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Students who worked on
the section:
Information from Dr. Anne Phillips: Nellie Sanchez and Tanesha Lewis Information from Mr. Hardiman: Abdeel Bhatti and Wen Feng Chen Analysis of all information: Abdeel Bhatti, Malik Bostic-Smith, Wen Feng Chen, Jose Colon, Kevin DeJoie, Tanesha Lewis, Kareem McCafferty, Sean McGregor, Rafael Nako, Nellie Sanchez, Alex Stokes, Heather Volent, Jerrell Walden |
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The School District of Philadelphia "dragged its feet" and is still under court order regarding desegregation. After the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, public schools throughout the U.S. had to end racial segregation. In 1956, the governor of Pennsylvania ordered a statewide survey of desegregation in public schools of staff and students. (Philadelphia had discriminatory policies regarding African American teachers and administrators.) In 1957, the governor said state funds would be cut if schools didn't end enforced racial segregation. This threat didn't change the reality of school segregation in Philadelphia. Faculties and student bodies continued to be segregated because of segregated housing and school geographic boundaries . At time the School Board intentionally designed school boundaries that furthered segregation. From the 1960s - 1970s, there was vocal opposition to school integration in Philadelphia. Mayor Tate and City Council President D'Ortona opposed desegregation and spoke out against busing. At a Northeast Town Meeting on Quality Education and Integration (1964) (see the summary below) some people questioned the need for integration and opposed busing while others wanted their children "to see Negroes (as teachers) in a capacity which brings respect." Attendees also questioned the academic motivation and skills of African American students. It seems adults assumed African American students were academically inferior to white students. The adults also seemed to think giving African Americans a better education would take away from the white students. There were also some parents who feared "too much inter-mingling and a possible aftermath - intermarriage." In the Northeast in the late 1960s, there was busing to Spruance and Carnell elementary schools. There weren't "riots" but there was vocal opposition from the local community (Oxford Circle) and parents assumed the African American students would academically hinder their children. There were also stereotypes regarding "white flight" and African Americans moving into the neighborhood. Northeast High School was in the news because a group of students from the Northwest part of the city were attending Northeast without transfers. In 1968, Northeast only had 30 African American students out of a student body of over 4000. At the same time, there was an effort to have students from Northeast get to know students from West Philadelphia High School. They had classroom exchanges and a retreat. In the 1970s, the school district was under court order to integrate schools but it failed. From the Mayors office to the School Board, no one wanted forced busing to integrated schools. The voluntary busing led to African American students being bused but not white students. The School Board established magnet programs and magnet schools to foster integration. In 1979, the Federal Office of Civil Rights charge the School District with violating civil rights laws by allowing white students to transfer out of predominantly black schools in their neighborhoods. This happened in Olney, Oak Lane, Logan, Hunting Park, Kensington, and Port Richmond. A 1979 Supreme Court decision found that all cities had to desegregated schools - "the decision (as) potentially important to northern school districts as the high court's 1954 opinion banning separate segregated school systems was to southern districts." (7/3/79 - see article under 1970s) 25 years after Brown v. Board Philadelphia was still trying to avoid school desegregation. Even though the School District only had a voluntary desegregation plan (versus forced busing) there was vocal opposition. There were protests from parents who did not want their children attending Kensington and Edison High Schools. Local politicians, including Rep. Borski, Councilman Rafferty, and City Commission Chairman Margaret Tartaglione joined and encouraged the protesters. Local TV stations refused to air voluntary desegregation advertisements created by the School Board because the ads were "controversial." There was a forced teacher desegregation plan in 1978 that was upheld by the federal courts in 1984. There was a sharp increase in African American teachers at Northeast High School in the late 1970s because of this plan. In 1980, the School Board had a $100,000 public relations campaign to promote voluntary desegregation. There were only 8,000 out of 220,000 students who had transferred into special interest magnet schools. Throughout the 1980s the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission took the School District to court over desegregation. The School Board wouldn't budge on mandatory busing. There were more voluntary busing plans. Northeast, Frankford, Olney and Kensington High Schools were targeted for voluntary transfers. If there was a forced busing plan, Northeast High School students would have been bused to Olney High and Lincoln High School students to Gratz High School. As late as 1988, the School District's voluntary school desegregation plan was considered inadequate by the PA Human Relations Commission. By the late 1980s, Philadelphia's demographics, especially school demographics had changed; nearly two thirds of the School District's students were African American. The School District has been working on issues of fairness and school desegregation for about 45 years. There were many court battles and some protests. The entire process took too long. In the 1950s, the School Board should have "jumped into it" and said "this is the way it's going to be." Instead, they either took baby steps or publicly opposed desegregation. Philadelphia was no different than any other area of the U.S. If Philadelphia had forced busing, there would have been more protests just like in Boston. |
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Philadelphia schools were desegregated by law in 1881. Before
1881, there were four schools for African American students. The
schools were located in South Philadelphia near 6th and Lombard Streets.
