Committee Hearing, June 16, 2008

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, June 16, 2008 10:10 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN RESOLUTION 080140 - Resolution authorizing the Council Committee on Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings on the findings and recommendations of the Urban League of Philadelphia's report, The State of Black Philadelphia... - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2

Good morning. We will call the Committee on Public Health and Human Services to order and recognize that we have Councilman Goode. Other members of the Committee will come shortly as they arrive in City Hall. Some of them are in their offices, and I encourage them to come down to the hearing. Councilman Curtis Jones is in his seat to listen and share. And this is a resolution. Therefore, we do not need a quorum, because there will be no 14 vote on this matter. We will ask the Clerk now to read the resolution.

Resolution 18 authorizing the Council Committee on Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings on the findings and recommendations of the Urban League of Philadelphia's report, The State of Black Philadelphia, and further authorizing the Committee to seek advice and recommendations on how Philadelphia can 3 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 level the economic playing field for all citizens.

Thank you very much. It is my pleasure today to convene the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Public Health and Human Services, welcome Patricia A. Coulter, the Urban League of Philadelphia, and other distinguished guests to hold this hearing on the findings and recommendations of the Urban League's most recent State of Black Philadelphia. This current report was released seven months ago and is the 12th volume of the State of Black Philadelphia and commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Urban League. It has been ten years since this report was last published. I congratulate you on your significant anniversary. The report, which is the subject of our hearing today, will address many of the issues that affect 4 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 the City's residents of African descent, which make up 44 percent of the population of the City of Philadelphia, the largest of all racial, ethnic groups. The report is a compilation of research, data and essays which reflect the persistent disparities that exist between black and white citizens of Philadelphia. It is emphasized that in order to have sustainable economic growth, racial disparities and economic opportunity must be alleviated and the economic playing field leveled for all. Today we will address the subjects of social justice, education, economics and health. Experts in each of these areas, many of whose findings and research developed the report, will render their opinions, their advice and recommendations on how we can level the playing field for all of the citizens of Philadelphia. I welcome you all and look forward to hearing from you. 5 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 I believe our first witness will be Patricia A. Coulter, the President and CEO of the Urban League of Philadelphia. Would you come forward and any other members from the Urban League you'd like to have come with you. (Witness approached witness table.)

Good morning, Councilwoman Tasco. I am starting out up here lonely by myself this morning. I will be the only one in the beginning, and then we'll flow with the panels, if that's okay with you.

Thank you. Can you pull the mike down a little bit, because you sound muffled.

Is this good?

That's better.

Is this better? Okay. So good morning. I am Patricia 6 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 A. Coulter, as you just heard, President and CEO of the Urban League of Philadelphia. I am here today to address the need to eliminate racial disparities in the City of Philadelphia. I want to thank Council Majority Leader and Committee Chair Marian Tasco for her insight to conduct this hearing on the Urban League of Philadelphia's recent report, the State of Black Philadelphia. You will hear testimony from a number of individuals who will cover the data and issues stated in the report. The Urban League is a non-profit, non-partisan, civil rights and community-based movement that provides direct services, research and policy advocacy to help individuals achieve social and economic equality. Primarily working with African-Americans, the Urban League of Philadelphia is an affiliate of the National Urban League, based in New York City, and has operated here in the Philadelphia community for 91 7 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 years. The State of Black Philadelphia report was released seven months ago and proclaimed as "a call to urgency" to address the issues that affect the City's residents of African descent that make up 44 percent of the population. The State of Black Philadelphia report provides compelling research and data about the persistent disparities that exist between black and white Philadelphians in five areas: economics, education, health, civic engagement and social justice. The report calculates the equality index at 0.72, meaning that African-Americans in Philadelphia are only 72 percent as well off as whites. It also provides a compilation of essays and recommendations to closing the equality gaps that persist today, some 43 years after the Civil Rights Act. The report informs, engages and motivates all Philadelphians to play a more proactive role in improving the Greater Philadelphia community, 8 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 irrespective of their race, ethnicity, religion and socioeconomic level. This document, the State of Black Philadelphia, serves as a wake-up call to Greater Philadelphia in hope that it can be used as a tool to bring about a plan for action that supports real change for all of the citizens of this region. The Urban League has assembled several panels to provide testimony on the data presented in the report and to make recommendations to the Committee that could lead to legislation that would achieve public policy goals. We have gathered the panels to coincide with four of the five key areas measured in the report: economics, education, health and social justice. The panels represent individuals from the Urban League Board of Directors, the Urban League Advisory Council and experts in these fields, many of whom contributed to the Action Agenda portion. All these individuals believe in the potential greatness of the City of 9 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Philadelphia. However, we all agree that the City of Philadelphia cannot be a tale of two cities, one black and one white, one rich and one poor, one where a disproportionate number of the population is groveling in poverty. With African-Americans making up 44 percent of the population in Philadelphia County, we believe that as individuals improve their lives, so will the City improve its economic standing in the region, in the nation and in the world. If the City wants a vibrant growing metropolis in which race produces no negative accounting, we must take a hard line, proactive approach to address and solve the problems that lead to this disproportionate inequality and economic status of black people in the City of Philadelphia. We strongly seek the support and resources of Majority Leader Tasco, Committee members and the Council at 10 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 large to eliminate these persistent racial disparities. Thank you so much for your time this morning.

Thank you very much for your testimony. We welcome you here to City Council. I believe when you issued this report, we talked about having hearings in Council so that we could get a sense of just -- certainly we got a copy of the executive report, but we wanted to be able to share with the broader public, and this should be televised on our site, Channel 64, if anyone is listening to watch the hearings, and probably might be repeated. I'm not sure about that.

We would like to get that word out, then. Thank you.

Certainly you all spent a lot of time in putting this report together, and I appreciate what you've done and thank you very much. Before I ask my questions, I'll 11 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 ask Councilman Goode if he has any questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One simple question. Your report obviously locally and nationally deals with racial disparities. A lot of my policy and legislative work has dealt with the same, but there is an ongoing debate about a response to that, whether there should be race-based strategies or race-neutral strategies. Where does the local Urban League fall on that debate?

So you're asking whether we have thought about --

Should the strategies to resolve racial disparities be race based or race neutral?

Yes. One of the things that we will call attention to today in these panels are a lot of the recommendations that are in the part of the report that we call the Action Agenda, and the Action Agenda really 12 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 looks at the five key areas as broken down with a -- in fact, there were so many resolutions presented, we couldn't even print them all, so there are others that we still have. But in terms of whether it's race based or not, I guess the way we are viewing this is that when you have a substantial segment of the population of any given area, 44 percent for us here in Philadelphia, being in a disparate situation, that is going to impact and bring down, if you will, everyone else. And so whether or not the solutions might be race based, I think it's really more around making sure that the economic and health and social justice policies really reflect those who are in our community and in our system. So I don't know if I'm getting to your question. If not, certainly follow up.

Well, there are those that believe that the economic 13 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 condition of African-Americans is due to racial discrimination. Therefore, the way to resolve that is to move into a race-neutral society. There are others who believe that because of the condition of African-Americans, the only way to overcome the harm that has been done is to employ race-based strategies. And so my question is, do you find the recommendations in the report are geared toward more raced-based strategies or race-neutral strategies?

Well, I think that there's probably a combination when you read the different solutions that have been recommended. For example, if we just look at the education -- and you'll hear from an education panel, for example -- many of the recommendations being made by the education panel will refer to the Philadelphia School District. It's not necessarily saying that these are just for African-American kids. But when you look at the fact that 14 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 African-American kids are disproportionately represented in the Philadelphia School District, then you sort of get to that issue of race. I don't think that it's race neutral. I wouldn't say that in terms of recommendations of the report. This is really about moving African-Americans forward in this city and around the country. The Councilwoman mentioned the national report that this was based off of. Nationally, there's a report called the State of Black America. And so, again, it looks at race across the country, and that particular equality index is at 0.73. So Philadelphia is lagging really in and around the same as the national number. So I think it's not race neutral at all.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Let me just ask you a couple of 15 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 questions. This is the first time in ten years you published a report here in Philadelphia?

Yes.

In looking at the report, how do you compare it to your last report that you published and have you seen any improvement in what you found ten years ago and what presently is reported in this document today?

Well, one of the reasons we -- or one of the things, I should say, that we did with this report, because you're absolutely right, it had been published -- this is the 12th issue of the report over the Urban League's 91-year history, and one of the reasons we changed the model of the report, meaning we changed the way the information is being published, is to give us these basis points so that the question you just asked, we can effectively answer in the next four years or six years. 16 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 In the last report in 1997, I guess it was, there was no statistical measurements to these five key areas. The report was really a compilation of essays dealing with some of these issues. In fact, that report was focused on the economic playing field. I think that was actually the name of the report that year. So many experts discussed the issues of leveling the economic playing field, but we weren't really able or we didn't at that point in time measure the actual gaps between blacks and whites. So since the National Urban League measures these gaps on a national scale, we wanted to know and actually our Board thought it would be prudent to be able to say where does Philadelphia fall in all of this. So if nationally there's a 0.56 gap in economics, where does Philadelphia come out in that same area. So we have taken a new twist with the report with this ten-year 17 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 hiatus, but our intent is that we will measure it again, because now we have baseline data, we're able to in another four years, which is our hope, look at this again, do the research again, and I'm hoping through some positive policies through potential resolution to this, that we can see some positive outcomes in another four years.

What is the Urban League's plan to engage the Philadelphia community in addressing the issues that are part of this plan -- I mean, this report in trying to resolve some of the problems cited and to address your action plan?

Well, we have -- as I've said to our staff and to our Board, the report was just the beginning of our work, is how we're viewing this. We think that the work begins now. And so in gathering together a number of different stakeholder groups, we do have a plan for that. One is the Legislature, 18 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 obviously the public sector, and that's why we're so delighted to be here with you today, because we want to continue this dialogue, both on the local and state level, as well as the federal level. We also have a plan to engage communities around town hall meetings, around conferences. In fact, one of the supportive elements of this, the funding of this, was through the Samuel Fels Fund, along with Keystone Mercy Health Plan and the United Way, and part of that funding has allowed us to have a graduate-level intern, who is actually here today and who will be working with us over the summer, to hold a number of town hall meetings in various quadrants of the City so that we can engage the community around these issues as well, because in that Action Agenda, there are things in there that individuals can do as well. This is not just about what the government can do or what business can 19 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 do, but it's also about what I can do as an individual. So we are hoping that we get the community involved at that level. Just last week we presented at a CEO conference on diversity, which was sponsored by Deloitte & Touche here in the City, and we were part of that panel to again talk about best practices in corporate America and begin to work with the Greater Philadelphia Chamber. They have asked us to partner with them around some of their initiatives so that they can also be involved in this movement. Because the way we look at this is that it will take all the segments. It takes the public sector, it takes the private sector, the non-profit sector, individuals. This is really a collective effort if we're going to be able to move this in a more urgent way. I think a lot of people are tired of just talking about the issues, which was really what the reports have done in the past, they've kind of talked 20 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 about the issues. We wanted in this report to say, yes, here are the issues and here's how bad it really is by measuring it. But then also we wanted to say, here are some things we think can be done about it, will you work with us, will you help us push this agenda and move this needle.

Is the role of the Urban League to speak out on local issues that would have some impact on accomplishing the goal to deal with your action plan?

Yes. Yes.

Are you able to do that as an organization? I mean, such as the issue of the foreclosures, we've had a lot of discussion about that here in the City of Philadelphia or some of the other issues, maybe the issue before Council like the park or whatever. Are you able to voice your opinion and the opinion of the Board of 21 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 the Urban League and where you stand on these issues that come before the public?

Yes, we are able to do that. As I mentioned earlier, we are, of course, a non-partisan organization, but in terms of the issues that you raise, if there are issues that are affecting the equality gap, then we think that that is our position to speak out. In terms of the foreclosure issue, we're actually running programs around foreclosure prevention. So that is an area where we do find -- many times not only do we have to speak out about the issue, but we work directly in servicing individuals who are being affected by foreclosure. So we are sometimes on the front line, as I call it, when it comes to helping individuals to improve their lives. And so our advocacy role, there's a balance there in terms of direct services that we provide to 22 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 individuals who are going through some of these challenges and then on the other side it might be making statements or producing research reports that also address these issues.

The National Urban League -- I know we're here to talk about the local, but you're all tied in together.

Yes.

What is their role in addressing some of the legislation before the federal government that would have an impact, an economic impact, on the community, particularly around the issue of foreclosure, around the issue of changing the law? Because you know I'm very much interested in consumer issues and consumer advocacy, because I believe the federal government has a great role to play there and are just now addressing some of the issues. Where is the voice of the Urban League in addressing these issues to 23 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Congress? Because you are a large national/international organization influential with a powerful Board. Where do you come down in trying to advocate before not only the feds but the state, because our state Legislature has a role to play in all of this also. And not just on the foreclosure issue, but any issue that will help to eliminate the disparities in the area of economics and social justice and education. Where is your voice and how do you use that voice?

Let me see if I can do that quickly for you, because we are very engaged on the national level around these issues, and there is a document which I could actually get to you, if you care to see it, that the national organization released back in -- actually, one year ago at our national conference that's called the Opportunity Compact, and the Opportunity Compact is the National Urban League's voice around policy recommendations to the federal 24 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 government, and we have four key areas that we are focused on in these recommendations. We call it the opportunity to thrive. The opportunity to thrive takes into consideration children and everything that children need to live wholesome and healthy lives. The opportunity to earn, which takes into account all the economic issues related to employment, to job skills training, to the things that people need to earn a living. The opportunity to own, which takes into account homeownership, and this is where, again, losing a home, even the Urban League has come out with something called the Homeowners Bill of Rights. And then the fourth one is the opportunity to prosper, which really looks at entrepreneurship and building wealth in the African-American community. So our national President and CEO, Marc Morial, has put those four 25 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 policy recommendations into a booklet that talks about or talks to each one of those, with policy recommendations. And so when we visited Capitol Hill back in March, there were over 200 Urban Leaguers from across the country. We each went into our State Senators. Pennsylvania, we went in as a delegation of the four Urban Leagues in the State of Pennsylvania to talk with Senator Casey and Senator Specter. We also individually met with all of our local representatives in Congress to talk about the Opportunity Compact, how that Opportunity Compact then for us in Philadelphia fits into our State of Black Philadelphia, and then we began to discuss with them how to move some of these policy recommendations forward. So there is, to your question, a national voice around these issues. What we're trying to do locally is align ourselves with that national voice, but also keep an account what is happening 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 locally, which is why we wanted to measure the disparities here in Philadelphia, so we could speak to that locally, and then work together with our national CEO to push this agenda forward.

Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments? (No response.)

Let me announce that Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller has joined us as a member of this Committee. You will stay around?

Oh, yes, I'll be around.

Oh, Councilman Jones.

Thank you, Madam Chairman. First of all, let me congratulate you for having this hearing, and I think that this is a significant 27 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 blueprint for not just what the State of Black Philadelphia is, but a call to action, as you put it, on a blueprint on what we need to do. Particularly it was enlightening to see a lot of contributors to this report, who I have talked to or worked with individually, whether it's Dr. Anderson or C. Darnell Jones about various issues, everything from sheriff's sales to some of the prison issues, but when you compile it all in one document, it is compelling, because it kind of connects the dots as to what the problem is or what the links in the chain are as it comes to African-Americans in particular in Philadelphia. The other thing that I find interesting is a parallel that at one point in our history, right after slavery -- and I don't want to get into post-slavery syndrome, but we were considered three-fourths of a human being, three-fourths of a human being. 28 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 When we start reading this, we start seeing on a quantitative measurement level that we are only experiencing three-fourths of the fullness of life, that we only in the area of civic engagement do we exceed our counterparts in other races and cultures. So it is disturbing to me as a Councilperson. And one of the things that I will note, that Councilman Goode whether it came to issues of African-American males in their education attainment level and then drawing the correlation between the amount of violence in that same demographic and then seeing that they wind up incarcerated more often and drawing those links, or whether Councilwoman Tasco in the sheriff's sale issue. So what this does for us in Council, as we start to look at budgets and determine budget priorities, we get a blueprint, a map, if you would, on how to determine priorities budgetarily for the 29 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 City. So I'm thankful for this. And I knew a little bit in different areas, but when you put it all in one document, it is a compelling argument for us doing more in this Council and in the City to try to change some of these statistics. My question will be, how do you think the upcoming census -- this is operating on some older data at this point. Do you think that in the upcoming census as we turn the decade that it will have an impact on some of this and, if so, in what direction?

I wish I could say it would be a positive direction. I'm not sure about that, though. You're correct, the data that you have there -- we did the report in '07, so we were probably looking at data from '06, and so there's always that lag of collecting data. I guess I would base that on, Councilman, that the fact that since 30 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 1972, the National Urban League has been publishing the State of Black America, and then the last five years, the National Urban League has been measuring the gaps. So within that period of time, there has been change, but the change has been minuscule and it really may be by one-tenth or something you'll see a change in education or economics. I think once the census is done, I don't know -- since we're focused primarily on African-Americans, I'm not sure what that will do to the report. I think it will be interesting to see where our numbers fall out at that particular time. Right now, African-Americans are still the largest population in the City and County of Philadelphia. Once the census is completed, I guess we'll see again where that is. But I guess I'm not so optimistic that the census is going to change the numbers as much as what we might be able to do to really move some 31 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 of these needles, I like to call them, the economic needle, the health needle, the education needle, can we move the social justice needle just a bit to see that there's positive growth in the direction. Because I think if Philadelphia is able to come up with some models for eliminating racial disparities, this can be a model for the country. It doesn't have to just be used here in Philadelphia. I mean, there are other cities like ours where urban leagues exist that this could be -- whatever we come up with here could definitely be a model for the rest of the country. So I'm hopeful that this report, even when we get the census, will still allow us to do it in a way that we can reflect the data.

My interest is to be ahead of the curve. One of the things that I'm proudest most of is that we preempted some things that could have 32 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 gone very wrong in the sheriff's sale process, under Councilwoman Tasco's leadership. I am often pleased when this Council is preemptive, like when Councilwoman Miller and Darrell Clarke tried to stop the sale of handguns, being preemptive and affirmative in our actions. My question is, some of these statistics -- and I guess Dr. Anderson might also shed some of this. I've had prior discussions with him about the middle class and where it's going and whether or not some of these statistics show that there is an erosion of that -- there's almost a have and have not situation being demonstrated in these statistics, and I'm just concerned as to what we can do on the Action Agenda from our positions here in Council to do something about that. Councilwoman Reynolds Brown being an advocate, recently, Friday, she was a part of a panel that talked about 33 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 education and higher education and the lack of dollars now available for graduate and college educations from FIA and other places. So we're very concerned about these statistics and what we can do to preempt some of them and move the index up a little bit.

I think and hope that today when you hear from the people that will come after me, that you will get more of this, because panels are broken into social justice, education, economics, and some of the people you name, like Dr. Anderson, will be participating. So if it's okay with you, we can share that.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

The Chair recognizes that Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown has joined us, and the Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 34 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Good morning.

Good morning.

I want to follow up on Councilman Jones' question, which I think is quite timely when we look to see that we are about months 8 from the development of census activity. 9 Has the National Urban League 10 ever taken any role in data census 11 activities at all? 12

To my knowledge, 13 no. I don't know. And I'm not exactly 14 sure what you mean by taking a "role." 15 So I think the role might be in some 16 urban leagues across the country the 17 extent that we would get involved in 18 outreach or making sure that people are 19 getting the information, that kind of 20 thing, but I don't know if that's what 21 you mean by a "role." 22

That's 23 what I mean. What I've learned since 24 I've been here is, the more we get everyone involved in the census activity, 35 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 actually get them registered, that drives the dollars from the federal government. So to the extent that our communities and residents in our communities are not involved in the census, collected in the census, then that diminishes the amount of dollars that come back to cities around the country.

I'm sure Urban League affiliates across the country -- that probably is not driven from the national level, because it's what we refer to as -- it's on-the-ground activity, so it means that the local affiliates would be engaged in that activity. We have not done that here in Philadelphia. We certainly are very big on outreach in this community. We think that, as I mentioned earlier, just going into the various neighborhoods and communities to engage people around the dialogue even in this report, we think that there are many, many ways that we 36 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 need to touch people to educate them and get them on board with what's happening with our community. So we're very open to entertaining those types of activities.

Okay. That's instructive. The report is extremely comprehensive and I was delighted and thrilled to see the Urban League once again collected data and then presented it to us so that we as policymakers can make informed decisions and set priorities about where we want to invest our time. What priorities has the Urban League decided to focus on? What one, two or three priorities, given the information, has the Urban League decided to focus on? Because there may be an opportunity for us to then partner and help broaden the scope this way and that way in terms of the subject matter.

Well, it's an 37 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 excellent question and it is one that we continue to work on, actually. You will hear from some of the people that we have assembled here this morning, and one is my Board Chair, Michael Rashid, and he and I just met a couple of weeks ago to talk about that very issue, because there are so many different areas that we could focus, and we've kind of broken it out into the five areas just to give the data and to also keep the baseline of the report in line with the national report, which is also on the five areas. But those of you who have been working with the Urban League over the last several years, you know that we have crafted something that we call the three E's, and our three E's are really centered around economic advancement, educational achievement and then the third E is what we call engagement. And those E's are really sort of the cornerstones of the work that we currently do here in Philadelphia. 38 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 And so we are trying to now define like if there were three things or two things that we could do over the next several years that would show positive impact on this data when it's measured again, what would the two biggest things be. And so I'll be honest with you to say we haven't determined what they are yet, but what we do know is that some of these things are inextricably linked together, and I think that's what sometimes makes the decision more difficult. Because when we talk about moving the economic needle, that needle really won't move very much without education. And so some of these things are tied. Health is tied to economics, because if people aren't healthy, if they don't have insurance, they can't work. So some of these things are just so inextricably tied together that it becomes difficult to say if we focus all of our energy on getting people jobs, let's say, then we can move the needle. 39 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Well, what if they can't get there or they don't have the skills to get the jobs or they get the jobs, they don't keep them? People have health issues that won't allow them to work, the incarceration issue of our young people, the dropout rates. There's so many things that are interrelated, and that's why we want to work closely with the City Council, with our state-level representatives, because I think that we have synergy together. Our Mayor talks about cutting the dropout rate in half. Well, that will certainly drive some of those numbers in that report if we can cut the dropout rate in half. So I think we are really looking for your help in that regard, Councilwoman, to be able to focus us around where we should really put our energy and our resources.

Well, my final comment is this, and I'm going to 40 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 seize the moment. What we know here in Council is that each one of us has special interest areas and sort of much of our legislation becomes a centerpiece for what we do. I think that there's an enormous opportunity to link up with and match up with two of the Mayor's priorities, and one of them is lowering the dropout. In fact, he wants to really inverse the numbers, raise the college-going rate and lower the high school dropout rate. Councilman Jones referenced the hearings we participated in on Friday. The nagging and troubling discovery was that Pennsylvania ranks No. 49 when it comes to African-American students going to college, with Mississippi being No. 20 50. So therein lies an opportunity given that the Urban League already has an educational department and the City has made that -- Mayor Nutter has made that a very explicit priority. Therein may lie an opportunity to really, as you say, 41 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 move the needle. So I would put that on the radar screen of the Urban League and ask you to take a close look at how the Urban League coupled with the School District, with the new leadership there, and Mayor Nutter's priorities, look to see how we can collectively make a real dent of a difference when it comes to our young people and them getting from 9th grade to 48 months later graduating and hopefully pursuing college as an option.

Absolutely.

Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your testimony. We will call -- Councilwoman Miller has a question, a comment.

Hi. Good morning. How are you?

Good morning. 42 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Good. Thank you.

Great. I just want to make a very brief comment. I think that when the Urban League puts these State of Philadelphia reports out, they're so very valuable. I remember when I believe my daughter was very young, they put out the State of Philadelphia Schools, and I used that as a guide when I talked to the teacher or any school-related issues, and I would refer people to that particular issue. And I still have it, actually. I still have it -- actually, it's on my desk. It's not filed away in my office, because I really think it's an important and very useful tool. When I read and look at the five areas, we can all talk about working together, and I certainly think we should. That's the only way that we're going to be able to accomplish anything. As much as you guys and other members of the community and institutions need us, 43 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 we need you, too. When Councilman Clarke and I did the weapon bills and had to go to Commonwealth Court, we put a call out, come on down, have our back, let people know it's important, not just to us and members of Council and the Legislature, but also to the community at large. So I just want to make sure that people know that as much as you need us, we need you also. And when I look at the five areas of your focus in this report, I want to make sure that the family is incorporated somewhere in there, because that's where it all starts if we're going to make a real change. We've been talking about these things for years, you know that, and at some point, I guess if we do one at a time or break off in groups that deal with one issue at a time, we'll be able to figure out what we can do to impact change.

Right. 44 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140

One of the reasons why this City Council, myself, took on the Convention Center project was because of the economics, and we know that the economics can impact the entire five areas here. So I just sometimes --

I know. It's like where to start.

I worked in human services, social services all my life. I worked for nine years for State Representative David Richardson, and this was always his priority. Councilwoman Blackwell -- I mean Reynolds asked the question about census. It made me think about when they were doing the 1990 census, how active and involved David Richardson was as a State Rep. So if we see that kind of activity across the City, then we can send a message out to people to please be counted, you know, that we're not trying to find anything bad about you, we just 45 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 need you to be counted. So with that, I want to thank you for the report and I look forward to hearing a lot of the testimony this morning.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Councilwoman. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next panel, social justice, E. Steven Collins, Phoebe Haddon, Everett Gillison. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good morning, Councilmembers. (Good morning.)

Thank you, Mrs. Tasco, for convening this presentation. I certainly wish today I was coming here to talk to you about a big gathering on the Parkway or some fun with some Greeks on Belmont Plateau or 46 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 even our efforts to take guns off the street through the initiative of our Goods for Guns at Radio One, but in my role as a Board member of the Urban League, it is a much more daunting task to provide this statistical information that you have before you. Social justice is an issue that touches us all with the hallmark work of the multi-racial band of pioneers who founded the Urban League of Philadelphia some 91 years ago in what is sometimes aptly and other times regrettably referenced as the City of Brotherly Love, one that provides social justice, equity and fairness for all citizens. To me and many others, the commitment to justice and fairness for all reflects the true nature of this wonderful city and all of its great people. The disparity index in the area of social justice is particularly troubling. In the important areas of equality before the law and victimization 47 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 of others, despite the efforts of many good people, there is blame enough to be shared by very many people. As Pat Coulter, our President, who is just a visionary, and others will articulate before and after me, I wish to reference the important research presented by the report in front of you, State of Black Philadelphia. As the stats and I share will make abundantly clear as it regards social justice, Philadelphia is definitely, as was stated by Pat earlier, a tale of two cities. Let me highlight but a few of the statistics in the State of Black Philadelphia report that should cause anguish in any fair-minded citizens here and every member of the Council who has the capacity and we hope the will to change in this area. It is probably no surprise to you that adult African-Americans are arrested at a significantly higher rate than whites in Philadelphia. Articulated 48 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 as a percentage of serious crime arrests, a staggering 70 percent of black adults were arrested as compared to just 29 percent of their white counterparts in the year 2006. I don't even think that's a disparity. That is a huge gap, 70 to 29 percent. Less serious crimes resulted in a very similar breakdown, 67 percent of blacks arrested compared to 32 percent of whites arrested for crimes of the same nature. For those figures are shocking, the bad news gets even worse when you think about teens and pre-teens in Philadelphia. In 2006, 82 percent of juvenile African-Americans in Philadelphia were arrested compared to 17 percent of whites for serious crime. For less serious crime, the disparity is only slightly less at 77 percent for black youth compared to percent arrest rates 23 for white youth. The social justice system is finished with individuals at the point of 49 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 arrest. It is important and tragic to note that African-Americans in Philadelphia are more than two times likely, two times likely, to be in prison once arrested than whites. Clearly, there is a gross disproportionate number of black arrests that result in prison time than for that of whites. Blacks are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites in Philadelphia, and more than three times as many black offenders receive probation for crimes than white offenders. And there is also the staggering statistic related to victims of crimes. More than three-quarters of male homicide victims are black at 75 percent compared to 19 percent of white males. This is a 20 significant contributing factor to the 21 disturbingly high death rates among 22 African-American males in Philadelphia. For those who have heard these statistics for the first time, does the community really deserve, particularly in 50 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES.

