Group Advocating For More Philly Charter Schools Responds To Decision To Approve 5 Of 39 New Charters
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Pro-charter school advocates are planning a new push, now that applications for 34 new Philadelphia charters have been denied.
The Hoboken-based Choice Media, Inc. is returning to the Philadelphia television airwaves in the next week or so, depicting parents whose children were shut out of fully-enrolled charters.
David Hardy, the CEO of Boys' Latin of Philadelphia Charter School, is a spokesman for the campaign.
Why take to the airwaves after the School Reform Commission voted to approve 5 of 39 new charter applications? Hardy says the SRC vote is not the last word on charters.
"Because it's not over. There are people who will appeal. They have to do this again next year. They have to understand that we are not going away."
Choice Media ran a similar series of ads last fall. Executive Director Bob Bowdon last month wouldn't say who paid for it, telling us it was funded by what he called "private family foundations."