Northeast High School (not Central High School) was the first public
high school to admit African American students. Philadelphia continued
to discriminate against African American teachers. (African American
couldn't teach high school or become principals). In the 1950s, there was "de facto" segregation based on neighborhood demographics. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in 1969 took the School District of Philadelphia to court to end "defacto" segregation. It took ten years to begin to implement a voluntary desegregation program in Philadelphia. (Harry Silcox, speaking to our class on May 13, 2003) |
Key dates in Philadelphia's school
desegregation in the 1950s - 1960s (from list
presented by Dr. Phillips) --1953: Example of the School Board of Philadelphia
maintaining racial segregation in schools --May 17, 1954: Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka,
KS was passed by the United States Supreme Court --1955: "Implementation Decision" (Brown II), schools were
told to desegregated "with all deliberate speed." --1957: Civil Rights Act was passed the Commission on Civil
Rights was created --1957: One of the best known school desegregation fights
began in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 --June 7, 1961: Chisholm v. Board of Public Education
was a school desegregation suit filed in federal court
against the
School District of Philadelphia (Leon
Higginbotham was the head of the NAACP and the chief attorney in the
case) --1963: Judge Wood insists the School District of Philadelphia
submit a desegregation plan Congress on Racial
Equality (CORE) led sit-ins at Philadelphia City Hall demanding the
hiring of African Philadelphia NAACP
led by Cecil B. Moore held mass demonstrations at the Strawberry
Mansion School Coordinating Council
for School Integration was formed by community organizations to work
to have In Philadelphia,
Four Hundred Ministers threatened direct action. As a
result, the Educational Improvement --1964: Philadelphia' School Board announced it was going
to bus students to relieve overcrowding. There were protests. Mayor Tate and City
Council President D'Ortona encouraged the European American opposition
by speaking out August 28, 1964:
3 days of riots began in Philadelphia on Columbia Ave. (today
Cecil B. Moore Ave.) --1965: Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed. School
districts found to be in violation of federal law would In the summer,
picketing around Girard College (a private, residential, free school for
"orphaned white boys" --1967: Police Commissioner Rizzo led an attack on African
American students who were demonstrating for "Black --1968: School desegregation in Philadelphia shifts to the
state under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. |
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WDAS Radio Discussion of
Integration in the Philadelphia Public Schools
with Joseph H. Rainey as Moderator and Dr. Allen
H. Wetter, Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia and
Floyd L. Logan, President of the Educational Equality League (Wednesday,
June 22, 1960 at 11:30 pm)
Summary of the Education Equality League's Floyd
L. Logan's presentation
1. The Education Equality League estimated that Philadelphia had 247 public schools, 19 were all African American. Of the 58 principals, 55 were white. There was a steady increase in all and predominantly white and African American schools. 2. The Education Equality League was certain that actual segregation of pupils stemmed from segregated housing, a system of districting (schools), and low educational standards in schools in underprivileged areas. In 1958, there were no wards in Philadelphia without a "minimum of Negro residents." Because of the increase in the African American population in Philadelphia and community agencies working for housing integration, "there are greater opportunities than ever before for enforcement of Pennsylvania's law for interracial pupil integration, and planned integration in non-fringe areas through an intensified educational program." 3. One major goal was "to bring the races together in the classrooms of the public schools during their most impressionable period (childhood), where they will acquire a better understanding of one another, which will inevitably result in more interracial goodwill and a greater willingness to learn to live together in an inter-mixed society." 4. "Culturally handicapped slow learners in the Philadelphia public schools number approximately 80,000 or 33% of the approximate pupil enrollment of 240,000... Most of these slow learners are environmentally handicapped Negro pupils who are concentrated in public schools in underprivileged areas.... these schools are classified as minus which is obvious to the extent that both white and Negro parents shy away from sending their children to them. Because of the concentration of so many environmentally and culturally handicapped pupils, most of whom are Negro, most white teachers and a few Negro teachers object to teaching in such schools. Consequently a disproportionately large number of inexperienced and in many instances undedicated substitute teachers are assigned to teach in these schools... more money should be provided for improving the educational status of such schools in underprivileged areas through a general dispersal of many of their pupils to other schools through formation of remedial classes, reduction of class sizes, an increased supply of free textbooks, and the voluntary and compulsory assignment of some of our most able and dedicated teachers to teach in them. 5. ...although Philadelphia has commendable increased its total number of Negro teachers to more than 2,000, that most of these teachers are assigned to all and predominantly Negro schools, and that most of them have been by-passed for promotion in spite of merit, with few exceptions, for many years. Also, there are still approximately 135 schools in Philadelphia which do not have any Negro teachers. ... teachers should be willing to render higher and more dedicated service through a willingness to teach where they are needed, as they should be required by law. 6. Pennsylvania's public schools integration laws do not favor gradual enforcement of school integration. Integration is to be an "immediate effect." |
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Northeast Town Meeting on Quality Education and Integration Neighborhood Center, May 7, 1964 Discussion Group Summary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Integration and Quality Education
1. discussion of the relationship of quality education to integration and concerns over the goals of education, problems of inter group relations, techniques of school integration and ways "minority groups" traditionally "moved upward" in the United States 2. some groups felt integration is part of a basic good education while others didn't want to sacrifice quality for integration 3. "One group asked whether increasing the value of a Negro's education takes away from the white's or does it give more people a better chance? Also, if all the schools are equal, do you still need integration?" 4. "There was strong commitment to the individual's right to move where he wants ...people move where they can afford to, but it was noted there are residential ghettoes through the area, either through choice or availability and not everyone can move where they want. Thus, de facto and de jure segregation are not alike, and not only is the Negro 'deprived.''" 5. "Many worried about the schools' responsibility - is it to give children skills and information, or to help them become better citizens?... the child's world of the future will be different and that he should have contact with different kids of people for 2 reasons: one, to prepare for the cultural exchanges and multi-racial world of higher education, and two, to give children more understanding.... there should be Negro faculty here so children can see Negroes in a capacity which brings respect." 6. "There was considerable worry about mixing children with different goals, backgrounds, interests, and economic levels. The motivation of Negroes was questioned, and a 10% high school graduation figure cited as support to the idea of low Negro achievement. Also bad experiences in places like Strawberry Mansion were recounted. There is a real fear about losing out if schools are integrated, especially if the youngsters come from schools now receiving the kind of inferior education discussed. Some questioned how other groups rose above poverty, suggested Negroes could, too, by studying and helping themselves. There was concern about too much inter-mingling and a possible aftermath - intermarriage." 7. "There was general support of the neighborhood school and for bringing up standards in segregated schools, some coming out for 'separate but equal' facilities. The main disadvantage was seen as not providing contact for people of different backgrounds." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Northeast follow-up Town Meeting May 20,
1964