080140 views of the aforementioned statistics, what some might argue as an ill-fitting description, a City of Brotherly Love? I ask each individual to answer that question themselves, while I am confident that I know your responses, as well as what positive things we can do as a people, as a community. As tenacious as the root causes of these statistics might be, as citizens who care passionately about improving the lives of all segments of our populates must keep these stark disparities in mind so we move to action in face of this seemingly intractable situation. It almost seems impossible when you look at these numbers. Again, the benefit of the State of Black Philadelphia report is not just in the reporting of troubling statistics of disparities between African-American citizens and their white counterparts, but in the Action Agenda, the Action Agenda that has so thoroughly been put 51 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 forth by leaders of Philadelphia of all races, religions and genders, all of whom refuse to believe that we cannot be better as a city. Are there any of us so untouched or so removed from the impact of these statistics that we don't feel moved to enjoin the battle to erase the disparity in the area of social justice starting right now? I respectfully submit to you an Action Plan as articulated in the State of Black Philadelphia report is a place to start. Curtis Jones said a moment ago that it is in fact a blueprint, it is a map. It's a way to fix this gap that is so wide and the hole is so deep that it requires deep thinking. Here are a few important points: Promoting the increased racial, ethnic, gender and cultural diversity of staff that are part of the justice system itself, which includes attorneys and all personnel involved in the adult and juvenile justice system and youth 52 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 agencies. And while increasing diversity, we must champion the establishment of clear, anti-bias policies that direct the actions of the personnel who populate the world of our justice system. We can urge state and local policymakers like yourselves and others to ensure full equality for African-American youth and adults that are impacted by the criminal justice system. Leadership is key, and while it is not non-existent, it is weak and half-hearted at best. Leadership. All the fair-minded citizens of Philadelphia really must make it a priority to elect policymakers and leaders who will vow to take on this system of blatant bias and then hold them accountable by the power of their vote. Encouraging the collection of more data at the time of arrest related to charging decisions, type of counsel made available, offender information and 53 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 other important statistics that will help us pinpoint the areas of concern, bias and disparity. Data collection should be aggregated to allow the issues involving racial profiling and discrimination so that it can be easily detected and dealt with. Expand the involvement of churches, mosques, temples, civic associations and other vital groups in our community to provide mentoring programs as a serious means of prevention. Provide individuals who are incarcerated with employment-track job skills, post-release employment counseling and opportunities, socializing skills, housing support, drug and alcohol intervention and treatment programs as a resource to the newly released individuals, and develop a business credit that rewards those urban Philadelphia companies, particularly those that are situated in blighted 54 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 areas, to give these ex-offenders an opportunity to work, prosper and own a fundamental American dream. Some of the stuff that I'm talking about today is happening already, but it's just happening in small segments. Jeff Brown, for example, at the Shop Rite Supermarket at 52nd and Jefferson hired 40 ex-offenders in his store, just that one store.

It's making a huge impact. The store opened just a few weeks ago, the new mall out there. And it's happening, but it's not happening enough in our city. We need to restore through a variety of means, including tax credits for housing improvements for the people. Not just speculators and developers seeking opportunities for gentrification and the financial windfall that accompanies, business credits for businesses to establish grocery, hardware, restaurants and all those venues that we take for granted on a 55 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 routine basis can do wonders in a community that has been without them for so long. We are beginning to see some progress by innovative business leaders. I've mentioned one, but we nonetheless have much work to do in this area as a legislative body and as residents of these communities. These are but a few of the actions that can be taken. I would venture to say that not one of them is easy or simple, but I know that without the effort and energy devoted to taking these actions and others, Philadelphia's record on social justice issues will only decline, while the lives of many of the citizens will be wasted by entanglements with a biased and discriminatory system that is tragically flawed. My father used to say to me when he saw me failing algebra at West Catholic and I'd say, I studied, Dad, he'd say, To get what you're not getting, you've got to do what you're not doing. 56 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 And I made the mistake of saying, Well, what am I not doing? He gave me all these options, am I tutoring, am I studying, am I staying, am I dating a girl who understood math better than I did. He had a zillion different ways of getting it done, and that's followed my career from day one. If we want to get it done, we've got to do it a little differently. As you said -- well, Curtis isn't here now, but as he said earlier, it's important that we look at this report as a blueprint and a road map. We will measure our progress tomorrow and on tomorrow's tomorrow. We hope and pray and work towards a different, more enlightened, fair-minded and non-biased social justice system in Philadelphia. To do anything less would be to negatively seal the fate of not only adults trapped by the system today, but arguably, most dangerously, generations of our children, our future for many, 57 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 many years to come. I thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much. Mrs. Haddon.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm Phoebe Haddon and I'm a law professor at Temple Beasley School of Law. I also was on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Race and Gender Fairness that issued a report several years ago, which I'll talk about just a little bit, and I've prepared some of the recommendations that were part of the social justice chapter 19 that the Urban League has produced. I have prepared some brief remarks that you have. I have some slightly longer remarks with me and some recommendations, which I'll give to you, but you can stop me and I'll get to the recommendations if I go on too long. I 58 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 have some comments about racial disparity and what we ought to do with the fact of racial disparity that I'd like to share with you.

We'll take your testimony for the record. You can give it to the court officer.

I'll do that.

And speak into the mike, please.

I'm an avid newspaper reader and I read the Inquirer, but I also read the New York Times, and I've been struck over the last six months or so how many articles in the New York Times have focused on the problem of criminal justice and what's failed in that system. Some of what the New York Times has reported we already knew in Philadelphia, and, that is, that there are continued racial disparities in the criminal justice system that adversely affect not only the people who are part 59 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 of the system, but minorities in the communities where crime occurs. The New York Times featured two new reports that had come out documenting these disparities by national as well as international watchdogs. They indicted the United States Draconian approach of using incarceration as a way of addressing most crimes, both violent crimes as well as petty crimes. They particularly highlighted the community devastation that has occurred as a consequence of the war on drugs because of the use of incarceration rather than other approaches that we have available to us and that address the social problems that are a part of the problem, along with drug and alcohol addiction. 3 million people behind bars and 7 million in jail or prison or probation or parole. This number includes a striking disproportion 60 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 of blacks and Latino men, as has already been mentioned. The United States has five percent of the world's population, but we have percent of the world's 6 prison population, a three-time increase 7 since the '80s in the war on drugs. 8 The odds that black males will 9 spend some time in prison are 30 percent 10 for blacks, 16 percent for Latinos. The 11 top three offenses that land blacks in 12 jail are the so-called victimless crimes: 13 larceny, theft, drug abuse and other 14 property-related crimes. But we all know 15 that there are also grave consequences to 16 the communities when those crimes occur 17 in terms of the crimes themselves, but 18 also including the detention of those 19 involved in the crime. 20 Data show that even arrest 21 decreases the chances for jobs and income 22 potential. Commentators have revealed 23 that the prevalent strategy of 24 incarceration of the criminal justice 25 system disrupts not only the life of 61 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 those detained, but also the communities and families. "Get tough on crime" policies often had a substantial impact on voting rights and civil rights as well, not only for those who are incarcerated but also for those in the communities who become victims and linked to drugs and other criminal activity. Notably, African-Americans used drugs at roughly the same proportion as other parts of the population and so you would suspect that percent of the 14 drug-convicted population would be blacks, but they make up 35 percent and 55 percent of those arrested for and convicted of drug possession. In 1995, it was reported that for every 100,000 whites, 289 whites were in jail or prison. For every 100,000 black folks, 1,860 were black. From 1985 to 1995, there was a 700 percent increase in the number of African-American drug offenders being locked up. In 2006, 3,042 black males served time in prison 62 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. S -- That's an increase over the earlier data that I gave you -- compared to 487 white males in prison per 100,000 whites. In 2005 alone, one of blacks 7 in their late 20's were in jail, and it 8 was projected that if the trend 9 continues, one in three young black males 10 will spend some of their time in jail. 11 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court 12 several years ago appointed a Committee on Race and Gender Fairness in the court system, and that group found those same kinds of disparities in the criminal justice system statewide.

I served as the Co-Chair of the Subcommittee on Race of the Supreme Court project, and we proposed a number of recommendations for a series of chapters dealing with the criminal justice system and the underlying problems that affect the justice system as a whole in the State of Pennsylvania. The report and these recommendations can be found on the 63 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Supreme Court's website. And I would recommend that you look at those, because they're very insightful and very detailed, even more detailed than the Urban League report, because it deals with the criminal justice and the civil justice system as a whole. My testimony today tracks those thinkings of the Supreme Court project and the Urban League, but it also bears upon some of the reading that I have been doing since then, and so I offer some additional comments. The Urban League, as you know, reported that there was a significantly higher arrest rate for black adults than whites here as well as nationally. It said that 80 to 90 percent of those arrested are young and black. After arrest, blacks receive probation three times the rate of whites, and there is a 53 percent greater likelihood of imprisonment of blacks once arrested as compared with whites. 64 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Although there is not much disparity in sentencing, in part because of sentencing guidelines that had been in effect that are now changing in response to the crack cocaine controversy, it is true that blacks tend to get more probation time and are more likely to get some time if they have had no criminal record than whites. Perhaps most telling -- and E. Stevens Collins has already talked about this -- is the impact in the juvenile system, particularly where there is violence concerned. What explains this difference in treatment? Well, multiple factors influence the way criminal defendants and victims are treated in the criminal justice system. So I am not trying to say that this is just a question of race discrimination. Racial disparity can certainly come from causes other than discrimination or disparate treatment. The extent to which racial discrimination 65 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 is responsible for disparities in the numbers of blacks and other people of color in the system as compared with whites is controversial among social scientists and legal scholars. The story is complicated, moreover, by the numerous points of intervention of the criminal justice system where discretion is exercised: police intervention, prosecutorial decision-making, statutory enactments and how they focus upon different parts of the community, racial profiling, incarceration decisions, sentencing and obviously at the end, the death penalty. Most people agree, however, that racialized assumptions and discrimination do play some role, but there is little agreement about the relevance of race and racial discrimination undertaken by those exercising discretion and constructing social policy. This conflict and perspectives about the role of race is 66 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 also affected by the difference in perspective on whether intent to discriminate or simply discriminatory effects really ought to be the focus. Concerns about protecting poor and minority communities from violence and social problems of drugs and alcohol, as well as anger management and other problems, seem as oppositional to the concern for numbers of blacks and other persons of color who become defendants. Increasingly, however, commentators and policy proponents have attempted to consider alternatives that account for both of these concerns, the concerns of the victims as well as the concerns of the defendants.

Historians and blacks scholars often point out that social perspectives with criminality of blacks were rooted in slavery, post-Civil War black codes criminalizing vagrancy, and imposing stiff penalties for other conduct of blacks, which were designed to 67 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 re-establish a racial hierarchy and state-imposed segregation during the Jim Crow segregation era, also fostered this kind of racialized focus. Significant remnants of the legacy of slavery periods affect the social, economic and political discrimination that still persists, and they are also visible in the criminal system where seven times as many African-Americans are in prison than whites. Today's detention and incarceration also are approaches that bear a striking resemblance to the ways that, post-reconstruction period, racial management was being imposed. In addition to this reality, however, what I want to emphasize is the fact that crimes are being committed that disproportionately impact on poor, minority communities that are in need and should have the benefit of effective police presence as well as other social 68 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 support systems. Those who are most often found in the system often come from depressed, isolated and criminogenic settings created by poverty, child abuse and the deterioration of civil agencies which give support, and much of that is documented in the Urban League approach. Young African-American males are more likely to be unemployed, more likely to be victims of homicide, more likely to be imprisoned, more likely to have dropped out of school, more likely to have fathered a child out of wedlock, more likely to have been placed in classes for special education or learning disabilities, more likely to have been suspended from school and more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS. This is a damning kind of situation, and these facts point to a picture that make it difficult to determine where personal responsibility ends and the need for social kinds of support systems and alternatives other than containment 69 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 begin. It is the case that black males account for a staggering proportion of homicides and other violent crime in this city. But stereotypes play a significant role in assumptions about criminality, and they affect decisions for those who have the discretion in the enforcement system. They also, by the way, affect decisions made by judges. And it's interesting that one federal judge, Felton McGee, pointed out that if you live in a situation, in a criminal justice situation, where the majority of African-Americans that you see are defendants, that's bound to color your view of the world and your understanding of criminality. Finally, judicial precedence make it nearly impossible to challenge discretion and decision-making of those decision-makers that I have been talking about. And so they offer it as almost impossible to really uncover how much in 70 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 the way of bias is driving these disparities. And I could go on about that, but I think I will move on to my recommendations, because as the population in the prison explodes and is increasingly black, it is still the case that there is little that's being done for the people who are imprisoned and who are likely to reenter prison in the future. There are insufficient vocational, educational and substance abuse programs in prisons, which means that 600,000 or so prisoners released each year lack the means to integrate and at least 100,000 of them reenter without supervision, according to the Sentencing Project. More than 60 percent of those released from state prisons will be re-arrested within three years' time, and 40 percent of them will be sent back to prison, often for technical violations of parole. There are few opportunities for 71 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES.

