Race, Reaction, and Reform: The Three Rs of Philadelphia School Politics, 1965-1971 Author(s): Jon S. Birger Source: The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 120, No. 3 (Jul., 1996), pp. 163-216 Published by: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20093045 . Accessed: 22/03/2011 22:11

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Race, Reaction, and Reform: The Three Rs of Philadelphia School Politics, 1965-1971

NOVEMBER 17,1967. BLACKFriday in Philadelphia. The student at demonstration and subsequent riot Philadelphia's school board were in to headquarters that day relatively minor comparison the racial disturbances that rocked other cities in 1967. There were no deaths or to was not serious injuries, and damage property minimal. But while it may at was one have been obvious the time, there major casualty. Black Friday a a dealt fatal blow to two years of profound school reform initiated by young man Harvard-trained superintendent named Mark Shedd and the who hired him, septuagenarian school board president Richardson Dilworth. Perhaps most to Philadelphia's beloved former mayor, Dilworth had hoped do for the city's public school system what he had done for city government. As Democratic mayor from 1955 to 1962, he attacked corruption in city hall? the legacy of nearly seventy years of unchallenged Republican rule?and a a helped transform decaying downtown into national model for urban renewalWhat Dilworth and Shedd had initiated in Philadelphia signified most a "the dramatic revolution in city school system in the postwar period,"

The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Vol. CXX, No. 3 (July 1996) 164 JON S. BIRGER July

to the authors of aUnited States according Department of Education study.1 never Unfortunately, the revolution took hold. The events of November 17, a 1967, crystallized white, working-class opposition to school reform that to overcome. Shedd and Dilworth proved unable J.William Jones, former public relations director of the Philadelphia Board of recalled November as "the most Education, 17,1967, devastating day of my life?I actually physically broke down and cried at the end."2 Jones's office window overlooked the courtyard of the board's fort-like, U at shaped administration building Twenty-First Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. That morning, 3,500 black high school students left to school and converged upon the administration building demand better more courses schools, black teachers and principals, in African culture and to African-American history, permission form African-American clubs in to wear to the schools, and the right African clothes school. These students to new had decided take school superintendent Mark Shedd at his word. At was not forty-one Shedd only the youngest superintendent that anyone in most Philadelphia could remember but also the unconventional. Earlier that a to year Shedd challenged meeting of student council presidents apply to own was pressure his school bureaucracy?which before Shedd's arrival so so to one an inbred and resistant change that observer had likened it to to own "arthritic turtle." He urged the students draft their proposals for urban studies programs and take them to their social studies teachers. If the were to teachers unwilling try the student suggestions, they should continue

were Copies ofMark Shedd's speeches provided by former Shedd assistant J.William Jones. Iwould to like thank Jones, Shirley Shedd, Thomas Minter, Ralph Sloane, andWendell and Carolyn Pritchett me were to am for meeting with and providing the oral histories that crucial my research. I particularly me access indebted to Louise Jones of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for giving to the Richardson were a new Dilworth Papers; when I began my research, Dilworth's papers collection and had yet to be to formally catalogued by HSP archivists. I would also like thank Margaret Jerrido of the Temple two University Urban Archives, the anonymous reviewers selected by The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (PMHB), and the following individuals who critiqued early drafts of the master's thesis from which this essay is adapted: Michael Zuckerman, Thomas Sugrue, Michael Katz, Theodore Sizer, and Diane Ravitch. Marilyn Gittell andT. Edward Hollander, "The Process of Change: Case Study of Philadelphia," in The Politics of Urban Education, ed. Marilyn Gittell and Alan G. Hevesi (New York, 1969), 222. 2J.William Jones, interview by author, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Aug. 5,1994. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 165

fighting up each rung of the bureaucratic ladder, if necessary going straight to the board of education.3 a.m. was The demonstration began peacefully, but by nine it obvious that turnout 350 would far exceed the students originally anticipated by school to meet administrators. Eventually Shedd agreed with thirty student leaders to their were discuss grievances. "They very well behaved," Shedd told Philadelphia Bulletin reporter Fred Hamilton. "They wanted things that weren't totally unrealistic. We heard their demands and then went into a session to them an conference give answer."4 Police Lieutenant George of the was in Fencl, head Civil Disobedience Squad, charge of keeping the peace outside the Board of Education building. At around eleven a.m., two onto a students climbed the roof of parked car, breaking the car's radio antenna in an the process. The size of the crowd, along with increase in to noise and movement, convinced Fencl radio for help. the time was at seven At Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo city hall, was blocks away, where he attending the swearing-in ceremonies for 111 new and Rizzo in police sergeants corporals.5 grew up South Philadelphia's Little the eldest son a beat In mo Italy, of cop. eleventh grade, following his out a ther's death, he dropped of high school, and after brief stint in the navy he joined the police force at age twenty-two. Whether the offenders were or drunken sailors, counterculture hippies, Black Power activists, Rizzo had little tolerance for a anyone creating public disturbance. Rising through the a as a no-nonsense ranks, he earned reputation cop who swung first and ask ed was a questions later. It style that suited the times, and inMay 1967 he was appointed police commissioner, only months after Shedd had been nam new ed the school superintendent. There remains much debate over Rizzo's treatment of blacks. To some he was a racist, while others view him as more of an the equal-opportunity bully. Whatever case, Rizzo certainly had partic ular for black to contempt nationalists, and according Shedd assistant Ralph had a in was never Sloane?who cousin the police force?Rizzo shy about was voicing his opinions: "It very clear who Rizzo thought the bad guys he to statements was were, and started make around the police force that it

3 Peter Invades Binzen, "Philadelphia: Politics the School," Saturday Review, Feb. 5, 1972, 46; William Grant, "Philadelphia Schools Aiding Blacks," Detroit Free Press, Feb. 28,1969, 2-A. 4 Fred Hamilton, Rizzo (New York, 1973), 79. 5 R. Joseph Daughen and Peter Binzen, The Cop Who Would Be King: Mayor Frank Rizzo (Boston, 1977), 114-17. 166 JON S. BIRGER July

was as that nigger-lover Shedd that the problem."6 Since his appointment police commissioner, Rizzo's experience with the public schools had gener to ally been limited breaking up fights between students; given this perspec tive he was sure to he oppose policies believed undermined adult authority. The first time Sloane encountered Rizzo was at the scene of a confrontation at a between black and white students South Philadelphia High School, out month before Black Friday. 'This great big Chrysler pulled up and pop ped Rizzo with his assistant," Sloane said. "He took his baton and stuck it at a up his sleeve. Rizzo walked around these things with baton, and he use to out could just drop it and it smash the shit of you. He said, 'Who's was here from the Board of Education?' Even though I just twenty-five years old, I was the one from the Board of Education. So he called me over, and me he held my tie and lifted up and said, 'We've had enough of this sick "7 ology shit.' came on When Fencl's call in November 17, Rizzo packed the newly to scene. promoted officers into buses and sped them the What happened next the is disputed. The Inquirers lead story following day claimed that stones at students began throwing bottles and police. Others, including students and school administrators who were at the scene, denied this. "The saw were or a kids I not violent disorderly," said David Richardson, was on to bystander who his way the nearby Philadelphia Free Library when out car to see was on. were he got of his what going "They just milling around. I never saw any broken windshields or bricks and bottles which the were to In saw was kids supposed have thrown. fact, the only violence I shown by the police." Police may have panicked when the crowd surged an area two were to an arrest. toward where policemen attempting make two were on "Rizzo," the Inquirer reported, "said policemen the ground at a more when he waved his nightstick formation of than 100 officers and shouted for them to go to their rescue. Within minutes," the story contin was ued, "Winter St. in front of the school headquarters building littered with the injured?students, police and spectators?along with scattered

6 Ralph Sloane, interview by author, Norwalk, Connecticut, May 19,1994; Binzen,"Philadelphia: Politics Invades the School," 48; S. A. Paolantonio, Frank Rizzo: The Last Big Man in Big City America (Philadelphia, 1993), 28-85. 7 Sloane, interview. Some of the news articles cited do not include page numbers. In those cases, the were files at the not from standard articles copied from the Philadelphia Bulletin clip Urban Archives, microfilm. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 167

was school books and papers. The air filled with screams, and the high school students, both boys and girls, fled in panic."8 "A cop chased two black girls right outside of the window of the we were to administration building where looking out, and just proceeded a a beat the crap out of them with nightstick," Jones recalled in 1994 were was in interview. "They cowering down, and he hitting them the back were was on of the head. They screaming, and he beating them."9 Sixteen a from year-old Paula Webster told reporter the Philadelphia Tribune, was to Philadelphia's twice-weekly black newspaper, that she "knocked the ground by police officers, beaten on the head with blackjacks and [had] her ears at the earrings ripped from her pierced height of the wild melee." Other teens told similar stories:

Dozier Smith, 17, who said he was not participating in the demonstration, told at a as of being set upon and beaten by least half dozen policemen he attempted to gain entrance to the Board of Education Building. Smith, who is employed as a come by the school system part-time maintenance assistant, said he had to to to the building only to collect his paycheck. "I tried explain that the officers, ... no one to but would listen me," Smith said. "A cop told me, 'shut up, me on nigger/ and hit the head with his blackjack."10

one sent two At point, Shedd of his assistant superintendents, Ralph to see Sloane and Frederick Holliday, outside if they could talk with Fencl. was too But by then it late. "It had changed from 'let's talk about the issues' a a all of sudden to nightmare situation, all within five minutes," recalled Sloane, today the school superintendent for Norwalk, Connecticut; Sloane a at had been twenty-five-year-old student the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Shedd's alma mater, when Shedd hired him in June 1967. "Fred were next to was and I right each other?he my height [about 6'3"], we black?and started moving towards the police. One of the cops raised his baton and hit Fred on the head. Fred went down. I bent down to see if Fred was tore all right." He was, although Holliday's topcoat when he fell. "I were at stood up and the police coming us, and I remember that the cops

8 at Black Power George Ingram, "Police Rout 3500 Unruly Pupils School Protest," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 18,1967,1. 9Jones, interview. 10 "Cop Brutality Protests Flood Tribune Office," Philadelphia Tribune, Nov. 21,1967,1. 168 JON S. BIRGER July

looked at looked at and looked at me me, Fred, again, and they opened the us . . . on line [to let through]. Then they closed in the kids behind us." on to Later, when Holliday?who would go become Cleveland's school to to superintendent?complained Rizzo about the damage his coat, the name police commissioner responded by giving him the of his tailor in South Philly.11 At the end of the day, fifty-seven people had been arrested and twenty treated for injuries, including five police officers. None of the injuries was serious, although many of the battered students undoubtedly fled before ambulances arrived. After police drove the students from the scene of the the "coursed center demonstration, fleeing teenagers through city, beating some and the pedestrians terrorizing others," Inquirer reported, "smashing to windows and battling police." According Jones, the student rampage an provided Rizzo with after-the-fact justification for his officers' context brutality?particularly in of the ghetto riots that had rocked cities as one such Detroit and Newark that July. Philadelphia had been of the few or northeastern cities spared by the summer's deadly riots, yet few?white black?doubted the for serious in potential violence the City of Brotherly Love. "I can't absolve the kids all the . . . went way ,"Jones said. "They up 23rd Street and broke windows. Anyone white they could find, they knocked them That Rizzo all the ammunition he to down. gave needed tell people he was right."12 Interviewed during his successful campaign for mayor in 1971, we Rizzo remained unrepentant: "Look, I thought handled ourselves well. out We broke it up before it got of hand. It might have been much worse if we to out a had just stood by. I believe it is easier blow match than a extinguish forest fire."13 After riot to the had ended, Rizzo returned the administration building to with The two met and not speak Shedd. alone, surprisingly the meeting was tense and brief. "He was livid," Shedd recalled in an interview with one Bulletin reporters Joseph Daughen and Peter Binzen, authors of of the to were three Rizzo biographies written date. "His face and neck red. He to said directly me, 'Get those fucking black kids back to school. This is my town. to come screw No softie from the outside is going in and it up. If you in to run ass out don't keep those kids school, I'm going your of Philadelphia

11 Would Be Sloane, interview, Daughen and Binzen, Cop Who King, 116. 12 Jones, interview. 13 Hamilton, Rizzo, 80. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 169

if it's the last thing I do."14 Rizzo fulfilled this promise four years later after was he elected mayor. During his campaign, Rizzo and his supporters used Shedd as a scapegoat. He told audiences: "I used to say Shedd wouldn't last eight minutes after I'm elected. Now I say he won't last eight seconds." over Rizzo alleged that entire schools had been taken by unruly students and teachers were that being terrorized by juvenile delinquents. Actually, during tenure lost to Shedd's five-year Philadelphia fewer days due student disruptions than any of the nation's other large urban school systems. Also, teacher assaults?which had risen sharply in the mid-1960s?leveled off to after Shedd's arrival. Still, according Daughen and Binzen, audiences at even more usually cheered Rizzo's jabs Shedd enthusiastically than his not to raise taxes. the on pledge Seeing writing the wall, Shedd resigned before Rizzo took office.15 a man was as What happened? How did who widely recognized the best in a urban school superintendent the country wind up political pariah? And what does Shedd's failure about the for say prospects school reform today? answers to serves as In seeking these questions, the November 17 riot a use ful starting point because that day's events?and the fallout from them? so of went embody much what wrong for Shedd and Dilworth. On that day came to Philadelphians realize what school insiders and the city's black not community had known all along?that school policy is apolitical, and at thus any attempt significant reform will have real winners and losers. were not new to Power struggles the Philadelphia school system in the late but for a 1960s, half-century conflicts had been internal disputes with little meaning for the school system's constituents. In the eyes of many, Shedd was a of conventional on taking century wisdom and turning it its head. One as was of Shedd's first public actions superintendent his decision to rehire a young English teacher fired by the principal of Dobbins High School. The a teacher, Steven Harlem, had distributed copies of student-written on as magazine that contained essays controversial topics, such race, sex, and mistreatment of students by the school staff. (The student population at a vocational was Dobbins, school, predominantly black, while the principal 80 were and percent of the teachers white.) Principal William Donovan

