Unlike other Pennsylvania school districts, Philadelphia's lacks the authority to tax and raise money; it is at the mercy of a state that has cut funding and a city that has been reluctant to make it up, each pointing fingers at the other.
It isn't quite incorrect, and I'm not going to defend the great and glorious city government too much, but the point is that the state runs the school district. It isn't the city, or a subsidiary of the city. It's a subsidiary of the state, which has been doing its best to destroy it for years and is now dropping a nuke on it.