080140 employment or to take care of their families given those kinds of statistics. We've made significant strides in the understanding of addiction and in our ability to help people with drug problems and other social-related problems, but despite this progress, treatment programs are limited in taking advantage of these scientific advances often out of fear of losing financing or appearing to be soft on drugs. Studies have shown that treatment is much more successful, however, than incarceration in reducing crime associated with the drug trade. We could help more people if we were less punitive in our anti-drug strategy. And, notably, Congress has recently passed legislation that recognizes these problems and they call it the Second Chance Act. It authorizes 165 million each year to fund pilot projects to provide education and drug treatment in prison and assistance with 72 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 housing, employment and family concerns after release in prison. But 165 million is a pittance and it really is not the kind of resources that are going to be required to change this whole approach. It also requires the work of local legislators, as well as other people who have to be involved in this process, because it depends on the success of pilot projects that they are trying to encourage to occur. In the Urban League's State of Black Philadelphia, we made several recommendations, and I'm going to draw upon some of them. E. Steven Collins has talked about a few of them, but I also included a few others that I think are important in light of what I have presented. I hope it's not too depressing a picture, because I think that there's lots of opportunities that lie ahead and that we can work collectively, both the Legislature, the executive and the judicial branches, 73 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 including us lawyers, to do some work in this area. First, establish training programs for police personnel, prosecuting attorneys and attorneys practicing in adult and juvenile systems on the ways race can influence charging and negotiating plea bargaining decisions, including considerations related to the economic and social environment of the perpetrators, such as unemployment, family status, responsibility and prior criminal record. Second, collect more data at arrest on charging decisions, including type of counsel available, offender information and employment status, role in offense, family status and responsibility. Only if we have this kind of information can we more fully understand the relationship of race, lack of education and poverty to the disparate presence of minorities in the criminal justice system. 74 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Third, increase racial, ethnic, gender and cultural diversity of staff, and E. Steven Collins has just talked about that, and this goes across the board in terms of the people who are participating, because that is the only way that we are going to be able to sensitize people to the racialized assumptions that they are making. Fourth, allocate more funds to establish mentoring programs. And, again, E. Steven Collins has talked about that, so I will keep that short. We ought to consider, like Illinois, revamping the patrol system by hiring parole officers and changing regulations so that parolees who commit lesser violations are dealt with within their community with counseling, drug treatment or more vigilant monitoring. The PA Supreme Court should direct court administrators to explore innovative programs that seek to resolve cases earlier or to divert non-violent 75 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 defendants into counseling or other alternative programs rather than through the judicial prosecutorial system. The Legislature should appropriate funding for indigent defense services from the Commonwealth and adopt uniform attorney compensation standards, because that's the only way we're going to actually have equality in representation.

The Legislature should also establish a commission to oversee service and promulgate uniform minimum standards addressing training and workload concerns, and it should establish guidance for maximum caseloads for public defenders and district attorneys in juvenile court consistent with National Advisory Commission standards. These were two recommendations that we gave to the Supreme Court, and we're hoping that they'll work on them. DPW should work with county children and youth agencies to ensure 76 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 that current regulations provide for the use of community-based alternatives and resources in home services and reduce institutional placements in the juvenile system of justice. DPW should also limit inappropriate use of secured detention and seek suitable alternatives and resources that keep juveniles out of detention and have available access to community-based resources. And, finally, tenth, all participants in the criminal justice decision-making process should mandate breakdown in data collection that include race and gender characteristics so that disparities that are a consequence of the intersection of race and gender, like the gross disparity in black male homicides, and disproportionate black male arrests for rape can be more fully detected and consequences better understood. Generally, I believe we should look to better understand the root causes 77 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 of violence in poor and minority neighborhoods, not just the connection to drugs and gang warfare, but also target social issues that affect choices that young people and young adults make, such as health, education and welfare and stress kinds of issues. We should support preventative and rehabilitative programs which encourage anger management and non-violence in an attempt to address recidivism with these considerations in mind, focusing on job training, education and ways to build viable lives rather than risk recidivism. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your testimony. As I sat here and listened to you, I was just telling Derek that we probably should have had three separate meetings to allow each panel to present and then we discuss, and then it might have been a little more fruitful. We might try that 78 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 again later, but because you have spent a lot of time, you've pulled a lot of time, I have a thousand questions, but I have all these people here waiting to testify and I can't get into it. So we may have to have you come back later and let's talk about some of the things you've talked about and how we can be engaged in some of the recommendations that you've come up with. So it certainly is very informative and very depressing. All right. Mr. Gillison. DEPUTY

It's hard to follow that, but I'm going to try and follow it with a way that I think that we have to go forward. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and other members of the Committee on Public Health and Human Services. Obviously my name is Everett Gillison. I'm the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. I would like to recognize Chairwoman Tasco and members of this Committee on your leadership in holding 79 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 this hearing. I also want to thank Pat Coulter and her colleagues at the Urban League of Philadelphia for issuing this useful report. I am here to testify on the State of Black America as it pertains to social justice. The numbers that the Urban League has presented to us shows a snapshot of some of the problems African-Americans face today in the criminal justice system. While the numbers are both daunting and subjective, they point to a deeper issue in the African-American society. We have to examine how we plan to move forward with this information. The easy course is to throw our collective hands up in the air and give up. We must not do that. Rather, we should roll up our sleeves and delve into the heart of the issue. Juveniles in our community turn to crime and criminals because of something that is lacking in their own lives. They turn to neighborhood 80 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 criminal or gang because of a sense of belonging or family. We as a community need to understand this reasoning. There is a saying, charity begins at home, and obviously what we need to do is to start taking more of an active role in the lives of our children, whether they are ours or not. While this is not going to be a panacea, it is a perfect place to start. As we know, equality before the law and social justice can't be discussed in a vacuum. Along with what is to be found at home is what happens at school. Too often we find ourselves in a position where some of the moires -- it's too cool, it's too cool to be educated, it's not being true to yourself if you're the "smart kid" in class -- these are things that we have heard for many, many years and basically have just been talking about what are we going to do. As we know, if our education is not on par with others in society, there are few options 81 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 in the world. Not stressing good education at home ultimately limits the opportunity one has in life, and with limited opportunities, we can't take hold of the American dream that has been promised. It remains an illusion that only seems attainable for people of other races. We then have to compete for the low-skill jobs, and as this country and world moves towards globalization, those jobs become more and more scarce. This leaves us with even fewer options. There are new industries that are developing as technology advances and the country becomes more conscious of the environment. What I would like to be able to put forward here is that we need to concentrate our efforts. We may be able to get in front of these new initiatives that will shape our country and the world for the next century. We also need to address those in our community that are returning home from our prisons. There are a large 82 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 number of African-American men that come home from across the state daily to Philadelphia. As a community, we need to take the same approach as we take with our children. As a community, we need to support this group and give them opportunities, economic and social, so that they do not return to prison. As an Administration, we are exploring different programs nationwide where we can stem this tide of recidivism in our city. There are many models that are in practice in other cities of our size. The programs range from job training, education, drug and addictive services, faith-based models and various combinations of all of the above.

This Administration is committed to reducing the number of African-American men that are sent back to prison just for lack of opportunity. Before I conclude, one of the things that I have to say in just adding to the testimony that has been provided 83 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 here is that for 30 years, I worked in the system and for 30 years, we've been trying to offer alternatives to incarceration, because we understood, quite frankly, that you damage everybody once you enter prison, because you're never the same going in as you are coming out. I've been asking people to have an honest discussion about the role of prison in our society ever since the Mayor gave me this opportunity to sit in this chair, and I would like to hope that we'd be able to honestly have that discussion, because we have been asking prisons to do the work where society has just failed. We've asked the prisons to be the place where mental health treatment is offered because society walked away. We've asked prisons to deal with our educational system's failures. We've asked prisons to deal with the failures within relationships between people. We've asked prisons to do it all, and we need to really have an answer 84 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 for ourselves. Is that what we really want? Because what we really ended up with is where we are today. This concludes my testimony. I thank you once again, and at this time, I would be happy to answer any questions that the Committee members may have.

Thank you very much, all of you, for your testimony and for taking time to come this morning to present your papers. Are there any questions from members of the -- Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning. (Good morning.)

Thank you all for your testimony. I particularly like the way Mr. Gillison framed his testimony, and I want to go along that pattern of thinking in terms of how we frame social justice. Let's start with two scenarios. 85 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 One is that there is a large number of African-American boys who are underachieving in terms of reading and math. They then become turned off to education. They become truant. At some point later in life, they drop out of high school. They then begin to congregate with other young African-American males in similar situations. They get involved in the criminal justice system. They may get involved in substance abuse. They have very few employable skills after they've entered the criminal justice system and actually become offenders. They then become almost unemployable by historical standards. At the same time, we know, as I started the story about young African-American boys underachieving, that we are in fact planning future prisons based upon those test scores in terms of reading and math at that age. And so it is not the issue of social 86 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 justice, the fact that this is actually by design that we know through their underachievement at early educational levels what's going to happen to those young people, but we don't intervene on that side, nor do we go back and get them after we know they've already been caught up in the system. DEPUTY

I'm --

So my question is to some extent, is it by design. DEPUTY

Well, I think that there is a reaction that has always been put forth. I remember I was talking with someone who said that back in the early '80s a billion dollars, which was back then everybody was talking about, the late '70s, early '80s, you moved a billion dollars and people says, Wow, that's a lot of money. Well, they took it out of the education area and they put it in prisons. And we would talk about the fact that if you would 87 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 just give us a little bit more money on the front end where we could actually reach out and reach in and do the work that we needed to do, that you wouldn't -- I can almost guarantee you you will have less victims later on if you just give me an opportunity to reach them at an earlier age. Well, now that age -- when I first started in the job, we thought that if we could get them in the middle school area, we thought if we could get them in the 7th and 8th grade, if we could get them there, that we'd be able to stop. Today as I sit here in this position, I look out and I'm looking at the statistics. We got to reach them earlier. And when we don't reach them earlier, basically what you're saying is that society does have to, quote/unquote, protect itself, and as a result, we are identifying data that says that when you are a low achiever and when you have limited opportunity, you're going to act 88 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 out. That doesn't take rocket science to get you there. What we're trying to do now is to turn that clock back and we're trying to put things in the front end. I know that Lori Shorr, who is the education representative of the Mayor, and Don Schwarz, the other Deputy Mayor for Health and Opportunities, and I, we meet on a regular basis just to help us design so that they can help me with the supportive services programming and also to take a look at how the education plan can be adapted so that people won't be getting to me and the people that I'm dealing with in public safety later on. I'm willing to put whatever I can to help support them going forward. So it's a dialogue that we're having, that this Administration is having, and we have several people that are just tasked to deal with this particular issue. And obviously it's at the highest levels, because we're only 89 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 one step away from the Mayor and this is his agenda that he's making sure he's putting in front of us. But is it by design? I would say it is the design of society that when they see the problem coming down the pike, for some reason there has been an overwhelming desire to protect, at least to see to protect, rather than to invest, and I'm hoping we can turn this script around and start investing rather than always looking at the protection issue. But I'll --

I just offer a former Secretary of Education on the federal level, Councilman, who on a radio show said if you want to eliminate crime in the inner cities, just eliminate African-Americans. Bill Bennett was the former Secretary. And I say that not in a controversial call, but to speak to your question, is it by design. Why at 3rd grade do policymakers in this country decide to build more prisons if black 90 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 kids are not coming and not, therefore, attending to their grades and their studies, and begin to build and plan to build bigger prisons as opposed to remedial work and educational support mechanisms for those kids and to give them a better opportunity to learn? I think it is by design, and I think it's up to us as Council, as media, as executive members of the Board of the Urban League to engage, as Pat said, a way to figure it out and to get in front of it and to change that design.

Just, lastly, as a policy question, in terms of investment, where would you place mentoring of at-risk youth in terms of priority? DEPUTY

I can tell you that the Administration is looking towards trying to put more mentoring projects in, especially the pilot projects. We are trying to use -- obviously we have a competing interest in 91 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 that we have so many individuals leaving prisons that we need to really have supportive services for. The Mayor is on record through both the PREP legislation that I know you were key in getting through and pushing forward. We can't just leave people where they are and expect them not to have supports to go back. So we really want to handle the recidivist rate by providing the services to them, but at the same time, we really have to push more resources to the front end in order to make sure that they don't end up getting to the point where they're going to recidivate, that maybe we can just deal with it there. So it is a fine line that we're walking, and obviously money is tight, but from our point of view, what we're trying to do is walk that line and, wherever we can, model the behavior that we would like to see taken, not just locally but nationally, that we recognize that investment in our kids is not just 92 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 lip service, but actually something going forward. And I know that we'll be looking forward to working with Council as we go forward in identifying not only pilot projects, but where things are working, let's expand them and not just keep them as pilots. Let's make that part and parcel of how we're going to act as a society. I know that's the Mayor's agenda, and that's what we're going to be doing.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First let me underscore Councilwoman Tasco's assessment that we really could have taken each panel and put you in your own stand-alone committee, because there's so much information and opportunities, as you say, for us to really examine deeply what 93 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 we can do on this side as policymakers, but also what opportunities exist for practitioners and those on the front line. So I can't get it all in, but I'm going to cover a few points I made here. First of all, Professor, do you have a copies of your testimony?

Yes. I will submit them.