14 Daughen and Binzen, Cop Who Would Be King, 119. 15 Richardson to the the Dilworth editor of Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 20, 1970, Richardson Dilworth Papers (hereafter, Dilworth Papers), box 44, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Daughen and Binzen, Cop Who Would Be King, 175-76; Binzen,"Politics Invades the School," 48. 170 JON S. BIRGER July

demanded that Harlem confiscate the magazines. Harlem refused and he was not fired. When Shedd heard what happened, he only reinstated him: is the kind we must not Harlem but congratulated "He of teacher only tolerate but encourage in the school system. He had the guts to take a few venture in an to chances and into rugged terrain effort get students deeply must a involved in learning. The gamblers and the mavericks have place in are so ones come new the system, for they often the who up with the and are a better idea. If dissent and critical thinking primary values in [demo must in a cratic society they also be primary values school system."16 Such won one talk Shedd praise from the black community, but it also led critic to over teachers black kids over say that Shedd put "kids and everybody."17 essence was accurate. Shedd might have taken issue, but the of the critique Both Shedd and Dilworth had consistently advocated that any effort to to start reform Philadelphia's public schools had with empowering the black student majority. was Stung by growing evidence that the school system failing, teachers to new and administrators at first seemed receptive their superintendent's call to on for radical change. In his first address administrators and principals, to over May 18,1967, Shedd called for principals have greater say hiring and more the budgets, and in exchange they would be accountable for perfor mance to more of their schools. Shedd wanted schools become responsive to meant sure a students. Responsiveness, he said, making student "perceives some that there is relationship between the variety of experiences he has in to school and that the sum of his experiences combine give him the tools he own ... we to turn needs to control his destiny. In short, have kids on." a was as Shedd talked lot about "turning kids on," and his meaning just as to subversive his choice of words: "It should be perfectly clear anyone who reads the daily roster of violence, hatred and despair which fill the a newspapers that this country needs social revolution?a revolution in not see no human values and human relationships. If this does occur, I reason to our if is to for bothering educate children. And this occur, the schools must be the cauldron, whether we like it or consider it our traditional

16 on John Brantley Wilder, "Fired Teacher Is Rehired; Let His Pupils Study Up Sex 6c Race Problems," Philadelphia Tribune, June 27, 1967, 1; Rose DeWolf, "The Passing Scene," Philadelphia 1967. Inquirer, June 22, 17 on on Peter Binzen, "Mark Shedd's Big Problem: He Gambled Ideas and Lost Out Allies," Philadelphia Bulletin, Nov. 21,1971,1. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 171

role or not." For schools to advance this "social revolution," educators needed to went completely rethink the way they about teaching: "Nothing frightens me more on a than the possible impact barely articulate child?whose crying enters a a need is for self-expression?if he classroom with harsh emphasis on a absolute order and, above all, absolute silence." Creating curriculum more . . some that is responsive "no doubt. implies dealing honestly with concerns of children?identity, self-esteem, peer group demands?as well as some means hot topics: race, politics, sex, hostility, the system. It talking as a about life it is?not presenting fictionalized account of what it should . be . ." In order for schools to become more connected to students' lives, to an Shedd argued, educators needed emphasize "affective curriculum," to which he contrasted the traditional cognitive curriculum. He described as a an the affective curriculum "a style, quality of relationship, atmosphere, a perspective, which must permeate the entire system and, most important, must . . . exist within the classroom. Learning?like the school system?is a to to basically human and social experience. If learning is be relevant living, must a that experience mirror life."18 Shedd took his vision step farther when on he addressed the district's teachers September 11. Shedd persuasively that the school inherent resistance to and new ideas argued "system's " change made it "the is he said, a Bob "enemy." 'Something happening,' quoting Dylan song, 'and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?' You and are we must to out I the Mr. Joneses of Bob Dylan's world, and try figure to our just what is happening?and what do about it. For many of drop outs, our tune-outs and our low achievers?in short, the students who need us most?are same we not seems singing the song. What should do, it clear to to cut me, is simply order these alienated youngsters their hair. This cause. would be to attack the symptom, not the We cannot meet discontent with dogmatism."19

18 Mark Shedd, "Address to the Staff," Philadelphia, May 18,1967. 19 Mark Shedd, "Speech to the Assembled Staff," Philadelphia, Sept. 11,1967. Although Shedd's common a vision seemed radical, his views had much in with those espoused by John Dewey half-century earlier. The patriarch of the modern public schools, Dewey believed that every school should become "an a embryonic community life" and that school's curriculum should "reflect the life of the larger society." on He rejected the rigid, lockstep schools of the nineteenth century, which he believed relied excessively student passivity, rote memorization, and drilling. These schools suppressed children's imaginations and to a innate curiosity, according Dewey. Democracy, he said, "is primarily mode of associated living, of on conjoint communicated experience." Since democracy rejects external authority and relies "voluntary must create can disposition and interest," schools conditions under which individuals profit from their on common diverse perspectives and discover and act purposes. 172 JON S. BIRGER July

Founded in the 1940s, the Philadelphia teachers' union did not win collective bargaining rights until 1965. Before Shedd's arrival, the union was one of the few voices that had consistently pressed for reform and dared to ran challenge the change-averse bureaucrats who the school system. Thus it come as no that won should surprise, then, Shedd's September 11 speech rave reviews from most teachers. were so Many excited that afterwards they to new stood atop their chairs applaud their superintendent. Their soon enthusiasm faded. Many teachers?particularly younger ones?were no thrilled that they would longer be hamstrung by rigid curricula and veterans outdated reading lists. But in the union leadership concluded that Shedd's desire to promote "dissent" in order to get students "turned on" to a to education posed serious threat classroom order and teacher reaction to the November professionalism. The union's 17 riot is revealing. a to Frank In letter Dilworth, Sullivan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT), argued that the disturbance could have been avoided but for "the timidity of principals" who had been "hesitant about to a swift, determined action deter rowdy elements." As result of the to was administration's failure rein in the students, the "safety of teachers ... our on menaced by disruptive elements in schools who thrive disorder to on .. . and the opportunity inflict hurt others. [M]any of the pupils who on were left their schools Friday, November 17 habitual truants and cases were not disciplinary and those particularly interested in the teaching or of history any other subject." While Sullivan describes injuries sustained a as no by few teachers that day "humiliating," he made mention of the beatings endured by many of the student protesters.20

20 to Wendell and Carolyn Pritchett, interview by author, Aug. 23,1994; Frank Sullivan Richardson must some Dilworth, Nov. 22,1967, Dilworth Papers, box 43. Shedd bear blame for the friction between out his administration and the city's teachers. As Diane Ravitch points in The Troubled Crusade: American are Education, 1945-1980 (New York, 1983), 263-64, teachers primarily concerned with teaching good to citizenship and managing their classrooms inways that make learning possible for students who want at learn. Thus reforms aimed promoting student self-expression contradicted teachers' fundamental were objectives. Moreover, Shedd's attitudes towards teachers clearly prejudiced by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers' unabashed defense of several instructors charged with making undeniably racist remarks to students. Convinced that racism was rampant among school faculties, he forced teachers and to were to principals attend "sensitivity retreats" where they subjected verbal abuse and intimidation by straw some black community activists. And in what may have been the last for teachers, Shedd initially to a took the side of black nationalists who sought have white social studies teacher, George Fishman, a transferred out ofWest Philadelphia High School. Fishman, respected educator who had authored on a one numerous articles civil rights and black history, became the target of month-long protest after 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 173

were numerous In the days that followed Black Friday, there calls for Rizzo's ouster, mostly from the black community and from white liberals in as upscale neighborhoods such Chestnut Hill, Rittenhouse Square, and a on Society Hill. G?orgie Woods, popular black disc jockey, called Mayor to James T?te fire Rizzo. "Unless the lawlessness of the police is curbed in contact can their with negroes," Woods said, "riots be ignited in the winter as as well the summer." The Philadelphia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union also sided against Rizzo and the police; Executive Director Spencer Coxe declared, "if clubbing children is Rizzo's way of dealing with a new the civil rights movement, Philadelphia needs police commissioner." even to set A civic group called the Chestnut Hill Pipe Line offered up defense funds for the students who were arrested and raise money to pay the were medical bills of those who injured.21 On Sunday about 800 black met a to a community leaders in West Philadelphia church organize boycott of both the public schools and white merchants. The boycott sought Rizzo's as a went removal, did federal lawsuit filed by Rizzo opponents; both nowhere. Rizzo had the overwhelming support of white ethnics in the city's working-class neighborhoods?particularly the Northeast and South two Philadelphia?and weeks earlier these neighborhoods had been crucial to over Mayor Tate's narrow, 11,000-vote victory Republican challenger Arlen Specter. was a more T?te political survivor, motivated by power than ideology, and saw as an to initially he the November 17 riot opportunity get rid of Rizzo, as an whom he shrewdly perceived emerging political rival. Ironically, T?te had derided Specter for not pledging to rehire Rizzo during their final was debate. "The implication clear," Rizzo biographer and Inquirer reporter wrote was a S. A. Paolantonio of Tate's debate strategy. "Specter tool of the

was of his students, Richard Lawrence, claimed he racist because he did not include enough black history courses. in his Fishman had flunked the student the previous semester after Lawrence attended only four classes in five months. Yet Shedd andWest Philadelphia High School principal Walter Scott?a white even Shedd appointee?initially sided with black activists, permitting them to stage protests outside in Fishman's classroom. Castigated the press for his position, Shedd backed off only when it became was to was a evident that the teachers' union prepared strike if Fishman transferred. For comprehensive to see discussion of teacher and administrator resistance Shedd's reforms, Jon Birger, "Race, Reaction, and Reform: The Three R's of Philadelphia School Politics, 1965-1971," M.A. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1995, 45-49, 71-84. 21 to "Disc Jockey Asks Mayor T?te Act," Philadelphia Tribune, Nov. 21,1967,1; "Rizzo Is Praised, in Criticized," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 18, 1967, 6; "Negroes, Whites Join Hands Blasting Police Tactics," Philadelphia Tribune, Nov. 21,1967, 2. 174 JON S. BIRGER July

see on liberal forces who would rather the city burn." T?te, vacation in at Florida the time of the November 17 riot, called Deputy Mayor Charles Bowser to discuss what he should take. "T?te said to me, public position " 'Now we got him. Now we can get rid of Rizzo,' Bowser recalled. "I said, 'Mayor, you're crazy. They're calling for Rizzo's removal already and the have not all are the phones " stopped ringing morning. People supporting nor police.' Neither T?te the organizers of the failed boycott should have been In an surprised. October, opinion poll published by the Philadelphia had an Bulletin showed that Rizzo astonishing eighty-four percent approval almost as as rating. (Interestingly, blacks approved of Rizzo overwhelmingly to as a did whites, despite the fact that dating back Rizzo's days police captain in predominantly blackWest Philadelphia in 1952, local black leaders such as Cecil Moore of the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People had accused Rizzo of blatant racism and in in outright cruelty his police work black neighborhoods.) Only three of as percent of those polled disapproved Rizzo's performance police Rizzo have been a he was commissioner. might bully, but their bully. "Night wrote tense summer scene was after night," Paolantonio of the of 1967, "the same on the the city's television screens?Rizzo, with his helmet on, rushing one to a out from hot spot another, wading into crowd, snuffing disturbances. Then, the film would cut to Detroit or Newark, to the fires, to the lost lives, and lost cities."22 to came out Not wanting get behind public opinion, T?te strongly in favor of Rizzo. "The board has . . . failed to curb Black Power activities in the schools," the mayor said. "Iwish the school officials would refrain from our . . . not attacking police department. Our police should be made the whipping boys for the inadequacies of the school board." The following day, "If the Inquirers lead editorial praised Tate's stand: the school board and ... more school officials had been effective in maintaining discipline in the schools, trouble might have been averted without the necessity for police . . . a action. [Commissioner Rizzo] merits public vote of thanks for his at fortitude in taking personal command, and assuming full responsibility,

22 90-93. Paolantonio, Last Big Man, 89, 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 175

a time when a show of vacillation or weakness could have led to much worse

violence."23

Like Shedd, Dilworth blamed police for inciting the riot. He blasted three conservative school board members?William Ross, Robert Sebastian, on and William Goldman?who had blamed the riot "adult agitators." These black leaders, the three board members claimed at a November 20 meeting, had turned otherwise docile students into "the pawns of pressure was a to groups." The accusation clear attempt marginalize the grievances of were the black students. Dilworth acknowledged that many of the organizers was even on adults?one the city payroll. However, he said, if these adults to a had gone "up nice prosperous community like Chestnut Hill, they wouldn't have [had] much luck with agitating because the children of Chest nut to Hill have nothing revolt about. The children of the ghetto [do]." were Dilworth understood that the racial politics of 1967 radically different as to an from those of 1962, the year he stepped down mayor make run was no ultimately unsuccessful for governor. There longer any use, he we argued, in talking of black and white unity and universal love "because a darn well don't love each other. This is time for delicacy, tact, and finesse ... race I don't think the people in this city realize how explosive the we was situation here is_The easiest thing in the world could have done to call Rizzo and his riot squad and say, You handle this.' We'd have been as never inviting riot and disorder such this city has seen."24 ten to In the days following the riot, the letters the editor which poured into ran two to one in favor of Rizzo the Inquirer almost and against Shedd and Dilworth. "Black Flags?African dress?this for American children?" one read letter, signed "An Irate Taxpayer." "Furthermore, if these children

on 23Jeremy Heymsfeld, "T?te Assails Board for Shunning Police Help Black Power," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 19,1967,1; "AMatter of Law and Order," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 20,1967,16. The was was a Inquirer editorial particularly critical of Dilworth. This is noteworthy only because Dilworth was close friend of Inquirer publisher Walter Annenberg and also friendly with Inquirer editorial page were director Harold J.Wiegand, whose editorials usually supportive of Dilworth and Shedd. For more on news see information the relationship between Dilworth and media, Dilworth Papers, boxes 33, 44. a a note to or Dilworth made point of responding with personal every article editorial written about the school system. 24 to William Thompson, "Negroes Demanding Rizzo Ouster, Boycott Schools, White Stores," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 20, 1967, 1; "3 Board Members Disagree with Dilworth, Back Rizzo," a to on Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 21, 1967, 1. Dilworth made concerted effort stay informed racial on issues. Box 36, Dilworth Papers, contains hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles racism and blacks in America. 176 JON S. BIRGER July

were such 'an excellent bunch of kids,' they would have been in their not streets ... classrooms and marching through the during school hours. A never salute to Commissioner Rizzo for his handling of the affair."25 Shedd backed down from his support of the student demonstrators and his even to denunciation of police tactics, after it became clear others that the on stand he took November 17 had undermined his administration's political position in the city. Fallout from the riot "reverberated throughout the to a school system," according Thomas Minier, black assistant was a superintendent Shedd hired in 1968. "There certain feeling that Shedd was to was giving the school system the blacks."26 Minter's view widely a shared, yet in 1969 Shedd told reporter from the Detroit Free Press that he a was believed the riot actually provided boost for his administration: "It the our in saw beginning of credibility the black community.... When Negroes saw one school people take the lumps right along side them, when they a a own teacher protect black boy from clubbing with his body... then they to we were began believe serious."27 were a one Shedd's convictions grounded in moral code might expect son a was a from the of New England Methodist minister. There time, in fact, when Shedd had considered following his father into the clergy: "I was a me to decided that while the ministiy great calling, it would permit serve one two in only segment of society."28 Instead, after serving years the at navy, 1945-46, Shedd enrolled the University of Maine and graduated in a a in 1950 with degree in history. He took job teaching high school Bangor, an Maine, and eventually became elementary school principal before leaving for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he received his was a doctorate in 1960. In many ways Shedd part of dying breed of educators who drew their early inspiration from Protestant religion. As in even as David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot argue Managers of Virtue, shifted the of education from moral Progressive Era reform emphasis uplift to a common set social efficiency, America's leading educators maintained

