More than 300 people crowded last Wednesday’s School Reform Commission meeting to express their support for School Superintendent Dr. Arlene Ackerman who has been lambasted in newspaper stories over the decision to award a small contract to a black owned company hired to install security cameras in several high schools.
More than 30 speakers from churches, civil rights and business associations and elected officials bluntly refuted the printed criticisms to support the administration’s decision to more aggressively insist that non-white firms get an opportunity to share in the more than $3 billion spent by the school district each year.
Currently, less than 10 percent of those contracts go to African American owned firms.
Following is the testimony given by the NAACP Philadelphia branch:
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