. I want my children to be safe, to be brilliant, to be successful. Most of all, I want them to know they are loved. But beyond those concerns are the underlying anxieties that come with knowing one’s…

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