While we have certainly had many questions posed about Mayor Street and his positions on issues, I wonder if Mr. Katz has communicated his positions clearly? Do you have any questions or concerns about Mr. Katz and his plans for our fair city?

Katz has been pretty vague. However, it seems like he can count on a good portion of the vote by just marketing himself as "not Street". Heck, he's already got me with that. By the way, I wasn't too impressed with Rendell either. I think the whole line of mayors since perhaps Dillworth have been passively overseeing decline. Sure Rendell got invlved in some big projects that drew attention but the fundamentals of the city (population decline, urban blight problems, etc.) remained the same.

I thought Rendell was RELATIVELY good. He helped center city along quite a bit. this neighborhood mayor thing is a good gimmick but it's center city that this is all based around. at any rate, they ahve all lacked in inspiration and Rendell shoudl be careful what he touts. his "transformation" wasn't nearly as complete as Guiliani's in NYC. However, Street hasn;t been as bad as Bloomberg. Kind of odd the way Bloomberg is dismantling Guliani's legacy and they are in the same party. Just goes to show that parties mean much less idealogically on a local level.

Sure, because Philadelphia is a city that won't demand that its leaders actually perform.

A problem I see with Katz is that if elected mayor, he'll still be dealing with the thugs and cronies of the Dem. Machine, like Rick Mariano, who will certainly do all he can to stop change.

I agree. In fact, I recall during the 99 elections people were rationalizing that, while Katz was the better man for the job, Street would be more effective because, if Katz were mayor, the Democratic machine would do everything to block Katz and we'd have gridlock.

Maybe the answer is then to also vote in some refreshing new faces in City Council that might actually accomplish something, rather than reading the Daily News during Council sessions.

Sam Katz has lost all credibility in this campaign. He says he's going to take back our schools. Yet the chairmen of the SRC was a memeber of Greater Philadelphia First headed by Sam Katz, as was another SRC member Dan Whalen, who I understand is Katz's campaign chairman. If Katz had been eleceted four years ago, the School District of Philadelphia would have to change its bame to the School District of Edison. Where would that leave us now?
Sam Katz is pro - voucher and pro-privatization. Vouchers have been discredited as an improved solution to inner city education, and privatization is on the ropes as Edison desires no future in urban environments.
Sam Katz is not the answer to education in our city. Education is the answer to population loss, and most importantly job loss. Therefore, Sam Katz is not the right answer for this city.

Since vouchers have never been used in the city in any type of mass usage, how and when were they discredited as a solution? On the contrary, the only thing that has been completely discredited is the current system supported by teacher's unions and administrators.

Education is an investment in the future, no doubt, but that is the long-term future. In the short term, one way to improve education is to attract new businesses, jobs and residents to the city. Funding education as it has been done in the past has only led to wasted money, poorly educated children andwealthy administrators. I am not totally sure what the answer to this is, but I am sure that it is not maintaining the status quo.

While I'm a firm supporter of quality education, I also believe that it's not the school district's job to undo the damage done to kids coming from screwed up homes. I think it's more than clear why urban schools suffer. In fact, I think it's almost impossible for schools to undo damage to kids from screwed up families. Exactly how is John Street trying to help public schools in this city? To give the guy some credit, it's not (directly) his fault that these kids are so anti-education. Throwing government money will do little to help a large, urban, poor district like Philadelphia.

Another solution to help the school situation would be to bring back a middle class, and have them send their kids to school. Imagine if instead of teaching belligerent kids, city teachers were instead teaching kids that want a good future. I'm not trying to talk like I'm an expert, but I have friends who have taught/do teach all over the city, in public, Catholic, and charter schools.

I guess the argument here is what came first, the chicken or the egg. Do we make the schools better first to bring back the middle class, or do we instead bring back the middle class and help make the schools better.

Regardless, though I totally disagree with the anti-Katz comments above, it's nice that there's someone here that feels that way. There's less preaching to the choir.

How can you disagree with facts? You may disagree with opinions, but not fcats.
Fact: Sam Katz ran as a pro voucher candidate four years ago.
Fact: Dan Whelan is Katz's campaign manager.
Fact: Dan Whelan is on the SRC.
Fact: James Nevels is the SRC Chairmen.
Fact: James Nevels belonged to Philadelphia First headed by Sam Katz.
Fact: Without people who do know about public education and Edison's troubled past and present, this city would have had 100 schools and the central administration being run by Edison.
Fact: The vouchers studies which highlighted voucher success excluded Black inner city students from the study.
Fact: When they were included, no gains attributable to vouchers could be claimed,
Opinion: They were excluded so as to make vouchers look good for political reasons.

Now if you would like to discuss opinions I would like to here your opinion as to why the Blacks were excluded from the study which originally led to widespread praise for vouchers. I would also be interested in your opinions on accountability with vouchers. How did over $300K of voucher money end up in terrorist hands? Is it ok that Charter schools be run in Mosques? Is it ok that Charter Schools teach afro centric curriculums or that Charter religous institutions teach religous training rather than secular education?

Obviously there are lots of troubles with Charters and vouchers. As for the status quo, education funding in this state was cut by, oh I forget, was it 25% or 36%. What's the diffrence? When you cut education your prison costs go up. For every $1 spent on quality pre school you save $7 down the road in costs. (i.e crime and its related costs) It's called the Perry pre-school study. Cops all across the nation agree the best way to "Fight Crime is to invest in Kids". Check their website. Fight Crime Invest In Kids.