Lisa Zhu | A wish list for the city

I'm no Fresh Prince, but come May 18, I too will be saying goodbye to the city in whose shadow I've been living for the past 20 years. Since my parents to Philadelphia in the late 1980s, parts of the city have changed a great deal: The Comcast Center tower has nestled itself next to the Mellon Bank building and the Liberty Place skyscrapers. Independence Mall got a fancy National Constitution Center. And Penn continues to expand, amoeba-like, toward the Schuykill in its own version of manifest destiny.

But despite these marked changes in Philly's physical landscape, many of the City's reform initiatives have progressed minimally. For instance, a recent report released by the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board revealed that a whopping 41 percent of Philadelphia residents were either unemployed or had left the workforce. And of the nation's 100 largest cities, Philadelphia ranks 92nd in the percentage of residents with college degrees.

It doesn't take an expert to realize that the city cannot continue this way. And while I'm not qualified to make policy recommendations, it's clear that many more-experienced individuals have also failed in this respect (see Rizzo, Frank, wage taxes). So, armed with my urban studies degree and a highly scientific cost-benefit analysis of dollar signs to stars, here's my wish list for policy reforms to turn Philadelphia's economy and education system around:

Internship opportunities for district high-school students

Cost: $ | Impact: **

District high schools rearrange weekly class schedules so students have 10 hours a week to intern at a city agency or nonprofit organization, gaining life skills. According to Urban Studies professor Elaine Simon, "If kids really get tied in to the workforce and if their schooling were related to that, they would have more of a close-up view of why it might actually benefit them to graduate from high school." Organizations benefit from having more manpower, and students are less inclined to drop out since they can see the advantage of attaining a higher level of education.

Specialty high schools for former dropouts and older students

Cost: $$ | Impact: ***

In order to educate the entire workforce of tomorrow, we cannot conscientiously neglect the thousands of students who have already dropped out of high school. Unfortunately, "The sad truth is that most programs that were designed to do job training have been failures," said Penn Public Policy and History professor Ted Hershberg. "The economy is changing so rapidly that it's hard to train people for specific jobs."

To remedy this, Philadelphia could experiment with transfer high schools, a program that's seen success in New York. Instead of equipping high-school dropouts with a set of vocational skills too inflexible for today's fast-shifting economy, transfer high schools improve their chances for attaining a future compatible with the evolving job market.

Ex-offender job training and rehabilitation programs

Cost: $$ | Impact: ***

With almost 10,000 people currently in the Philadelphia Prisons System and an average national recidivism rate of two-thirds over a three-year period of time, it's no wonder the city has a high crime rate. By providing more adult-education programs for ex-offenders, the City can lower the crime rate, reduce the expense of incarcerating them ($40,000 per inmate per year) and boost its local economy. Example: Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles nonprofit, trains ex-offenders to install solar panels. Not only has this program reduced the recidivism rate for its participants, but it's also helping grow LA's green-technology industry.

Merit pay and performance benchmarks for teachers

Cost: $$$$ | Impact: *****

While contentious among teachers' unions, merit pay and teacher-performance benchmarks are crucial for improving Philadelphia's ailing school district. Numerous studies point to teacher quality as the biggest factor in student performance; if Philly is to have any chance of developing itself economically, it needs to educate its youth population and make them more employable. Merit pay will not come cheap, but that's what multi-billion federal stimulus packages are for.

Full disclosure: I'm not quite sure these will work (to be fair, I'm not quite sure I can make it through each day without falling, but hey). I am sure, however, that Philly's habit of finding easy-way-out solutions to its development woes must stop. Today, it's the casino; in the past, it was various sports stadiums and convention centers. Economic and educational reforms are like losing weight - those miracle pills sound appealing, but it's really only diet and exercise that will work in the end. For Philadelphia, that means investing in its people. And who knows, maybe some of my wish-list reforms will actually work; I'd certainly like to see that kind of change when I visit this town again.

Lisa Zhu is a College and Wharton senior from Cherry Hill, NJ. Zhu-ology appears on Thursdays. Her email address is zhu@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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