Secondly, I want to elaborate on Councilman Goode's description of why we're losing so many of our young men. Same picture, but a different lens. And this is what we know: From K through 3, children learn to read. From 4th grade on, they read to learn. So if they get to 4th grade and they're not reading, then all of the things that Councilman Goode has just spoke about begin to reveal themselves and we lose them, truancy being the first signal on the radar screen, leading to other type of inappropriate behaviors. So as we think about what we 94 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 want to do on our end, I'm going to underscore my appeal to the Urban League. As you look to your priorities, if we know where we're beginning to lose young people around 4th grade and we know what the Mayor's priorities are around his educational agenda, there may indeed be an opportunity for the Urban League to go to scale, work with faith-based organizations, who really are engaged in best practices, and the School District to go to scale on how we capture young people around 4th and 5th grade, literally hold their hand through mentoring programs. Because what we also know, based on research, is that where you have mentors actively involved in the lives of these children, they never see 1801 Vine Street. So I'm absolutely convinced that we can collectively do more with the mentoring piece, linking up with panhellenic organizations and professional organizations, who all are 95 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 doing stuff but there's no thread holding it all together. And that would take us to your suggestion that we need to figure out ways to take it to scale. So that's my point on the education piece. With regards to the courts, first of all, just last week one of the journalists wrote a story, commented about the reform that's happened with the parks, and her very last sentence was, And where's the next place we can look for reform, and her question was, And what about the courts? So my question to any one of you is, how limited are we at the Council level when we know that the courts are principally administered by the state? Help me out with that. I don't know.

You have to tell me a little bit more about what you're asking.

Councilwoman.

In the 96 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 recommendations that you outlined where you said you had made recommendations to the Supreme Court and other activities you've been engaged in to address these issues, how can we fit in that picture? I mean, will they listen to us? I mean, just where can we fit in?

Well, specifically, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's committee was dispersed, but what they did do was to recreate another implementing commission, and that information is also on Pennsylvania Supreme Court website, and I can give you the website link. I don't have it off the top of my head. But what they did, which was really actually a good idea, they made that commission legislative, judicial and executive. So they have members of all branches of government, not local government but all branches of government represented, so that when we start thinking about things that legislators 97 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 ought to do as opposed to what courts ought to do, there will be representatives there. They haven't gotten well along in their implementing agenda, but they have started, and I can give you an example. If I had more minutes, I'd 9 talk about the disparity in the 10 composition of juries. And so they are 11 approaching those kinds of issues. 12 They're also approaching the problem of 13 language difference and how that impacts 14 people going into the courts. 15

I see. 16

So it's those 17 kinds of things that they are kind of 18 focusing on and dealing with 19 incrementally. 20 There are members of that commission that include folks from the state, the Commonwealth, legislators have appointed people, so that they do have that kind of representation on that one.

Okay. My 98 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 final point is, you should be encouraged to know that we here in Council have or did just last year in budget hearings challenge DPW, DHS with regards to them sending too many of our young people out of the Commonwealth, because the dollars follow the student, and appealed to them to think through differently how we can hold on to those young people in their communities. So we have raised that on this end. We don't know yet what the yield has been, but we have paid particular attention to how so many of our young people were not going to neighboring states, they were going across the country for placement and were bewildered by the fact that DPW, DHS could not find group placement closer to home. So on that particular item, we've taken a real good look at.

And that's a great example. It seems to me -- I was talking about what the state could do, but 99 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 locally we could do similar kinds of implementing committees. What we could do is to try to identify people who are involved in the courts and in the practicing attorney fields. We could figure out folks who would be interested from Council or their representatives and we could get members from the Mayor's Office to come together and talk about how do we address some of the issues that are being highlighted in the Urban League's report, and each of us will have some role to play. And you have also highlighted the other role; that is, the folks who are not officials, the people who would be volunteering and giving of their time, and I think that that is going to be a critical link in this effort to address, because we can't do it with tax dollars and with --

Government cannot do it by itself.

We can advise, we can think about new policies, but we 100 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 can't do it all.

Thank you again, all, for your very compelling testimony. Thank you.

I also like the recommendation that you talk about where the police officers should be trained. We have heard in the past, particularly during our discussions with the Youth Study Center, that African-American boys are taken to the Youth Study Center, but the white kids are taken to other locations. Who in the report, who gathered the data about the statistics on the number of people arrested and all of that? Do you know how that data was gathered?

I don't have that in font of me. I'm sure we can get that before the end of our testimony today.

I'll ask Pat later. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your 101 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 testimony. We may have you back, because, again, as we sit here and do this, when you're planning a hearing like this, you don't really give it the thought that we might need just one panel at a time, because we have other people waiting, so you don't have the time a lot of time to have a lot of in-depth questions.

It is outstanding that you all are taking the time to really take that document to explore what's in it. There's a lot of research there. A lot of time is spent on it, and it speaks to so many of the issues that affect our community. So we applaud you for just taking the time and we appreciate you'd like to go further.

Thank you. Well, my mind is clicking here. I will have further talks with Pat about how we might address this study and use it as a basis for many other kinds of forums and actions. 102 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Thank you. Okay. Moving right along, my next panel will talk about education. Dr. Robert Keyes, Brian Armstead, Chad Womack and Lori Shorr. Then the panel after that will be economics and then health. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

And if you all could -- well, I know it's hard to summarize, because this stuff is very in-depth, so we appreciate what you can do.

Good morning, Councilwoman Tasco and Committee members. My name is Bobby Keyes and I'm the Vice-President and General Manager with Enterprise Rent-A-Car here in the Philadelphia area, and I also serve as the Chairman for the Education Committee for the Urban League of Philadelphia.

Thank you.

And I will be as 103 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 brief as possible with the testimony to keep the procedure moving. The State of Black Philadelphia articulates some disturbing statistics related to both the quality of the educational experience and the disparity around educational attainment for African-American students as compared to their white counterparts, a topic of concern to each of us, particularly those working in the large Philadelphia-based companies and corporations with a need for an educated workforce, specifically college educated and skilled labor, given our demographics that include an aging and increasingly large number of workforce retirees. Among the revelations brought to the attention of our community by the State of Black Philadelphia report include the following facts: In schools with high minority populations, the percentage of highly qualified teachers as measured by 104 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 criteria established by the Pennsylvania Department of Education is considerably lower in schools populated, in large measure, by non-minority students. During the 2505 and 6 school year, only 71 percent of teachers in highly populated minority schools were deemed highly qualified, based once again on criteria of the Pennsylvania Department of Education, compared to 86 percent of teachers with this important distinction in schools with low minority populations. Less than ten percent of African-American students in the School District of Philadelphia are enrolled in advanced placement courses compared to double that amount, percent, for their 20 white counterparts. This factor 21 ultimately translates into fewer 22 qualifications among black students upon college matriculation than whites, not to mention the knowledge-based benefits of students enrolled in AP classes. 105 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 It is upon this dismal backdrop that another layer of disturbing statistics is added, those pertaining to educational attainment, including that as a percentage of the population of 7 years or older. The number of 8 African-Americans with a high school 9 diploma stands at 36 percent while 42 10 percent of whites in Philadelphia hold a 11 high school diploma. 12 The dropout rate for blacks is 13 alarmingly higher than that of their 14 white counterparts. 2 percent. 20 So where does that leave the 21 community of Philadelphia? Well, with an 22 undereducated and largely neglected 23 population of many economically 24 disadvantaged African-American youth, 25 many of whom are ill-prepared to become 106 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 part of a productive and successful workforce, I am sure you will join me in my sense of urgency about the need to address these disparities by taking part in systemic long-term actions to begin to achieve parity for the young people of Philadelphia, our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews, our neighbor's children, the very lifeblood of our future as a community. Are any of us willing to neglect our young citizens to turn our attention away from the pressing challenges that our future will present because we are seemingly collectively unwilling to engage in the direct action needed today as a community, which includes our wonderfully diverse members of City Council, along with parents, students, educators, community activists and the community at large, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or gender, among others. Fortunately for our 107 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 legislators, stakeholders and citizenry, an Action Agenda exists that was developed by the City's corporate and non-profit leaders, community advocates, academia, educators, health practitioners, government, the Legislature and our judiciary, in concert with the Urban League. The Action Agenda is an integral component of the important State of Black Philadelphia document.

But as you are aware, action plans on paper do not equate to meaningful change unless and until they are embraced by citizens who are unwilling to live with less than desirable status quo. Good intentions are not enough. Direct action is the only way to a brighter future for our young African-Americans served, in large measure, by the Urban League of Philadelphia. The action must be vigorous, systemic and sustained over the long term. Here are but a few of the tasks recommended as part of the Action Agenda 108 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 put forth in the State of Black Philadelphia: Expand outreach efforts to parents by developing flexible and innovative strategies to support parental engagement in their children's education. One example that comes to mind is the reality that many African-American youth enter school with 50 percent of the vocabulary of white children. Thus, we must begin to better engage our mothers and fathers in parenting classes and drive home the importance of parental and/or family involvement. Design and implement effective partnerships between the K through 12 schools, the business community and the institutions of higher education to create more effective pathways and opportunities for our youth. Internships may be a particularly effective means of augmenting and enhancing the educational experience for our students as they move into their mid to late teenage years. 109 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Support the establishment of innovative and flexible educational benchmarks that must be met to ensure that every child has access to a broad range of career paths and post-secondary educational options. Strengthen, expand and vigorously promote leadership training programs targeting pre-teen and adolescent youth in our community. Perhaps it may be true that some leaders are born, but as the seemingly limitless availability of book and resources related to learning leadership skills tells us, leaders are more often made; that is, taught, mentored, trained and guided, than born into the demanding role of leader. And provide professional development for our teachers to support their efforts to positively impact the underserved and underperforming minority students that are the victims of an underachieving educational system, as 110 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 evidenced in some of the statistics I have quoted to you today. I respectfully urge you to consider direct action as a committee, to use your influence, and to fully commit yourselves as public servants in the community to make a difference and lift up our young people, to encourage and support all students, not only the most elite, in the attainment of their academic and professional goals, whether it be college, university or technical and/or skilled labor. This is a task that cannot be ignored. Nothing short of the future growth and economic success of our beloved and historic City depends upon the bold action we are willing to work for, fight for and achieve starting now. We must do this together. As an executive at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, we take great pride, beginning with our extraordinary Chairman, who also serves as a valued 111 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 member of the National Urban League, in affording African-American and other underserved youth with professional opportunities for growth and development at the nation's largest privately owned car rental company. Our Chairman and his executives are implored to not only talk the talk, but to walk the walk. To support this mantra, however, our city and region must produce youth equipped with academic tools and resources to be successful through our bottom-up approach, sales representatives to store managers and, ideally, well-paid corporate executives with the capacity to give back to their communities. That said, we cannot afford to lose our next generation of workers to other cities and regions with a more educated populace.

Enterprise is deeply committed to doing business in urban cities like Philadelphia, but we struggle on a daily basis to find young talent, despite some of the most significant 112 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 plans to incorporate diversity in the entire country. We must not and cannot be forced to move into communities, particularly non-urban areas where job needs are plentiful, as a result of the lack of young people equipped with the tools to take advantage of our organization and its benefits. In short, we simply cannot allow the appalling disparity in educational quality and attainment to continue to exist. Philadelphia is one of the largest cities and, with your support, will make a difference. And eventually, as the grim statistics of disparity begin to dissipate over time, we will be able to look back at this day as the day the good and important and critically important work began. We will be able to look back upon today with heads held high, knowing that we embraced the challenges head on, started the movement necessary to endow our youth with the right stuff to 113 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 contribute meaningfully and significantly to their own community while at the same time improving upon their lives and their futures. Thank you for your bold and innovative leadership, Chairwoman Tasco and other Committee members, and for your willingness to tackle this necessary, yet difficult, issue raised throughout the State of Black Philadelphia. Thank you for hearing me this morning.

Thank you very much. Next.

Thank you. Good morning, Councilwoman Tasco and members of City Council. My name is Brian Armstead. I am the Director of Civic Engagement for the Philadelphia Education Fund. I've been asked to speak about the role of parent involvement in public education, and for the past 22 years, the Philadelphia Education Fund has worked to 114 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 improve and transform public education for underserved youth in the City and region. We've done so by working hand in hand with the District on numerous projects and by working with parents, students, businesspeople and other community members to advocate for change in the District and the schools on numerous other occasions. Collectively, these experiences have allowed us to understand educational needs and challenges from multiple perspectives. As the Urban League's State of Black Philadelphia reports, one-fourth of the City's African-American residents do not have a high school diploma and another 42 percent have only a high school diploma. Additionally, only ten percent of the black students in high school scored proficient or advanced on the PSSAs in math, with only a slightly higher percentage doing so in reading. This underachievement is reflected in unemployment rates and 115 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 violence in communities where jobs, educational attainment and hope are in short supply, while frustration, anxiety and poverty rates are high. All of which points to the need for reform in the School District, but it also points to the need for black parents and the black community to be much more involved in education. And there are at least three ways that we can be involved. One thing I wanted to do here was to try to draw a different kind of a framework. I think often we talk about parent involvement and sort of lump it together and not really differentiate. And so one way to look at it with these three levels are at the policy level, at the school level and at the child level. Parent and community advocacy around policy is crucial, because the District is a complex organism with a whirlwind of political influence spiraling around it, and its decisions are often subject to numerous influences. 116 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Parents especially have a legitimacy which enables them to hold everyone's collective feet to the fire and make sure they maintain a focus on the children so that things like small class size and the equitable distribution of quality, experienced teachers becomes the norm, and that teacher coaches, art and music and much-needed supports for school staff are prioritized as the District attempts to allocate its scarce resources. Recently, parents and community have also proven to be effective in helping to increase those resources by working with City Council -- thank you, Councilman Goode, Councilwoman Reynolds Brown and actually Council in general for the help that you've provided to the District recently -- and the parents and others have been working with the Governor to help move forward plans to increase funding for education statewide. But as an African-American man that works in education policy, I also 117 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 think it is an issue when I am the only black face at a policy table. Education is so vital an issue for our community, more of us have to get involved in crafting local, state and even federal policy. The second arena for parent and community involvement is the school level. When parents and community members volunteer in schools, it helps to control the school environment. Parent volunteers shape students' behavior because "Ms. " Parents and community members have created safe corridors for children to get to and from school. And when clergy members and others got together to make a new library at Germantown High School, they not only make it easier for kids to do better in school, they let the kids know that someone cares and that hope exists.

