Category: Response 3

The chapters from Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School detail the creation of Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem, and the factors that induced its creation.

There was a boom in children attending school during the Great Depression. “By the end of the 1930s [in the country], roughly 73 percent of fourteen-to seventeen-year-olds were attending high school, up from just over half at the start of the Depression” (112). Students were staying in school instead of competing in the competitive job market, because the youth market collapsed. These students were usually from immigrant backgrounds. Schools filled up and often became overcrowded.

In districts with an absence of high schools, local leaders worried that children would be tempted into misbehaving because they didn’t have jobs or schools to attend. There was no senior high school accessible to boys who lived in the lower Bronx or Upper East Side of Manhattan. Leonard Covello, future principal of Benjamin Franklin High School, wrote that boys “turn to the street for recreation and activity which is often of an undesirable nature” (115). The vision for Benjamin Franklin High School was that it would be “a school for all children of all the people” (115). However, its attendance zone was drawn “to avoid a large influx of Negroes from the Central Harlem District” (117) despite the fact that overcrowding had already funneled Black students into less desirable (“unzoned, older”) buildings and essentially created segregated schools.

The chapter explains that, while Covello is known for his social justice efforts, “… their strategy may have played unwittingly into a larger pattern of restricted access for blacks to upper Manhattan high schools” (117). The statement seems modest because America as a country has historically restricted Black people from access to not just schools but also jobs and neighborhoods, which we’ve been discussing in class. Authors Johnek and Puckett stress that they were reluctant to consider “any ulterior motive” for drawing district lines to exclude Black students from attending the high school (117), but there was never a real reason for why to intentionally manipulate the racial makeup of the school to exclude Black students.

Located in the East 116^th Street, Benjamin Franklin High School is one of the most diverse schools in the nation. Unlike many other schools in NYC, which are segregated in some way, Banjamin Franklin High School has embraced different ethnic groups as well as different socioeconomic classes. As a school aims to “coordinate and extend the limited facilities now available for the greater benefit of the children and the community”, the astonishing diversity we are seeing now in Benjamin Franklin High School is a crystallization of generation’s endeavor as well as the great diversity of East Harlem (115).

It’s hard to look into the history of Benjamin Franklin High School without talking about the history of East Harlem and a great man named Leonard Covello. Throughout the 20^th century, various ethnic groups such as the Italian, Puerto Rican, and African American have thrived in East Harlem. However, since East Harlem was generally regarded as ghetto, the living condition was extremely harsh during the early to mid 20^th century (such as The Great Depression), and kids could not receive proper education, a need for modern high school, where kids from different backgrounds can receive the amount of education that they are supposed to have, became self-evident. Leonard Covello and his associates aim to build Benjamin Franklin High School as the “first class High School for East Harlem”, “a Community High School which the Community would feel was its own school”, and most importantly “a school for all children of all people” (115). And Benjamin Franklin has not only become a great school for many students to absorb knowledge and improve themselves, but also a birthplace for community leaders from every background.

However, in my opinion, as I looked into the history and the circumstance of the school, I find that the success of Benjamin Franklin High School is really difficult to replicate. Despite the ingenuity and hard work of Leonard Covello and his team, the incredible diversity of the school, to some extent, is also a result due to unique demography of East Harlem, just as Rothestien argues in his paper “Why Our Schools Are Segregated”, the segregation of the schools is the result of residential segregation, while segregation is a result of various reasons such as policy and racially motivated law.

“Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School” by Michael C. Johanek and John L. Puckett discusses the creation of a community-centered high school in East Harlem. Covello’s goal for creating this high school, was to create a school that is more than just a few hours a day in a classroom, he wants the school to create a community amongst all of the school members and the surrounding neighborhood: “The responsibility of the school as an educational factor does not cease at the hour of dismissal in the afternoon; it extends far beyond the walls of the school” (141).

