Masterman is being ‘systematically dismantled’ by Philly’s new admissions process, parents say

Changes to the admissions process at Philadelphia’s selective schools are wreaking havoc at what is perhaps the state’s best public school and the city’s most vaunted magnet, a scathing new report compiled by Masterman parents said.

Masterman, a middle and high school, “is being systematically dismantled,” the parents wrote. “The long history of rigor and enriched curriculum is fading. The identity of the school and its purpose and mission are in disarray, leaving a fractured community.”

Last year, the Philadelphia School District removed the ability of principals to personally shape their student bodies and shifted to a lottery for admissions in an effort to democratize the district’s 39 special admissions schools, which often do not reflect the city’s diversity. Critics, including some who have sued the school system, say the changes were well-intended but the process was deeply flawed, poorly executed, and generally did not achieve the desired outcomes.

Count the Masterman Home and School Association among those critics.

In its 51-page report released this month, the group said the lottery — which uses grades, attendance, and other measures to qualify, and gives preference to students from underrepresented zip codes — has profoundly affected the school, which educates students in fifth through 12th grades. Students with “basic” or “below basic” competencies were admitted into the school, it said, which was ill-equipped to handle the new range of teaching differentiation. As a result, “student, teacher and community morale is at a low point.”

Masterman “now has a student population with a much wider array of talents and needs for support as compared to previous years,” the report said. “The community has wholly welcomed new students and families, but the requisite staff and resources to support all students have not been made available to the school.”

In practical terms, the report said, that means at least one classroom teacher has been reassigned to provide academic supports for struggling students, language offerings have been cut for middle school students, the pace of instruction has slowed in some classes, and some have new safety concerns resulting from the absence of behavior being factored into admissions criteria. The parents cited “a new set of challenges as well as safety concerns for students and classroom management.”

Student performance, as measured by midyear benchmark testing, is down, according to district data. In math, 76% of Masterman students met standards this year, down from 86% at the same time last year. In reading, 90% of students hit targets, down from 97%.

District spokesperson Monique Braxton noted Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. and other school officials met with the HSA and reviewed the report. “We value the input of our families as we plan the student experience to meet the needs of all of our students,” she said.

In the past, the vast majority of Masterman high school students came from its middle school, but the lottery effectively ended that pathway. Because the high school now cannot rely on most students coming with the kind of accelerated academic background provided at Masterman’s middle school, the high school has also had to dilute the quality of its classes and instruction, parents wrote.

“The overall effect is to ask less of, and deliver less to, a group of Philadelphia’s most promising students,” the report said.

Mitchell Orenstein, the Masterman HSA president, said the effort was not to blame the principal, or the new crop of students.

“Everybody at Masterman should get what they need out of their education,” said Orenstein, who is white and the father of an eighth grader. “But we got put in this situation where everybody could not get what they needed, so we were robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

The parents said they feel fixes are possible. They asked for a better, nonrandomized recruitment process that addresses barriers students of color encounter; more resources to support struggling students and those who need acceleration; and other changes inside the school.

Leon McCrea takes particular interest in the situation at Masterman. He’s an alumnus, son of Mozelle McCrea — a longtime assistant principal at Masterman — and the father of two current Masterman students, as well as the senior associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Drexel University College of Medicine.

McCrea, who is Black, is “very sensitive” to equity issues at Masterman and elsewhere that led to an overhaul of the admissions system district-wide, and believes that the district was right to want more access to Masterman by Black and brown students. When McCrea graduated from Masterman in 1995, the school was much more diverse than it had been recently.

This year, 41% of Masterman students are white, 25% are Asian, 18% are Black, 8% are Latino, and 9% are multiracial, a mismatch with the district’s demographics at large — 45% Black, 26% Latino, 15% white, 10% Asian, 4% multiracial.

But, McCrea said, “I don’t agree with the current system. I don’t think that randomization creates equity. I think there has to be a human touch to actually create equitable spaces.”

In a historically underfunded district where many schools aren’t able to offer the experiences Masterman still has, there will surely be pushback to the idea that Masterman needs extra resources, McCrea said. But letting the changes the lottery has wrought continue without course correction will fundamentally alter a school held up by the district and city as a nationally recognized point of pride.

“Masterman is going to need resources to better support students at all ability levels,” McCrea said, emphasizing that his and the HSA’s concerns are not a commentary on Black and brown students’ abilities. “Every child, if given the right opportunity and the right exposure, has the capacity to thrive. What we need to do is make sure that every child in Masterman has the supports to thrive.”

Robert Covington, another Black Masterman parent opposed to the admissions changes, grew up in Philadelphia seeing Masterman as the gold standard in city schools. (Covington graduated from Parkway Center City, another magnet program.)

“I just want Masterman to maintain its high standards, and increase access for African American and Latino students,” Covington said. “I believe fundamentally that those two can happen at the same time.”

LaToya Brown is opposed to the new selection process, which shut out her daughter, Ny-Etta, a current Masterman eighth grader who is Black.

Ny-Etta placed into Masterman by virtue of her good grades at Catharine Elementary, in Southwest Philadelphia. But though she met admissions criteria for five district high schools, including Masterman, she received zero admissions offers. Brown will likely enroll Ny-Etta in a cyber charter, over her daughter’s objections, because she doesn’t feel like their neighborhood school, Bartram, is safe or challenging enough for Ny-Etta.

“It’s very disappointing that she has done everything that me and her dad have asked for her, and she still doesn’t get into a proper school,” said Brown, who said she’d oppose the new admissions procedures even if Ny-Etta wasn’t snubbed. “I’m saying, just let the best of the best go to Masterman. Go by academics, not just trying to get diversity.”

Orenstein said he’s hopeful that Watlington will demonstrate a commitment to magnets generally and Masterman specifically — and make changes to the admissions process.

“The lottery is incredibly unpopular in Philadelphia, particularly at Masterman,” Orenstein said. “They lost the faith and confidence of the parents.”