As a “gifted and talented” school, Mark Twain accepts applicants from all over the city. This report from the NYC Department of Education describes who attends Mark Twain and how students who attend do on standardized tests.
When Judge Jack Weinstein initially issued a court order to integrate District 21 schools, he proposed a wide-reaching plan that called for the Board of Education, District 21’s school board, and private real estate developers and housing officials to integrate the district’s neighborhoods and schools. White parents were furious with the decision and threatened to subvert the court order, leave the city, or withdraw their children from public schools. The district school board, whose members were all white, shared the white parents’ preference for segregation, but also felt that they had to meet the requirements of the court.
Judge Jack Weinstein ruled Mark Twain unconstitutionally segregated in 1974. He identified actions taken by various public and private actors to segregate Mark Twain and the surrounding District 21 schools. He concluded that, “The evidence shows that Mark Twain is segregated … [partially] due to deliberately zoning out of the school white middle-class children, enhancing segregative tendencies and leading to gross under-utilization of Mark Twain’s physical facilities… Both the Community School Board of District 21 and responsible city educational officials recognize that they have the power to desegregate Mark Twain. They have refused to do so.”
Jeffrey Hart was a student at Mark Twain Junior High School in Brooklyn. Hart’s mother and her attorneys brought a suit against the local school board, arguing that the school was unconstitutionally segregated.
The all-white board of Community School District 21 in Brooklyn approved a proposal to desegregate Mark Twain Junior High School by making it a school for “gifted and talented” students - or, in the language of the day, students in “special progress” or “rapid advancement” classes. Historically, because of limited educational opportunities for Black students and racism in the tests and processes that decided whether a student was “gifted,” most of the students in these special classes were white students.
What do schools try to teach their students? A curriculum is a school’s plan for what its students should learn. In the early 1970s, the curriculum at Mark Twain Junior High School offered fewer challenges and less opportunity to its students than those at other nearby schools. Additionally, teachers and administrators at Mark Twain sorted students into different academic tracks along racial lines. White students at the school had access to advanced academic courses, but most Black and Latinx students did not.
In this segment of a 1974 news program, journalist Richard Kotuk introduces Mark Twain Junior High School. He records Black, Puerto Rican, and white students and families sharing how they feel about a judge’s recent order to desegregate the school. White students and parents express racist ideas about children at the school and its neighborhood.
In this video excerpt, reporter Richard Kotuk attempts to explain how what he calls “central Coney Island” has become predominantly “poor, Puerto Rican, and black.”
The late 1960s and early 1970s saw campus activism around the United States, for social change and against the Vietnam War. In New York City, students at various campuses of the City University of New York organized and protested in ways that changed their colleges and universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At City College, students organized a takeover of the campus demanding admission of more Black and Latinx students to the predominantly white campus in Harlem. At Brooklyn College, students pushed successfully for the founding of programs in Africana Studies and Puerto Rican Studies.1
Please note: This is work in progress. Please keep that in mind as you read. We are sharing this work in progress because these materials are relevant to discussions of school governance underway right now in New York. Please share your feedback at [email protected] and check back for updated versions soon.
This map illustrates the boundaries of Community District 21, which includes the Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Gravesend neighborhoods of Brooklyn, among others. The map also shows the junior high (or intermediate) schools within the district. Each dot on the map represents 50 people. Using 1970 Census data, the map on the left uses pink dots to represent the reported white population of the area, and the black dots represent the reported “black” population of the area. The map on the right uses red dots to represent the “Spanish Origin or Descent” population. Those identifying on the Census as “Spanish Origin or Descent” may have also identified as “white” or “black” on the Census.
During the 1968 teacher strike, community control advocates continued to participate in leading local school districts and arguing for self-determination in education. UFT teachers protested during the strike in public spaces like in front of City Hall. Here, community control advocates walk across the Brooklyn bridge to show their support for local democratic power in education. One of the figures in the front is Rhody McCoy, who was the superintendent of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community control district in Brooklyn, where a controversy over whether local districts could fire teachers prompted the strike.
This video captures New York City parents speaking of their desires for community control of their children’s schools. They wanted to have a voice in public schools in their local community, and to ensure that students achieved the equal education that was their right. They were motivated, as one parent pointed out, by their experience with poor conditions in their children’s schools.
The 1965 boycott targeted segregation in New York City’s junior high schools and “600” schools. But for 2000 students - primarily Black and Puerto Rican boys - who attended the “600” day schools, those schools were places they were sent because they were labeled by the schools as “socially maladjusted” or “emotionally disturbed.” Some of the students had been ordered to attend these schools after interactions with the police and the juvenile legal system. Most students did not find a supportive educational environment there, and those who had disabilities did not receive the support they needed.
On the day of the February 3 boycott, some participants gathered at the headquarters of the New York City Board of Education at 110 Livingston Street in Brooklyn, where they marched and picketed. Later they decided to march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall. This silent film footage, an excerpt of one of several reels taken that day by the New York Police Department, captures the participants and their posters and slogans. Although the footage doesn’t have sound, it still captures the atmosphere of the day.
In late 1963, The Amsterdam News reported on allegations that teachers and administrators at P.S. 614 in Brooklyn, one of the city’s “600” schools. The teachers being investigated allegedly pocketed over 40,000 subway tokens meant for students. Instead of handing the tokens out, students were forced to perform menial tasks like washing cars or shining shoes to earn the tokens back. Not only were students being mistreated, they were being denied education. The school’s principal and administrators didn’t offer any information at the time but were later reassigned to a different school.