Covello wanted a school that would be a launching pad for well-rounded students who would then influence their families and communities. Similarly, in W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Does the Negro Need Separate Schools”, Du Bois discusses the idea of having highly educated black scholars teach at the predominantly black and low-income schools, so that the students would be positively influenced by them. The thirties were seen as the “Golden Age” of education because of its teachers which was one of the components of Covello’s high school. Comparing both of these texts to P.S. 307 who had great teachers and a hardworking principal, I believe it is safe to say that teachers play a huge role in student development.

I believe we were assigned this reading because while it may be about a different demographic group and in the thirties, the goals are the same and so are some of the issues. For example, the Italian-American students attending Benjamin Franklin High School had low self-esteem because of the way they were portrayed in media and viewed in society. Du Bois, knew low self-esteem was a factor that effected black students education during his time and present day it is socio-economic status. The problems we see today have been noticed and have been happening for a while – the project we are working on in this class is on how to fix these policy problems.

This reading to show how this school addressed issues such as multiethnic communities and low-income background students to get an idea of how schools can try to reform their own system. Some of these failed and many succeeded. I also thought it was important to see how funding and federal cooperation plays a critical role. An example of this is how Benjamin Franklin had little funding to actually help with, not only the beautification of the school but also the development and maintenance of various programs and facilities such as bathrooms. An example of federal policy clashing with educational reform within East Harlem is when they instated the WPA rule of letting go of those who worked over 18 months. This move would cripple Benjamin Franklin’s WPA Program leaving teachers understaffed (even more so than they already were.

This long article had a lot of features that have tied into our other readings. The reading didn’t draw too much attention to it but briefly brought up the idea of school zones being drawn a certain way to exclude or include a particular demographic. The school’s attendance zone would be drawn so to as to “avoid a large influx of Negros from the Central Harlem District.” Additionally, the reading also talked about how “…educators also sought to adjust the high school curriculum to the perceived talents and destinies of children with different backgrounds.” This type of issue, within the context, seemed similar to tracking which is often debated on when discussing education policy.

This reading fits into the course because of how this was a school that was created to help alleviate certain concerns pertaining to the existing education system of that time and location. Some of those issues included trying to increase high school enrollment within East Harlem, but also provide relief for overcrowded schools. However, it also had to juggle different issues such as low attendance, high dropout rates, different ethnic groups, and students coming from low economic backgrounds. Benjamin Franklin is an example of a school that attempts to remedy these issues through various programs and revolutionizes the education system in East Harlem by creating a “community-centered schooling.” Some of these programs succeeded and other failed. The failure for this often arises from issues with funding, federal cooperation and lack of aid.

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.

Although organized within an extremely short period of time (only one summer), Benjamin Franklin High School was perhaps one of the most important milestones throughout the U.S. history of education. Benjamin Franklin High School was built under a unique situation: it faced the turmoil left by the great depression, the obstacles came with the politics and legislation, and the increasingly diversified and populated neighborhoods.

After the Depression, the government budget for school maintenance was cut back. At the same time, child labor and delinquency were brought to the spotlight along with the rise of civil services. The government had to think of a way to direct children and teenagers to schools from the streets. East Harlem, where the school located, was a very diverse community. The neighborhood was the home to Italians, Irish, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and many other races.

With such interesting historical background, a serious problem came up when Leonard Covello and his colleagues tried to build a school “for all children of all people” (115, Johnek and Puckett). How to build a school that suit all children from all backgrounds? I was very impressed by Covello’s invention of “Street Unit” – “a unit that functions literally in the street” (125). In order to rebuild and strengthen the bond between school and community, Benjamin Franklin High school served not only as a public high school for kids, but also as a community playground for neighborhood children and a community center for adults. In this way, the benefits of education were not limited to children enrolled in the school. The execution of “Street Unit” reflected the optimistic atmosphere of East Harlem – parents and teachers formed numerous community clubs; recreational activities were frequently housed throughout the neighborhood; not only teachers and government officers, but also neighbors joined various campaigns to promote school and community beautification. It was heart-warming to see all people were working for a better future for their family, home, and community.

While reading Johnek and Puckett’s piece, I realized that without Covello, his colleagues, and all neighbors’ effort and determination, it was impossible to build a school “for all children of all people” at that time. All of them contributed in their ways and that made Benjamin Franklin High School a school for all people.