25 Nov. to "Appalled Taxpayer," Philadelphia Inquirer, 30,1967,40. Judging from letters the Tribune, on once Rizzo's actions November 17 disappointed many black Philadelphians who had supported him; ran one the Tribune's letters to the editor three to against the police commissioner. 26 Thomas Minter, interview by author, New York City, June 6,1994. 27 Grant, "Philadelphia Schools," 2-A. 28 rua run Rose DeWolf and John Gillespie, "SeeMark Shedd. See him See him the school system," Philadelphia Magazine, June 1969,138. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 177

in of values grounded their Protestant upbringings:

of the at Charles Judd?dean School of Education the University of Chicago . . .was one of a cadre of leaders in education whose fathers were Protestant ... to a clergymen Judd had originally planned become minister before shifting to psychology. Many other key educators testified to the importance of their early evangelical training in their later careers, whether they remained as church or members abandoned formal religion.29

At in to Harvard, Shedd's faith providence and his commitment public service fused with idealism was the liberal that permeating the graduate school of education. Theodore Sizer, who in 1964 became dean of the school at had been a classmate of Shedd. to age thirty-one, According Sizer, during to the late 1950s the graduate school of education began shift away from its long-time collaborations with suburban school districts in Newton and Con to cord and "pushed very hard" get practice teaching placements and intern in were an ships Boston and Cambridge: "[T]here those, increasing number, to who got the Kennedy itch and wanted go off and 'save the poor,' with all that naivete and arrogance and generosity and good feeling that lay behind to were that." According Sloane, he and his Harvard classmates convinced were best we've in to save they "the troops got" the battle big city schools: or not we more "Harvard created that mentality?whether knew any than came or ... people who from Chicago Vanderbilt. At age 25, [we were] sent out to be an aide de to the being camp big city superintendents, taking that we shouldn't have had for another 20 jobs years. Today I wouldn't hire if I myself walked in the door looking and acting and knowing what I knew some more [then]. Iwould say, You need seasoning. Go back and teach for awhile.'"30

Even before he became Philadelphia's superintendent, Shedd had a national as a garnered reputation crusader for school desegregation. His first as a was in a job superintendent Englewood, New Jersey, fashionable, racially mixed suburb of New York City. In 1962 the school district's former to a superintendent chose resign rather than implement state-ordered

29 David and Elisabeth Virtue: Public Tyack Hansot, Managers of School Leadership inAmerica, 1820 1980 (New York, 1982), 115. 30 on theHarvard Graduate School 1948-85: Sloane, interview, Reflections ofEducation, An Oral History Recorded on the Occasion of Harvard's 350th Anniversary (Cambridge: Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1988) 169-70. 178 JON S. BIRGER July

no desegregation plan. Five years after Shedd took over, Englewood school had of more than or black enrollments fifty percent less than thirty-eight percent. By working closely with community groups and Englewood's to business leaders, Shedd managed avoid the racial strife often associated with In itwas desegregation efforts. fact, Shedd's forthrightness dealing with race to that originally brought him Dilworth's attention. At the 1966 meeting of the American Association of School Administrators, Shedd on to censure shocked his colleagues by calling the AASA superintendents to was who failed make substantial gains towards integration.31 "Mark not a ever a political scientist," said Sloane, when asked if Shedd feared white on race: backlash to his progressive views

He didn't do those kind of analyses. He was the son of aMethodist minister a and, I think, the grandson of Methodist minister. His approach to power was was . . . messianic. He really believed he right. Mark Shedd was the closest thing to John Kennedy that my generation knew?young, handsome, Harvard educated, fighting the bureaucracy, standing up for the oppressed, taking on the ogres like Rizzo in the world-I remember having lunch with him inAugust was warm?at ... we 1967?it still very the Museum of Art outdoor cafe and were looking north. There had been some fire that night up inNorth Philadel phia_It involved some racial incident that had caused the police to go in. I a remember saying, "Mark, this is tough political situation." He did one of those things that I used to call the Peter OToole look. Did you ever see Law rence was ofArabia} Well, that Shedd. Shedd looked across the burning part of Philadelphia, and said, "Don't worry, the people will prevail." I thought, Well, When not to that.32 okay. you're twenty-five, you're going question

numerous tests Shedd's years in Philadelphia provided of faith. Separated was from his first wife when he appointed, Shedd's personal life instantly a source was to became of gossip. He linked romantically Trudy Haynes and two Edith Huggins, attractive, black television reporters in Philadelphia. it said it wrote "Without saying anything, all," Philadelphia Magazine of the rumor. too it must "It said that Shedd's doing much for Negroes and be

31 " John Corr, "Prospects for City's Schools: Shedd?A 'Cool Young Tiger,' Philadelphia Inquirer, on War in May 14,1967; Henry S. Resnik, Turning the System: the Philadelphia Public Schools (New York, 1970), 110. 32 Sloane, interview. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 179

at sex."33 The rumors?clearly aimed destroying Shedd's credibility?were baseless, according to both Jones and Shedd's second wife, Shirley, whom Shedd met on vacation in Maine in 1968. In fact, Jones said newspaper rumors were a reporters told him the being spread by Tony Zecca, boyhood a to friend of Rizzo and also T?te deputy. Shedd refused comment, realizing a that dignifying the story with response would only play into the hands of never a his enemies. "It bothered him," Shirley Shedd said in 1994 interview. was to as as "I think he flattered. But he wanted keep his private life private to his life in order to possible."34 Shedd needed keep personal private protect a his four children. His first wife had history of mental illness, and they was to eventually divorced when her doctors informed him that she unable cope with marriage and motherhood.35 to near-constant Shedd and his family had deal with harassment by were Rizzo's police. His phones tapped. Plain clothes police officers followed went even at Shedd wherever he and parked outside his home night. "I'd go out to in an interview and say goodnight them," Shedd said following his resignation in 1971. Ten days after the November 17 riot, Shedd scheduled a secret meeting with black student leaders. "To shake the cops," he said, "I a car a started in school board from my house, made couple of stops and then went to in Fred Holliday's house. I ducked the back door of Holliday's place, car seat to got in his and scrunched down in the front while he drove the or no was. meeting. For six eight hours the police had idea where I But that was a unusual." Upon returning from vacation inMaine in 1968, Shedd was discovered that his home had been broken into; nothing stolen, but someone to had rifled through his desk and file cabinet. According Shirley one two Shedd, later that week of her husband's aides overheard policemen bragging about breaking into their house. Shedd took it all in stride, refusing to or scare be frightened aggravated by Rizzo's tactics. (For the record, Rizzo denied all of Shedd's allegations.) "That's just the way he was," Shirley was a Shedd said. "He hopeless optimist. He always believed that things would work out."36 a common on most was not While they shared outlook issues, Dilworth

33 Rose DeWolf, "What They Said Before He Wed," Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 22,1968; DeWolf and Gillespie, "See Mark Shedd," 151. 34 Shirley Shedd, interview by author, South Yarmouth, Maine, June 30,1994; Jones, interview. 35 Mark Shedd file, Dilworth Papers, box 45. 36 Shirley Shedd, interview, Daughen and Binzen, Cop Who Would Be King, 122-27. 180 JON S. BIRGER July

as as idealistic his young superintendent. Shedd may have been confident that truth and justice would prevail, but Dilworth couldn't share his optimism. He had too many years of hard politics under his belt. In 1959 or Dilworth had been considered possible presidential vice-presidential to race timber, only be defeated three years later in his for governor. He knew from experience how quickly power could slip away and understood success as on that his and Shedd's prospects for depended much political skill as or a wrote a principle virtue. In letter he week after the riot, Dilworth a informed friend inWashington?a lawyer who represented the school district in federal matters?that he had grave doubts about the future of school reform in Philadelphia:

Our Police Commissioner, who was originally known as "The Cisco Kid," a because of his sensational tactics when he was Police Captain and a Police ... was Inspector, is a skillful police tactician, and last summer, when it imperative to reelect theMayor, he handled the situation with great delicacy and finesse. However, now that the Mayor is reelected?and Mr. Rizzo feels he is responsible for that reelection?he is giving full vent to his basic philosophy, which is, "Knock their brains out." a At the moment he is virtually folk hero here in Philadelphia, and 90% of on us. the white community is cheering him and hissing Itwould have been very easy for us to hide behind the Police Commissioner ..., but itwould have meant the return to school of thousands upon thousands of sullen blacks, unreceptive to learning because of their sullenness, and all an over awaiting opportunity to break out all again. We chose the hard road, and do not yet know whether our tactics will succeed_It is clear that ifwe have another outbreak and another march on our the Administration building, the public may very well demand resignation, on the ground that you cannot temporize with crime, and the overwhelming majority of the whites believe any meetings with the militant young Negroes are criminal.37

was one most Dilworth himself of the colorful and intriguing politicians he was of his generation. Known for his charm and self-effacing humor, also a a merciless campaigner and hard-hitting public speaker. After Dilworth a died from brain tumor in 1974, friend and one-time Republican rival as Thacher Longstreth remembered Dilworth "the best mayor Philadelphia

37 Richardson Dilworth to Stanley Bregman, Nov. 24,1967, Dilworth Papers, box 35. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 181

ever in had." But Longstreth, whom Dilworth defeated for mayor 1954, also recalled Dilworth's darker side: "He had the most instinctive thrust for the man ever known." Dilworth's candor him into trouble jugular of any I've got so often that he confessed?two decades before Texas governor Ann "a in Richards appropriated the line?to having been born with silver foot to a on my mouth." After Dilworth spoke suburban Main Line audience the a a man in merits of forming regional school district, the back of the to own auditorium angrily announced that he had the right "live with my kind and have my children go to school with my own kind." Dilworth was so if a few Main enraged, he blurted out, "It wouldn't do any harm Liners them the facts of life." he once got mugged. It would teach As mayor, a characterized heavy-set city councilman "as that big tub of guts, that mountain of lard." The same man who described the suburbs as "awhite noose black North and choking the city" also visited Philadelphia reported that he "couldn't find a sober man or woman to talk to." Questioned about to a white Northeast Philadelphia parents' reaction school integration pro "I've been a lot of this in South posal, Dilworth replied: through I Italian mothers were about as as Philadelphia and thought those rugged can to ones . . . you get, but they're nothing compared the Jewish up there. a It's little frightening and really quite depressing."38 was one most Dilworth born to of Pennsylvania's wealthiest and socially was in Social a well prominent families. He listed the Register and had a earned reputation for being connoisseur of food and fine wine. A 1968 a a letter he wrote to childhood friend reveals youth of unusual privilege: "I no more summers in know of pleasant years than those Southampton, prior to our entry into World War I. I remember how wonderful your mother was to us we to always and the bridge lessons used have in your house which to rows. ... always led such I also remember the night of Ailsa Mellon's on coming-out party, when I collapsed, drunk, the ballroom floor while hell with her dancing with her. I remember my mother raising me, and chief was meant complaint that this almost certainly that the distinguished W. would never come to Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, her

38 to to Dr. Harry M. Hoffman Richardson Dilworth, Sept. 19,1968; Dilworth Hoffman, Sept. 23, to 1968; Dilworth Papers, box 43. Gerald McKelvey, "Tumor Is Fatal Ex-Mayor, Reform Leader" and "Sparkplug of City Rebirth," Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 24,1974,1-A; "AMaster of the Hard-Hitting The Phrase," Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 24, 1974, 5-A; Rose DeWolf, Passing Scene," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 14,1967. 182 JON S. BIRGER July

house When America entered War again."39 World I, Dilworth interrupted his studies at Yale to enlist in undergraduate University the marines. Injured in he was awarded the Heart. war action, Purple During the Dilworth had a promised dying comrade that he would visit the man's fianc?e when he returned to America. That to brought Dilworth Philadelphia where the fianc?e, Elizabeth Brockie, lived. They fell in love and married in 1922. Dilworth's parents disapproved of the union and refused to underwrite his studies at Yale Law School. Dilworth worked in a Undaunted, Pittsburgh steel mill and later in the Oklahoma oil fields. Eventually his family relented, and he entered where he edited the school's law Yale, journal and graduated cum laude in 1926. in a After settling Philadelphia, Dilworth became suc cessful to a lawyer, helping establish prominent city law firm that still bears his name. He reentered the Marine at Corps during World War II, age a forty-three, and returned from Europe with Silver Star and a Presidential was Unit Citation. His first foray into politics in 1947 unsuccessful, but his for marked the first to campaign mayor strong Democratic challenge the in was city's Republican machine seventy years. He elected city treasurer in 1949, district attorney in 1951, and finally mayor in 1955.40 As Dilworth to mayor, paid little attention the city's schools. "We had so we to many other things that had do and nobody worried much about the he said in a 1967 interview. "We schools," just didn't realize how neglected were was they becoming."41 Dilworth's attitude typical for big-city mayors of his era. a The legacy of half-century of Progressive Era reform, schools were to supposed be "above politics," and involvement by mayors would have been condemned as the 1950s meddling. By the democratizing impulses of the movement progressive education had dissipated. Progressive education no longer embodied the ideals that John Dewey and other educational men leaders had begun promoting in the 1890s. These and women had an to a sought end elitism in the schools and renewed effort to fulfill Horace as Mann's original vision for public education: "the balance wheel of the social machinery." Mann believed universal schooling could prevent the a common fragmentation of society by providing each citizen with education