Neighborhood Center (Mrs. Berkowtiz, Coordinator) A meeting was held with a speaker (Dr. Dan Dodson) and group discussion. It was followed by meetings with small group discussions in the Fall of 1964. 1. Group wanted to form a Northeast School Committee to work on integration and other school issues. They agreed to follow through on the Town Meeting and invited other groups. 2. Observations the groups wanted to share with the Philadelphia Board of Education: --a large part of the confusion over busing "has stemmed from rumor and incorrect information" --"there is a need for more and correct information and a clear definition of goals by the School Board" --"there is great interest in having Negro faculty members in the (Northeast) schools" - faculty "are not as feared as pupils coming in would be and would also enable the community to meet Negroes on this professional level" --"more contact between children from different schools - some kind of real interchange" --boundary changes were recommended "where they were most feasible" --"reverse" busing was generally rejected, some objecting to any busing or to busing children long distances or moving those who are very young --"it was suggested if there is to be busing for integration, it be begun early, before there are prejudices and too many differences in learning levels" --"others felt (integration) could not be forced, that is integration is going to come, 'let it come by itself' and that the biggest challenge to this community is over-crowded schools" --"considerable worry was expressed about allocations to money to implement integrationplans" --"There were questions raised about the competency of Negro teachers: are they trained and certified the same as white teachers?" --"In curricular areas, it was suggested that human relations be part of studies; that situations be provided for experiences with other groups... and that we divorce ourselves from false values and snobbery by not insisting on reassurances that sending schools will only send high I.Q. children to receiving schools." --"since change is inevitable, parents must be educated" --"some felt meetings help ventilate feelings and bring about more understanding, other resent 'outsiders coming in and saying Negroes are moving in.' The public is swayed by rumor in these situations, so education and correct information are necessary." |
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1950s
11/ 1956 - (Governor) Leader Orders State Survey of School Desegregation (Phila. Bulletin) "Governor Leader has ordered a statewide survey of desegregation in the public schools. The state school code specifically prohibits any distinction to be made on account of race or color in the assignment of any pupil, he pointed out. thus the school code is in conformity with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. As to the employment of teachers, the governor further notes that the recently enacted FEPC legislation clearly prohibits discrimination in the employment of teachers. ... The two pivotal questions are whether any schools are segregated and whether any Negro teachers are employed. The questionnaire (sent by the state superintendent of public instructions) also wants to know if Negro teachers are employed in the teaching of mixed classes of whites and Negroes and whether there is a school board policy, either written or unwritten, prohibiting the employment of Negro teachers. It also inquires whether activities sponsored by the school outside of regular school hours or so-called extracurricular ones during school hours are fully integrated. Specific information is asked on athletics, school clubs, dances, dramatics, journalism, music and debating clubs. It has been the policy of the Philadelphia public schools to very largely follow the pattern of the neighborhood of the schools served. Negro teachers have been appointed in the secondary schools for some time and Ruth Hayre, a Negro, was recently appointed principal of William Penn High. 2/6/57: School Segregation Survey Cloaked by 10 week silence: 1200 State Districts Got Queries (Phila. Inquirer) "Ten weeks after the deadline for completion of a survey of segregation in the 1200 school districts of Pennsylvania, the results were still bottled up yesterday in the State Department of Public Instruction. ...The importance of the bottled up survey returns was highlighted in a letter to Gov. Leader by Floyd M. Logan, president of the Educational Equality League. After complimenting the governor on his civil rights recommendation to the Legislature for action on banning racial and religious discrimination in State-aided schools, Logan said: 'We would like very much to know the type of legislation you have in mind..." 5/15/57: State finds segregation in 3 School Districts (Phila. Evening Bulletin) "Governor Leader las last night ordered the Dept. of Public Instruction to 'stamp out' racial segregation in 3 southeastern school districts. He named the districts involved as Kennett Consolidated and Coatesville and Steelton-Highpire. Governor Leader last November ordered the Department of Public Instruction to survey segregation. " 5/15/57: State Finds Segregation in Three School Districts (Phila. Evening Bulletin) "Governor Leader last night ordered the Department of Public Instruction to 'stamp out' racial segregation in 3 southeast school districts...Kennett Consolidated and Coateville...and Steelton-Highspire.... Gov. Leader last November ordered the Department of Public Instruction to survey segregation.... The disclosure that the districts were still segregating Negro pupils three years after the U.S. Supreme Court had outlawed the practice set off considerable hubbub here. Segregation also is a violation of the 1935 equal rights law and a racial ban written into the school code in 1949. ... Superintendent of Public Instruction Charles H. Boehm at first refused to pointblank to name the districts. Then the former Bucks County superintendent of schools offered the somewhat inaccurate advice that the districts involved were 'somewhere along the Maryland line.' Finally, he said he was under orders from the governor to withhold the names.... The survey disclosed that the Chichester Joint District, in Delaware County, and the Valley Township District, in Chester County, maintain all-Negro schools with Negro instructors, but attributed this to an absence of white students. The department also reported that 49 school systems in 20 counties employ Negro teachers and none reported a ban on such employment. Prior to receiving this orders from the governor Boehm indicated his would have no part in halting the practice of segregation. 'The Department of Public Instruction is not charged with the enforcement of anti segregation laws...local parties must take their grievances to local courts. Of course, the Department of Public Instruction expects complete compliance with all state and federal statues as soon as possible." 5 Questions Asked on School Integration The following five questions were asked of the state's 2,440 school districts in the segregation survey ordered by Governor Leader: 1. Are any schools of the area segregated? 2. Are Negro teachers employed in any of the schools? 3. Do Negro teachers, if employed, teach segregated classes? 4. Is there a school board policy, either written or unwritten prohibiting the employment of Negro teachers? 5. Are the activities sponsored by the school outside of regular school hours or so-called extracurricular activities during the school hours full integrated? 5/16/57: Leader to Cut Off State Aid If Schools Don't Integrate (Phila. Bulletin) "Governor Leader today threatened to cut off state funds and invoke legal sanctions against Pennsylvania school districts that enforce racial segregation. ... Three districts - Coatesville and Kennett Consolidated in Chester County and Steelton-Highspire in Dauphin County - admitted to the Department of Public Instruction recently that they practice limited segregation of Negro pupils. The disclosure resulted from a statewide survey conducted by the department, after several Negro groups had complained to the governor. "If these districts do not eliminate segregation as they promised, or if in the future other cases of segregation come to light and the local authorities fail to take action to end such segregation, it will be the policy of the commonwealth to do everything within its power to eliminate it," Leader said. The governor said the state will use the threat of withholding subsidies and other appropriations and invoke legal action in the form of mandamuses and criminal actions against persons responsible for the segregation, as well as file complaints with the Fair Employment Practices Commission if districts discriminate against nonwhite teachers. Leader fixed October 1 as the deadline for compliance. Leader was asked whether Cheyney State Teachers College, which the Department of Public Instruction said today has an all-Negro student body and faculty, was not practicing racial discrimination. "I would assume there is no racial barrier at Cheyney," Leader replied. ..."They ought to try to get some white people to go to Cheyney and they ought to appoint some white teachers there," (Attorney General Thomas D. McBridge) said. The governor said he hoped an attempt would be made for integration of the Chester County institution. McBride said the segregation ban would also apply to school supported extracurricular activities such as dances, honor societies and Hi-Y Clubs. Several districts, including Scranton and Steelton-Highspire, reported that Negroes were barred from such activities... segregation was practiced by the (Steelton-Highspire)school's Hi-Y Club because its parent YMCA organization in Harrisburg also kept Negroes out of its main building." - "Gov. George M. Leader yesterday promised to use the full power of State law to stamp out racial segregation in the public schools. He said he expected the discrimination to be eliminated by Oct. 1, but that if it wasn't, he was prepared to take the following actions: --Withdraw State appropriations to the offending schools. --Withhold State subsidies for teachers' salaries. --Legal action, through mandamus proceedings, to compel the end of segregation. --Criminal action under the penal code against those responsible. --Prosecution under the Fair Employment Practices law if there is discrimination against teachers. Gov. Leader said that while he has se the Oct. 1 deadline, it didn't necessarily mean that he would 'throw the book' at any schools which hadn't complied by then - that this was a problem that required time to solve..." 