NY Times: "Budget Cuts Reach the Bone for Philadelphia Schools"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/education/budget-cuts-reach-bone-for-philadelphia-schools.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0&pagewanted=all

Excerpt:

"Philadelphia’s schools, whose chronic budget problems led to a state takeover in 2002, have not been this close to the abyss in memory. The troubles have many causes: rising pension costs, high debt payments for past borrowing that papered over budget gaps, a flight to charter schools and a block-grant formula for state aid that has fallen behind enrollments, which have increased 5,000 a year between charter and traditional schools, according to Superintendent Hite.

State aid to Philadelphia schools declined by $274 million in the past three years, according to the Pennsylvania State Education Association. “The state has never funded the city of Philadelphia and its schools very well,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools. “For decades now it has been the subject of lawsuits and partisan politics and pushing and shoving, and the chickens are finally coming home to roost.”

Marielle Casanova, the counselor at Andrew Jackson School, whose morning was given over to the unruly second-grader, predicted chaos. “There’s only so much a classroom teacher can do for behavior issues or emotional outbursts,” said Ms. Casanova, who has received a pink slip along with all 282 counselors in the district.

Ms. Kaplan, the principal, returned often to the same word to describe the cuts: “devastating.” “Do we just want a building that houses children until they get to the new prison they’re building?” she said. "