39 to Richardson Dilworth Mrs. R. S. Humphrey, Nov. 11,1968, Dilworth box 43. 40 Papers, "Tumor Is Fatal to McKelvey, Ex-Mayor, Reform Leader" and "Sparkplug of City Rebirth," Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 24,1974,1-A. for 41Jorene Coffay, "Community Support the Schools: Recent Trends in Philadelphia School Bond Elections," M.A. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1970,28. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 183

grounded in Protestant, Republican values. Lawrence Cremin describes as progressive education "the educational phase of American Progressivism was to cast as a writ large." Educational progressivism "an effort the school fundamental lever of social and political regeneration." The influence of psychology, public health, social sciences, and vocational programs upon was as was school curricula unmistakable, but just important "the radical faith that culture could be democratized without being vulgarized, the faith not new that everyone could share only in the benefits of the sciences but in arts as the pursuit of the well."42 By the 1950s, however, social efficiency advocates began to dominate the out movement, drowning earlier progressives who had emphasized roots education's democratizing capacities. "Shorn of its in politics and came society," writes Diane Ravitch, "pedagogical progressivism to be a identified with the child-centered school; with pretentious scientism; with a social efficiency and social utility rather than social reform; and with "43 vigorous suspicion of 'bookish learning.' While enthusiasm for radical curriculum reform eventually died out, the political reforms achieved by to progressives survived. The result, according Ira Katznelson and Margaret structures a Weir, "blend[ed] reform with conservative content."44 Tyack and new Hansot argue that the professionals who became education's leaders to a believed that "they knew how bring about smoothly running, socially was a efficient, stable societal order in which education major form of social new was engineering." This system of governance particularly evident in urban school systems:

There the new advocates of professional management and their allies among elite business and professional groups waged political battles to destroy the old ward-based and lay management of schools and to replace it with a new corporate model of decision making. Under that corporate model, small central school boards elected at large from the city and composed of "successful men" were expected to act as policy-making bodies that delegated actual management to trained superintendents. When administrative progressives succeeded in doing this by changing city charters?which they usually did?they often

42 Lawrence Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism inAmerican Education, 1876 1957 (New York, 1961), vii-x, 22, 88. 43 Ravitch, Troubled Crusade, 46. 44 All: Ira Katznelson and Margaret Weir, Schooling for Class, Race, and theDecline of theDemocratic Ideal (Berkeley, 1985), 148. 184 JON S. BIRGER July

blocked the political channels by which the cities' working-class and ethnic communities had traditionally expressed their political interests in education. In the process they also enhanced the power of cosmopolitan elites.45

in Under the new In Philadelphia the charter change occurred 1905.46 a ran school charter, central school board comprised of fifteen members the were school system. The board members selected by the judges who served was to on the Court of Common Pleas. This process designed insulate the was board from party politics, but the effect quite the opposite. The judges, to the leaders for themselves political appointees, looked city's political on to that to guidance whom appoint. The school board emerged, according of of Marilyn Gittell and T. Edward Hollander, "was comprised members who were less concerned with the Philadelphia business community, were with and educational policy than they avoiding controversy limiting to levels." Because the idea of an school expenditures acceptable apolitical board school system had widespread acceptance among the public, school to at all costs. decisions were members sought avoid controversy Major the votes that were cast in resolved in nonpublic executive sessions, and were Because of the influence of the public almost always unanimous. strong main concern was taxes in city's business leaders?whose keeping was was check?the school system perpetually underfunded. "The result the with austerity capital and operating budgets throughout postwar period, a consequent deterioration in school plant and in the quality of instruction. ... as A second consequence was the emergence of the business manager the most the school powerful person within system."47 was was a That business manager Add Anderson. Anderson tenth-grade was as a office dropout whose first school system job five-dollar-a-week boy. a In 1936 he became business manager, post that gave him almost complete control over the school system until his death in 1962. Technically, the In business manager and the school superintendent possessed equal power.

107. For a more detailed discussion on the of the 45Tyack and Hansot, Managers of Virtue, collapse see Andrew Schools: Education progressive education movement, Zilversmit, Changing Progressive Theory or Education to and Practice, 1930-1960 (Chicago, 1993) Patricia A. Graham, Progressive from Arcady Education 1919-1955 Academe: A History of the Progressive Association, (New York, 1967). 46 Black Social and Educational a Vincent Franklin, The Education of Philadelphia: The History of 34-35. Minority Community (Philadelphia, 1979), 47Gittell and Hollander, "Process of Change," 218-21. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 185

was in one practice, however, Anderson total control. As Inquirer columnist wrote:

was He in charge of budget, supplies and janitors. But somehow Add also took charge of education. Because any principal who didn't play ball with Add found he didn't get any supplies, didn't get replacements for broken windows, didn't .. . get any custodial service. Add just took charge of the system. Janitors got more paid than teachers. Principals took orders from janitors and not the other way around. was a Add friend to politicians. He kept the school budget (and thus the tax rate) low. And that's the way the politicians wanted it. a Add was the guy who turned down plan to supply free meals to undernourished children with food from the federal government because he said itwould cost the school district money to cook it. Add was the man who advised the school board they could save $10 million by replacing older teachers with beginners who could be paid less_However, a a did a ward leader have constituent in need of job? Call Add. The school room one more. a board always had for Did [the] City Council have favorite or more architect builder? Add would be than happy to consider him.

in was no Despite obvious deficiencies Philadelphia's schools, there way of were knowing just how bad they because the board of education had refused to tests. administer national standardized So, when J. Harry LaBrum, who as to served school board president from 1961 1965, insisted that Philadel were to was to phia's schools "second none," there little his critics could say to prove otherwise.48 When citizen groups began push for reform and was outside review of the city's schools, LaBrum adamantly opposed. "When it becomes necessary to involve the citizens, we'll involve them," LaBrum a ... announced. "We're not going to have citizens' committee interfere with . . . not to the internal affairs of the Board of Education. We're going to abdicate any outside group."49 Eventually, however, the reform impulse ushered in by Dilworth in the to 1950s began infiltrate school board politics. Under pressure from the to a public, LaBrum agreed hire William Odell, Stanford University

48 DeWolf and Gillespie, "SeeMark Shedd," 76; Peter Binzen, Whitetown, U.SJi. (New York, 1970) 146, 273-76. 49 to Doris Wiley, "Labrum Won't 'Abdicate' Citizens' Committees," Philadelphia Bulletin, April 11, 1963; DeWolf and Gillespie, "See Mark Shedd," 76. 186 JON S. BIRGER July

education to conduct a professor, survey of the Philadelphia public schools. The cost and took to survey $125,000 eighteen months complete. When the results were released in even board critics were 1965, shocked by the bleakness of Odell's on findings. "The report card the Philadelphia schools is a are in," Bulletin editorial announced. "We flunking.... The system, as show in is in trouble." to they great detail, According the study, eighty-eight of school were an percent Philadelphia's children receiving inadequate a or more education, and overall pupil achievement lagged half year behind in most was students other cities. The school system's dropout rate twenty seven of the to percent. Sixty-six city's schools needed be replaced because not meet they had been built before 1907 and did the city's fire codes. on Elementary school students scored lower IQ^tests after four years of school than had as were they preschoolers. Black students faring particularly poorly: fifty-six percent of black boys and forty-two percent of black girls were in to the bottom quarter of their classes, in comparison only fifteen of white ten percent boys and percent of white girls.50 two was voters a Only months after Odell's report released, approved ref erendum that replaced the old fifteen-member board with a nine-member one was a appointed by the mayor. Although this hardly return to ward the new more account based control, setup did make the schools politically able by making the mayor responsible for naming the board. The civic measure on groups which had sponsored the ballot put pressure Mayor T?te to to was an appoint Dilworth the board. Dilworth obvious choice. He had a stature to new proven record and would add the school board. The only was was problem that T?te and Dilworth didn't get along. T?te envious of was Dilworth's popularity and, like many, he put off by Dilworth's brash, manner. two were to a aristocratic Still the able reach political accommoda not to tion. Dilworth promised challenge T?te in the 1967 mayoral primary; to name to as as in exchange the mayor agreed Dilworth the board well ensure that the other would vote appointees Dilworth board president.51

50"School's Report Card," Philadelphia Bulletin, March 11,1965; J.William Jones, "88% of Pupils Shortchanged, Whittier Says," Philadelphia Bulletin, Nov. 12,1964; J.William Jones, "School Expert Rejects Campus, Pairing Plans in Rebuilding Here," Philadelphia Bulletin, Jan. 15,1965; "Many IQs Dip 4 After Years of Schooling, Report Says," Philadelphia Bulletin, Jan. 22,1965; J.William Jones, "One in to 3 Is Under Par, School Report Show," Philadelphia Bulletin, Feb. 22, 1965; William Odell, Philadelphia's Public Schools: Educational Survey (Philadelphia, 1965). 51 DeWolf and Gillespie, "See Mark Shedd," 76-77; Gittell and Hollander, "Process of Change," on 222; Resnik, Turning the System, 17-18. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 187

was sworn In December 1965, Dilworth's board in, and he immediately was set to work. He knew the school system seriously underfunded and that improvement would be expensive. Realizing that the public would demand tax Dilworth one justifications for large increases, utilized what might call in was negative public relations. "My job essence,... after December of'65, were?a rare a to show everybody how bad the schools position for PR guy," as said Jones, who in July 1965 gave up his job the Bulletins education .. . reporter to become school system information officer. "Dilworth wanted me to worst ... so give out the information I could find about the schools we could, A, pass construction bond issues to build new schools and, B, con on in to come vince the politicians the city council and Harrisburg up with successor at increased operating funds." Jones worked closely with his the a Bulletin, twenty-four-year-old, Harvard-educated reporter named Richard wrote a on a de Lone. De Lone blistering series of articles week's experience as a substitute teacher. In the series he blasted racist teachers, apathetic was a principals, and what he believed failing school system. The series drew angry reactions from teachers and school officials, but thrilled Dilworth, who eventually befriended the young reporter.52 This friendship led to Shedd's hiring. De Lone knew Sizer from his days at a new Harvard, and when Dilworth began searching for superintendent, to de Lone advised him get in touch with the graduate school of education's was to someone dean. (Dilworth already partial hiring from Harvard?in his notes on one personal the negatives of candidate, Dilworth scribbled that the was a applicant "not product of Harvard School of Education.") Sizer gave a name was Dilworth list of twelve possible candidates, and Mark Shedd's at the top of the list. Meanwhile, de Lone covered the 1966 AASA convention for the Bulletin, and when he returned he phoned Dilworth to tell him about Shedd and the speech he had given. "A little known fact," Jones said, "is that Rick de Lone drove Richardson Dilworth up to two to Englewood, New Jersey, and the of them talked Shedd. Dilworth came a back and told the board he'd found superintendent." In his first major even appointment, before he'd arrived in Philadelphia, Shedd hired de Lone as his and top assistant speechwriter.53

52 Jones, interview. "Dilworth Papers, box 35; Jones, interview, DeWolf and Gillespie, "See Mark Shedd," 77; Binzen, Whitetown, 284-85. 188 JON S. BIRGER July

an Fallout from the November 17 riot did not put immediate halt to Dilworth's and Shedd's reform efforts. From 1967 to 1971 Shedd's as administration pressed forward, but time passed it encountered stronger most and stronger resistance from teachers, administrators, and, importantly, the city's working-class whites. Still, Shedd's administration had enough success to in as for Time magazine describe him 1971 "one of the nation's most are some progressive and innovative school officials."54 Here highlights. Increased Without more little could have been funding. money, very over accomplished. Before Dilworth and Shedd took the school system, to in Philadelphia ranked second last teacher-pupil ratio, and seventh among in In the nation's eleven largest school districts expenditure per pupil. 1965, to for example, Philadelphia spent $447 per pupil, in comparison $728 for New York City, $515 for Newark, $508 forWashington, D.C., $454 for an Detroit, and average of $656 for Philadelphia's suburbs.55 Under the leadership of Dilworth and Shedd, the Philadelphia school district's annual operating budget increased 141 percent between the 1965-66 and 1971-72 school years, from $151 million to $365 million. While taxpayers were were forced to bear the bulk of these increases, Shedd and Dilworth adept at securing federal aid; between 1966 and 1970, federal funds for the Philadelphia School District doubled, from $27 million annually to $54 million.56 went to Much of the additional funding hiring additional teachers and was improving teacher salaries. Philadelphia's salary scale well below the even more was a national average, but importantly there significant gap between teacher salaries in Philadelphia and those in the city's suburbs. In veteran were a to 1959 teachers paid $6,100 year in Philadelphia, compared a a $8,000 year in Upper Darby and $9,800 in Jenkintown. As result, Upper ten for while had Darby had applicants every opening, Philadelphia 1,500 vacancies which the district was forced to fill with noncertified permanent substitutes. The teacher shortage, along with pressure from the PFT, the board to contracts that increased salaries prompted negotiate average from $7200 a year in 1965 to $12,500 in 1971; wage increases alone cost the

a ""Ousting Reformer," Time, Dec. 20,1971, 58. 55 on Wilson Riles, The Urban Education Task Force: Final Report of the Task Force Urban Education 'A to theDepartment ofHealth, Education, and Welfare (New York, 1970), 51; John Corr, "Still Long Way to Go' After the Optimism of 1967," Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 14,1969,1. 56 Dilworth Papers, box 46. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 189 district $57 million between 1970 and 1972.57 in the Along with the huge increases district's operating budgets, Shedd on a and Dilworth embarked six-year, $500 million building program. to Responding the physical plant shortcomings outlined in the Odell report, new the building program financed three high schools, four middle schools, twenty-five elementary schools and seventy-seven major additions. The on district also spent another $53 million renovating existing schools.58 test scores and middle Improved for elementary school students. One of Odell's was came major findings that sixty percent of the school district's students to to to school unprepared learn due factors linked to socioeconomic standing and home life. Accordingly, kindergarten, Head Start, and other compensatory and early childhood programs became priorities for Shedd's a administration. In 1965 the school district had part-time kindergarten to serve program which, due lack of space, could only 20,000 of the 25,000 were was students who eligible. By 1971 kindergarten full-time, and the were waiting lists had been eliminated. New reading programs also one a were developed for grades through four. As result, there modest but scores consistent improvements in reading and other test for students in two In some meant grades through eight. cases, improvement merely rate slowing the of decline for students who had been falling farther behind each real year. In other cases, advances made by seventy-five percent of were the students offset statistically by continued academic regression of the scores bottom twenty-five percent. While the improvement in test never the Shedd had approached revolutionary upturn envisioned?Philadelphia to students continued lag behind national averages?the improvement a nonetheless represented clear progress for school system that served so many disadvantaged students.59 was a The standardized testing program in itself breakthrough. Since before

