1980s
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."
"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."