New York City public schools from Brownsville to Bloomberg : community control and its legacy / Heather Lewis ; foreword by Warren Simmons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lewis, Heather

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Community and school--New York (State)--New York--History.

Community and school.

Schools--Decentralization--New York (State)--New York--History.

Schools.

Educational equalization--New York (State)--New York--History.

Educational equalization.

Education--New York (State)--New York--History.

Education.

History.

Schools--Decentralization.

New York (State)--New York.

Physical Description:

xii, 199 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Teachers College Press, [2013]

Summary:

When New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg centralized control of the city's schools in 2002, he terminated the city's 32-year experiment with decentralized school control dubbed by the mayor and the media as the "Bad Old Days." Decentralization grew out of the community control movement of the 1960s, which was itself a response to the "bad old days" of central control of a school system that was increasingly segregated and unequal. In this probing historical account, Heather Lewis draws on new archival sources and oral histories to argue that the community control movement did influence school improvement in particular African American and Puerto Rican communities in the 1970s and 80s. Lewis shows how educators with unique insights into the relationships between the schools and the communities they served enabled meaningful change, with a focus on instructional improvement and equity that would be famililar to many observers of contemporary education reform. With a resurgence of local organizing and potential challenges to mayoral control, this informative history will be important reading for today's educational and community leaders.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

Community Control of Schools, 1966-1970 3

The Rise and Fall of the Decentralized School System, 1970-2002 6

A Revisionist History of Community Control 9

Straddling Decentralization and Centralization 11

Structure of the Book 12

2 From Integration to Community Control 14

The Postwar Roots of Local Control 15

A Segregated and Unequal School System 17

Professional Unions Seek More Power 20

Grassroots Organizing for Integrated Schools 23

The IS 201 Demonstration District 26

Self-Determination and Community Control 27

3 Self-Determining Citizens 31

Reinventing a Traditional Institution 33

Parent Leaders in the Demonstration District 37

Educational Leaders in the Demonstration District 40

The Clash Between the Unions and the Community 42

The Governing Board's Policymaking Role 47

A Democratic Debate About Governance 53

4 From Community Control to Decentralization 55

Legislation by Default 56

The Implementation of the 1969 Decentralization Law 58

The Fight to Preserve the Demonstration Districts 61

The Community School Board Elections 64

A Crisis of Confidence in Urban Schools 72

New York City's Fiscal Crisis and the Schools 73

5 Improving the Quality of Public Instruction 83

Efficiency Versus Humanism 85

Bedford-Stuyvesant in the 1970s 85

Inheriting a History of Failure 87

A Triage Approach 88

Accountability for District Achievement 92

Formative Leadership Experiences 94

Improving Public Instruction 96

A New Generation of Instructional Leaders 103

A Controversial Approach to District Reform 107

6 Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom 110

School Board Elections in East Harlem 111

An Activist Superintendent 112

The Bilingual Movement 116

The Alternative School Movement 120

Accountability and Choice 125

"Two Districts: Two Different Strategies" 129

7 From Decentralization to Centralization 133

Community School Districts and Their Trajectories 134

Steps Toward Recentralization 136

A New Wave of Community Organizing 138

Mayoral Control 140

Communities and Schools 142.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

9780807754511

080775451X

OCLC:

828057225