57 "Phila. a of John Corr, National Example Change," Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 16, 1969, 1; Frederick Peter and McCord, Binzen, Philip Schaeffer, "Philadelphia's Zooming Suburbs," Philadelphia to on Bulletin, Sept. 25,1959, 1;Mark Shedd, "Testimony the U.S. Senate Select Committee Equal Educational Opportunity," Washington, D.C., Sept. 21,1971. 58 Shedd, "Five Year Progress Report," Dilworth Papers, box 46. 59 Shedd, "Five Year Progress Report"; John Gillespie, "Pupils Raise Test Scores in Basic Skills," Philadelphia Bulletin, May 14, 1968; John Gillespie, "Phila. Pupils Fare Poorly in National Tests," Philadelphia Bulletin, January 13,1969; John Gillespie, "Public Pupils Here Still Lag Behind Nation," Feb. Linda "School Test Score Rise Philadelphia Bulletin, 12,1970; Loyd, Hailed," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 27,1972. 190 JON S. BIRGER July

1965 there had been no way for school officials to gauge how well students were or to norms. progressing how they compared national More students to The of school going college. percentage high graduates on to in to going college increased from thirty percent 1966 forty percent in 1970.60

More black administrators and principals. Shedd used the city charter's "5 heads to percent rule"?which permitted department appoint five percent of or test their managers without consulting either seniority lists civil service results?to remedy decades of discrimination against black candidates for so at administrative posts. (This strategy angered white administrators that one to to point they threatened join the Teamsters' Union stop it.61) By were com 1970, twenty percent of the school system's principals black, in to seven in was most parison percent I960.62 This perhaps Shedd's lasting a legacy. He gave generation of prominent black educators their starts, grooming the future superintendents of Boston, Cleveland, Harrisburg, was a Oakland, Wilmington, and Philadelphia. "He recognized that here a in school district that had majority of blacks its population, but had very a little input coming from the black community," said Santee Ruffin, former to vice Gratz High School teacher whom Shedd promoted principal and then principal of Germantown High School. "He felt that black students see as needed to blacks functioning administrators."63 were scores Innovative programs. There of them. By today's standards some team of them?magnet schools, teaching, computer education, foreign seem a mun language instruction for elementary schoolers, etc.?may bit were dane, but at the time these cutting-edge innovations. Two programs in was particular received the largest share of national attention. One the to Parkway Project. This "school without walls" attempted combat student restlessness by holding classes throughout the city. The Parkway Project signed up local institutions?most along the mile-and-a-half long Benjamin in to Franklin Parkway?to assist the teaching of classes related their

60 Shedd, "Five Year Progress Report." 61 Binzen, Whitetown, 211. 62 sec. "Basic Education Stalemated Despite Extensive Efforts," Bulletin, Dec. 6,1970, 2, 3; DeWolf Its on and Gillespie, "SeeMark Shedd," 148; Peter Binzen, "Phila. School Board Says Policy Integration sec. Is Among Best in U.S.," Bulletin, Nov. 20,1960, 1, 3. 63 Lori Cornish, "Mark Shedd Remembered," Philadelphia Tribune, Nov. 21, 1986, 1-A; Inga Saffron, "Friends Remember Shedd for His Legacy," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 24,1986, 2-B. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 191

or were profession business. Mathematics, electronics, and chemistry taught museum. at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia's renowned science Art was at history taught the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Moore at College of Art, biology the Academy of Natural Sciences, physical at education at the YMCA, and journalism the offices of the Bulletin and the Inquirer. Although old guard administrators grumbled that the Parkway was more a rave Program little than public relations ploy, it received reviews from students, parents, teachers, and outside observers.64 was The Philadelphia School District's other showcase the Pennsylvania Advancement School. The school originated in North Carolina, but when ran in it into political problems its native state, Shedd convinced director to to Peter Buttenweiser relocate Philadelphia. The Advancement School took seventh and eighth graders who hated school and in fourteen-week to sessions tried transform these underachievers into students passionate an about learning. Located in abandoned warehouse, the school had few were to conventional classrooms, and teachers encouraged experiment with new ideas and methods, many of which filtered down to the traditional a at one schools. "One could spend day the Advancement School," wrote out new was observer, "and find just about everything that happening in the were world of education." Some parents skeptical of the informal, on unstructured environment and the emphasis fiin and games, but the Advancement School seemed to work. "He never talked about the other one school," reported parent. "He doesn't shut up about this one." The most persistent criticism of the program?aside from its exorbitant $2,000 per student cost?was the lack of connection between the Advancement School and the traditional schools students returned to after their fourteen weeks were me me me up. "They turned on; then they put back and let get turned one off again," student complained.65 won These experiments praise and press clippings for Shedd and his staff, was but there skepticism locally, much of it sincere. "I don't think Shedd a understands the problems of big city education," said Celia Pincus, senior

64 Katrina Dyke, "Parkway: Informality, Opinions, Pupil Power," Philadelphia Bulletin, April 30, a 1970, 3; Henry Resnik, "High School With No Walls?It's Happening in Philadelphia," Think, November-December 1969, 33-36. 65 John Corr, "Pennsylvania Advancement School: Candidates Turn On," In Dropout" Philadelphia " to quirer Magazine, Jan. 19,1969, 6-10; John Gillespie, 'The Idea Is Get These Kids Turned On,' Bulletin on Sunday Magazine, March 10,1968, 4-9; Resnik, Turning the System, 57-78. 192 JON S. BIRGER July

one PFT official and former union president. "We've gone through I not seen one that will effect results experiment after another. have program for all 300,000 school children in Philadelphia. There may have been small successes for 150 children here, 50 children there, and so on. But this is very to we can that kind of to costly. We've got decide whether get money put into We can't afford to boast of a these pilot programs general practice. we to successftd program affecting 150 children when have 300,000 children was most deal with."66 Pincus's view probably prejudiced by the fact that the ones most to innovative teachers?the likely be awarded special grants by the recent not district?tended to be college graduates, individuals who did she had a identify strongly with the union. Still, point. Imposing large-scale, on a school as as top-down reform system large Philadelphia's proved Katz reform is "a immensely difficult. As Michael argues, top-down even task" because the complicated, subtle, perhaps superhuman "managerial a to mobilize resistance class has supplied institutions with built-in capacity reason to serious reform." For this Katz somberly concludes that "attempts to or of change radically improve the quality schooling by systemwide to directives [will] almost always fail." Absent the political will dethrone the or create a more social the best for managerial class equitable order, hope at level of the individual improvement "is reform undertaken the school."67 most innovations It's not surprising then that Shedd's noteworthy involved new rather than the implementing programs, reworking traditional, day-to most day lesson plans used in classrooms. an Ever the idealist, Shedd assumed that creating environment conducive entire For that reason test to change would eventually transform the system. were to results and educational outcomes secondary in importance social to empowerment and "turning on" young minds learning. "Honestly, I don't even remember a discussion on test scores," Sloane recalled.

was a more to It just wasn't the issue. It much general thing. It was, "We've got .. on make a difference in the lives of kids.'. This whole emphasis outcomes is was as an access a relatively new phenomenon. At the time, equality viewed and treatment as an outcome issue.... I think Mark's issue, rather than assumption must was that one changed attitudes by sermonizing, You do this.' His were nature. was would speeches evangelical in The thought that the climate

66 DeWolf and Gillespie, "See Mark Shedd," 147-48. 67 118-35. Michael Katz, Reconstructing American Education (Cambridge, 1987), 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 193

never eventually filter down. We got down to the classroom level, except at the experimental level. The Advancement School, the Parkway school? yea. But we there was such an entrenched bureaucracy that never got to deal with issues . . . like, What is [the] nature of the reading instruction? I've been [superintendent of the Norwalk school system] for 11 years, and I don't think we were to or seriously able to get down that level till three four years ago. It seven or . . . took eight years arranging the parts, getting the right people in a leadership. And this is dinky little place?I've got 11,000 kids.... In many or cases itwas changing principals.... I had to wait for people to die retire or move out to some other place.68

were never a Unfortunately, Shedd and Dilworth able to build solid base was to of political support among parents. There little unite the parents were whose children benefiting from the disparate mix of programs that were most Shedd had initiated; also, the students who being helped tended to come a from disadvantaged families who wielded little political clout. As assessment came to result, the public's of Shedd and Dilworth be based less on more on the purely educational aspects of their reforms and their politics. over And their politics clearly favored the black majority in the school system in a the white majority the city's electorate, fact made clear for many by their movement ter handling of the November 17 riot.While the Black Power as rified many whites, Dilworth perceived it progress. "There is, of course, great fear in the white community about the Black Power movement, and us too many of whites like to look at its militant and destructive aspects a rather than its constructive possibilities," Dilworth said in 1968 speech before the American Philosophical Society. "The Black Power movement it to create a has within the power spirit of unity, confidence, pride and man purpose in the black community. This is essential if the black is to establish himself as a first class citizen."69 to Such talk?however enlightened?tended reinforce the growing racial a at paranoia of many working-class whites. "Niggers is takin' over," patron a at man Kensington bar told Binzen. "Look this," the continued, pointing at a headline?"Romney Visits N. Phila"?in the afternoon paper. "Them to same. politicians. Comin' here visit the nigger slums. They're all the

68 Sloane, interview. 69 Dilworth Papers, box 32. 194 JON S. BIRGER July

They'll do anything for votes."70 Obviously, by the late 1960s, the spread of to was a white, working-class racism and resistance liberal politics national was phenomenon, and Philadelphia hardly the only city where political in the battles ended up being fought public schools. Only in Philadelphia, so however, did the leadership of the public school system side decisively with the black community and others challenging the status quo. a Consequently, Shedd and Dilworth became target of the forces of reaction in Philadelphia. School reform failed in Philadelphia?as itwould in other cities?because it inevitably became linked with racial politics. Ideally, this shouldn't have were not happened since the shortcomings of urban schools inherently to linked racial discrimination. Equality ofEducational Opportunity, the 1966 as was federal study better known the Coleman Report, originally commis sioned to demonstrate a link between racial discrimination and educational outcomes. two But after years of study, James Coleman and his colleagues race concluded that made little difference in predicting student achievement and that white and black students, though thoroughly segregated, attended in comparable schools.71 Binzen validates Coleman's findings his 1970 book, Whitetown, U.Sj?. Binzen concludes, based upon test scores and his own in firsthand evaluations, that the segregated schools Northeast Philadelphia's were as as depressed white neighborhoods just miserable the segregated schools in North andWest Philadelphia's black ghettos. The only difference was were to that while black parents pressing hard improve ghetto schools, white parents?obsessed with racial purity in the schools and generally content fearful of change?were with the inferior education their children more received. The prospect of forced busing made "whitetowners" all the to status committed preserving the quo. Although "noise, dirt, and confusion at created chaotic conditions" many of the schools inNortheast Philadelphia, to white parents opposed temporary transfers newer, less crowded schools race because "they feared mixing." Binzen argues that "whitetowner" thinking reflected what Margaret Mead, writing in The School inAmerican Culture, termed "The Little Red Schoolhouse Ideal." "Embedded in the Ideal," toMead, "is the notion: What was for me is according " good enough a good enough for my children.' At school board meeting in Northeast

70 Binzen, Whitetown, 122-23. 71 et James Coleman al., Equality ofEducational Opportunity (Washington, D.C., 1966), 3-23, 290 313. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 195

a utter Philadelphia, Binzen heard parent those very words.72 to Proving the link between white racism and opposition school reform was not is tricky. Because the Philadelphia school board appointed, elected, was no voters to or there direct way for express approval disapproval of was school board policies. While the mayor responsible for naming the are not to a board, election results from mayoral campaigns sufficient prove too causal link because mayoral campaigns involve many issues unrelated to in a 1970 master's a school policy. Jorene Coffay, thesis, makes convincing one can measure argument that public support for district leadership by at were looking the results of school bond elections. Five bond issues put on the city ballot between 1966 and 1969, all of them linked to the $500 million Even the was building program. though building program seemingly apolitical and benefited neighborhoods throughout the city, many voters?unable to vote board members out of office?used bond elections as on to referendums school policies, according Coffay.73 Of the five bond issues studied by Coffay, the first three?in 1966,1967, voters. was and 1968?were approved by The fourth inMay 1969 defeated. cut Following this defeat, the school board their bond request by $30 and the in million, revised proposal passed November 1969. Coffay's analysis two votes votes a of the 1969 reveals that the best predictor of "no" in given ward was the of as presence "white backlash" sentiment, measured by the votes cast percentage of for George Wallace in the 1968 presidential to election. (Coffay compared Wallace voting eight other variables in each ward?including home ownership, median income, black registration, children in the public schools, and Democratic registration.) Ward 45, for example, which comprises Kensington and Richmond, had both the lowest votes as percentage of "yes" for the May 1969 bond issue (21 percent), well as the of votes cast for in highest percentage Wallace 1968 (15 percent). Based her upon statistical analysis, Coffay concludes that "whites [who] voted the issue ... in to a against bond were, fact, motivated high degree of 'white backlash.' This relationship reveals the resentment of whites the to concerning school system's increasing response Negro needs and the of in the general polarization Negroes and whites city."74 The 1969 issue was turnout May bond defeated by heavy in "no" voting

