Category: Response 8

Like a previous entry mentioned, the 1960s brought an educational movement that led to two distinct changes in school types- alternative schools, and bilingual educational school. The movement was created to support small schools in contrast to the traditional larger schools that dominated the educational school system. It is interesting that the bilingual school system rose out of the effort of Anthony Alvarado so late since New York City is multicultural and the El Barrio had begun expanding in the early 1950s.

Interesting, community tensions played a huge role in the chaotic educational reform during this time periods. Alvardo had an activist background in  the New York City school system that he used to introduce changes to the education that included introducing a ”

rigorous educational climate to the district,  bringing in a “traditional framework” to help develop an articulated and comprehensive reading program, .and introduce “some kind of experimentation” that would be rigorous but provide “other ways of educating kids successfully” to the district.

Alvardo actively tried to introduce diversity in the educational reform he was enacting. He knew district politics played a role in the type of leaders that were being appointed so he actively tried to reduce the appointment of such leaders through time delays, and compromises. He also made sure to appoint teacher leaders in the school bilingual and alternative schools that he advocated and ensured that most were not a part of the larger UFT.He made sure that his authority was the highest in their appointments and their leadership in the alternative schools. He ensured that he was enacting diversity in the schools through his own methods by appointing teacher(especially female) that he believed agreed with his mission. I feel that if he had less interference from other political and educational groups in the district who had conflicting interests, he would have successfully enacted the policy of diversified schools beyond his original mission. However, an alternative group such as the UFT had their own concerns that they wanted to have addressed in the new educational reform that Alvardo was bringing, and well as keep the hard-earned job protections that they earned.

The problem that occurred during this time was that both groups served a similar interest( the children).however, they had different goals of how why wanted to serve eth chairmen, and what benefits they wanted. I feel that if one group that complete control, they would have achieved more success in their efforts, without the hindrance from the other groups in the same educational sphere

This week’s readings “NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS FROM BROWNSVILLE TO BLOOMBERG COMMUNITY CONTROL AND ITS LEGACY” by Heather Lewis seems like the perfect work for the last response because it covers a lot of ground we have looked into in the past few weeks/months and covers it all over a long span of time.  the reading brings up many specific examples of oppressed minorities discriminated against in places such as East Harlem and how the situation came to be and was fought by the parents and the communities. this article is also the first reading in a while that goes into details of the political nature of the changes make and how political pressure influenced these policy changes. one interesting aspect the article brings up is the idea of non-english speakers and bilingual teaching, which is something one would think would have come up a while ago, as New York is nothing is not a multilingual city;  advertisements on the subway always translate into like three other languages minimum and sometimes aren’t even primarily in english.  this lingual aspect of schools is another interesting aspect that seems to tie in heavily to a lot of what has been discussed in this class so more on this topic might prove helpful to the research we are doing and the questions we are trying to answer. the overall tone of the reading seems to be emphasizing how hard making significant changes for the better are and how much it was always a long battle. even when communities assemble behind and idea, it is still a long process the decentralize schools and then later to recentralize them. overall, this reading provides a lot of info on the types of issues we have been discussing a lot in this course as well as introducing a new one in the form of bilingual schools and teachers, and thus gives a lot of useful info towards the learning goals of this course.

I believe that the teachers’ strike in New York during 1968 was stemmed solely from the unwarranted opposition to any strides to improve the academic situation for minorities. An early example of this was the unnecessary backlash and deliberate sabotage of the Educational Park project. In the early 1960’s many civil rights and integration activists persistently pushed the notion of Educational Park to city hall. They believed by creating a college-like campus with the state of the art resources and labs, it could help promote the intellectual advancement of their students. An argument for this plan was that instead of dispersing limited resources to many small schools, the city could heavily invest in a shared community campus and have these luxurious resources focused on one school. White parents in eastern Brooklyn strongly opposed this strictly stating that they opposed the busing of their children to outside neighborhoods they deemed to be dangerous. From reading the arguments white parents stated in opposition of Educational Park, it is quite obvious that the educational aspect of schooling was not the highest priority. The highest priority for these parents were to keep their schools highly concentrated with white students and to keep their children out of “dangerous” neighborhoods.

Throughout this time period, many minority students also received unwarranted abuse while attending their assigned schools. On their way to school, students, parents, and busing advocates were all pelted with eggs and were called “niggers”. The other white students themselves ostracized the black students being bused into their school. For many black and latino families, the main priority was to simply receive equal educational opportunities as their white counterparts. With repeated unwarranted racism and abuse, the idea of the community controlled schools was created. Many of those who advocated for this strongly urged to allow the community to dictate schools in the children’s’ and community’s best interests. However, though liberal, many of the teachers in the United Federation of Teachers opposed this idea. They believed that implementing this kind of program would undo the many benefits and changes they fought so hard to gain.

I believe the idea of community controlled schools is where liberal school reformists started to split in their ideology and mission. After being granted an experimental district to test out new schooling organizations, teacher discontent quickly ensued. Teachers started resigning, accusing the governing board of the experimental district of ignoring their views. Discontent grew even further when Rhody McCoy was selected as unit administrator who was not listed as an approved personnel to fill the position. McCoy hired teachers and principals not on the approved lists. He also regularly made decisions that seemed arbitrary and contrary to his directives. Soon, in May 1968, 13 teachers were fired due to their undermining of the community control program. 350 more teachers striked in support for the 13 terminated teachers, only to meet the same fate; McCoy dismissed all 350 teachers. I believe that the root to these conflicts was due to the early opposition to integration efforts. So when given the opportunity to run a program they saw fit, community control advocates did so at the expense of the teachers in the experimental district.