5/28/58: Penna. Studies Plan for Wider Integration of Schools (Phila. Inquirer) "The State is considering a proposal to require the public schools of Philadelphia and other communities to relax geographical school district boundaries in an effort to achieve wider integration through more equal distribution of white and Negro students.... There would be no 'order,' only recommendations, Dr. Seifert (deputy superintendent of public instruction) said, but he added that his department was empowered to withhold subsidies from local school districts that fail to comply with recommendations. The survey on which the State board will base its actions shows: --Philadelphia, with a public school population of 233,877 - 59% of them white - has 19 schools that have virtually all Negro students, and 15 more with varying propositions of Negroes ranging from about 5% to more than 90%. There are 55 schools in this city that have either no Negro students or less than 1%. These are almost all in the far northern and northeastern sections of the city which have been spurting in population in recent years. There are no negro teachers in these schools, which is one of the main points of criticism of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Education Equality League. Their demand is for full and immediate integration of teaching staff at once, but this policy is opposed by Philadelphia's superintendent of schools, Dr. Allen H. Wetter, who holds that integration can best be accomplished in more gradual way. 'If tomorrow we were to change school district boundaries so as to force white students into predominantly Negro schools, it would set the cause of integration back 25 years. White families would begin moving out of such gerrymandered neighborhoods.' The only way the schools can help solve the problem of integration is by means of the programs the city's schools are now following... which includes human relations activity, seminar and join extracurricular activities for white and Negro students and parents.... One of the obstacles toward immediate full integration of faculties, Dr. Wetter said, is that there is a 'teachers market' now with 600 vacancies in the city schools and teachers pretty much able to select what schools they desire without fear of losing their places on the eligibility list. In 1956, Floyd Logan, president of the Educational Equality league, submitted a report to the State Department of Public Instruction showing that of 8100 teachers in Philadelphia, 1611 were Negroes. --Results of the Survey: "... there were 52 elementary, 2 high and 6 junior high schools with more than 50% of the students Negroes. The high schools included William Penn (79.1%) and Benjamin Franklin (76.3%); 13 elementary schools have 100% Negro attendance..." 9/13/58: Pennsylvania School Integration Picture (Pittsburgh Courier) "Overshadowed by the more critical Little Rock, Ark. situation, the Pennsylvania State Department of Instruction, Aug. 14, made a momentous announcement. The release declared the end of segregation in schools in the commonwealth by virtue of the integration of schools in Coatesville, Kennett Square, and Steelton. The announcement made pleasing music to most of the citizens anxious to see their great Keystone State spared the pangs of this particular social blight. But it still sounds off key to the Educational Equality League with headquarters in Philadelphia, headed by Floyd L. Logan, president. Logan's organization has been a constant thorn in the side of the State Department of Instruction, and in the hair of Pennsylvania's last 4 or 5 governors on the school integration issue. In response to the general announcement of August 14, Logan took exceptions that strike extremely painful notes to the state and local education departments. Said in his letter to Gov. Leader, in part: 'Even after desegregation in this aforementioned schools areas takes place, there will still remain any number of segregated schools in student bodies as well as faculties in Chester, Allegheny, Philadelphia, and a number of other counties, that have not resulted from segregated housing altogether, but also from a system of districting.' It is significant, therefore, that in May of this year, the State Department of Instruction, in another public release proposed to request the public schools of Philadelphia and other communities apparently employing the redistricting implications leaning to separate schools, to 'relax geographical boundaries' in order to effect 'wider integration.' ... there has been evidence in Philadelphia in many communities that either the system of 'redistricting' or a loosely hung transfer allowance is granted to white parents who choose to remove their children to schools in distant predominantly white neighborhoods. Logan's organization further avers that 'it is a fact, borne out of the state survey, that the services of many Negro teachers are not being utilized altogether on an interracial basis.' What amounts to official acknowledgment of this factor came to light in 1957 when a Philadelphia Board of Education representative at a Fellowship Commission meeting declared that a single Negro teacher had been assigned to the Chestnut Hill Area as part of a teacher training set-up. her assignment, it was pointed out, required that she make visitations to various schools and had no classroom responsibility. ... in November 1955, ...Dr. Allen H. Wetter, superintendent of Philadelphia schools, declared that 'undue haste' should be avoided on integration and the individual neighborhood should be ready to accept Negro teachers before they are placed in all schools... a 'peculiar' situation existed in the city , of 62 schools with entirely white faculties and student bodies, and 11 with all Negro teachers, and student bodies. There were also in 1955 15 schools where in the student population was entirely non-white, which pointed to a smattering of white teachers in 4 schools outside of either extreme. ... in 1957-58, teacher integration took a slight rise, but according to the Educational Equality League, Philadelphia still has 19 all Negro schools, faculty and students included. ... some 1200 school districts in the state hadn't completed the questionnaire (10 week after the survey deadline in November 1956). ... Only the fall school opening can completely reveal Pennsylvania's status on the school integration question, though the commonwealth with its advancements still lagging behind her adjacent sister state of new Jersey and New York, yet only slightly ahead of her two Southern border neighbors of Delaware and Maryland." |
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1/9/68: Board Ask to Spur
Return of 22 to Germantown High (Phila. Bulletin) "A group of parents of students at Germantown High School last night demanded the return of 22 girls whose parents recently transferred them from Germantown to Northeast High School. The Board of Education has revoked 12 of the transfers, but only three of the girls actually have returned to Germantown. The rest are still attending Northeast. ...the transferring pupils live in East Mt. Airy while attending Northeast High. Usually parents may transfer their children to any school that is not overcrowded. In addition, the Board allows parents to transfer their children by 'delegating' parental responsibility to a relative or close friend within the boundaries of the new school. This requires the student live full time with his designated parents. A school district investigation prompted by the protests of Germantown parents revealed that 12 of the 22 girls were not living in the area of Northeast High School ... Most of the parents have refused to send their children back for fear of reprisals by other students and because, they say, their daughters would be subjected to 'indecencies and threats' which caused them to seek transfers in the first place. .." 1/?/68: School Shifts Canceled for 12 White
Girls 10/12/69: Northeast's Middle Class Feels
Neglected by City (Sunday Bulletin) "To ease the transition Spruance parents sought tutorial help and
extra services and supplies from the School Board. The Board
failed to act, however , and the Negro children at Spruance and
Carnell are thus on their own....The entire Oxford Circle section is
all white and always has been. But in knocking on doors at random,
one senses a widely felt concern lest the neighborhood change, and change
rapidly. There are no signs of the kind of overt hostility to Negroes
that might lead to rock throwing and rioting should a nonwhite family move
in. There are fears, however, of panic selling, mass flight and deterioration
of the neighborhood. Mrs. Tomar (president of Spruance's Home
and School Association) voiced a widely held opinion that factors other
than racism are at the root of much of the opposition to racial change.
