Treat parents as consumers with a Web site for schools

Sept. 23, 2007
Chris Satullo
Inquirer columnist

Looking to a buy a new car?

Chances are good you'll spend some time first on the Edmunds.com Web site, or another of that ilk.

There, you can plug in your preferences for your dream auto, down to type of CD player. You can find out about makes and models, invoice prices, performance data, expert road tests, and reviews by car owners.

Those are sites designed with one question in mind: When I buy a car, what do I need to know? They're set up to provide data in a form that's easy to grasp.

But what if you're looking not for a new Altima, but the best public school for your kid?

Well, you can long wander the Web in vain, seeking anything like an Edmunds.com for public school education.

Philadelphia, which leads urban districts in many aspects of meaningful reform, should make this another. The city system has embarked on a path that offers parents more meaningful school choice than most. It should now aspire to be a leader in offering a user-friendly Web site, one that not only provides a wealth of data, but also organizes them with an eye to helping parents make that vital judgment: "What school is best for my kid?"

Sites do exist that are chock-full of data on test scores and spending. This paper produces one of the best you can find, the Report Card on the Schools, available on Philly.com. A Standard & Poor's Inc. site, www.schoolmatters.com, also provides a wealth of information. But those sites, good as they are, seem designed for the sophisticated user - the policy wonk or journalist - not a parent who comes to a site with no clue what, for example, a PSSA proficiency level might be.

Why is this? While the Web has spawned an explosion of consumer-oriented information, public schools aren't used to treating parents like customers with options. Parents are treated as a captive audience whose job is to comply with the rules a large bureaucracy sets up mostly for its own purposes. Most public school Web sites are set up to convey rules, or offer defensive, image-buffing PR.

A customer focus was long absent in Philadelphia, where so many of the parents are working-class or poor. Middle-class parents, the folks with income to pursue options, have long voted with their feet, either leaving town or turning to the city's rich network of private and religious schools.

The standard folklore among middle-class Philly parents remains: "Either your kids get into Masterman or Central, or you get them the hell out of Philly schools."

Maybe that's why so few city residents seem to have a clue how many intriguing options - beyond those two top-notch magnet schools - are being developed under the state-city collaboration begun five years ago.

There are new magnet schools; there are new magnet programs at old high schools. There are schools allied with top universities and museums. Plus charter schools galore.

But how much credit can you take for offering new choices if your customers have little clue what they are?

Now-departed chief executive officer Paul Vallas frenetically pursued a strategy of public school choice. But many in Philly spent so much time kvetching about one part of the mix, the for-profit Edison Schools, that they missed the rest of the story. Vallas' hyperkinetic style bears some blame. It was hard even for close observers to keep track of which new options were actually in place, and which were just notions where he tried to sell the sizzle before he cooked the steak.

Now, he's taken his genius and his ADD to New Orleans. It's time to take a deep breath, but not to turn our backs on his vision of a school system that offers meaningful options to all parents and students.

One step toward the vision would be take the much-improved, data-rich district Web site and turn it into one truly designed for parents.

Make it one where the parent could do as consumers do on hundreds of Web sites: Type in their street address, some of their priorities for their child's education, and get a list of schools that fit those priorities.

For every school, the parent could browse information rendered in understandable form, not educationese, about the faculty, resources, curriculum, activities, test scores, demographics, and disciplinary climate. Each school site would offer a plainly written mission statement from the principal; a video tour; staff profiles; even "consumer comments" from parents and students.

On this site, designed for parents, not defensive bureaucrats, all public schools - charters, managed from "outside," or traditional - would be presented on an even plane. Just as in college guides, the chances of getting accepted to any given school would be honestly stated.

Right now, some folks - particularly educators - are thinking, "What is he, crazy? What school system would expose itself that way?"

My answer: one that's serious about meeting the needs of its taxpayers, parents, students and city in the 21st century.

To comment, call 215-854-4243 or e-mail csatullo@phillynews.com.