Parents and community also hold teachers and principals accountable. 118 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 This is the case in the most effective schools. Too often, though, parents and community members experience barriers when they attempt to work with schools. They are often made to feel insignificant by office staff and looked down upon by teachers. Often they are scapegoated for the school's problems. Effective partnerships cannot be built this way. But work must be done on both parts. The District and its schools must become more transparent and welcoming, and the parents and community must take up their responsibilities and get much more involved in our schools. Finally, African-American parents and community members need to become more involved on the student level. Doing simple things like checking homework, making sure the students set aside study time at night, encouraging students to read over the summer and talking to teachers about grades, attendance and behavior can all have 119 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 dramatic impact. One mother I know said, "My job is hectic. They never see me at the school, but I make sure I do everything they," the school, "tells me to do. " But since we're in a new world with new needs and challenges, it is even more beneficial when parents step up their game by asking questions to truly understand what is needed to do well in school, to graduate and to go to and succeed in college. They need to ask, how many credits are needed for graduation? How many and which math courses should students take to make it through college and have the career that they want? What are the options in high school for internships and certifications, and other such questions. Many studies have echoed the importance of parent involvement, and numerous articles have been written about the problems that result when parents are 120 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 not involved. I think it is time we stop pointing fingers at parents and figure out a better way to get them involved on each of these three levels, in policy, at the schools and one on one with students. There are and have been effective programs that do this. Some of them have been here in Philadelphia, but we seldom have the financial, social and political commitment to expand them from pilot projects and to maintain them through tough times. To truly get more parents involved, black, white, Asian, Latino and Native-American, will require a different kind of partnership in our city. We need to begin having more discussions to set a collective vision of how we want our parents to be engaged, how to reduce barriers at the District and its schools, and how to increase the skill and comfort levels of our parents so that they can and will be more involved. These have to be sustained and consistent efforts and 121 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 sustained and consistent public discussions, and need to be accompanied by the funding needed to support programs that will get us there. Fostering these discussions and helping to garner this funding either through public or private funds is a role that City Council and the Mayor should and could play. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Councilwoman Tasco, thank you so much. This is an honor to be here in front of the City Council to talk about education. My testimony is to focus on STEM education, what we call science, technology, engineering and math, and its importance for the Greater Philadelphia regional copy. I am Dr. Chad Womack, a native Philadelphian, founder, President and Executive Director of the Philadelphia Biotechnology and Life Sciences Institute. I am also the Chair of the STEM Education Task Force for the 122 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 School District of Philadelphia. I'm here today to testify on the importance of science, technology, engineering, math, what we call STEM education, with a particular emphasis on its impact on human capital and workforce development and knowledge economy in the City of Philadelphia and the Greater Philadelphia region. The term "STEM" can perhaps be understood best as math and science education and both preparing students for success in college and navigating career pathways in science and technology. On a macro level, the importance of STEM education can also be understood in the context of innovation and the impact that it has on driving regional technology-based economic development. Ultimately, students who are adequately prepared with STEM education are going to be better informed citizens and are going to be the inventors and innovators of the future. We recognize that we have 123 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 entered a new era, a new global and tech-based economy where manufacturing and service-based work no longer holds the same value and, therefore, economic benefits. Those old economies have given way to the new economy where creative and knowledge-based work is high valued, compensated and rewarded. As an example of this new economy, the biotech and life sciences sector in the Greater Philadelphia region is a dominant economic force. The City of Philadelphia and the Greater Philadelphia region is home to some of the world's largest and most successful pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies, including Merck, GSK, Wyeth, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Centocor, Morphotek and Cephalon. These are all billion dollar plus market cap companies that surround us. Let me provide some facts regarding the industry in our region. Across the nation, the Greater 124 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Philadelphia region placed third on the Innovation Pipeline Index behind Boston and Greater San Francisco, which are the two cities in which this industry was founded. It ranked highest in the human capital investment and innovation output. However, it ranked lowest in the workforce and R&D categories. The Greater Philadelphia area had more than 53,000 workers in the life sciences industry in 2003, second only to Greater New York with more than 74,000. Greater Philadelphia's pharmaceutical industry led the region's life science employment with more than 30,000 jobs in 2003, or 56 percent of all life sciences employment. In 2003, the life sciences supporting industries in Greater Philadelphia employed more than 300,000 people. The life sciences industry in this region is responsible for over 200,000 total jobs, and that includes 125 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 direct and indirect, or 11.4 percent of all employment in the region. So it's clear that this is a dominant industry. Further, the life sciences industry in Greater Philadelphia is responsible for $13.7 billion in worker earnings, or 12.8 percent of all the earnings or total earnings in this region. And, finally, the Greater Philadelphia life sciences industry is responsible for $15.5 billion in gross metro output, 6.9 billion directly and 8.6 billion in indirect and induced impacts. So why is STEM education so important? Quite frankly, it is the gateway to an economic future. I remind the Council that African-Americans make up less than a percentage point in this industry.

Repeat that.

I remind people 126 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 that we make up less than a percentage point in this industry. I liken us to Dr. Seuss's Whos in Whoville. We are here, but we are so few that we don't get noticed. So it is important, therefore, in this context with the Urban League's State of Black Philadelphia report that we understand the value of STEM education from the individual context of providing opportunity for individuals to participate in this new economy, but also that if we have large sectors of the City that's not engaged, that does not participate in this dominant industry, then we have a problem moving forward, and not just for the African-American community, but for the City as a whole. Given the importance of the bio-life science industry as an example -- and, of course, when we talk about knowledge or creative industries, it's not just bio-life sciences, we can also talk about engineering and IT. But 127 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 for the sake of this conversation, let's focus on the bio-life science industry -- the significance of a well-prepared, well-educated workforce become very, very clear. Now more than ever preparing our youth with not just the basic skills in math and science but also skills to map and navigate career development for a 21st century economy becomes critical. In this context, investing in STEM educational programs means that we are preparing better citizens, as well as the innovators of tomorrow that are going to not only create a more prosperous economy, but one in which all citizens and communities can participate and benefit at many different levels. Across the nation, cities like Philadelphia, large urban settings where large numbers of minority youth are marginalized by inadequate resourced institutions such as public school districts and non-aligned stakeholders, a renewed sense of urgency for STEM 128 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 education is being heard. For African-Americans and other minority communities, the message is particularly loud and clear, for they will be effectively locked out of any meaningful economic future if we do not engage in this issue. So what are the recommendations? Support local and regional STEM educational efforts. I am personally encouraged by the leadership within and without -- certainly the person sitting to my right, Dr. Lori Shorr is an example of the kind of leadership that I think the City needs. The Biotech and Life Sciences Institute is just one. I think it happens to be an important effort, but it also is in the context of partnerships with organizations like the Philadelphia Ed Fund, Math-Science Coalition, and, quite frankly, a lot of the universities have STEM-oriented and focused programs that have done and continue to do the work 129 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 that's needed. The Institute has launched a middle school-based math and science or STEM summer and high school-based biotech/life sciences career academy program in collaboration with the School District and its university partners, including University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Temple, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel and others. Number two, support efforts such as the Urban League of Philadelphia's STEM programs that will outreach and engage community stakeholders -- and I think this dovetails nicely with what Dr. Armstead has talked about, and this includes parents and guardians -- to inform them and educate them about the importance of education in general, but also the economic importance of STEM education that it provides in particular. Number three, adopt a citywide STEM educational agenda that integrates 130 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 STEM education, human capital and workforce development with local and regional knowledge-based economic development planning. This approach should be integrated into a larger tech-based economic development plan that addresses the three prongs that I think are critical.

One is STEM education at the secondary level, and that includes programs that operate during the summers. Number two, human capital and workforce development programs. And, number three, entrepreneurship and commercialization within the City of Philadelphia itself. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Ms. Shorr, just a minute before -- because I'll forget this question. Your recommendations, how do you propose to -- what is the plan to implement the recommendations you just cited? Because I think exposure is extremely important for young people to 131 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 understand and understand STEM or biotechnology and how that relates to them and their everyday lives. I mean, you made the recommendations. What are you all doing to carry forth these recommendations?

That's a good question. I'm happy to say that the School District of Philadelphia takes this issue seriously and I think it's clear that the Mayor takes it seriously, and you have regional stakeholders within the City and surrounding the City that take it seriously as well, folks like the Philadelphia Ed Fund, you have the STEM Compact, you have groups like DVIRC, Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Centers. University stakeholders have -- I would say all of the universities have some STEM-focused or STEM-oriented program that works in concert or collaboration with the School District. What is needed in Philadelphia -- I think the good news 132 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 about my home city is that there are a lot of people doing good things. The challenge is that they're not coordinated or organized. So I think part of the challenge is to organize them. I think the organizing element ought to be in alignment with the City government, with the School District, because ultimately the government and School District are responsible for the kids and their welfare. So I think out of that responsibility and leadership ought to come a plan that addresses STEM broadly that identifies the opportunities to intervene early. I think there was some other panelist that talked about the need to reach kids perhaps even at 5th grade with some form of intervention that identifies factors that would motivate them to engage in math and science education. I think that's critical. The second thing I think is, we need to understand the connection between school to work. Kids need to understand 133 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 and see firsthand why education means so much, why it is such a gateway for their economic future. All of the companies that I talk about, interestingly enough, ring the City, but none are within the City. So there needs to be some integration with economic planning such that our urban populations can see and take advantage of what job employment opportunities, as well as entrepreneurship opportunities, would exist should there be an economic environment in the City that would foster business growth, new companies being spun out in universities, things like that. Philly has the assets and resources within its bounds to do this work. The challenge is organizing them and aligning them and making sure that, whether we're talking about economic planning or STEM education or post-secondary preparation, that they're all aligned with the goal, of course, of educating our children in math and 134 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 science so that they can be prepared for college, but also be prepared for work.

Ms. Shorr.

Good morning, Councilwoman Tasco and members of the Committee on Public Health and Human Services. I'm Dr. Lori Shorr, Chief Education Officer for the City of Philadelphia. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to offer my thoughts and recommendations to address the disparities and educational outcomes of our young people that continue to plague our city. Let me begin by congratulating Chairwoman Tasco and the members of the Committee on your leadership in holding this hearing. I also want to recognize and thank Pat Coulter and her colleagues at the Urban League of Philadelphia for issuing this challenging but extremely useful report. The Mayor has clearly signaled his dedication to improving educational 135 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 outcomes for all Philadelphia's young people. His commitment to half the dropout rate and to double the number of Philadelphians with college credentials is bold and visionary and is essential if we are to meet our responsibilities and keep our promise to the young people of this great city. To these ends, I want to focus my remarks this morning on three areas where I believe concerted efforts can lead to improvement in academic performance and career prospects for African-American students to the benefit of all Philadelphians. These three areas are, one, improving high school graduation rates; two, building a rich portfolio of high-quality education opportunities; and, three, improving college-going and graduation rates. Those areas are clearly noted in the State of Black America report, which makes the case for increased educational attainment in the black 136 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 community. I believe that the issue of educational attainment is clearly linked to the other indicators outlined in the report, test scores, student risk factors and teacher quality. The Mayor has made educational attainment a goal and I'd like to share our efforts with you. Based on extensive research conducted by Dr. Ruth Curran Neild and Dr. Robert Balfanz, both of John Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools, we have a clear picture of the status and characteristics of young people who leave Philadelphia public schools without a diploma. Conducted for Project U-Turn, the citywide campaign to resolve our catastrophically high dropout rate studies by Neild and Balfanz found that the four-year on-time graduation rates for Classes of 2000 to 2005 ranged from about 45 percent to just over 50 percent. Six-year rates for the Classes of 2000 to 2003 are higher, ranging from 54 to 58 percent, but are still dismally 137 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 low. Of course, district-wide averages mask marked differences by race and ethnicity. Based on Neild and Balfanz's finding, a shorthand description of the Philadelphia students' on-time graduation rate finds that Asian graduation rates tend to be in the 60 percent range, white rates in about the 50 percent range, African-American rates in about the 40 percent range and Latino rates in the high 30 percent, low 40 percent range. Recent trends show some improvement in graduation rates. For example, African-Americans in the Class of 2005 experienced a substantial increase in on-time graduation rates, breaking the 50 percent mark for the first time in the six cohorts analyzed by Neild and Balfanz. Furthermore, six-year averages for African-Americans in the Classes of '01 to '03 improved to about 58 percent. 138 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Modest graduation rate improvements in recent years might provide some basis for hope, but we all know that we need to do substantially more to improve the likelihood that our young people graduate from high school, ready for college and career. In this vein, the City is working closely with Dr. Ackerman and her staff on a variety of researched-based approaches designed to improve high school graduation rates for all students.

These include, one, focusing on students who exhibit early indicators known to predict dropping out as early as the 6th grade and providing them with academic and social supports to get them back on graduation track. Two, placing particular attention on the transition between 8th and 9th grades and on the first 9th grade marking period when students fall behind. Three, creating opportunities for work-based and service learning, which brings relevance to academic rigor. 139 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Four, deploying graduation coaches who work directly with high-risk youth helping them to progress academically and providing mentoring and nurture from a caring adult. The next one is creating high school learning environments that address the diverse academic and social needs of students. And, lastly, building a re-connection system to re-enroll and appropriately place former dropouts who are returning to continue their educational journeys. Clearly, traditional high schools are not working for significant numbers of young people in large urban areas like Philadelphia. This should come as no great surprise. It is in fact naive to believe that one formal high school system built to address the economic and social realities of a half a century ago is ever going to work for all youth today. To address this fact, as 140 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 noted above, we need to develop a diverse set of high schools that meet the varying needs of adolescent learners. These high schools are small, offer innovative pedagogies, apply academic knowledge to the real world, and help students get back on track by enabling them to accelerate credit acquisition. New York City is recognized as a national leader in creating these diverse high schools, known as multiple pathways to graduation. Here in Philadelphia we are beginning to follow suit. We've created six accelerated high schools that provide these innovative learning opportunities for about 1,200 students in the '07-'08 year. These schools are in great demand, with hundreds of potential students on waiting lists. So expanding the capacity of these schools and building new ones is a high priority. Steps are being taken to do just that. The School Reform Commission 141 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 will be releasing an RFP that seeks proposals offering a range of high-quality school experiences for young people that are not succeeding in traditional high schools, including those who have been historically referred to disciplinary schools where African-American students are substantially overrepresented. While considerable more work needs to be done, the growth of these innovative accelerated high schools is another area where attention and funding support are critically needed. As the Mayor noted in his inaugural address, the City of Philadelphia ranks 92nd out of 100 large American cities in the percentage of adults with Bachelor's degrees. Educational credentials matter for so many reasons. They relate directly to personal earnings and employment, to the cost of services borne by the government, and to overall economic well-being of the 142 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 region in terms of productivity and standard of living. They also help to level income disparities. For example, research suggests that the income gap between African-American and white high school dropouts is about percent. 8 That narrows to less than four percent at 9 the Bachelor degree level. 10 We need to begin right now to 11 build a pipeline college for all of our 12 students, but we face many challenges. 13 As noted, based on recent data, barely 14 half of the black students graduate from 15 high school on time. Less than half who 16 graduate enroll in college, about 60 17 percent in four-year institutions and 40 18 in two-year schools. Nationally, less than half of the black students who enroll in four-year institutions graduate within six years, 20 percent lower than for whites.