' We would all be extremely unhappy to see the neighborhood change
completely,' she said. ' It would be very expensive to move and that's why
everybody's holding right. Neighborhoods that have changed have big
problems. It sounds like you're strictly a bigot if you oppose
change. But it's really out of fear - fear of what has happened in
every neighborhood that has changed. It's the same with busing. Parents
here aren't afraid of having their children go to school with youngsters
who are different. It's not white children mingling with black children
per se, but the mater of safety that parents worry about.' Mrs.
Tomar sees the problem of neighborhood change as one not just of race but
of economic class. ' When prices drop as a neighborhood starts
to turn, a lower class element comes in. Those who run first figure
they'll get out while they can. Gradually even those who stayed get
out to avoid ghettoization. The neighborhood becomes rough, crimes
goes up and you have a low class ghetto.' ... Down the street... Mrs.
Dabrow said she thought Oxford Circle could survive integration 'if the people
wanted to survive it.' ...she is convinced her daughter, a fourth grader
at Spruance, had benefited from the racially integrated situation. ...She
also said, however, that in her opinion, 'the School Board made a big mistake
in busing (Negro) children without supplying the needed supportive services.'
Late 1960s / early 1970s (Phila. Bulletin)
(no date - article is next to an article "Agnew, Nixon Praise
Tour of Asia Nations" on Agnew's tour of "South Vietnam" and the "Vietnamizing
the war") Black, White High School Pupils
Join 'Live-In' to Foster Friendship |
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1/10/75: Schools to Integrate
- For 1 Day a Week (Phila. Daily News) "School District planners have been ordered to move full-speed ahead with a new desegregation plan that officials hope can be start, at least on a pilot basis, this September. The plan... calls for the establishment of specialized 'academies' in each of the city's eight school districts. As envisioned, pupils in each of the city's schools would spend one day a week in the 'academy' of their choice, taking courses in art, science, music, language and math. The effect... will be to cause 'meaningful integration' for each of the city's 270,000 pupils at least one day each week while pressuring the neighborhood school' concept on other school days. This plan will not affect a full desegregation plan that includes mass busing of pupils that is currently being prepared by the School District for submission to Commonwealth Court Judge Roy Wilkinson Jr. Judge Wilkinson has given the School District and the State Human Relations Commission until the end of this month to submit plans for the full desegregation of the city's public schools. He then will decide which plan or which parts of both should be implemented. ....The School District planners will have to explore busing schedules, available facilities and faculty needs before the plan can become a reality. On any school day, as many as 55,000 pupils will have to be bused to and from their home school to an academy. Each neighborhood school would be over-enrolled by 20 percent to compensate." 4/19/77: Percentage of black is up in schools (Phila. Inquirer) "After remaining unchanged for two years, the percentage of black students in the city's public schools increased slightly last year, according to statistics released by the school district. The school district is now 62.2% black, up from 61.7% during the 1974 - 1975 and 1975 - 1976 school years. The percentage of Hispanic students climbed from 5.2 to 5.5. The increased percentages resulted from a drop of nearly 4,000 pupils in white enrollment.... Five more schools qualified as segregated last year under guidelines established by the State Human Relations Commission. That means 235 of the city's 280 schools are considered racially imbalance." 1/8/79: Bias Charges are Disputed by Marcase
(Phila. Bulletin) 2/11/79: Magnet schools plan drawing inner-city
kids (Phila. Bulletin) 7/3/79: High Court upholds busing rule,
deals anti-integrationists a blow 8/21/79: Board Waivers on High School Desegregation
(Phila. Bulletin) 8/31/79: Local TV balks at school
desegregation ads (Phila. Inquirer) 9/11/79: Pupil shifting studied again (3rd
time in 4 months) (Phila. Bulletin) 9/18/79: Pupils insist on admission to
Frankford (Phila. Bulletin) 9/21/79: Politicians join Frankford High
Rally (Phila. Bulletin) 10/12/79: School Receive reduced grant
for integration (Phila. Inquirer) |
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1980s -1990s
10/1/80: School
Desegregation is touted in ad drive (Philadelphia Bulletin) "The Philadelphia School District will start a $100,000 public relations campaign this month to promote its voluntary desegregation program.... 30-second radio and television spots were being taped by a local public relations firm this week... The financially troubled desegregation program has been called 'totally inadequate... only about 8,000 public school students, out of more than 220,000, have transferred voluntarily into special interest magnet schools outside their home districts. Last July, a suit was filed by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in Commonwealth Court seeking to force the district to implement a mandatory school desegregation program.... The U.S. Department of Education informed the district it would grant it only $5.2 million in Emergency School Aid Act funds to support the desegregation program for the 1980 - 1981 school year....$5 million short of what had been sought..." 10/16/80: Hearing Off on Deseg (Philadelphia Bulletin) "A court hearing that could mean the beginning of mandatory desegregation program for 220,000 city school children has been postponed until next January, giving the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission additional time to prepare its case against the School District. .. Impatient with the school board's voluntary desegregation program, which began in 1979, the commission sued the district in July to show cause why the district should not now be forced to use such alternatives as busing, pupil reassignment, redrawing of boundary lines, or merging white and black neighborhood schools, to achieve racial balance in the classroom. If the court rules that the system must switch to a mandatory plan, the Board of Education would be given 90 days to develop it and would have the option of selecting which methods to implement...." 1/81: Speed-up of school integration in Philadelphia urged (Philadelphia Bulletin) "The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which has sparred with the Philadelphia School District over desegregation for 13 years, returned to court yesterday to ask for stepped-up efforts to achieve racial balance in the city's schools... would ask the court to impose a mandatory plan in Philadelphia to eliminate racial imbalance in all but elementary schools within a year of its implementation.... some children in 116 elementary schools, 14 junior high schools, 10 middle schools and 16 high schools would be reassigned if commission goals outlined early last year are adopted. Under those goals, the district would be free to redraw attendance areas, pair 21 schools, and rely on satellite and magnet programs to bring about racial balance. The current plan relies heavily on white students who choose to attend magnet programs in predominantly black schools. ... the district classifies a school as desegregated if white enrollment does not drop below 25% or rise above 75%. The commission, however, favors a more stringent definition that is says would require a greater percentage of white students, especially those from Northeast Philadelphia to switch schools to achieve racial balance. The Citizens Committee for the Preservation of Neighborhood Schools is expected to intervene later in the four day hearings, testifying that the district has had insufficient time and money to achieve voluntary desegregation." 