Some Questions About "Decentralization"
Larner, Jeremy
JUST ONE YEAR AGO, after a week of visiting I.S. 201 in East Harlem and talking to community leaders there, this reporter warned that conflicts centering around ghetto schools would...
...In my report last January, I commented on the dangers of a too-loose decentralization, one of which is that the Board of Ed might be only too willing to let ghetto schools stew in their own juices (while white enclaves in Queens and Brooklyn set up sanctuaries for God and Country...
...At the moment, Mayor Lindsay has dispatched to Albany without modification "the Bundy plan" for school decentralization...
...Obviously some sort of decentralization is in order...
...But does anyone take seriously—or even report—the UFT's suggestions for wider recruitment...
...Is it worth considering that the benefits and classroom conditions the teachers were fighting for would bring teachers to New York...
...Even in one of the more difficult classes, he had his pupils conversing with him in elementary French after only a few weeks of instruction...
...I wonder if Mayor Lindsay has read that plan...
...To be fashionably radical in Fun City this fall season, one had to find the UFT unstylish—cf...
...The New York teachers' strike this fall provided a golden opportunity for out-and-out union busters (such as the Board of Ed, the New York Times, and, I'm sorry to say, Mayor Lindsay) to exploit the anger and frustration of Negro parents—and thereby to strengthen the hand of the most destructive "militants...
...201 who is not known for his diplomacy, was conspicuous on the picket line...
...It lacks the skill, cash and connections for the high style of public relations practiced by, say, the Ford Foundation or the Center for Urban Education...
...the columns of Murray Kempton...
...Now everyone—including the UFT leadership — is aware that there are teachers in the public schools who should be gotten rid of...
...Yet I wonder how many interested parties know that the UFT has proposed a plan which is in some respects more radical—calling for larger districts but complete abolition of the present Board of Ed, and for turning local boards entirely over to parents, who would then hire their own district superintendents...
...But let me say this...
...John Marsh, the UFT chapter chairman at I.S...
...201 in East Harlem and talking to community leaders there, this reporter warned that conflicts centering around ghetto schools would mushroom unless teachers and parents could get together...
...At the time the press quoted without comment a good many insults defaming Marsh as a person and a teacher...
...A final piece of irony...
...Those who have taught in the public school system will appreciate this achievement...
...But Fred Hechinger and Leonard Buder of the Times—and other experts who would rather die than enter a classroom—will go on repeating what they are told, especially if it discredits the teachers' union...
...The Post and the Times agreed that the teachers were teaching "lawlessness" and "crippling" their pupils by a two-week strike—though they did not suggest another way to obtain the contract provisions the teachers were so clearly entitled to...
...When the strike was over, Marsh was physically barred from entering 201 by a man who was reported (incorrectly) to be a member of the 201 Planning Board...
...But since when do people calling themselves "radicals" automatically assume the same position on a strike as our city's most reactionary elements...
...As the district superintendent stood by and did nothing to get Marsh into the school, Marsh was forced to leave and is now teaching elsewhere...
...As it turned out, I was understating...
...Granted that the Union was often clumsy in getting its case to the public...
...Of all the teachers I observed in 201, John Marsh was absolutely the best...
Vol. 15 • January 1968 • No. 1
