This reading discusses Leonard Covello’s decision to found Benjamin Franklin High School, a school for the residents of East Harlem. Schools in the area, such as DeWitt Clinton High School, were overcrowded and insufficient for the community’s needs. The desire to improve the lives of the people who lived in this area, which was considered a subpar school district, motivated Leonard Covello to build a school that would have “industrial, commercial, and cultural training for all children of all people” (115). Thus, the creation of this community-centered school was connected to the neighborhood in which it was located, which is a topic that we have been discussing at length in our course. Furthermore, this reading was assigned because it analyzes the strong ties between racial and ethnic makeup of a neighborhood and that of the neighborhood’s schools.
In the 1920s, Italians comprised the largest ethnic group in East Harlem. By the 1930s, other areas of Harlem were made up of Finnish, Negro, and Puerto Rican residents, as well as smaller numbers of American, German, Irish, and Jewish residents. The Puerto Rican population in the area grew greatly in the 1940s. However, much like blacks in the 1950s, poor working-class groups were marginalized when they tried to enter the school system in order to turn their lives around. “School leaders across the country recoiled at the onslaught of young people who were deemed unfit for the high school” (112). Schools attempted to Americanize the growing population of immigrant youth in the area, which caused many students from East Harlem to be turned off by the negative treatment they experienced in school, resulting in a high dropout rate.
In order to combat this phenomenon, Leonard Covello and other politically active Italians, lobbied for the creation of a school that would better serve the residents of East Harlem, especially its growing Italian and Puerto Rican populations. He focused on the creation of a community-centered school that would help develop the district over time. His vision for the school was for it to be more than an academic institution, but rather a living center for everybody in the neighborhood to take advantage of. In addition to the creation of Benjamin Franklin High School, he created street units, an afternoon community playground, and an adult evening community center in order to blur the lines between the school and the rest of the community.
Benjamin Franklin High School was built to show the residents of East Harlem that they were just as smart as the students whom attended other prestigious universities in New York City. Sharing similar racial ideologies to that of Du Bois in, “Does the Negro Need Separate Schools?”, Covello wanted to change the negative psychological perception of East Harlem residents’ abilities. However, interestingly, in March 1936, only two years after the school was opened, East Harlem residents made up a mere 44% of the students at the school. They eventually became the majority group, but in the school’s early years, the existence of many students from other boroughs seemed to be contrary to Covello’s goals. This is quite worrisome since it appears as if Covello might have admitted students from more promising school districts to Bejamin Franklin High School for the purpose of enriching the academic success of the school.
Despite grappling with low attendance rates, the school eventually went on to become a pillar of life in East Harlem. Rather than trying to change its students, it showed them that their differences were valuable. For instance, Puerto Rican students were able to take classes in Spanish and had a wide range of cultural extra-curricular activities that they could participate in, which helped spread tolerance in the local community. Benjamin Franklin High School’s greatest achievement was its ability to teach students about actively effecting change within their own communities, which is something that policymakers of today should be focusing on.
Thanks for this, AnnMarie. I appreciate how you connected this back to the DuBois reading and the idea that Italian Americans also wanted a school of their own that they could use for group uplift — a school tailored to what they believed were the needs of their specific community.
I really agree with Annmarie’s point of how the Italian Americans wanted a school tailored towards what they believed were the needs of their specific community and I think that this idea of schooling and community is very important. I remember in the first few classes we had, we discussed how the environment of a school can play a roll in who attends the school. We also observed some locations in which the demographics of the people living in an area did not match the demographics of the people attending the schools in the area. This somewhat shows that those environments perhaps aren’t as involved with the schooling in their area (i.e. the community isn’t really controlling the schooling in the area); however, this example of the Italian Americans really shows how an environment can shape the education system of its community.
This reminds me of Astoria, Queens, which used to be densely packed with Greeks. It is interesting to see how when the demographics of an area change, sometimes the demographics of the areas schools change as well. I believe a common theme we have also seen, but that was brought prevalent through “Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School” is that often each “group” of people – whether it be blacks, whites, Italian Americans, etc – wants to somewhat preserve their own culture through their education. I think that Annmarie did a good job explaining this for not only our current reading, but also for the DuBois reading.
Thanks for this, Asimina. You make a great connection to Astoria and its history as a neighborhood for Greek immigrants. Do you know what its schools look like now?