1/22/81: Expert cites parochial schools as 'segregated' (Philadelphia Bulletin) "A national expert on school desegregation testified yesterday that Philadelphia' parochial schools are 'probably more segregated than any public school system anywhere in the United States.' Dr. Robert Crain, a sociologist and researcher at Johns Hopkins University (said)... the availability of largely white parochial school system in Philadelphia makes desegregating the city's public schools more difficult....if Philadelphia went to mandatory school desegregation plan involving busing, 'the result would probably be more white flight than in public schools in the South.' The school district is currently attempting to desegregated the public schools through a voluntary plans. The plan includes enrichment programs to draw white children into schools located in black neighborhoods, as well as special 'magnet' middle and high schools, aiming at the arts, sciences and business. Another desegregation tool is the pairing of nearby black and white elementary schools. Since the plan went into operation in February 1979, the district claims the number of desegregated schools has climbed from 47 to 78 out of a total of 287 schools. By desegregation, the district means schools that are no more than 75% white or 75% minority. The district is currently about 28% white, compared with 31% in 1976. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is suing the school district to go to a mandatory desegregation plan. Crain was a witness for the school district. The 'obvious option' for Philadelphia, Crain said, would be merging with nearby suburban school districts. 'There's a very large white student body in the area who are closer to Philadelphia's blacks than the whites in Northeast Philadelphia, ' Crain said, referring to Delaware and Montgomery counties. ... the school district's chief desegregation official testified that money was a serious obstacle to furthering desegregation in Philadelphia...." 1/22/81 Expert assails Phila. school over integration (Philadelphia Bulletin) "A national expert on urban school desegregation testified yesterday that Philadelphia' voluntary plan is unfair to blacks and Hispanics. 'The program shoves the burden of desegregation on blacks,' said Dr. Gordon Forrester, Professor of Education at the University of Miami. 'You have a system where the black parent who wants a good education for his child finds the only way out is to send that child to a white school. This is an inequitable situation... forrester attacked Philadelphia's criteria for desegregation because a school with 25 - 75% white student population may be considered desegregated.... And he claimed the school district placed too much emphasis on magnet programs designed to attract students from all over the city. The school district has 10 high school magnet programs and has plans for three more. 'I've spoken against magnet programs because I don't think they accomplish much in terms of desegregation. They enhance the school district curriculum, but they are extremely expensive..." 10/4/83: No Busing in Board's New Plan (Daily News) "The Board of Education has been trying for 15 years to desegregate city schools without mandatory measures. Yesterday, it unanimously approved a plan that focuses on the voluntary integration of 34 schools, including four high schools, within three years. The plan presented by Schools Superintendent Constance E. Clayton to a special board meeting calls for desegregation by the 1986-87 school year of 88, or about 33 percent, of the city's 267 schools. "It is imperative," Clayton said in presenting the plan, "that we turn our attention from litigating to educating." The plan was to be submitted today to Commonwealth Court President Judge James C. Crumlish, meeting a deadline the judge had set in April 1982....The commission has been trying to force school integration here through the courts since the late 1960s....Clayton had revealed the thrust of her plan - including its rejection of mandatory busing - in a series of preliminary reports issued to the board during the past three months. She has opposed busing - or any other mandatory measure - on the ground it would drive away white students, making desegregation even more difficult. The new plan was written primarily by Ralph Smith, a University of Pennsylvania law professor working as a paid consultant. It includes three main components: * Improving education throughout the school system, especially at 73 schools where student achievement has been lowest. * Increasing by two thirds the number of students who attend schools at which they are among the racial minority. This is to be done by targeting 34 elementary and secondary schools for voluntary pupil transfers and other measures. Among the targeted schools are Kensington, Olney, Frankford and Northeast high schools. In the last school year, 9,500 of the district's 207,000 students voluntarily transferred to schools at which they were among the racial minority. Officials plan to increase the number of such transfers at the 34 schools to 14,500 by the 1986-7 school year. The plan sets specific transfer goals for each school. * Reducing "racial isolation" at 116 schools that would remain more than 90 percent black or white by, among other means, bringing these students together for special activities. Since 1968, when the Human Relations Commission first ordered the district to desegregate, school officials have adopted various integration plans, all of which have depended on persuading parents to voluntarily send their children to schools outside their neighborhoods. Though the commission has argued, and Commonwealth Court has agreed, that previous efforts have failed - two thirds of the district's black students still attend schools that are 90 percent or more black - school officials argued yesterday this plan would work..."Previous plans only dealt with the physical desegregation of students. They have neglected to include a proposal for educational improvements," school board member Helen Oakes said in a prepared statement. Asked why she thought a renewed attempt at voluntary transfers of students would work this time, Clayton said, "One of our surveys indicated that half of the parents didn't even know they could voluntarily transfer their children to a different school. We need to do better marketing . . . . " A school would be considered desegregated under Clayton's plan if it had between 25 percent and 60 percent white enrollment and between 40 and 75 percent minority enrollment. The total student population now is 63.3 percent black, 26.2 percent white, 8.2 percent Hispanic and 2.3 percent Asian." 10/11/83: School Integration Plan Rejected by Rights Unit (Daily News) "The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission yesterday overwhelmingly rejected the voluntary desegregation plan proposed by Schools Superintendent Constance E. Clayton on the ground that similar efforts have not been successful. The commission, voting 5-0 with one abstention, believes the Philadelphia schools should use more "traditional desegregation devices," including mandatory busing when necessary, commission executive director Homer Floyd said. "The methods that were relied upon to voluntarily desegregate the schools have failed in the past and the commission saw no substantial assurance that they will be successful in future voluntary efforts," Floyd said. "We felt the plan did not utilize the traditional desegregation devices, such as . . . reassignment of pupils from one school to another." Clayton said she was disappointed, but not surprised that the commission rejected the plan....If the court also rejects Clayton's plan, the Board of Education will have to develop a new scenario or face mandatory busing. The commission could elect to appeal if the court accepts the voluntary plan. Clayton has argued that mandatory measures would cause students, particularly white students, to leave the system, making desegregation more difficult. Commission members say the plan places a disproportionate burden on black students...." 10/25/83: Board, Rights Commission OK Desegregation Plan (Daily News) "The bitter 15-year school integration fight between the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the Board of Education ended yesterday as both bodies voted separately to approve a plan that will seek to voluntarily desegregate 48 schools during the next five years. The votes, unanimous on the board's part and 7-3 by the commission, were seen by most observers as a victory for Schools Superintendent Constance E. Clayton, who has tried for months to break the impasse between the board and the commission, end any possibility of mandatory busing and, in her words, turn the school system 'from litigating to educating.'