Volume 10, Number 11 · June 6, 1968
The Politics of School Decentralization
By Jason Epstein
Reconnection for Learning: A Community School System for New York City York City Schools; McGeorge Bundy, chairman
published by the Mayor's Advisory Panel on Decentralization of the New
Public hearings on questions of school policy in New York are typically ritualistic and empty, the issues being either trivial or decided in advance by the interested parties. Lately, however, Negroes and Puerto Ricans have begun to come to these hearings and the tone, as a result, has considerably sharpened and become bitter, so that the Board of Education, which usually sends a representative, now occasionally stays away. Last summer, for instance, the Board decided not to attend a hearing held by the Mayor's Council Against Poverty to consider whether the Board of Education or the ghetto communities themselves should have charge of some $69 million in federal funds intended for the improvement of ghetto schools. Dozens of Negro and Puerto Rican leaders testified at this hearing, and one after another of them urged that sooner than give this money over to the Board which, they argued, would inevitably use it against the interests of the ghettos the city should give it back to Washington.
Review, 6915 words
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