Op-ed: No water, no bathrooms, and even rats! Save the students!

What if Philadelphia public schools were public housing? What if instead of thinking of the children as students in schools, we looked at them as tenants in government housing? We certainly would treat them differently than the “adults” in charge of the School District and City Council are doing. — very differently.

What if a low-income family lived in government housing with overflowing toilets or toilets that didn’t work, leaking roofs, water that was undrinkable because lead was in it, no running water, or rats running around?

These things are happening at several public schools across the city. This has been reported in local media — with accounts by students, and even reported by the School District.

Imagine, just for a minute, that your child had to go to a school with no bathrooms and rats.

I say “had to” because public school students are required to go to their local public school — unless they are accepted to a magnet school. Unless your daughter is lucky enough to win a lottery to get admitted to a charter school. Unless your son is lucky enough to get a tuition-assistance tax-credit scholarship large enough to allow him to afford to go to a non-public school. (Of course, if you are wealthy enough to move to a better district — or can afford to pay tuition, you don’t have to send your child to one of these hellholes.)

During a recent radio appearance with host Mike Opelka on WPHT, we were discussing the fiasco that is the School District’s theater of the absurd — debates over the “master plan” to close and consolidate school buildings that are unsafe, in disrepair or no longer viable. What to do with too many buildings for a district at less than half of capacity, too many old buildings and too many buildings needing too much money to repair, and schools that are mostly vacant, as families have abandoned the school or the neighborhood?

The plan is being selfishly picked-apart by City Council — a collective whose ignorance of public education is only surpassed by their lack of any business or private sector understanding. Opelka wisely drew the analogy to public housing.

When the housing authority does its job, a family living in an disgusting, unsafe, uninhabitable public housing home is allowed to find another unit. Or the housing authority would give them a “voucher” to allow them to find a private home to rent until their home was made safe and secure.

A housing “voucher” — a policy based on compassion, common sense, and humanity.

Yet, apparently, compassion and common sense are lacking when it comes to Philadelphia public school students, especially poor and working class students.

Many of us have made the case for decades for school choice — all parents should be allowed to find a school that works for their child. Instead of automatically sending taxpayer money to district run schools, allow parents to find a school, sending the money to the school the parents select. That’s not the law…yet.

Many of us have made the case for years that, if not school choice for all, the law should at least allow students forced to attend schools that are failing academically to have a lifeline scholarship to allow them to afford to go to a better school. Recall that 70 percent of district students cannot do grade level reading and 75 percent cannot do grade level math. In some schools, the percentage is single digits, a few — zero! But, no “voucher” for them.

Many of us have made the case for years that, even if not for students trapped in academically failing schools, the law should allow students forced to attend schools that are “persistently violent” to have a voucher to go to a better school. According to the Department of Education, 71 percent of Philadelphia public schools are “persistently violent.” But no voucher for those students either.

How ill-equipped, unsafe, and disgusting are some public schools in Philadelphia? The District’s own report disclosed these classifications — probably putting the best face on a bad situation: eight are listed as “fair;” eight listed as “poor;” and six are “unsafe.”

There was a recent profile of Southwark Elementary in South Philly: Disgusting smells. Raw sewage, broken bathroom stalls, flooded toilets, and rats.

The District’s own “patch” plan is to have toilets in outside trailers — through 2032. Yes, 2032! At an elementary school.

Imagine, in the United States of America. In 2026. In the birthplace of America. In a school district with a budget of nearly $5 billion — spending about $25,000/student… “Yo, Millie, head out to the trailer to go potty.”

It’s past time for the adults to act responsibly. It’s time for the School District to stop holding students hostage — spending millions of our dollars for lobbyists to block every type of school choice. It’s time for the teachers’ union to stand down — using millions in PAC dollars to threaten “school choice” legislators.

Free the students forced to attend school in buildings the District knows are unsafe!

If they won’t allow students to leave schools where almost no one is learning, if they won’t allow students to leave schools that are violent, can we at least allow students to leave schools where eight-year-olds have to hold their breath, hold their pee, and dodge rats?

This article originally appeared at Broad + Liberty.