72Binzen, Whitetown, 36-37, 54-55,145-48. 73 Jorene Coffay, "Community Support for the Schools," 1970,1-17. 74 Ibid., 45-137. 196 JON S. BIRGER July

turnout white wards; the city's black wards supported the bond, but there was some came low. Ironically, of the heaviest outpourings of "no" votes areas were most from white where schools the overcrowded. Even though most to on these neighborhoods had the gain from school district spending new schools, they opposed the referendum because they distrusted Shedd an and Dilworth. A consultant who conducted analysis of the election for the a was a board of education reached similar conclusion: "There feeling that was at the black community getting all the improvements the expense of same was a whites. At the time there feeling that Shedd and Dilworth did not to listen the [white] parents."75 A comparison of the May 1969 bond election and November 1971 mayoral campaign between Rizzo and a link Longstreth further supports Coffay's finding of between "white to backlash" and opposition school reform. In 1971, thirty-four of the thirty seven wards that had voted "no" inMay 1969 supported Rizzo; in addition, one only of the thirty-five wards that supported Rizzo hadn't also opposed a the May 1969 bond issue. Rizzo made Shedd major campaign issue, so, on sense a based Coffay's findings, it makes that there would be strong on correlation between voting for Rizzo in 1971 and voting "no" the May 1969 bond issue.76 A series of racial disturbances at Bok Technical High School in October race 1968 provide further evidence of how had permeated Philadelphia was school politics. Bok located at Eighth and Mifflin streets in the heart of was Italian South Philadelphia. In 1968, the school's student population bused in eighty-five percent black, with sixty percent from North andWest Philadelphia. Neighborhood residents would claim that the school's racial imbalance was the source of conflict, but Bok's enrollment had been more than seventy percent black since the mid-1950s. Until 1968 "the community to to managed live in peace" with the school, according Bulletin reporter a John Gillespie. But in October ofthat year, the knifing of white student a outside the school touched off week-long showdown involving white protesters, Bok students, school officials, and police.77 As it turned out, the

75 Binzen, Whitetown, 296-97. 76"How Rizzo and Longstreth Shaped Up Ward byWard," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 3,1971, 4; on "How theWards Voted the School Bond," Philadelphia Inquirer, May 22,1969. 77 to to John T. Gillespie, "Schools, Communities Go Work, Seek Solutions Racial Disorders," 48. Philadelphia Bulletin, Nov. 6,1968, 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 197

was not a black teenager arrested for the stabbing Bok student.78 By the time this was known, however, the conflict had already spiraled out of control. In in the days following the stabbing, black students complained that retaliation were whites in the neighborhood harassing them, both verbally and on us were physically, their way home from school. "One day about four of a coming down Ninth Street," said Larry Williams, fifteen-year-old black Bok student. "A bunch of whites, ten or twelve guys older than we were, came over at us.... with sticks and began swinging We started running and a cans at us. couple of them threw and bottles A couple of times they yelled at a to 'nigger' us." Black students subsequently staged protest complain about the harassment. Word of their protest spread, and, in response, by the over a end of the following school day thousand white residents gathered to a outside Bok stage counter-protest. Armed with homemade signs?"All the Way With Wallace," "White Power is Best," and "Down with Bok"?the white protesters shouted "Burn Bok" and taunted black students as teens onto seen police loaded the buses. 'You should have them white a women," Kenneth Jackson, sixteen-year-old student from West the were at Philadelphia, told Inquirer. "They cursing and spitting the cops were so to us and the priests. They wild the cops had take from the school on we buses; then they say how bad are." won a Rizzo praise for deftly defusing what could have been violent some more confrontation?although black leaders noted Rizzo used far ever restraint with the white protesters than he had in his dealings with black home on protesters. After sending the students school buses, Rizzo pleaded with the white protesters to return to their homes. "Do it for me and go to a on ahead home," he said. According Tribune reporter the scene, Rizzo's to to presence seemed calm the crowd and many began disperse. Fearing on further conflict, Shedd kept Bok closed Thursday and Friday, allowing to tempers cool.79

was not White racism certainly the only factor that contributed to the in were demise of school reform Philadelphia. There others, namely shifting

78 to Richardson Dilworth Harold Wiegand, Oct. 31,1968, Dilworth Papers, box 44. 79 Frederick McCord, "Ten of Disorders: and Describe Crisis," Days " Pupils, Neighbors Faculty Philadelphia Bulletin, Oct. 20, 1968; 'All the Way With Wallace' Heard Amid Tumult at Bok," Philadelphia Tribune, Oct. 12,1968,1; "Group Tells Gov. Shafer That Negroes Were Beaten butWhites Befriended," Philadelphia Tribune, Oct. 22,1968, 5. 198 JON S. BIRGER July

demographics, the decline of the city's economic base, white class conflict, resistance from within the school system, and the black community's failure to generate significant political support for Shedd and Dilworth. None theless, recognition of other influences that worked against Shedd and no as a Dilworth's reform efforts should in way be interpreted departure from this article's thesis that white, working-class resistance?expressed terms?was the mainly in racial decisive factor in ending five years of in unprecedented school reform Philadelphia. Each of these other factors a had racial component; veteran white administrators, for instance, resented name more as Shedd's efforts to blacks to top posts. And, Michael Katz so argues eloquently, historians who reject cause-and-effect explanations in multivariate run the of favor of analysis risk marginalizing their scholarship. with Katz specifically takes issue the claim of Carl Kaestle and Maris so Vinovskis that "education itself is complex that it cannot be treated as a to a out single variable and then pegged single historical development of concerns counters which all other flow." Katz that such thinking represents a concern "disengagement of social science from with critical analysis" of public policy:

Although social institutions always relate in complex ways to their contexts, an interdependence is interpretative strategy that signals a retreat from any attempt to find a principle or core within a social system. Its world lacks a a comes center, driving force. Social development simply from the reciprocal effects of the many factors operating within a complex network. It becomes or impossible to saywhat gives coherence shape to any social system. Hence the levers of remain obscure and no basis exists for moral change judgment.80

one a to Taken alone, any of the other factors presented significant obstacle as a was never to meaningful school reform, and, result, Shedd going achieve the revolutionary changes he initially envisioned for the Philadelphia schools. were not to Still, it for the emergence of white, working-class resistance cam school reform?a resistance that propelled Frank Rizzo's mayoral successors could have to paign?Shedd and his continued make gradual, voters to a a modest progress. But when white began draw link, albeit mis unrest at taken one, between social and school reforms aimed empowering

80 and in Katz, Reconstructing, 140; Carl Kaestle and Maris Vinovskis, Education Social Change Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts (Cambridge, 1980), 233. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 199

students, the prospects of Shedd and Dilworth dimmed dramatically. as concern about school bud In Philadelphia, elsewhere, public spiraling was of the economic base. The demise gets heightened by the decline city's in two decades of the of manufacturing in Philadelphia began the first to twentieth century with the loss of the fine garment and textile industry The overall decline in the competition from the South and abroad.81 city's economy accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s. Between 1958 and 1963, the number of manufacturing jobs in Philadelphia slipped from 298,500 to 264,900; between 1970 and 1980, the city lost another 140,000 of these retail sales two between high-paying jobs. Philadelphia's dipped percent same a 1958 and 1963; at the time the city's suburbs experienced thirty-five to a in percent increase. All of this contributed 12.4 percent decrease the between 1956 and 1971. Translated into 1994 city's assessed evaluation to dollars, the total value of city property dropped from $19.6 billion $17.2 billion. The property value of the average home in Philadelphia actually increased between 1961 and 1966, indicating that almost all of the decline was to a in assessed valuation due drop in the value of commercial property.82 were a tax As a result, homeowners forced to bear larger share of the city's burden. was less on education than its Even though Philadelphia spending suburbs, both per capita and per student, before the Shedd-Dilworth era, the taxes In 1965 average city resident paid higher than the average suburbanite. in local taxes in to an Philadelphia averaged $147 per capita comparison an average of $110 for the city's suburbs; in addition, Philadelphias paid average of 7.4 percent of their annual income in local taxes, in comparison to reason this is that 4.9 percent for those living in the suburbs. The for gap most more than cents of tax dollar Philadelphia, like cities, spent sixty every on as noneducational municipal services, such fire and police departments, trash collection, health and welfare programs, prisons, and public was demand for these transportation. In the suburbs, where there less

81 Markets and Power in 1885 Philip Scranton, Figured Tapestry: Production, Philadelphia Textiles, 1941 (Cambridge, 1989), 11. 82 Riles, Urban Education Task Force, 30-37; Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontiers: The Suburban U.S. Bureau of the Census Governments: ization of the United States (New York, 1985), 267; Census, of Census Governments: 1972 1957 (Washington, D.C., 1958), 5:119; U.S. Bureau of the Census, of (Washington, D.C., 1973), 64. 200 JON S. BIRGER July

services, seventy cents of every tax dollar collected was spent on schools.83 one Historian Jeffrey Mirel has argued that cannot understand the decline resources of urban schools without considering the declining financial to In and an available school systems. The Rise Fall of Urban School System, on Mirel focuses financial issues in explaining both the failure of school reform in Detroit in the 1960s as well as the overall decline of the Detroit to too school system sinceWorld War II. According Mirel, historians have resources often overlooked the role of material in the history of urban a we as an education: "In sense, have been considering schooling abstraction, as an enterprise unrestrained by material demands and uninfluenced by the actual conditions in which educational policymakers, community activist must sees groups, teachers, parents, and students operate." While Mirel economic factors as decisive in the decline of Detroit's school system since amount resources World War II, he also acknowledges that "the of that a school systems have is often good indication of the level of commitment a . . . amount that community has for public schools."84 That said, the of on cannot money Philadelphia spent public schools be explained inde race a pendent from issues of because white voter's "level of commitment" is or undoubtedly influenced by the racial composition of the school system he to she is being asked support. to tax Shifts in the city's demographics contributed the growing burden on Philadelphia's white working class and also exacerbated preexisting racial tension in the city. Even though whites composed sixty-six percent of the Philadelphia's 1,948,609 residents in 1970, white students accounted for only thirty-six percent of the enrollment in Philadelphia's public schools. The reason? Philadelphia trailed only Pittsburgh in private and parochial school were enrollment: forty percent of the city's school children in non-public to schools, compared sixteen percent nationally. Also, between 1940 and 1970 Philadelphia's black population increased 160 percent, and many blacks were began moving into predominantly white communities that less than to same receptive their arrival. During that period, the city's white as population decreased twenty-three percent, the population of the city's

8j Riles, Urban Education Task Force, 43-53. 84 an 1907-81 xii Jeffrey Mirel, The Rise and Fall of Urban School System: Detroit, (Ann Arbor, 1993), xiii. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 201

were suburbs?which almost entirely white?grew by 126 percent.85 "The move to was as the suburbs almost self-generating," Kenneth Jackson argues in Frontiers: Crabgrass

As larger numbers of affluent citizens moved out, jobs followed. In turn, this attracted more families, more roads, and more industries. The cities were often a reverse caught in cycle. As businesses and taxpayers left, the demand for middle- to upper-income dwelling units in older neighborhoods declined. At the same increases low-income minorities . . . time, population among an new produced increase in the demand for low-income housing. The more care residents required health and social welfare services from the city government than did the old, but they were less able to pay for them. To increase expenditures, municipal authorities levied higher property taxes, thus middle-class homeowners to the to encouraging leave, causing cycle repeat.

extra to Racism, Jackson says, provided "an incentive" for whites flee.86 a South Philadelphia, for example, experienced sixteen percent drop in itswhite population between 1960 and 1970, from 190,292 to 160,638; at same the time the area's black population increased four percent, from to 66,368 68,712. The changing demographics undoubtedly increased the racial paranoia of the area's white residents. This may explain why Bok High once School's neighbors, who had coexisted peacefully with Bok's black so students, suddenly became militant in 1968. Another explanation involves the influence of the antiwar and civil rights movements upon white ethnic to communities. According Binzen, before the 1960s Philadelphia's to working-class whites had historically deferred authority. "To be able to to to a talk back Authority?this is something that I have get used to," one Kensington machinist told Binzen. "And this is of the things that retards me as a I cannot talk to leader?that Authority without any feelings or ...... are a score. of fear respect. The colored evening up big They're a more is we getting lot attention. My feeling that don't squawk enough."87

85 no Enrollment in the Philadelphia Public Schools: Ten Year Summary, 1966-1975 (Philadelphia, date), 11; Thomas Dye, "Urban School Segregation: A Comparative Analysis," in The Politics of Urban Education, ed. Marilyn Gittell and Alan G. Hevesi (New York, 1969), 101; Binzen,"Philadelphia: Politics Invades the School," Saturday Review, 49; Howard Chudacoff and Judith Smith, The Evolution American of Urban Society (3d ed., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1988), 269. 86 Jackson, Crabgrass Frontiers, 284-85, 289-90. 87 Binzen, Whitetown, 138-40. 202 JON S. BIRGER July

saw Disaffected whites the victories achieved by civil rights and antiwar protesters, and concluded that the tactics of civil disobedience might help own them get their grievances addressed. White antibusing protesters in Boston, for instance, drew inspiration from the rhetoric of Martin Luther to King, Jr., according historian Ronald Formisano:

The kind of communities that had been unlikely to organize any kind of protest as late as the 1950s discovered a decade later a willingness among some of their to residents to organize, to protest in the streets, and fight for their interests. were Repercussions from the 1960s felt very quickly in Boston in the neighborhoods of the "silent majority" and of the hitherto passively obedient a working class_Those who had shaken their heads at rebelliousness short time before were saying, "Maybe we should do like the blacks do." Indeed, one on to group of mothers and children blocking the big trucks their way Logan Airport sang "We Shall Overcome."88

