Reading, Writing, Ransacking
In a closed-door session that lasted 17 minutes and that included a single public comment, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission — more about them later — unilaterally blew up the contract under which the Philadelphia teachers union had been operating. In addition to socking the city’s teachers for their own health care, the commission also cut off the benefits being paid to retired teachers, most of them elderly, and all of them having worked for years to earn these benefits that yesterday vanished without even the pretense of debate.