It’s tough to pinpoint the exact moment we entered jump-the-shark territory. Maybe it was when School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Dr. Tony Watlington — mystifyingly named the National Superintendent of the Year by the District Administration Leadership Institute — saw his contract extended until 2030, a move akin to an NBA team locking a coach who has yet to make the playoffs into a long-term deal. Were offers really lining up?

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Or maybe it was that Inquirer headline last fall, heralding the seemingly great strides in math made by Philly students. In the piece, School Board President Reginald Streater crowed, “I remember a time when many people thought this would never be possible for our children — our babies — in the city of Philadelphia.” Uh, Mission Accomplish much? Turns out, only 25 percent of students were meeting state standards in math. Granted, that was up nine percentage points from the 2021 pandemic year … but are we really patting ourselves on the back when three-quarters of our kids are not actually succeeding?

The Inquirer described Streater as “jubilant.” A “soft bigotry of low expectations” type of reaction, particularly when the same data shows that, in reading, Philly’s scores remain down compared to 10 years ago.

Come to think of it, maybe that was our Fonzie on waterskis moment: the District’s Read by Fourth impact report — its tenth — that had an air of, shall we say, Trumpian gaslighting. “Our Impact Report showcases the incredible achievements of partners across the Read by 4th movement,” hyped the intro. “It’s a testament to the power of partnership and a source of inspiration for the work ahead.” That all sounds very peppy, until you dig in. According to the Nation’s Report Card, 65 percent of our students at the time were not reading at grade level by fourth grade. That’s four percent worse than in 2009. (In 1961, by the way, none other than Fidel Castro took all of one year to turn Cuba from an illiterate nation into the most literate country on earth. Idea We Should Steal perhaps?)

My point is this: When said Read By Fourth report boasts that “scores are rebounding to near pre-pandemic levels, reflecting student and teacher resilience,” that’s spin, not data. Notice the near? That’s what we call a tell. That faux data point is not indicative of resilience so much as a system that’s failing most of its kids five years post-Covid.

This is not to say strides haven’t been made, but they’ve been incremental, at best, when what’s needed is a bold vision that reimagines what urban education looks like. In December, I saw Dr. Watlington at an event and shared my concern about a lack of urgency. “We don’t have a moment to waste,” he agreed, ever the gentleman. But where do we see that commitment?

We need more than just an educator

Watlington had a steep learning curve when he came here in 2022 after one year leading a 23,000-student, non-union North Carolina district. His affability has won many over; he is often described as an able educator. To his credit, in a city where lanes don’t often intersect, it was Watlington who reached out to Monika Shealey, Dean of Temple’s College of Education, for help on the literacy front, and to Penn Graduate School of Education Dean Katharine Strunk to partner on projects like Algebra I coaching and AI training for teachers. Under Watlington, absenteeism has been steadily coming down, and the graduation rate has risen.

But do you get a sense that there’s a movement going on to fundamentally rethink education in the sixth largest city in America? Watlington’s three-year-old strategic plan, notably slight on specific goals and timetables, doesn’t even mention the words Artificial Intelligence. It took the Marrazzo Family Foundation and Strunk at Penn to partner on the innovative AI training program — first for teachers and administrators and soon for students, making the technology more tool than threat.

Wouldn’t this be a refreshing change: Philadelphia leaders, and Philadelphians in general, demanding our education leaders be subject to the same sort of outraged calls for accountability that we tend to reserve for offensive coordinator coaches?

“Dr. Watlington is working hard to improve the academic performance of our children and we need to stay the course,” says Stacy Holland, Executive Director of  Elevate215, an educational nonprofit that serves students across all sectors—district, charter, and private. “I’d only ask our City, what’s our collective aspiration for children and how are we going to work with the superintendent to achieve it?”

When we get a defensive reaction from the School District in the face of calls for an abundance mindset (see: Watlington on KYW this week warning of “austerity” measures on the horizon), what we’re really getting is a doubling-down on scarcity as narrative: Schools that need to be closed, budgets destined for cutting, shrugging acceptance of damning data. All of this in place of a stirring invitation to take our $4.6 billion budget — not something to sneeze at, particularly if you can secure, as hoped for, another half a billion from state and philanthropic coffers — and use it to partner with other stakeholders in building something new.

Just imagine: A superintendent — with the ardent support of his mayor — inviting developers, academics, urban planners, design firms and community members to gather round the problem-solving table and rethink the role of schools decades from now? That’s the telling of a new and inspiring story.

Which gets us, of course, to the heart of the matter: Just what the hell are we hiring when we hire a schools superintendent? “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it,” Albert Einstein once said. Well, our mayor and School Board appear to reject that advice. They seem to think the superintendent’s job is to serve as educator-in-chief, when in fact we need a dynamic leader capable of cajoling a giant, creaking bureaucracy into systemic change.

Essentially, a big city school superintendent is really the CEO of at least five different entities. At any given time, he feeds more mouths than any caterer in Philadelphia; transports more bodies than SEPTA; oversees more facilities than any landlord in the city, including PHA; manages more employees than most businesses; and, yes, is responsible for educating our kids. This doesn’t even get to serving as public frontman for all things District and the role of navigating backroom politics — the latter of which just may be the most important skill of all, according to the nation’s preeminent superintendent whisperer.