In attacks the conventional Boston Against Busing, Formisano wisdom on that blames the Boston busing crisis white, working-class racism. He to compares this argument the "redneck myth," which allowed southern elites to blame lower-class whites for violence and discrimination in the Jim Crow South and thus wash their hands of any moral responsibility:

When racial strife moved north, the myth adapted and became the urban reassurance redneck myth. It continues to provide the comforting that the lower classes of American society are primarily responsible for racism, both overt and institutional.... One of the not-too-much that tends to consequence some, desegregation on screams be imposed the lower classes is that the white, working class and are acts out its frustrations in public. Neighborhood militants and racists to an aura catapulted into influence and the forefront of media attention, while rest of shame begins to infect the atmosphere. This allows the of society, to particularly middle-class liberals, to feel morally superior the "racists" in South Boston.89

to Formisano's class-based explanation of white backlash is relevant the

88 and 1970s Ronald Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s (Chapel Hill, 1991), 143-46,162-65. 89 Formisano, Boston Against Busing, 233-34. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 203

in in plight of school reform Philadelphia. As Boston, the key decision not makers in Philadelphia did represent the city's white working class. Even a though working-class whites composed plurality of the city's population, one on they could claim only kindred spirit the school board, veteran labor leaderWilliam Ross. Ross, who consistently opposed Shedd and Dilworth's reform efforts, became board president in 1971 under Mayor Rizzo.90 Also, to Dilworth's financial independence and family background proved be less a asset as as of political school board president than it had been mayor. In his seem mayoral campaigns, Dilworth's wealth made him less susceptible to to to corruption, less likely become beholden party bosses. Whether he could to voter was not an relate the typical Philadelphia issue. As school board to a president, however, his wealth proved be political liability. Dilworth's a was personal papers reveal lifestyle that incomprehensible to most Phila a a delphians: receipt for $6,061 Mercedes-Benz, numerous invitations to a dinner parties and black-tie affairs, membership card for the Racquet and on Tennis Club Park Avenue in New York City, and dozens of bills from some restaurants. even a an of Philadelphia's finest There's $11.04 bill from to electrician Dilworth hired, according the letter accompanying the bill, "to replace burned-out bulbs in your residence."91 Dilworth's Washington Square home?today the headquarters of the Dental in Philadelphia County Society?was located the heart of Society Hill. its With restored colonial townhouses, historic landmarks, and quiet, Hill now one most tree-lined streets, Society is of Philadelphia's fashionable neighborhoods. Few of its residents know that their neighborhood takes its name not from the high society types who may reside there, but from the to Free Society of Traders, whom William Penn deeded the land 300 years Until the in Hill a ago. 1950s, fact, Society had been working-class a to neighborhood with significant black population; just the west, down Spruce and Pine streets, is the ward W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about in The As Dilworth Hill Philadelphia Negro.92 mayor, viewed Society and several other Center as City neighborhoods prime locations for redevelopment. own to Symbolizing his commitment urban renewal, Dilworth moved to

90 Binzen, "Politics Invades the Schools," 46; Thomas Hine and Howard Shapiro, "RossWill Head School Attends Board, Shedd His Last Meeting," Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 7,1971, 23. 91 Dilworth Papers, boxes 43, 44. 92 Education Black Roots Violence in Franklin, of Philadelphia, 3-19; Roger Lane, of Black Philadelphia, 1860-1900 (Cambridge, 1986), 21-22. 204 JON S. BIRGER July

223-225 South Sixth Street in 1957. This gesture alone, however, would not been a were have sufficient catalyst for the gentrification of Society Hill it not for the hundreds of millions of in dollars federal aid made available by act the 1949 Taft-Ellender-Wagner Housing Act. The authorized the Fed to eral Housing Authority subsidize slum-clearance and gentrification. In a Center City Philadelphia, urban renewal precipitated sixty-seven percent drop in the black population, from 10,536 in 1940 to 3,506 in 1970. Relative to overall black the Philadelphia's population, number of blacks affected by in Hill was urban renewal Society and throughout Center City minimal. Center was the area Still, City only predominantly white of Philadelphia saw that its black population drop between 1960 and 1970.93 This fact made Dilworth to susceptible charges of hypocrisy when he on blamed the decline of urban schools the migration of civic-minded whites to the These were to suburbs. suburbanites people who, according Dilworth, a our "had taken real interest in public school system. That interest vanished their to the and was with departure suburbs, the school system sadly ignored as it in here has been virtually every other large Northern city for the past 45 The was a years."94 remedy prescribed by Dilworth and Shedd regional school district that would integrate?both physically and financially? school with those of the Philadelphia's system outlying suburbs. According to was one the ex-mayor, there only reason suburbanites would resist such a on plan: "It's fear. Yes the whole resistance is based fear. Why the average to reasonably prosperous, white middle-class resident is delighted shake the dust of Philadelphia from his shoes in [the] late afternoon and get back to what he calls the quiet peace of the white suburbs."95 While has Dilworth's analysis much historical validity, in the minds of suburbanites as well as those who had fled downtown for Northeast statements Philadelphia, Dilworth's smacked of hypocrisy. "Is it fair that you live in a $60,000 home in SocietyHill, and I only live in a $30,000 home in a the suburbs which you call dirty word?" asked "Mrs. J. K. of Melrose Park" in a to January 1971 letter Dilworth.

93 1960 & 1970 Population Characteristics: Philadelphia Census Tracts (Philadelphia: Philadelphia City and Planning Commission, 1972), 12-13; Daughen Binzen, Cop Y/ho Would Be King, 194; Chudacoff and Smith, Evolution, 269-72. 94 Richardson Dilworth toMrs. Fred Wile, Dec. 8,1967, Dilworth Papers, box 43. 95 Dorothy Roak, "Dilworth's Dilemma: Getting Suburbs 'Involved' in City," Main Line Times, March 17,1967,1. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 205

out After all, you pushed all the deprived and poor of your neighborhood and so can now want to ship them into the suburbs, your affluent life be in peace and quiet, and shift your responsibilities into the suburbs, who pay for every use not thing they in the city including city wage tax, which is paid by urban ... not to save residents who work in the suburbs. It does pay work hard, for no more . . . 15 years, pay taxes, obey laws, and get in life than the opposite. You went to private schools and I went to the Kearny School which was not come to as right?you should have insisted that I your school for free you insist now since all your family attended private schools and I could not afford to go was to private schools. Why didn't you speak up then? I did not feel I entitled to go to the schools in the wealthy sections as they paid more taxes. But what a as I did do was studied lot trying to learn much so I could make good on my aswe a area our one own, lived in ghetto but kept home clean and not of seven in our ever committed a crime.96 family

a answer sent Dilworth had ready for those who criticized him for having own his children to private school. "I certainly have made it very plain that our our I and children all received education in private schools and private to an a colleges," he wrote, responding inquiry from Bala Cynwyd resident. our "In fact, all of children, after completing elementary school, received their secondary school education and their university education in New I England?where also received my education?because I believe that New England has the best schools and the best universities in the United States. a our Had I been resident of Montgomery County, children still would have we were to to been educated in that way because fortunate enough be able no afford to give them that kind of education." There is reason to doubt an a Dilworth's sincerity; still, his reply reveals arrogance and profound lack to move to so of sympathy for those parents who chose the suburbs that their or children might attend better schools. Dilworth seemed unwilling unable to to were recognize that many parents who considered moving the suburbs same to own motivated by the impulse that prompted Dilworth send his to to children private boarding schools?a desire provide their children with was a to the best education possible. Racism surely factor in the exodus the suburbs, but one wonders if it was any less of a factor in the decision to target neighborhoods like Society Hill for urban renewal. The Bala Cynwyd resident who wrote to Dilworth complained that if the school board

96 to Mrs. J. K. of Melrose Park Richardson Dilworth, Jan. 19,1971, Dilworth Papers, box 48. 206 JON S. BIRGER July

sent own to are president had his children private school, "I hardly think you to in any position do any planning for others." Dilworth disagreed, failing to own perceive any incongruity between the education he chose for his to on children and the regional school district he sought impose families who "I cannot see to had made comparable choices: that this has anything do to with what is essential the welfare of the entire Philadelphia area," he said.97 was a Dilworth equally dismissive of Dr. Harry Hoffman, Northeast wrote him to a Philadelphia dentist who protest school board desegregation plan. Hoffman claimed that the plan posed "an unnecessary risk for my a in taxes children.... I pay several thousand dollars year in Philadelphia, to and should this busing materialize, I will join the great migration the not to as to some suburbs, for I will permit my children be used pawns satisfy race self-appointed guardians of relations in public education." In his reply no to or Dilworth made attempt either empathize with Hoffman to win him over. In the suburbs, Dilworth shot back,

a busing is considered matter of status. The further the child is bused, the more exclusive is the area. ... I think we would all be much better off if we talk means are frankly.What your letter really is that you determined your children shall have no association of any kind, under any plan, with Negro children, and if the state imposes any such plan upon Philadelphia, you will promptly move to the suburbs. I can that can run so and ... then are only say you just far, you on going to have to keep running. I do not believe the suburbs can very much maintain a white noose around the necks of our cities.98 longer large

as acute From today's vantage point, it is clear that Dilworth possessed an as understanding of America's urban crisis any politician of the postwar era. were once are As he warned, social ills that uniquely urban phenomena today finding their way into once-safe suburban communities. Dilworth's was at prescience remarkable, but the time his blunt talk alienated significant segments of Philadelphia's white population, people who would later become core the of Rizzo's constituency. Nonetheless, this acknowledgment still does not prove Formisano's thesis that white backlash had its roots in class

97 to to John Bottger Richardson Dilworth, March 13,1967, and Dilworth Bottger, March 16,1967, Dilworth Papers, box 35. 98 to to Dr. Harry M. Hoffman Richardson Dilworth, Sept. 19,1968, and Dilworth Hoffman, Sept. 23,1968, Dilworth Papers, box 43. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 207

resentment. For while Ross may have been the only school board member no in Philadelphia who represented working-class whites, these people had meaningful representation whatsoever under the old, pre-1965 system. Also, sent own children to although Dilworth had his private schools, Shedd made a own to point of sending all four of his children Philadelphia public schools, to each of which happened be predominantly black. Perhaps the biggest to so problem with applying Formisano's thesis Philadelphia is the fact that on much of his argument relative to Boston is based the fact that Boston's to a liberal elites refused consider metropolitan busing program that would even include suburban school systems.99 Formisano contends that "suburban liberals" not blacks "constituted the principal enemy of the anti-busers."100 In Philadelphia, both Shedd and Dilworth had been longtime proponents a of metropolitan school district that would unify the city school system with its suburban neighbors. In fact, Shedd opposed busing exclusively within same reasons Philadelphia for many of the that Formisano believes busing was ultimately failed in Boston. If busing implemented only within city boundaries, there would be "an insurrection" among working-class whites, to are to Shedd said. "If you limit busing the city, you only going hasten the a or a exodus and you will have Newark Washington within year."101 some Based upon Formisano's logic, there should have been support for a metropolitan solution among Philadelphia's working-class whites. After all, was more resentment ifwhite backlash really prompted by class than racism, a to parent from Northeast Philadelphia should have been willing send his to an as as were child integrated school long parents from the suburbs forced same. no to do the There is simply evidence, however, to indicate such sentiment actually existed in the city's white, working-class communities. Perhaps the flaw in Formisano's conclusion is his assumption that the a came decisive resistance to metropolitan solution from middle- and upper as class suburbanites?people he describes "cosmopolitan liberals."102While to it is beyond the scope of this study question his findings for Boston, the wrote majority of surburbanites who angry letters to Dilworth seemed to more common with have had far in the friends and relatives they had left

229-32. "Formisano, Boston Against Busing, 100 Boston 178-79. Formisano, Against Busing, 101 Tom Hi?e, "Running City's Schools Is 'Impossible' but Mark Shedd Isn't Giving Up Yet," Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 3,1971,1. 102 Formisano, Boston Against Busing, 229-39. 208 JON S. BIRGER July

in behind Philadelphia's ethnic enclaves than with the "cosmopolitan a or liberals" who had abandoned the city generation two earlier. This claim as is buttressed by Paolantonio's assertion that Rizzo had much support in the as he did in the Divisions suburbs city itself.103 between ethnic, working class whites and cosmopolitan, WASP elites probably did affect the level of some support for Shedd and Dilworth in neighborhoods, but class issues were not what ultimately drove Philadelphia's working-class whites to side with Rizzo.

