Constance Clayton, Philadelphia’s first Black and female schools superintendent, has died at 89

Constance E. Clayton never shied away from asking that more be given to Philadelphia’s children — more resources, a better education, higher standards.

“I don’t think anyone else could measure up to what she did for kids,” said former Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode. “She is, in my opinion, the best advocate for children this city has ever seen at all.”

Dr. Clayton, the revered School District of Philadelphia superintendent who was the first Black and first female schools chief in the city’s history, died Monday at 89. The cause of death was not given in the district’s announcement.

Dr. Clayton rose from being a fourth-grade teacher in North Philadelphia to running what was then the country’s fifth-largest school system with more than 200,000 students. She served as superintendent from 1982 until her retirement in 1993.

“She was the best superintendent this city has known,” said Jerry Jordan, the longtime Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president, who considered Dr. Clayton a friend and mentor.

Born in North Philadelphia, Constance Elaine Clayton was born to Levi and Willabell Clayton in 1933, and she attended Girls’ High, Jay Cooke Junior High, and Dunbar Elementary, a segregated school at the time. She earned degrees at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania to spend her career as a Philadelphia educator.

Dr. Clayton was raised by her mother and her grandmother, whom she said emphasized character, discipline, and love.

“In my house, you were expected to excel,” Dr. Clayton said in 1982.

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Dr. Clayton began her career teaching at the now-closed William Henry Harrison public school in North Philadelphia in 1955, and by 1972 had become director of early childhood education citywide. Mayor Bill Green named her superintendent in 1982.

John White Jr., the former state representative and City Council member, helped close the deal to make Dr. Clayton superintendent, driving back and forth as messenger between Green’s house in Chestnut Hill and Dr. Clayton’s house on Sedgwick Street in East Mount Airy. White knew Clayton through church, St. Paul Baptist; her mother gave him voice lessons, and Dr. Clayton called White “John Junior.”

“She was a giant,” said White. “When you think about Philadelphians having a place in the history of this city, she has to be at the top of the list. We talk about Richardson Dilworth and Joe Clark, but what she did to promote public education and to prepare professionals for leadership has not been seen since.”

In 1982, Dr. Clayton told The Inquirer, “I don’t mind delegating responsibility, but I don’t abdicate my own. There’s something I say to my staff all the time: I ask them to treat and teach the children of other people as if they were their own.”

Dr. Clayton brought cultural responsiveness to the city’s curriculum; as a social studies curriculum specialist, she ensured that African American history was taught. As superintendent, she ensured world cultures were taught.

During Dr. Clayton’s tenure as schools chief, the district had no labor strikes. It ran no deficits. Dr. Clayton standardized curriculum, grading, and promotion criteria. She ended a system of patronage appointees, saw test scores rise citywide, and won the confidence of the business community.

She could be no-nonsense, for sure. Jordan, who taught in the district before becoming a PFT staffer, sat across the table from Dr. Clayton many times.

“When you were in a meeting with her and you saw her take a finger and push the glasses up closer to her eyes, you knew somebody was going to get it,” said Jordan.

Shelly Yanoff, the longtime former director of Children First, then called Public Citizens for Children and Youth, said Dr. Clayton “didn’t suffer fools easily. She was strict, and she was strong, and she would listen to you, but only if you were serious.”

Not everyone liked Dr. Clayton, Yanoff said, but everyone respected her.

“No one questioned her motivation, which is really saying something about a public figure,” said Yanoff.

Reginald Streater, Philadelphia school board president, said he thinks a lot about what Dr. Clayton did for city schools, and for him — as a student who experienced homelessness, then went to work in restaurants after graduating from Germantown High School. Eventually, he made it to and through college, and law school, and got appointed to the school board.

The education Streater received in city schools, and his success, happened because of Dr. Clayton’s efforts, he said.

”She was a hero,” Streater said. “I’ve been impacted by her personally, and now it’s incumbent on all the stewards of public education to get this right.”

Formal and eloquent, Dr. Clayton was considered by some as autocratic, but she usually didn’t mind the pushback.

On days when closing school because of bad weather was a question, Dr. Clayton instructed bus drivers to navigate the hills of Manayunk to determine whether the roads were passable.

“They called me ‘No Close Clayton,’ " she said in 2017.

Tony B. Watlington Sr., Philadelphia’s current superintendent, has said she quickly became a mentor to him during his time in Philadelphia.

In fact, Dr. Clayton provided an impetus for the district to buy new curriculum for all students in math, English language arts, and science. Prior to this year, different schools used different curricula.

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Clayton, Watlington has said, told him, “Young man, our children are transient, the curriculum matters,” Watlington said.

Watlington said it was a “high honor” to get to know Dr. Clayton, and that the district will memorialize her.

“She was the embodiment of a true educator and humanitarian due to her dedication to improving the lives of children in education,” Watlington wrote in a tribute to Dr. Clayton.

“I made every decision based on, ‘Was it good for our kids?’ Dr. Clayton said in a 2017 interview, shortly before U.S. Sen. Bob Casey honored her in the Senate as an African American whose contributions made Pennsylvania better.

After her retirement, Dr. Clayton continued to care deeply about Philadelphia’s children, and to keep current on trends in education. She received multiple honorary doctorates.

Robin Cooper, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, the district’s principals’ union, called Dr. Clayton “an iconic figure.”

Dr. Clayton, Cooper said, was a champion not just of students and teachers, but of principals; she continued mentoring principals well after she left the district.

Howard Stevenson, the Constance Clayton professor of urban education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, kept in close touch with Dr. Clayton, who was interested in the impact of artificial intelligence on education. She cared about science and technology, and felt strongly that Philadelphia’s students needed to be well prepared for an increasingly sophisticated future.

Dr. Clayton was also worried that people weren’t learning “about the importance of voting, given what’s happened in the last several years,” Stevenson said. “She was smart as a whip. She could read between the lines; she was used to dealing with challenging politicians who wanted to push her in one direction or the other.”

Mayor Jim Kenney, who joined City Council in January 1992, the year before Dr. Clayton retired, said, “She was an excellent leader and trailblazer who worked tirelessly to provide quality education to our city’s children.”

Though her life centered on education, art was another major passion. Dr. Clayton grew up going to museums, and eventually she amassed a significant collection of works by Black artists, many of which she eventually donated to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2019.

Dr. Clayton also served on the board of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and donated funds to provide opportunities for Black students to work at the museum as a precursor to careers as curators or educators.

For a time, Dr. Clayton and her mother ran an antiques consignment shop in Chestnut Hill. She was also active in the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Information about services and survivors has not been released.