This means that based on the most recent data available, less than ten percent of African-American high school students will earn a four-year degree 143 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 within six years. And for the African-American males, the picture is even worse. According to the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, only about four percent of low-income African-American male high school students earn a four-year degree by their mid 20's. Working in concert with Dr. Ackerman and her staff, we are developing several approaches to address this critical issue. First and foremost, as noted above, we must graduate more of our students ready for college and careers. Then we need to develop a college-going culture within all of our high schools in which college has become the expected norm. We need to engage community partners, including employers, higher education institutions and community organizations, to help students understand the steps in applying for 144 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 college and financial aid and making the right college choices. We need to build closer connections between Philadelphia high schools and the local colleges and universities who enroll them. We need to build structures within colleges and universities to support students, particularly first-generation college-goers and others who need special help to ensure their success once they get to college. Of course, there are many great ideas and research-based effective practices that we must consider and put into place, but most are contingent on the availability of resources. I want to recognize the leadership of Councilwoman Tasco and Chairwoman Anna Verna who last year dedicated $1 million in City funding to provide enriched summer jobs for more than 800 young people. These are precisely the kinds of investments that 145 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 young people understand -- that help people understand the value of work and education, keep them in school on track for graduation and college and career success. Building on your efforts, the Mayor was pleased to include a continuation of this $1 million investment in his budget request. Council has also continued to play an essential role in making funding available to the School District of Philadelphia and its students. The total support for the schools in locally generated revenue is expected to exceed $805 million for FY08, representing an increase of six percent, or more than 40 million over the FY07. Furthermore, the FY09 budget expected to increase by another four percent, or 31 million. 5 million for the School District. In short, Philadelphians are 146 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 clearly demonstrating their commitment to public education and to the long-term well-being of our young people and our broader community. Now it's time for the Commonwealth to join this effort. That's why I urge Council and everyone today to continue and extend our advocacy efforts on behalf of Governor Rendell's proposal for a new education funding formula, which is the first step in fixing Pennsylvania's broken and outdated education funding system. 6 billion in additional state funds over six years. Under the Governor's proposal, the School District of Philadelphia will receive 85 million for the '08-'09 school year. I mention this because most of the things I outlined for you today that we need to do are based upon increase in revenue into the School District so that 147 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 we can put the programs in place that are needed to ensure the outcomes we know all children deserve. These new state investments would augment and extend our local efforts and go a long way towards helping the City and School District to adopt many of the proposed strategies I have discussed. In this way, we continue our efforts to eliminate the unacceptable gaps in outcomes for African-American students.

Thank you again, Chairwoman Tasco and members of the Committee, for your leadership on such an important issue. The Mayor and I look forward to working with City Council on an array of strategies that will improve educational outcomes for our young people.

Thank you very much for your testimony. This past weekend I was with the Advisory Board of the National League of Cities and we had the same discussion about education, and 148 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 one of the presenters at the meeting talked about the availability of a workforce, as Mr. Keyes talked about, for employment. Every child is not going to go to college. While we would like for that to take place and we want to see more of our young people go to college, if the emphasis is placed on going to college, is this expectation, does it dissuade or cause children to think, Well, I'm not going to college, so why should I stay in high school? We talk about preparing young people for jobs. I mean, every job in my -- I was taught when I was younger every job is important. You need somebody for every job. But one of the concerns we've talked about is the lack of workers just to take average jobs, not college jobs, but to perform in jobs that don't require a college education but do require some form of education. So are we focusing so much in 149 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 on the college student and not focusing in on the young person who might want another career? Because we've dropped the vocational tech jobs out of high schools. We're not emphasizing on those anymore, and we may -- and I think there is an effort to go back to look at that and certainly because some of the work we've been doing here in Council about construction trades and all that, but you still need a high school diploma for that, understand math and some of that information. But I think we ought to be a little broader in the educational agenda.

I agree, and I usually talk "college and career." I usually use that phrase for the most part, because I think being ready for what's going to happen after high school, whether it's going to college or going into a career, the fact of the matter is, what students have to learn at the high school level is more than they had to 150 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 learn before, because the number of unskilled jobs that you can get out of high school has diminished so drastically over the last two decades and is projected to decrease in the future, that the number of jobs that we're preparing students for that they can get right out of high school without a solid academic credential coming out of high school is diminishing. So I think we need to send a couple messages to kids. One is whether you're going to college or you're going into a career, the unskilled workforce that you used to be able to step into -- like my father worked in the steel mill his whole life and he graduated from high school and went into the steel mill and had a wonderful, long career. Well, I don't know if he'd always call it wonderful, but it was a long career in the steel mills and provided for our families well. Those types of jobs just aren't there in the same numbers they 151 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 used to be. So we need to get the message to kids that there are jobs for people who work with their hands, but lots of folks who work with their hands now also have to work with technology and a computer and do those other sort of things. So I think we need to, A, connect more kids to real-work experiences so that they see what the level of sophistication is out there, but then also get kids to understand and students and teachers and all of us really to understand that the next step after high school looks different than it did a couple of decades ago. And even when you start to talk to the trades, they'll tell you they're getting kids in who aren't able to do the reading level that they need to be able to do to be successful. So for kids to opt out of taking the academic high school program seriously by saying, I'm just going to go into something with my hands, we're doing 152 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 them a disservice if we don't say, Look, you need the math skills because the math skills are basic to doing a lot of the work that used to be just manual labor. And I totally agree with you, that career and technical education, what used to be called vo-tech, is a really good way of marrying those two concepts, because if you go someplace like Lehigh Career and Technical Institute, which is about an hour and minutes from here, 13 and you go into the tool and die making 14 shop and you see what they're doing in 15 there, they're using their hands, but they're also using a computer -- they have to program a computer, and the level of sophistication there is pretty mind boggling. So we need to be helping parents and students understand what's waiting for them in the new economy.

Also, in the paper, the Wall Street Journal, on Friday, there was a front-page story that talked about because of the oil crisis, 153 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States. So it behooves us to find out what they are so that we can prepare our young people for those jobs.

Councilwoman, can I reiterate what she just said and expand on it?

Sure.

Let's be clear about the context, because this is no 12 longer a regional competition between Philadelphia and New Jersey or Philadelphia and some cities in Maryland. This is a global competition for talent, that we are now in a flat world, to borrow the overused phrase, where we are competing against Bombay, India; Berlin, Germany; Beijing, China and so forth. These locales are our competition, and so if we are to address what's going to happen, as Dr. Shorr said, after high school, whether they go to college or not or go to community college to get an Associate's degree, it has to be in the 154 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 context of what the new economy looks like. So while I enjoy my Tastykake every Friday or so, we're not talking about making Butterscotch Krimpets anymore.

But we are, because that's one of the industries here in Philadelphia, and there will be some places at Tastykake or someone cleaning the bathroom at the airport or somebody doing something some place. There's going to be a need for a service.

But what Dr. Shorr said is important. The person making Krimpets at Tastykake is going to have to use a computer. The person mopping the floor is going to have a computerized broom. We're still going to have to understand that the new economy has a global effect on everybody. I don't care what form of work you're doing. The old way of doing the work is gone. It's not coming back. I don't care -- even I would say in Pittsburgh, U.S. Steel, 155 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 whether they want to bring back steel or not in terms of manufacturing, the new way of making steel is going to be completely different, and that's something that we have to prepare our students for.

I disagree with you. And I appreciate that. I don't disagree with you, you're right, we are in a global market and we do have to look at what exists today, and I think back to when we were in high school.

One brief comment as well. I'm always torn in this discussion, because I understand the reality of the statement that not every child is going to go to college or going to want to go to college and so we have to plan to make sure that every student has the basic set of skill level to be able to make that choice of which direction they're going to go. At the same time, I recognize that in many of the suburban communities that we hold up 156 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 as ideals educationally, we adults don't make those statements. And so I think often the challenges that our youth face are a result of the expectations that we as adults have or don't have. And so while we have to deal with the reality of the situation to plan so that kids can succeed, I think that we also as adults, we need to challenge ourselves to think of a different way of making that premise known. And I think I like what Lori talks about about making sure that youth are really adequately prepared for college or career and really trying to combine them together. I think the old voc-ed system, one of the challenges is that you ended up tracking kids, and so you had a lot of black kids and other folks that adults in authority would look at and say, Well, you need to go in the shop; whereas, you, you look kind of bright, maybe you're a little lighter skinned maybe or whatever and you need to go over in this direction. 157 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 So I think a lot of -- when we talk about this State of Black Philadelphia, one of the reasons -- I think it was said earlier we were considered to be three-fourths of a human being and the statistics have us about three-fourths of the success of what white Philadelphians are succeeding, and so I think there's a connection there, but I think part of that connection in voc-ed was due to tracking. The challenge is how do we re-bring back the good things of voc-ed, but leave behind the things that left us in sort of these automatic tracks.

I agree with you. I mean, certainly the same thing happened with whether you got a commercial course or your academic course. You went in commerce to be a secretary, you went to college. Those are the kinds of things we have to address also in conjunction with how we run our education system, how people are 158 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 trained and what messages they send and give to our students. I have a question for you about the parents. We have a cycle of babies having babies, and so a lot of our children come from single-family homes where possibly maybe the parent dropped out of school. I mean, how do we change that cycle and how do we instill the value of an education into those parents who maybe by the time they are parents know and understand the value of education? You talked about the need of having programs that would help parents understand the need to be more involved in the schools, the child's school experience, and you talked about a pilot, but the pilot is never going any further than a pilot. Would you expound a little bit about that?

Sure, and let me talk about that in two different ways. I think when you talk about the issue of 159 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 teen pregnancy and the parents may not have gone so far and sort of people's acceptance of -- the mindset that we have about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I think that kind of work, really going to reach out to families and parents and helping all of us revise how we think about these things and develop a new culture, that's hard, and so I don't want to make it sound like one simple program is going to be a panacea. This is dirty work, get out in the communities, try and organize the churches and the rec centers and the community organizations and whoever else to begin to talk about a different message. But one thing specifically about the pregnant and parenting teens, there is a program that works in the School District that has been very effective working with pregnant and parenting teens and helping them to overcome some of the barriers so that 160 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 they continue and actually go on to graduate, the ELECT program. And some of the work with Project U-Turn, what the research started to point out was that while the ELECT program is over here and doing some good work, the challenges in getting the names of who the pregnant students were over to the ELECT program, there are all these agreements and confidentiality laws and that kind of a thing. So you have a program that's successful, but couldn't really get access -- had a small percentage of the population that could really be helping. And so I think there's two things that can be done. One I think is focusing on things to help the parents develop sort of a new culture and mindset of what we expect. But the other thing I think is really working with those that are in school right now. The ELECT model, as I said, is an effective model, but there are limitations on how to make -- there are limitations on its 161 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 effectiveness because of sort of these rules and regulations. So how do we do that so that when this current cohort of students, they may have children, but you can still get them through, and so then they will grow up with a different mindset than maybe their parents did because they were able to do both. And now we can talk about how we go about reducing teen pregnancy, but at the very least, let's have a mindset where at least you can do both.

Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Dr. Shorr.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for your testimony. If we choose to use PSSA test scores as an indicator and then we examined those test scores since the creation of the School Reform Commission 162 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 and we received some of that data during the school budget hearings, we know two things are true, that, one, test scores have improved across the board. The second thing we know to be true is that the racial disparities in terms of the gap in that scoring has slightly lessened. But what we know to be more true above and beyond that is that that racial disparity that still exists is so great that it takes dramatic action. What we know from looking at those scores is that essentially the progress that African-American students have made between 2002 and 2007, regardless of what their progress is, where they exist now in terms of scoring in 2007 is essentially where white students began in 2002. So with that being said, I have heard that Dr. Ackerman is looking to dramatically shift resources to disadvantaged schools. I'm just wondering what is the Administration's 163 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 position on that, aside from acknowledging that progress has been made across the board and the fact that that may help us with state funding and that more funding is needed? Is it the Administration's position that that racial disparity, that education gap, is so stark that there has to be a dramatic shifting of resources?

I would say two things. One, the pie isn't big enough in terms of the money that needs to go to this issue, but, two, if we're going to talk about intervening in a cycle where students aren't being successful and we are able to recognize with some of the research that was done, we can recognize about 60 percent of the kids in 6th grade who we know will drop out and finding resources and focusing resources on the kids who we know are showing the indicators, that they need to be served better, that some intervention has to happen. Because we know if we don't 164 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 intervene there, then if they make it to 8th grade, that gives us maybe another chance, but if we don't intervene there, they're going to drop out in 9th grade and they're going to cycle through 9th grade a couple of times and then they're going to end up on our streets, and then at the end of the day, it's not good for the kid, the community or the City. So I think the idea of putting resources where they're needed is something that in the PhillyStat process we've been doing a lot of, is looking at -- we're doing it through the nine police districts and pushing resources into those districts. And if you map the schools that the District is having the least success in those schools with graduation, they map pretty clearly onto the nine high-crime districts as well. Though I think that the idea of making sure that there's enough money to intervene in the places where we know we're having the most trouble is a sound 165 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 one.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilwoman Brown.