....Schools to be desegregated by 1986-7 under the agreement are: Elementary: Penrose, Fell, Bache, A.S. Jenks, Taggart, Cassidy, H.A. Brown, Richmond, Henry, Houston, Barton, Ellwood, Franklin, Lawton, Olney, Sullivan, Webster, Allen, J.H. Brown, Moore, Solis-Cohen, Spruance, Rhawnhurst, Farrell, Creighton and Crossan. Junior high and middle schools: Fels, Vare, Thomas, Wilson and Meehan. High schools: Saul, Kensington, Mastbaum, Frankford, Olney and Northeast. Schools to be desegregated by 1988-9 are: Elementary: Carnell, Edmunds, Hopkinson, Feltonville, Sheridan, Disston, Forrest and Bridesburg. Middle schools: Rush and LeBrum. High schools: Washington and Lincoln." 7/18/84: Teacher Deseg. Plan OK'd (Daily News) "A federal appeals court has upheld the Philadelphia School District's policy of teacher transfers to achieve faculty integration. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled yesterday the transfer program was "racially neutral," requiring the transfer of both black and white teachers, and had nothing to do with either the hiring or promotion of teachers. The suit was brought in December 1981 by four white elementary school teachers who complained the policy was discriminatory. Spokesmen for the teachers could not immediately be reached to determine whether there would be an appeal. But School District spokesman J. William Jones said Schools Superintendent Constance Clayton was "elated" because the policy "is really the core of our staff desegregation program." The policy was instituted in 1978 after the district was ordered to desegregate its faculty or lose federal funds amounting to more than $100 million. Under the policy, the proportion of teachers of a given race at a given school could not be less than 75 percent or more than 125 percent of the proportion of teachers of that race in the system as a whole. For example, if 40 percent of the district's elementary school teachers were black, each elementary school would be required to employ between 30 percent and 50 percent black teachers. Jones said the bulk of the transfers, about 3,000, occurred shortly after the 1978 order. Federal officials found that by June 1982 the district was ''substantially in compliance" with faculty integration and was under no further obligation to continue the 75-125 percent policy...." 11/20/84: Year of School Integration Gets High Marks (Daily News) "School District officials are claiming initial success in their year-old school desegregation effort, announcing that 23 schools have become racially integrated since the voluntary campaign began last fall. 'Our progress exceeded our expectations,' an elated Schools Superintendent Constance E. Clayton told the Board of Education at its regular meeting yesterday. Desegregation 'will continue to be accorded the highest priority,' she added....Clayton and her staff reported that 21 of those 50 target schools are now desegregated, as well as two others not on the original list. A ''desegregated" school is considered one that is 25 percent to 60 percent white. Meanwhile, six other previously integrated schools became racially segregated, so the net gain in integrated schools was 17, the administration report indicated. But the 17 schools boosted to 71 the total of integrated schools in the system. The improvement means that this year nearly 50 percent of all white students in the district are attending desegregated schools, compared to only 29 percent in 1983... The district's current pupil population, according to figures released yesterday, is 197,600, of which 63.5 percent are black, 25.1 percent white, and 11.1 percent Hispanic, Asian and native American. Through the intensive recruiting of minority pupils to predominantly white schools and of white pupils to predominantly black schools, the district achieved an unprecedented 30 percent increase in desegregation transfer requests this school year. Recruitment of white students to predominantly black schools was aided in some instances by inducements such as all day kindergartens or special magnet programs in those schools...The greatest success in attracting white students to a black school was at Charles W. Henry School in Mount Airy, where the percentage of white pupils nearly doubled, from 17 percent to 32 percent, Smith reported. However, Smith acknowledged that 'most of the success at Henry has been in attracting students (from private and parochial schools) into the school system.' Few white pupils were transferring within the system, he said...." 11/7/87: School-Integration Hearings Due (Phila. Inquirer) "The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission will hold hearings sometime in December on the Philadelphia School District's voluntary desegregation plan to try to decide whether to pursue mandatory busing as the only way to achieve ''maximum feasible desegregation." The 11-member commission, which enforces civil rights laws as they affect schools and other public accommodations, hopes to decide by February whether the voluntary plan put into effect by School Superintendent Constance E. Clayton is good enough, according to executive director Homer Floyd.....The commission has had a lawsuit pending in Commonwealth Court since 1968 that seeks to desegregate the city's schools. It has rejected several voluntary plans before Clayton's....The enrollment of the school system is 63 percent black, 13 percent Hispanic and Asian, and 24 percent white. The commission and the school district have agreed that any school with an enrollment between 25 and 60 percent white would be considered desegregated. Clayton's plan targeted for desegregation most schools in the Northeast, which were predominantly white, as well as several majority-black schools in residentially integrated neighborhoods. By the end of 1989, the district hoped to desegregate 104 of the district's 261 schools." 12/12/87 Forced-Busing Plan Gets Cold Reception (Daily News) "If Richard Anliot had his way, some students from predominantly white Lincoln High School in the Northeast would be reassigned to Gratz High School, a predominantly black school in North Philadelphia. Students from Northeast High School, also mostly white, would ride buses to Olney High, which has a student body that is mostly black, Hispanic and Asian. In all, some 66 schools, at the elementary, middle or junior high and high school levels, would be racially "paired." That means a predominantly white and predominantly black school would be matched and some students reassigned to achieve desegregation. Anliot, the director of education and community services for the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, presented his "option for exploration" yesterday, the third day of the commission's hearings on the Philadelphia School District's voluntary desegregation plan. While commission chairman Thomas L. McGill Jr. stressed that Anliot's proposal is his own and not yet a formal staff recommendation, School District officials bitterly attacked the plan. "There is no constituency in this city for a mandatory busing program by any name or under any guise," said Ralph Smith, who also is a University of Pennsylvania law professor and the chief architect of the district's voluntary program. The mandatory busing plan, he added, "can best be described as dead on arrival." Smith said mandatory busing would cause not only "white flight" from the public schools but the flight of middle class blacks as well. ...Anliot said his proposal is only an option that should be "explored" by the district to ensure that it do "all that can be done" to achieve desegregation. For example, he claims 11 of 23 schools the district says are desegregated are not desegregated under a definition established by Commonwealth Court in 1982. The difference is that the district includes all minorities - blacks, Asians and Hispanics - in counting a school as desegregated if it is 40 percent minority. But Anliot said that the schools must be either 40 percent black or at least 20 percent Hispanic and 25 percent black. Anliot also said his proposal would alleviate the busing burden now placed mostly on black students who volunteer to be transferred to predominantly white schools. But Smith called Anliot's plan "not feasible at all" and said it would ''dismantle" existing desegregation at a number of schools. Smith said the district hopes to increase its number of desegregated schools by taking advantage of changing neighborhoods, where whites are moving into areas that were once all-black and in already integrated areas like East Falls and Oak Lane, where more whites are sending their children to kindergarten programs in the public schools. " 6/28/88: New