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The Man Who Could Fly: The Bob Beamon Story, excerpt

Mr. Louis Schuker, the principal at Jamaica High, had a long talk with me and Coach Ellis. He said the odds of a 600 school student making it in a regular school environment were next to zero. His admonition to me was reminiscent of the one given by the judge who had sentenced me to the 600 school.

New York Hotline: Special Ed #304, excerpt 1

Among New York City students with disability labels today, most are in the category of “learning disability.” This category came into existence in the 1960s, when parent advocates, educators, and psychologists wanted to figure out how to understand students who were struggling with skills like reading or arithmetic, but who did not otherwise seem to have intellectual disabilities.1 Dyslexia, for example, is one kind of learning disability.

Puerto Ricans (Spoken Version)

Puerto Ricans became citizens of the United States in 1917, as part of the US’s claiming control of the island. As US citizens, those who wanted to come to the mainland faced fewer barriers than immigrants from other countries. In the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans made the choice to migrate. Many came to New York City. Racial segregation in housing meant that they often lived alongside Black families like Toni Cade Bambara’s in Harlem. They also lived alongside Italian-American and Black families in East Harlem and the Lower East Side.

Focus on Learning, excerpt

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.

Jose P. vs. Ambach, excerpt

Many major changes in education have come through federal legislation. The GI Bill of 1944 provided support for college tuition for former soldiers, many who would not have been able to afford it otherwise. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act led to the expansion of women’s access to sports in schools.

Statement by Martin H. Gerry, Director, Office for Civil Rights, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, excerpts

In 1977, the New York City Board of Education was the focus of the “largest civil rights investigation of a public educational institution ever undertaken.” The Office of Civil Rights in the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare studied the New York schools and found that the school system had “violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin; Title IX of the Education Act of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex; and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination against physically or mentally handicapped individuals.”

Clark Hits Integration Plan at Mark Twain JHS

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.

Mark Twain on The 51st State, excerpt 4

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.

S.O. F.E.D. U.P. Handbook for the Disabled Students of Brooklyn College, CUNY, excerpt

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

The Educational Needs of the Puerto Rican Child, excerpts

In 1970, about one quarter of all New York City public school students were Puerto Rican. And in some parts of the city, like the South Bronx, that proportion was much higher, around 65 percent.1 Many Puerto Rican students spoke Spanish at home, but the local public schools operated almost exclusively in English.

“600” Schools, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, excerpts

Organizing in the early 1960s by the Citywide Committee on Integration and by Reverend Milton Galamison had increased public attention to the “600” schools. After newspaper coverage of misconduct by teachers and administrators at a “600” school in Brooklyn, as well as criticism over the schools being racially segregated, the Board of Education created a special committee to study conditions inside these schools. After two years of study, the report, “‘600’ Schools Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," was delivered to the superintendent of schools in September 1966. The report acknowledged that the “600” schools were “ethnically unbalanced” and attributed this imbalance to the “many social problems and pressures to which these children are exposed,” rather than “mental illness.” While acknowledging that many problems existed within the “600” school system, the committee also highlighted the strengths of the program and the number of students who moved through the system, many of whom were considered “rehabilitated” and returned to the regular school system. They cited a need for more funding, personnel, and training to address the problems and improve the system.

The 1965 Boycott on Film

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.

90% Boycott Hits Problem School

In the fall of 1964, months after the massive February 1964 boycott, Reverend Milton Galamison and the Citywide Committee on Integration launched another boycott. Galamison and the Citywide Committee - which included CORE (Congress On Racial Equality), Parents’ Workshop for Equality in New York Schools, Harlem Parents’ Committee, EQUAL, and the Negro Teachers Association - focused on the city’s junior high schools and the “600” schools, which had inadequate facilities, no curriculum, untrained teachers, and improperly screened students. The groups’ demands included promoting many more Black and Puerto Rican teachers to leadership positions like school principal, desegregating junior high schools, and improving the “600” schools. Reverend Galamison was arrested for violating state education laws by “encouraging truancy” when young people stayed out of school to boycott.

Claim Teachers Used Pupils as Shoe Shine Boys: DA Calls Charges “Serious”

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.

Jim Crow School Kids as Mentally Unfit

By the 1940s, New York City schools frequently used intelligence tests to decide which kind of schooling a child needed. The difference of a few points on a single test could mean placement or exclusion from a regular class with academic instruction. CRMD classes - or classes for “children with retarded mental development” as they were called by the Board of Education - had much lower expectations for students and too frequently had teachers who were not trained to support students with intellectual and other disabilities.1

Chart of Inmates in the State Institutions

State institutions grew throughout New York State after the founding of the New York Asylum in 1851 and into the mid-20th century. Labeled “inmates,” people with different types of disabilities were often counted and categorized alongside “reformatory” inmates, or delinquent youth, some of whom may have also been disabled. Other classes of inmates included “tuberculosis patients,” “Indian children,” and “veterans and widows of veterans.”

Race Intelligence, excerpt

Scholar W.E.B. DuBois was an editor of The Crisis, a magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (or NAACP). DuBois wrote a short editorial in the magazine, responding to claims that intelligence test scores showed Black people to be less intelligent than white people.

Army Beta Test and Results

The US Army offered up its recruits as a test population for the new intelligence tests. The tests had been initiated in France but then modified for new uses in the US by psychologists like Henry Goddard, Lewis Terman and Robert Yerkes. The test’s creators promised to help the Army discern levels of preparation and aptitude among its soldiers.1

The Binet-Simon Scale, excerpt

In 1905, French psychologist and educator Albert Binet created a tool that he hoped would help to identify and understand children who were struggling in school. Binet’s scale identified particular tasks that a “normal” child was supposed to be able to complete by a given age. This came to be called the person’s “mental age,” meaning that an 18 year old who could complete the tasks listed for a 12 year old but not those of older children would be said to have a “mental age” of 12. Binet did not think that the scale measured student’s natural intelligence, and he thought that intelligence could change over time.1

Delinquent Girls Tested by the Binet Scale, excerpt

Henry Goddard was a psychologist living and working in New Jersey. He was the head of the Vineland Institute, but also researched and wrote about Disabled people and people labeled as disabled in locations around the country. In this report, he comments on the use of the Binet intelligence test to determine whether “delinquent girls” had the mental capacity to be responsible for their actions, or whether they did not.
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