Actually, I have one other quick question, half jokingly, half not. Dr. Womack, what is a computerized broom?

My point was -- it's an exaggeration, but my point was, it doesn't matter what you're doing in the future -- and when I say "the future," I mean soon -- that even what we call manual work is going to be impacted heavily by science and technology.

But there is no such thing as a computerized broom.

Not yet.

Okay. Thank you.

It's on its way. 166 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140

There is a computerized vacuum cleaner. Good afternoon. Who funds STEM?

I guess you can talk about this as well. STEM is an old term that's actually come to the fore recently.

Repeat what you just said.

STEM as a term has just recently come to the fore. It's an old term. Folks have been talking about math and science since A Nation At Risk, which was a report released in the '80s. STEM in the current context is really coming through the national agenda and discussion around math and science achievement for secondary -- students in middle school and high school.

I see.

So you have at the national level the American Competes Act and a few other legislation that have 167 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 gone through, have been authorized, have not been appropriated yet, but hopefully with a new Administration they will be. So at the federal level, you have quite a few agencies that will be funding STEM, like NSF, NIH, Department of Energy, DOD, Department of Defense. At the state level, you have, I think, some wonderful initiatives that kind of come out of the National Governor's Association. Governor Rendell has been at the forefront of promoting Pennsylvania. We have what is called the STEM Compact, which is --

The who compact?

STEM Compact, which is a regional group of stakeholders that are trying to implement policy and, to some extent, maybe even programs in different parts of the state. And then at the local level, you have organizations such as mine that I co-founded with the School District, 168 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Philadelphia Academies, and others.

So you have multiple funding streams?

Yeah. But we need -- but I would say we do need additional support, because a lot of these things, I think what Dr. Shorr said before, require additional funding, new monies, to come in to support what we're doing. For instance, I've started a math/science summer program which works with the School District and some of the schools in the area, and that needs funding. That needs support. I'm happy to say that we enjoy support from the universities, which often translate into in-kind services, but we do need some support to fund the programs that we're trying to launch.

Are there any math/science after-school programs in the City at all, to your knowledge, Dr. Shorr?

You mean City 169 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 funded?

Yes.

I don't know. I don't know of any. I can check on that.

Okay. Because what we do know is that there are dollars for after-school programming, and if we know that there's a limited to no 10 presence of young people in that interest area, then there's an opportunity to connect the two and, thus, one opportunity for funding. I'd like to have an off-line conversation with you about the Philadelphia Foundation, because they're in the business of funding after-school programs from that Children's Fund from the stadium dollars and there is an opportunity there. Is there a pipeline right now with young people who have math/science interests, a pipeline that -- a hand-holding, coaching kind of experience that takes them from middle school to 170 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 high school to career internships at all currently with STEM?

That's what we created. So before the Institute launched its biotech/life science career academy program, the answer would be no, not to my knowledge. We decided to focus early, 5th grade, and work longitudinally speaking, meaning we'll follow the same group of students through middle and high school, and at the high school level actually connect them to some meaningful and relevant work experiences during the summer, and also couple that with development of hard and soft skills, meaning helping them to navigate professional environments so that when they leave, they can -- they have the choice to either go into a four-year college or if they wanted to go into community college, get an advanced Associate's degree or Associate's degree in particular areas, they can do that. And I find it interesting that students 171 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 can go through high school and then community college, come out with certificate and skills and make a fairly decent salary, even more so than somebody with a Ph.D. in my field. So there are wonderful economic opportunities for students who choose not to necessarily go into graduate school or whatever, but choose to go a different route. It's just as meaningful for them. But it's clear that they have to start from a basis of having a math and science foundation that will enable them to go.

Indeed. Just as a footnote, you may know that the Philadelphia Visitors and Convention Bureau has just organized a new department or unit called Life Sciences.

Yeah.

So there are companies who fit under that Life Science Congress, I believe. So a linking up with them for those young people becomes a part of that potential 172 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 career path and maybe opportunities for companies to cover tuition for young people who want to pursue that.

Absolutely.

So I offer that for your FYI. The Philadelphia Education Fund is purely policy-making? Any program delivery activities?

No. We do a wide range of activities. We do research. We actually worked with Professors Neild and Balfanz on the study that Lori Shorr had mentioned. We do supports for professional development for teachers. We work right now extensively with student teachers to try to get them more acclimated to the District and also to help them become proficient enough that they actually decide to stay around in the District instead of going elsewhere. Currently, we're co-convening with the School District the Secondary 173 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Education Blueprint, looking at a five-year plan on really improving and reforming secondary education. And then, as I said, we also do civic engagement, which is sort of getting folks that work outside of 440 to pay more attention to --

Who funds the Education Fund?

All soft money, just a lot of different sources.

Is the Philadelphia Foundation one of them?

Yes.

So you're aware that the Philadelphia Foundation has under that Children's Fund a program priority known as Parenting Workshops?

I did not know that, and I will check into that. Thank you.

Okay. Do we have copies of your testimony, Mr. Robert Keyes? 174 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140

You do.

Okay. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you. Any other questions? (No response.)

Again, thank you so much, and we will have you back again. Thank you. Our next panel will be the economics panel. Dr. Bernard Anderson, Ms. Irene Hannan, Reverend Kevin Johnson, Phil McRae, Duane Bumb and our Andrew Altman. Let me just note that Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell joined us earlier and I failed to recognize her presence in the Council to listen to the reports. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Okay. Moving right along. I believe we have our economic panel here. 175 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 Are you going to begin, Dr. Anderson?

All right. Madam Chairman, members of the Committee, I thank you for the invitation to present testimony on an issue of profound importance to the current and future quality of life in this city. And I want to commend you, Madam Chairman, for your long and highly productive career and leadership in this city in public service on this and many other issues that are so important to the City of Philadelphia. And you and I have been around a long time and I followed your career very closely, and it's just wonderful to see how you have flowered and have offered the great leadership that you are offering in this City Council. So I commend you for that.

Thank you.

Let me say that the Urban League of Philadelphia has done a great service to the people of this 176 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 city through the publication of the State of Black Philadelphia. The report lays bare a problem that if not corrected will prevent this city from ever laying claim to the mantle of greatness, and that problem is racial inequality in Philadelphia economic life. Now, let me digress a minute, Madam Chairman, and say that Pat Coulter directed me to limit my comments to five minutes. Now, you must understand, I'm a university professor programmed for 50 minutes and anything less than that is cruel and unusual punishment, but I always am dutiful in doing what I am told to do and so I commend you to the chapter 18 in the book that we were very happy to write and I have submitted testimony for these hearings, and so I will try mightily to limit my remarks so that we might have an opportunity for questions and answers. The evidence of inequality in this report is presented on nearly every 177 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 page in the key measures of economic well-being. Let me summarize just a few of the critical ones. Nearly one-third of African-American families live in poverty compared with fewer than half that number among whites. The median income of African-American families, nearly $27,000, is only two-thirds that among white families. Now, the median income is the value in the distribution that divides the distribution in half. That means that half the people will have an income higher than the median and half will have an income lower than the median. And that median for African-Americans is $27,000 compared with $42,000 for whites. The unemployment rate among black workers, nearly ten percent, is more than twice the rate among whites. The unemployment rate of black youth when adjusted for those who are out of school 178 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 and out of work and not participating in the labor market exceeds 50 percent. Only one of every five black youth have a job compared with three of five white youth. There are wide disparities among black and white populations in home ownership, business ownership, wealth accumulation and other key economic indicators. In short, if the problem of economic inequality is expressed in the language of a financial balance sheet, one would conclude that Philadelphia's black population has only half the assets that produce economic well-being, but twice the liabilities that diminish the quality of economic life. Racial inequality in Philadelphia economic life is longstanding and deeply rooted. But much of the inequality observed in recent years is exacerbated by the transformation of the local economy which 179 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 began in the late 1950s, accelerated after the Recession of the early 1980s and continues to this day. In effect, we've seen a decline in manufacturing jobs and a shift toward service sector employment, especially the ed and meds -- that's the education sector and the medical sector -- in Philadelphia. By the way, the emphasis in my comments is on the City of Philadelphia, not the region. We're focusing here on the City of Philadelphia. This employment trend has been accompanied by upgrading in the skill requirements of the workplace. But the transformation in the structure of the City's economy was not accompanied by a significant increase in the number of private sector jobs. In short, Philadelphia suffers from inadequate job creation. And let me emphasize, job creation is a sine-qua-non for reducing racial disparities in workforce. 180 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 These trends have gained strength since the third quarter of 2007 when the national economy entered a period of slow growth bordering on recession. Employment declined by 233,000 in the nation during the first quarter of 2008, while Philadelphia lost 12,300 jobs.

The impact of economic transformation, coupled with demographic change, is worsened by the limitation on economic opportunity available to the City's black population. Discrimination against black workers and business owners has been a persistent reality in the City of Philadelphia. The recent history of life and labor in the City is dominated by efforts to widen the doors of opportunity. Some here will recall the Selective Patronage Campaign that was led by the late great Reverend Leon Howard Sullivan a half century ago and which opened many doors. Civil rights and community organizations have continuously 181 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 advocated for fair employment practices and access to economic opportunity for African-Americans. Mayor Nutter recently created the Commission on Construction Industry Diversity to expand economic opportunity in an industry where discrimination was described at length more than a century ago by the premier black scholar Dr. William Edward Burghardt Dubois in his classic study The Philadelphia Negro. That study was published in 1896. Much can and should be done through public policy to eliminate racial inequality that is clearly described in the Urban League report. Let me suggest that African-Americans have a relationship with the economy similar to the caboose on a train. When the train speeds up, the caboose speeds up, and when the train slows down, so does the caboose. But in the natural order of things, the caboose never catches up with the engine. 182 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 This analogy offers a clue to what is required to close the economic gap that is so prevalent today. Two requirements are necessary to produce positive change. The first requirement is to stimulate private sector job creation. The second is to expand opportunity for African-Americans to participate fully in the economy. Now, what can the City Council do? To accelerate job creation, public policies are required to improve the City's competitiveness for business development and growth. First among useful policies would be the reduction and eventual elimination of the business privilege tax. Every recent study of the City's tax structure concludes with a recommendation to revise the business privilege tax. The report of the Tax Reform Commission, a commission that was mandated by the City Council, makes clear the detrimental impact of that tax on business attraction and growth, 183 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 especially for small businesses, which, of course, creates most jobs. A reduction in the wage tax also will help strengthen the local economy by increasing the incentive for middle- and upper-income workers to maintain their residence in or move to the City. Past City Council action to reduce the wage tax will prove helpful in improving the income of working families in the immediate years ahead. Mandated reductions in the wage tax through casino revenue will further strengthen the City's competitive environment and through supply-side effects will create jobs. Targeted tax credits for hiring ex-offenders can go a long way toward addressing the unemployment problem of black youth. When coupled with job training, targeted tax policies can help narrow the racial employment gap. Efforts to close the gap also must be aimed at the supply side of the 184 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 labor market. Improving the skill level of the workforce through higher academic achievement among youth must be emphasized, and resources must be provided to improve the quality of public school education. By so doing, policymakers will help increase the number of minority City youth who can satisfy employer demand for skilled labor in expanding industries. Finally, it is essential to protect equal employment opportunity for minority workers and business owners. Both public and private leaders should make the elimination of racial disparities a high priority.

That means not only verbal support for diversity, but also hiring, training, promoting minorities who are fully qualified for available job vacancies. Now let me digress by being clear. As Richard Nixon said, let me be perfectly clear. I am not speaking here about quotas, hiring quotas. What I am 185 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 speaking about here is a concerted effort to make a concerted attempt and determination to hire African-Americans who are in every way found to be qualified for the jobs that are available. You hear so much today about diversity. Well, I would say that it's important to look at the results. Diversity means nothing if from year to year we see more African-Americans graduating from colleges and universities, not only in the City of Philadelphia but from all over the country, those who did what I did, went away to college and came back and was denied a position as a management intern in the private corporation when the search firm told me to my face, There's not a private company in this city that would hire a negro in that type of job. That was in 1960. My mother told me when I called her -- I came out of the search firm office, I was in tears. I had never been told in my life I would be denied 186 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 anything because of my race. Grew up in this city, fourth generation Philadelphia family. And I said, What should I do? My mother was employed by the Naval Aviation Supply Depot in North Philadelphia. We lived in South Philadelphia at the time. She said, Well, you need more education. That was the faith of mothers, you see, the faith of black mothers. My father died when I was three. My mother never remarried. I don't remember my father. Faith of mothers. She said, Get more education. So I went to get more education. I was fortunate enough to get financial aid and to go on to get a Master's degree in economics. I wasn't satisfied with that. D. degree. But I never again attempted to get a job in the private sector. We have got to stop this kind of discrimination. And I apologize to 187 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 you for digressing on this, but if diversity means anything, it means hiring people who have the education, who have the skills and to seek them out because they are minorities and hire them, train them, promote them on the job. Let me get on with the message. Let me conclude by saying that in a city where 44 percent of the population is of African descent, economic growth cannot be achieved without eliminating racial disparities in economic opportunity. City Council should adopt public policies that assure equal opportunity in the public sector and foster equal opportunity in the private sector. Such policies will improve the economic well-being of all population groups in the City and strengthen further economic growth. I thank you for your attention, and I'd be happy to answer whatever questions you might have.

Thank you 188 6/16/08 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 080140 very much. We'll let everyone make their presentation and then we'll just have a round of questions for everyone. Ms. Hannan.