An Educational Reform Everyone Agrees On: 3 B's Mean A+ Program For Schools

IMAGINE this: The Ridge administration, state Legislature, Superintendent of Philadelphia schools and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers all in agreement about school reform.

Sounds like an impossible dream-but it seems to be happening, thanks to Community Education Partners, a private for-profit education organization that removes disruptive or failing students to special schools where behavioral and academic problems are addressed.

The bad actors return to regular school only after mastering the three R's and the three B's: Be here. Behave. Be Learning.

Superintendent David Hornbeck, state Education Secretary Eugene Hickok and PFT President Ted Kirsch all praised the program.

Hornbeck is negotiating to bring CEP to Philadelphia within the next year. What's got everyone excited about CEP are statistics like these:

In CEP's first year, crime in Houston schools declined 23 percent. In year two, crime dropped another 26 percent.

In 180 days, average performance of CEP students improved 2.5 years in reading and 1.7 in math.

CEP has received rave reviews from public school teachers, who now can teach effectively with disruptive students gone. They say CEP students return to them ready to behave -- and to learn. (If students fail, CEP teaches them for free for a year.)

In short, everybody wins.

You're looking for the catch, right? So are we - but so far, the CEP approach seems glitch-free.

Once hitch may be teacher pay: CEP teachers make slightly less than Houston teachers and many are not certified. While the PFT's Ted Kirsch is enthusiastic about CEP, will hammering out a local CEP contract acceptable to a tough union that wants higher, more competitive pay for its members prove difficult?

Still, if the often-combative players in Philadelphia public education can sustain their agreement to agree on CEP, imagine what might happen in our schools:

More learning, less disruption. More students graduating, fewer dropping out.

And a city made attractive and vital again, because its schools are working and its children are succeeding.

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