Review Set on School Integration (Philadelphia Inquirer) "School Superintendent Constance E. Clayton's four-year-old plan for voluntary school desegregation has not achieved "maximum feasible desegregation," the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ruled yesterday. While the commission declined to specify how the school district has fallen short, it announced that it had signed an agreement with the district to appoint a five-member "settlement team" to evaluate the district's progress and suggest remedies to Commonwealth Court....The settlement team will have to resolve differences between the Human Relations Commission and the school district over the definition of a desegregated school and what is feasible within the demographic, geographic, political and fiscal realities of the city, the commission and school officials said. The team will also study whether some mandatory measures, such as involuntary busing, can enhance desegregation or will be - as Clayton has contended - counterproductive....The commission states that because the school district is nearly two-thirds black, a predominantly white school must have at least 40 percent black students, regardless of the number of other minorities, to be ''desegregated." .....Board of Education President Herman Mattleman said he was confident that the team would conclude that the district was doing everything possible - given the fact that only 24 percent of the city's public school students are white - and would not impose any mandatory measures...During the December hearings, the district threatened to sue the commission in federal court if it attempted to impose additional desegregation measures on the city schools. Clayton said the district would follow the lead of several other big cities that have sued state governments, alleging that the governments played an active role in perpetuating segregation through such policies as drawing school district lines to separate cities and suburbs. Cities have also sued states across the country on issues involving resources, arguing that states should pay for programs they mandate. Philadelphia spends about $50 million a year on desegregation - primarily transportation costs and programs promoting intergroup harmony and teacher training - of which very little comes from either the state or federal government....Under Clayton's desegregation plan, students are bused voluntarily to schools outside their neighborhood to increase desegregation. Most of the students who take advantage of the system are black and are bused to schools in the Northeast. While few white children have chosen to be bused to predominantly black schools, several schools in integrated neighborhoods whose school populations were predominantly black attracted enough local white students to desegregate. Other components of the plan include magnet schools such as the High School of Engineering and Science and overall academic improvement efforts for racially isolated schools. The Human Relations Commission staff had produced a plan to pair 72 schools - half predominantly white and half predominantly black - and involuntarily reassign students to enhance desegregation. Clayton immediately rejected the idea as counterproductive and divisive." 10/3/93: School Integration Still on Philadelphia Docket the System is not doing its Job, the Court was told. The School District Wants the Case to End (Phila. Inquirer) "Several days last week, five attorneys - sometimes six or seven - appeared in the elegant courtroom of Commonwealth Court Judge Doris Smith to argue about Philadelphia school desegregation. Wait a minute. Wasn't that settled when Smith ruled in April that students couldn't be bused to schools outside their neighborhoods against their will? The short answer is: No. The case has waxed and waned in the public mind for the last 23 years - ever since the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission sued the school district in 1970 and charged it with discriminating on the basis of race. But it is still very much alive. Last week, a coalition of public interest groups finished presenting its argument that the system has reneged on a commitment to provide a good education to poor, minority students. These groups, represented by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, are hoping to force the school district to target more resources or change the way they educate children in "racially isolated" schools - those with fewer than 10 percent white students. Today, in a school district in which three-fourths of the students are black, Hispanic or Asian, 134 of the system's 250 schools are "racially isolated." They educate 53 percent of the district's students and the vast majority of its nonwhites....Judge Smith, who took over the case two years ago, eliminated mandatory busing as a remedy over the objection of the Human Relations Commission. She also eliminated the suggestion from a panel of expert mediators that suburban school districts be joined in the case on a voluntary basis to increase the pool of white students. ...Poverty alone cannot account for the differences in achievement between white and nonwhite students, Janice Madden testified on Wednesday: Racial discrimination also seems to be a factor. Madden is an economist and vice provost at the University of Pennsylvania who holds a chair in urban studies and who has studied student achievement in the city's schools. "Poverty explained a large share of the variation," Madden explained. ''But there was a significant effect on top of that." Using the school district's own data, Madden compared the test scores in math and reading for students in racially isolated schools with those in other schools. She found that in the racially isolated schools, more students fell below the average in both reading and math - 4 percent more in reading and 7 percent more in math, even when the schools had an equally high poverty rate. "Whatever is going on in the (racially isolated) schools is less effective in teaching kids," Madden said. "It could be the same thing, but the teaching methods aren't appropriate in these isolated schools." It's up to the school district to find the appropriate methods, Churchill has argued, and to spend whatever it takes....The desegregation program - including the voluntary busing of about 7,000 students each year, special programs at schools targeted for desegregation (not the racially isolated schools) and the maintenance of special magnet schools, has cost $200 million in 10 years, Brown said. With the district forced to cut programs to meet a $60 million deficit - the result of dwindling state, local and federal revenues - that money could be better spent elsewhere, he said." 6/18/98: SUPE: $14M Help Penn/ and Add 2 City Schools (Daily News) "The cash-strapped Philadelphia School District is ready to pitch in at least $14 million to help the University of Pennsylvania stem professional and middle-class flight from around its campus. School Superintendent David Hornbeck wants to build an elementary school and new engineering and science magnet high school on two sites near the Penn campus, according to a confidential memo obtained by the Daily News. The university would provide the district with two West Philadelphia tracts as well as money and academic help....The proposal calls for the district to build an elementary school for 700 students on a one-block site bounded by 42nd, 43rd, Locust and Spruce streets. The $14 million price tag - about average for an elementary school - would be covered by long-term bonds...The university would also provide up to $700,000 a year to reduce class size, and would help run the school and provide academic support through Penn's Graduate School of Education. The school's attendance zone would be shaped to ``ensure that the student population will be racially integrated and economically diverse, and will draw the children of Penn faculty, staff and students and the community at large,'' the draft agreement says. It also calls for Penn to provide a 1.8-acre site at 38th and Market streets so the district can replace George Washington Carver High School for Engineering and Science, now in North Philadelphia...Penn spokesman Ken Wildes acknowledged that the new elementary school would benefit university employees, who are being urged to live in the area. Wildes said Penn president Judith Rodin viewed a new elementary school as critical to Penn's plans to revitalize and expand the neighborhood around Penn...." |