Community Control is Not Decentralization
Date: 1969
Caption: United Bronx Parents argued against the New York State decentralization law, identifying how it did not meet the goals of community control advocates.
New York State’s 1969 decentralization law drew strong opposition from many Black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers who had been advocating for community control. United Bronx Parents was based in the South Bronx and had been founded in 1965 by Puerto Rican organizer Evelina López Antonetty. United Bronx Parents had worked for years to support Puerto Rican mothers in pushing for better education for their children. Community control fit within this agenda.
Some education officials suggested that decentralization - which would divide New York City into 32 separate community school districts, each with an elected board and some important responsibilities - was like community control.1 But Antonetty and others disagreed. They were concerned that too much power remained in the central offices of the Board of Education, and with the United Federation of Teachers, which had at times opposed community control and some of the innovations in bilingual education that United Bronx Parents supported.
The New York State Legislature did pass the decentralization law, and held community school district elections. In the first year, United Bronx Parents participated in a boycott of the election.
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Heather Lewis, New York City Public Schools from Brownsville to Bloomberg (New York: Teachers College Press, 2011). ↩︎
Categories: K-12 organizing, Bronx, community activism
Tags: zoning and student assignment, organizing, self-determination, democracy, school administration, legislation, Latinx people, Black people
This item is part of "Decentralization: Community School Districts For Some" in "Who Governs Schools?"
Item Details
Date: 1969
Creator: United Bronx Parents
Copyright: Under copyright
How to cite: “Community Control is Not Decentralization,” United Bronx Parents, in New York City Civil Rights History Project, Accessed: [Month Day, Year], https://nyccivilrightshistory.org/gallery/decentralization.
Questions to Consider
- This flier was designed to persuade readers not to support school decentralization in New York. Does it persuade you? Why or why not? What counter-arguments would have been persuasive?
- This document shows activists trying to reject a proposal because they think it does not go far enough. What are examples of that situation today? What is challenging about persuading people of that argument?
- This flier uses the technology available to activists at the time - a typewriter and a copy machine. What tools do activists use to share their messages today? How are they similar or different?
References
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