“Superintendents need to have a strong background in curriculum and instruction, but that’s the baseline,” says Dr. Rachel White, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin and founder of The Superintendent Lab, the central hub for data and insight into the complex web of school superintendency. “Political leadership skill is how you separate yourself from the field.”

Let’s steal some ideas … starting with red states

Herein lies Watlington’s biggest challenge. Education turnarounds in other cities and states have been led by superintendents who essentially draft vastly different constituencies into a movement. You’ve heard of the Mississippi Miracle? The reddest of red states has become the model for academic turnaround, going from 45th in reading a decade ago to first in the nation today among economically disadvantaged fourth graders. More recently Louisiana has joined them, going from 46th to 6th. And guess who leads the nation in math progress? Also Mississippi and Louisiana.

In both cases, leaders didn’t spin or BS. They laid out the challenge, set goals, and invited all stakeholders to join a crusade. In Mississippi, 2013’s landmark Literacy-Based Promotion Act included statewide adoption of the training and teaching of phonics; but just as important was then-Governor Phil Bryant’s refrain: no more excuses, no more social promotions, no more settling for mediocrity. In Louisiana, where, post-Katrina, New Orleans went all-charter and school choice is now universal statewide, a partnership between State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and State Teacher of the Year Kylie Altier resulted in their “Let Teachers Teach” recommendations — commonsense reforms that united teachers, principals and parents around precepts like: Make collaboration meetings worthwhile and, Ensure ample time for classroom preparation and Stop forcing teachers to be mental health professionals. They got cell phones out of the classroom and brought back detention — because kids learn when they confront consequences.

In fairness, let’s concede that Tony Watlington’s job just might be the toughest in our city — as challenging, if not more so, even than the mayor’s.

In Detroit, charismatic superintendent Nikolai Vitti has tackled literacy by flooding the zone with brigades of academic interventionists in kindergarten through second grade and has introduced “Health Hubs” throughout the district to vastly reduce absenteeism. More important, he hasn’t led by whining about funding, or the lack thereof. Yes, money matters; but it’s not necessarily determinative. Here in Philadelphia, it remains a mystery why $4.6 billion is not enough to educate 200,000 students, not to mention just how much of that annual budget finds its way into the classroom. Both things can be true: Education can be underfunded, and central school bureaucracy can be bloated and inefficient, as it appears to be here.

In Detroit, Vitti leads by making folks feel like their district is on the move — that they’re no longer settling for an all-too-familiar narrative of managed decline. “Most of Michigan’s improvement is being driven by the use of Dr. Vitti’s evidence-based practices in Detroit,” says Venessa Keesler, CEO of Launch Michigan, a nonprofit consortium of cross-sector leaders — academic, corporate, labor, nonprofit — who have come together to do something big on education.

Launch Michigan has resisted putting easy points on the board and has instead focused on lobbying for overhauling the state’s high school graduation requirements. “Most states, you get your diploma if you show up enough to pass the class,” she says. “We want to put a higher rigor bar in place, so graduates demonstrate a set of academic skills through capstone projects, portfolios, and other assessments — a personalized education development plan.”

It’s unclear if Launch Michigan’s moonshot will land, but it’s an audacious try. For us, the question is: Are we even capable of thinking that boldly? And then executing on our boldness?

The hardest job in Philly

Watlington hasn’t shown the retail politics chops experts like UT Austin’s Dr. White say are so critical. He seems in his element in classrooms and community meetings, but uncomfortable in his political role. One prominent elected official tells me, “The second time I met Dr. Watlington, he said it was nice to meet me.” At the very least, that’s bad staff work, but also might reveal a disinterest in working the personal relationships that might inure to his — and the District’s — benefit. Another powerful CEO who would help the District if he had confidence in its leadership reports he was at a dinner with the superintendent and was less than impressed. “I didn’t have to order an appetizer,” he said, “because all he does is talk in word salad.”

Did you notice that Watlington removed two schools from his closure list after Councilmembers like Isaiah Thomas and PA Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton objected? Think about that. He didn’t talk to the Speaker of the House before trying to shutter a school in her District? That sounds like political malpractice, no? Ditto coming out with a $2.8 billion facilities plan — and only having $1 billion of it paid for by the District. If that’s your play, you damn well better be a great salesman, because you’re going to have to ratchet up the public pressure on lawmakers, lest all this drama be for naught.

In fairness, let’s concede that Tony Watlington’s job just might be the toughest in our city — as challenging, if not more so, even than the mayor’s. Let’s also stipulate that he cares mightily about Philly’s children; his lifetime of service as an educator bears that out.

But is that enough? A big-city leader with an entrenched union workforce needs to have at his disposal a range of skills, some amalgam of vision and balls and jiu jitsu-like political moves — all capable of being deployed at a moment’s notice in the turning of a plodding old tanker. Cherelle Parker acknowledged as much when, upon being elected, she went out and hired a police commissioner, Kevin Bethel, with just such a set of qualifications. Is our education crisis not as urgent as our public safety challenge was in 2023?

We say we care about kids, but the facts just might belie our rhetoric. You try and find a superintendent who has been fired for not educating students; accountability only seems to kick in after financial or sexual scandal. Wouldn’t this be a refreshing change: Philadelphia leaders, and Philadelphians in general, demanding our education leaders be subject to the same sort of outraged calls for accountability that we tend to reserve for offensive coordinator coaches?

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