OUT & ABOUT: Governors Get Their Way On SRC

by Denise Clay

Life at the School Reform Commission is always interesting.

But on Sunday night, Gov. Tom Wolf made that always-interesting governmental body much more interesting when he decided to remove SRC Chair Bill Green from his position as Chairman and replace him with former Masterman principal Marjorie Neff.

Green, who resigned his City Council at Large seat in 2012 to take the Chairman’s gavel from Pedro Ramos, whose appointment was not renewed, oversaw the approval of five of the 39 charter-school applications brought before the SRC in a special meeting on Feb. 18 despite Wolf’s instructions not to.

(Green is a gubernatorial appointee. Granted, the Governor that appointed him was Tom Corbett, but hey….)

Bill Green… making waves

That was the last straw for the Wolfman, apparently.

What’s keeping it in the news is how Green has reacted to it.

He’s not taking it well, by the way. Green took to the School District’s video portal to send a video message in which he touted his achievements like getting a cigarette tax (that had a demand for a bunch of brand new, un-reimbursed charter schools attached to it) passed, closing schools and getting labor concessions. He decried Wolf’s decision.

“Commissioner Neff told me that although she believed I was doing an excellent job as chair, the Governor’s people were unwilling to work with me,” Green said. “I accepted the position as Chair with the understanding I could not be removed from office according to the District’s own legal council,” Green said. “I will be filing an action in Commonwealth Court. I did not set up the governance of the SRC and I am not seeking to remain chair for power’s sake.”

Yeah. Okay.

Now let’s be honest here. Despite Green’s decision to go to court, something that will add a new set of legal fees to the ones the District is paying for the court battle connected to the SRC’s cancellation of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ contract, the changing of the guard at the SRC is business as usual.

From the moment former Mayor John Street and former Gov. Mark Schweiker put their pointy heads together to create the School Reform Commission in 2001, chair changes have always been a part of the deal.

James Nevels, the Chair that Schweiker installed, was removed and replaced with Sandra Dungee-Glenn when Gov. Ed Rendell came in. When Tom Corbett became Governor, he replaced Dungee-Glenn with Robert Archie. When Archie resigned, Pedro Ramos replaced him. If Ramos’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the Chairman of the School Board when it was last under local control.

And when Ramos left, Corbett appointed Green.

Bottom line: It happens. Wolf probably would have waited a little while to do it if the charter school vote wasn’t fresh in his mind. And Green is still on the board because his term finishes in 2017.

But the fact Green believed Wolf was going to allow him to remain the SRC’s Dilettante-in-Chief not only ignores the precedent, but implies that he didn’t feel it applied to him … unlike Nevels, Dungee-Glenn, Archie and Ramos.

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