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Center for Greater Philadelphia History The Center for Greater Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1985 by Penn Public Policy and History Professor Theodore Hershberg. In 1984-85, Dr. Hershberg served as the Assistant to the Mayor of Philadelphia for Strategic Planning and Policy Development. Upon his return to the University, Dr. Hershberg was convinced that two of the profound trends shaping America -- the development of a global economy and the emergence of the state as a pivotal force in the federal system -- required strategic regional responses. He founded the Center for Greater Philadelphia as a response to these trends and to serve as a neutral convener and researcher of public policy affecting the region. The Center's first initiative was to launch the Southeastern Pennsylvania State Legislators' Conference a process bringing together Senators, Representatives and corporate leaders from Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Nine annual conferences were held in 1985-1994. In 1995, the Center created the Greater Philadelphia High School Partnership, which brought together high school students from diverse backgrounds to explore the challenges of segregation and racial/ethnic diversity effecting their schools and neighborhoods. In his January 1999 radio address to the nation, President Clinton singled out the Partnership, calling it a "stunning success" and a "model for the nation." The Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy at Rutgers University, directed by Prof. Benjamin Barber, praised the Partnership as "an innovator in the field of service learning." In 2002, the program expanded its diversity education program to include elementary aged students under the new name Greater Philadelphia School Partners. In 2005 the Center ended its sponsorship of the program due to the loss of support from a major funder. The high school portion of the program was taken over by City Year. Private funding is now being used to continue the elementary program at a limited number of schools. In 1996, recognizing that the key to an improved quality of life in our region depended upon the development of a highly skilled, highly educated workforce, the CGP began its third major initiative, working with a consortium school districts in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties to adopt rigorous academic standards and internationally-benchmarked assessments. This work lead to the formation of the New Standards in Education Project which coordinated standards-based reform efforts in nearly half of the 61 school districts in the four counties (which collectively enrolled over 163,000 students), as well as 11 school districts in southern New Jersey. New Standards received over $2 million in grants from the Pennsylvania Department of Education's "Educate America" program. In 2001 the program merged with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education's (GSE) school outreach program and is now housed at GSE's Center for Educational Leadership. After five years work with New Standards, it became apparent that most, though not all, of the participating school districts greeted standards-based reform with an ill-founded complacency and that they would not commit to the difficult task of systemic change absent a major overhaul in the rules and incentives that govern public schools. This realization lead the CGP to sponsor a Conference on Teacher Accountability in May 2000, which brought together educators from around the region to discuss initiatives that could lead to meaningful reform. This conference inspired first the broadening of the project to the Program on Educator Accountability and then the creation of a statewide initiative known as Operation Public Education: "Investment with accountability for our common wealth." In 2003, Operation Public Education (OPE) expanded into a national education reform initiative. | ||||||||
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 | © 2004 Center for Greater Philadelphia |