Philadelphia schools improve for 4th consecutive year

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Philadelphia school and city leaders celebrated the continued academic improvements of 50 district-led and charter schools on Monday.

The celebration was held at William Hunter School in Kensington, one of the schools that produced significant success over multiple years on the School Progress Report - the equivalent of a school report card.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said $1.2 billion will be pumped into educational programs over the next five years.

"If this country invested in education the way it invests in the military and other things, we would have an educated population, an educated workforce; we'd have fewer people in prison, fewer people on Kensington Avenue addicted to heroin and we would be a safer place and more productive place," Kenney said.

The mayor said the billion dollars set aside for academics can only be used for those educational programs.

Funding required to fix the massive asbestos problem across the district must come from somewhere else.

For now, they're celebrating academic success and funding.

"We feel good about it. It goes a long way to help us address a lot of the issues that we've been struggling with over the past several years," said superintendent Dr. William Hite.