Despite all the efforts Shedd and Dilworth undertook to empower black students and involve the black in school community affairs, Philadelphia's never black community really embraced them.104 The black wards' low voter turnout during the bond referendums demonstrated that while black voters were was supported what Shedd and Dilworth doing, their support shallow. come as a Perhaps this shouldn't have surprise. The two black school board members?George Hutt and Rev. Henry Nichols?were well-regarded in was a the black community, but neither considered leader of Cecil Moore's stature. more was in A important problem that, light of the civil rights movement's ideological shift towards black nationalism during the latter half of the blacks were to 1960s, unlikely rally around white leaders. Stokely a Carmichael's warning that white liberals "perpetuate paternalistic, colonial true relationship" rang for many. Moore had actually opposed Shedd's a a hiring, arguing that school district with predominantly black enrollment a should have black superintendent. Shedd, Moore said in 1966, "wouldn't a an know Negro from Eskimo."105 In Civilities and recounts Civil Rights, William Chafe how Greensboro once civil rights leaders who had been passionate advocates of school to save once integration fought the city's all-black schools the political victory for integration had been achieved. "The 1954 decision," one black activist in said in on Greensboro 1971, "was based aspirations for quality was a education. Integration only tactic."106As both Formisano and Ravitch

103 Paolantonio, Last Big Man, 248. 104 Franklin, Education of Black Philadelphia, 201. 105 Board Richard de Lone, "3 Considered By forWhittier's Job," Philadelphia Bulletin, Nov. 19, A 1966, 1; Allen Matusow, The Unraveling ofAmerica: History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York, 1984), 355. 106 William Civilities and Civil Carolina Chafe, Rights: Greensboro, North and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York, 1980), 229. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 209 point out, many school desegregation proponents recognized that forced was busing educationally harmful yet supported it because of the symbolic the victory forced integration represented.107 Similarly, black community's was more support for Shedd and Dilworth tactical than truly heartfelt. For at same movement was at example, the time that the community control its a peak in New York City, Philadelphia's black community opposed proposal create an autonomous to model school district in North Philadelphia, run a composed of thirty-one schools which would have been by locally was elected, fifteen-member school board. Shedd's plan rejected by black an parents who considered it "another experiment with Negroes and attempt to by the school board sidestep its responsibilities for educating all the children."108 Many blacks believed better schools would only be achieved once they secured political power within the school system. "The ability of to a black leaders bring about favorable change in the conditions in the on public schools," writes black historian Vincent Franklin, "rested the amount of political power wielded by the black community."109 Both the more affective curriculum?which granted students opportunity for self expression?and Shedd's push for increased community involvement provided blacks with greater influence within the school system. While reason were blacks had to endorse these elements of Shedd's agenda, they was not less supportive of other purely pedagogical reforms because it clear cause how these innovations would advance the of political empowerment. race was not to The primacy of in school politics unique Philadelphia. was at center During the 1960s and early 1970s, racial conflict the of urban across race come to school politics the country.110 How did eclipse class, ethnicity, and religion?political interests which throughout the nineteenth over and early twentieth centuries had actively vied for influence public one answer education? Diane Ravitch offers potential in The Great School to Wars, her history of the New York City public schools. According Ravitch, since the creation of public school systems in the early nineteenth century, the public school has been "the battleground where the aspirations newcomers met of the and the fears of the native population and clashed." access She interprets the civil rights movement's push for equal and better

107 Formisano, Boston Against Busing, 224; Ravitch, The Troubled Crusade, 180-81. 108 DeWolf and Gillespie, "See Mark Shedd," 153-54. 109 193. Franklin, Education of Black Philadelphia, 110 180. Katznelson andWeir, Schooling for All, 210 JON S. BIRGER July

as a treatment by school officials just another in series of attempts by to minority groups seize political power from those in the political establishment. The concurrent migrations of Puerto Ricans and southern to blacks New York in the post-World War II period created problems for were to it the public school system that nearly identical those had faced with eastern in Irish and then European immigrants the nineteenth century. were "Once more, the public schools faced with spiraling enrollments, crowded and deteriorating buildings, academic retardation, vandalism, and a cultural conflict between teachers and pupils. In the 1890s, the reformers blamed the ward trustees and decentralization for inefficient administration

and poor education; this time the reformers would castigate the professional staff and centralization."111 are There two major problems with Ravitch's argument. First, in equating over Progressive Era reformers with 1960s civil rights activists, she glosses sets the fact that these two of reformers represented opposing political in to interests. The Progressives sought reform order undermine the influence immigrants exerted through ward-based management of the public schools; the reformers of the 1960s wanted to restore the influence of the the political interest groups by making professional class, anointed by more to The Progressives, responsive public demands. other problem with to over Ravitch's argument is her failure recognize that political influence more to public education represented something far significant blacks than over it did to nineteenth-century immigrants. For white immigrants, control meant or the school system securing the spoils of patronage perhaps foreign access to was language instruction for their children. Equal public schooling never as itwas questioned for these ethnic groups for blacks. a of Ira Katznelson and Margaret Weir offer better explanation why so efforts at school reform in the 1960s and 1970s became entangled in racial to the reforms of the Era politics. According these authors, Progressive resulted in the domestication of class and ethnicity in school politics. By the so into a 1960s working-class, ethnic whites had become co-opted system to educators which granted almost all control of public schools professional was no on more that there longer any basis for resistance ethnic or, The class importantly, class grounds. school systems' professional successfiilly the American class. "At the exploited the split identity of working work,

111 Ravitch, The Great School Wars, xxix, 240. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 211

was as working class formed labor, represented by trade unions," they write. was a "Off work it mobilized by decentralized party system, stressing territorial and ethnic rather than class identities and the delivery of services to was their residential communities." This split identity created by the to elimination of property barriers white, male suffrage before the onset of create market capitalism. Capitalism would new, less tractable class divisions, but because American workers "had already been mobilized by political state as were parties into the voting citizens," these divisions muted. western Whereas Europe's working class?initially denied the vote?had as an resisted state schooling, perceiving it elitist imposition, in the mid-nineteenth century American workers joined in political coalitions were favoring public schooling because here public schools local institutions controlled by elected municipal officials.112 Because of this split identity, were to school administrators able narrowly define the interests of working class whites. They appeased ethnic interests by initiating foreign language in and to instruction the schools, responded labor's demands by offering vocational programs that would undercut management-run training schools. By the 1930s these accommodations had diminished the interest of working class whites' in the day-to-day administration of the public schools.

an new No longer did influential minority stand outside the arrangements. Reformers, business, and the Catholic hierarchy all had a voice in the new a arrangements presided over by professional educator. Even labor, whose a was political fortunes were at low ebb, not excluded. Its influence over vocational education went unchallenged, and labor participation in teachers' as the union now more affairs expanded teachers' grew.... Schools would be narrow receptive to the church's and labors most organizational objectives a within reform structure that granted professionals ultimate control over schooling.113

not an While blacks may have constituted influential minority in the mass to 1930s, the migration of blacks from the South the northern cities after World War II altered the political landscape. Suddenly urban school were to a systems being asked accommodate large minority group that had never accepted the legitimacy of the professional class. Making the situation

112 41-57. Katznelson andWeir, Schooling for All, 113 Katznelson andWeir, Schooling for All, 148-49. 212 JON S. BIRGER July more was not same complicated the fact that blacks could be appeased in the For the access to way white ethnics had been. blacks fight for equal public was to "the for schooling central larger effort full and equal membership in American society," Katznelson and Weir write. "Thus the targets of black more to demands felt all the imperiled because, contrary the fragmentary, as were issue-specific character of school politics usual, black school struggles to a more set concerns. most linked wider, global of The view of Americans was to that education the key opportunity (a belief shared by blacks, who a on placed high priority schooling) underscored this relationship and raised even was a the stakes higher. The result dialectic of white resistance and intensified black activity that became increasingly unruly."114 Under these circumstances, the failure of the Shedd-Dilworth reform effort in Philadelphia may have been inevitable. Their push for community sense involvement threatened administrators' and teachers' of profession sense to alism and the white working class's of security. Taught embrace the status quo, working-class whites correctly perceived the black challenge, and Shedd's accommodation of it, as a threat to a system that favored them. not Although whites may have been well-served by their schools, they fared as as were to better than blacks, and long this remained so, whites likely remain content. David has that the source of white racism "Roediger argued working-class was to a the 'public and psychological wages' whiteness offered desperate to rural and often preindustrial population coming labor in industrializing to to American cities." Insecure about their ability adapt urban life, these to an white immigrants clung identity that contrasted them with ex-slaves were a who associated with backwards, pre-industrial lifestyle.115 Likewise, to were Philadelphia's working-class whites clung the illusion that they better off than the city's blacks. In Kensington the social and economic were to deprivations comparable those of Philadelphia's black ghettos, yet to to residents of the Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood refused face up their problems. "What's the matter?" they would ask the social workers and came to we for government planners who help. "Aren't good enough you?" were are to Social workers stumped: "Kensingtonians psychologically unable one face up to their social, cultural, and economic deprivation," said

114 Katznelson andWeir, Schooling for All,, 180-81,190. 115 Race the American David Roediger, The Wages ofWhiteness: and Making of the Working Class (New York, 1991), 95,137. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 213 municipal official. "Pride prevents them from taking advantage of social to services. For them to accept these services might be admit that they're not to want all they claim be." "Kensington doesn't us," another official reported. area. "It refuses to admit it's a poverty It won't go into programs with to either white schools or black Negroes."116 Thus any attempts improve help were sure to schools be resisted by working-class whites obsessed with status preserving the quo. When Rizzo announced in October 1968 that "there's too much outsider influence in the school system today" and that the schools should be "controlled by the teachers and the Board of Education, not a bunch of teenagers," the city's white ethnics had found their champion.117 Rizzo went on to serve two terms as mayor, from 1972 to 1980. He made to two unsuccessful attempts reclaim the mayor's office in 1983 and 1987. In a a 1991, in the midst of third comeback bid, Rizzo died following massive to a heart attack. Dilworth retired from public life in 1971, succumbing brain to tumor three years later. In 1972 Shedd returned Harvard, where he taught was for two years. In 1974 he appointed commissioner of education for was a Connecticut; serving in that capacity for nine years, his main legacy new state aid system that fiinneled the greatest amount of money to the was soon state's poorest districts. Shedd diagnosed with leukemia after he in at left Connecticut. Up until his death 1986, he taught the University of Southern Maine's School of Public Policy and Management. was to as When Shedd forced step down Philadelphia's school some superintendent in December 1971, of his former supporters claimed to that Shedd only had himself blame. He didn't keep his promises, they never said. He got rid of the entrenched bureaucracy. Even the Inquirers once was editorial board, quite supportive of Shedd, noncommittal in success or evaluating his legacy. "Only the passage of time, and the relative failure of his successor," the paper editorialized, "will permit the to achievements and the disappointments of Superintendent Shedd be in evaluated objectively and perspective."118 worse With the passage of time, Philadelphia's schools grew and worse,

116 Binzen, Whitetown, 80-103. 117 Would Be 127-29. Daughen and Binzen, Cop Who King, 118 and I to Binzen, review oiHow 2 Gerbils, 20 Goldfish, 2,000 Books Taught Them How Read, by Steven Daniels, Philadelphia Magazine, November 1971, 38-44; "Shedd Goes, But Problems Stay," Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 7,1971,10. 214 JON S. BIRGER July

and the Shedd-Dilworth years looked better and better. When Shedd died on November 17, 1986?ironically the nineteenth anniversary of Black in Friday?a lead editorial the Inquirer finally offered the proper evaluation to the paper declined provide in 1971. The editorial credited Shedd and Dilworth with giving

the schools efficient and cost-effective administration, rid[ding] the system of were or political patronage employees who unqualified unproductive, and on revitaliz[ing] academic programs and curriculum with greater emphasis early childhood education. They also implemented policies that aimed at easing racial tensions in the schools. were were Those turbulent times, but they also years of impressive progress .. in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, itwas short-lived.. During the eight years of the Rizzo administration the public school system regressed both administratively and academically?a long and painful decline that did not end until... the early 1980s. Public confidence was restored with the appointment of reform-minded school board members and [Shedd as prot?g?e] Constance E. Clayton superintendent.

The editorial ouster as to concluded by recalling Shedd's 1971 "a tragic blow public education in Philadelphia?a blow from which the schools have to recover in recent no begun only years."119 In the days that followed, letters to the editor challenged the paper's wistful remembrance of Shedd's years in The News s on was Philadelphia. Philadelphia Daily editorial Shedd's passing was a equally nostalgic. "Mark Shedd here for only five years, but he had on . . . a lasting and indelible impact Philadelphia. What five years they were!"120 "Because of Mark," said Clayton, whom Shedd had appointed to a her first administrative post, "the school district is better place for child ren."121 Unfortunately, Clayton's reforms?many inspired by Shedd?fell was well short of expectations. By the time she left office in 1993 there little to distinguish the Philadelphia school system from all the other troubled in are urban school systems the United States. "The schools failing," said Rotan Lee, president of the Philadelphia Board of Education, in 1994.122 "Ifwe divorce school subjects from the guts and hopes of human beings,"

119 "Mark Shedd Remembered," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 20,1986, 26-A. 120 "The Shedd Legacy," Philadelphia Daily News, Nov. 19,1986. 121 Saffron, "Friends Remember Shedd," 2-B. 122 to Dale Mezzacappa, "The Challenge Reformers," Philadelphia Inquirer, May 8,1994, Al. 1996 RACE, REACTION, AND REFORM 215

Shedd once said, "we can expect students to find them gutless and has become In 1994 the hopeless."123 Rhetoric reality. May Inquirer a feature on school freshman published disheartening sixteen-year-old high Nereida Mulero. Nereida?"smart, sassy, and troubled"?is representative in to of the majority of students the Philadelphia public schools, according the article:

Sometime around fourth or fifth grade, her reading, writing, and math skills stalled, and now at Edison High School, she is failing most of her courses. as as It doesn't help that she misses much school she attends?58 of the first to see to 124 days this year.When she does show up, it's preen, to her friends, check out boys. now no one an "Right I don't got goals," Nereida said afternoon, nibbling room ice cream bar in the cafeteria, scanning the big for action. The class she was cutting was Career Prep. a . . . Nereida is not indifferent to school. She hates it "with passion." "Teachers don't care," she said. "If you come, you come. If you don't, you don't. All my friends dropped out; the teachers didn't care."

Today the Philadelphia school district classifies nearly eighty percent of its as come students "poor," and, like Nereida, about fifty-two percent from families on welfare. The teachers union resists even the most modest courses most are to reforms. The taught in schools devoid of any connection structures are students' lives outside the classroom. "The old still eating the one come as no new," said school district consultant.124 So it should surprise that students like Nereida have, as Shedd forewarned, lost faith in the value of education. Given the intensely negative reaction of many white Americans to the introduction of Afrocentric curricula in urban schools, bridging the gap between "school subjects" and "the guts and hopes" of inner-city more was students may be difficult today than it twenty-five years ago. The story of Shedd and Dilworth's rise and fall is heartbreaking. But for a is: a in those looking for silver lining, here it by playing such decisive role run Rizzo the determining who should Philadelphia's schools, closed door on era to the when mayors could govern without paying attention public now at to some education. The mayor is responsible, least extent, for the

123 to Mark Shedd, "Speech the Assembled Staff." to 124Mezzacappa, "Challenge Reformers," Al. 216 JON S. BIRGER July

state of the Philadelphia school system. And this is just what reformers had voters to in mind in 1965 when they convinced change the way the school was is that while is now board appointed. The problem there accountability, our are at an expectations for urban school systems all-time low. The difficulties faced by politicians and superintendents?the intransigence of teachers' unions, the continuing decline of the American city's economic to base, and growing impassivity of suburbanites' the plight of the inner city?seem insurmountable. Perhaps that's why the great debate in urban education today isn't about improving the public schools but replacing them, or with either state-sponsored charter schools voucher programs for private narrow once to schooling. The window of opportunity open school reformers has been slammed shut.

New YorkCity Jon S. Birger