Money For Stadiums But Not For Schools

No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks. When they sing the song of summer in Philadelphia, they aren't kidding. Across much of the U.S. these days, summer school is in great demand for kids who flunk standardized tests and must either pull up their scores or repeat a grade. But summer school costs money, and with rare exceptions over the past 10 years, Philly's public schools haven't had it.

Not that the 740 students of Willard Elementary are broken up about it. The K-4 school is so old and overcrowded that Marion Stern teaches reading in a...