City of Philadelphia - File #: 100728

• File #: 100728
• Version: 0
• Type: Resolution
• Status: ADOPTED
• File created: 10/28/2010
• In control: CITY COUNCIL
• Title: Honoring and Congratulating Commonwealth Court Judge Doris A. Smith-Ribner on Receiving the Thaddeus Stevens Award Recognizing her Work to Provide Equal Educational Opportunity to All Students in the School District of Philadelphia.
• Sponsors: Councilmember Blackwell, Councilmember Goode, Councilmember Kenney, Councilmember DiCicco, Councilmember Greenlee, Councilmember Clarke, Councilmember Miller, Councilmember Jones, Councilmember Sanchez, Councilmember Green, Councilmember O'Neill, Councilmember Rizzo, Council President Verna, Councilmember Krajewski, Councilmember Tasco, Councilmember Reynolds Brown

Date	Ver.	Action By	Action	Result	Tally
10/28/2010	0	CITY COUNCIL	Introduced, Read and Adopted	Pass

Title
Honoring and Congratulating Commonwealth Court Judge Doris A. Smith-Ribner on Receiving the Thaddeus Stevens Award Recognizing her Work to Provide Equal Educational Opportunity to All Students in the School District of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, Judge Doris A. Smith-Ribner was elected to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in 1987 after having served on the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Juvenile Division; and

WHEREAS, In 1993, Judge Smith-Ribner was assigned the landmark school desegregation case that had begun 23 years earlier in 1970, Pennsylvania Human Relations v. School District of Philadelphia, which sought equal educational opportunity for African-American and Hispanic students attending racially isolated public schools in the City of Philadelphia; and

WHEREAS, For years following the initiation of the law suit, the School District relied almost exclusively on bussing to address the lack of educational opportunity in the City's racially isolated schools; and

WHEREAS, After deciding that the School District failed to provide an equal educational opportunity for all students in the District, the Judge issued a Remedial Order in 1994 that focused on improving educational opportunities for the more than 100,000 students who remained in the racially isolated schools, rather than relying on the traditional desegregation strategy of busing: "We have to provide a quality education to all of our children if they are to succeed," she explained; and

WHEREAS, The Remedial Order required the School District to undertake actions to remedy the historical discrimination found to exist against African-American and Hispanic students and to provide them with equal educational opportunities including: requiring the District, among other things, to provide full-day kindergarten as of September 1995; a standardized curriculum with up-to-date textbooks; modernization of facilities for racially isolated schools; reduced dropout rates for hi...