The $650K Settlement that Settles Nothing at Selective Philadelphia Schools

The School District of Philadelphia settled this month with the three families who sued over the 2021 selective-school admissions overhaul. The district agreed to pay $650,000, made no admission of wrongdoing, and declined to say whether it would amend anything about the policy.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers — backed by America First Legal, the conservative legal group founded by Stephen Miller — declared it a victory: “This case proves that parents who stand up and fight back against racial discrimination can win.” The district has not commented on whether it agrees. Each side’s framing suits its respective position: America First Legal’s stated mission includes challenging race-conscious admissions policies nationwide, and the organization has an interest in characterizing the result as a precedent. The district has consistently defended the lottery on equity grounds and has not endorsed the plaintiffs’ framing. Other families remain free to file similar challenges.

Whatever else is true, this is not a settlement that resolves the underlying questions. The lottery-based admissions policy is still in place, and the broader debate the lawsuit was always really about — whether selective public schools should be optimized for academic preparation or for some broader equity goal — remains unresolved.

For anyone who has not been following along, a quick recap. In October 2021, on the same day the application window opened, SDP changed admissions at Masterman, Palumbo, Carver, and Central from a best-scores system to one that gave near-automatic admission to students in six specific ZIP codes — the change I wrote about here. Families sued. SDP then moved to a citywide lottery (meet the minimum anywhere in the city, and you’re admitted). The District Court dismissed the case on summary judgment, meaning a jury never got to hear the details. The Third Circuit reversed and sent it back for trial — a ruling I covered here. At which point SDP settled.

The district has not publicly explained its reasoning for settling rather than proceeding to trial. Without seeing the settlement agreement, the full terms of the deal — including any policy commitments the district may have made — are not clear. Possible considerations include litigation costs, the risk of an adverse ruling on the merits, the political sensitivity of the case, insurance considerations, or some combination. Without seeing the agreement, it is not possible to say which factors mattered most.

Two questions remain, and they are the ones that matter. Should selective public schools optimize for academic preparation, or should they also pursue broader equity goals through admissions? And, more pointedly: even setting aside whether the lottery is constitutionally permissible, does changing the admissions criteria at four elite high schools actually do anything about the underlying economic and racial disparities in this city?

The second question, the empirical one, sits in tension with a larger pattern I documented in The Paradox: How Progressive Criminal Justice Hit the Wrong Neighborhoods — well-intentioned reforms that landed hardest on the neighborhoods they were meant to help. The same caution applies here. Changing who sits in the seats of four elite high schools does not, by itself, change the resource gaps that decide who is prepared to take those seats.

Both questions have serious people on both sides. The first is a values question on which reasonable Philadelphians disagree. The second is an empirical question on which the evidence is mixed. The district’s defenders argue that representation at the city’s best schools creates pathways that wouldn’t otherwise exist. The critics argue that placing underprepared students into a curriculum designed for a different intake can push those students out of the hardest subjects rather than into them, and that the underlying resource gaps are what actually need fixing. The students admitted under the lottery did not, by getting the seat, become more prepared for Masterman’s curriculum than they had been before — which I wrote about here.

The settlement resolves the named plaintiffs’ claims. It does not change the policy being challenged, does not constitute a ruling on the merits, and leaves the legal and policy questions open for future litigation and political deliberation.