Educational inequities in neighborhoods of color were pervasive across New York City. Overcrowded classrooms, inadequate school hours, and significant disparities in resources were common. People like Dolores Torres, a local mother of four boys in the neighborhood of Ocean Hill-Brownsville, recall that children in her district were assigned to attend school on a half-day schedule because of overcapacity—either from 8 AM to 12 PM or from 12 PM to 4 PM. Historian Jerald Podair, author of the book The Strike That Changed New York: Public School Teachers and the Great Labor Strike of 1968, reports that between 1957 and 1967, classes of 55 were common in predominantly Black schools, unheard of in White majority schools. Further, Black students read an average of two years behind the city’s white students, and dropped out at a rate double that of the city as a whole. Teachers assigned to predominantly Black and Latino schools were often less experienced, failing to meet their fundamental responsibility of educating students. This lack of adequate education contributed to widespread underperformance and inequality.
In her dissertation, The “Other” Community Control: The Two Bridges Demonstration District and the Challenges of School Reform, 1965-1975, Dr. Maia Merin describes similar conditions in public schools located in Two Bridges. In the late 1950s, one school, P.S. 1, had 18 classes run in double sessions. One half of the teaching was done by substitute teachers due to limited classroom facilities. Further, nearly seventy-five percent of the student population was Puerto Rican, and community members observed that most teachers did not try to relate to these new students, who, by and large, were Spanish-speaking newcomers. Before Community Control, bilingual education was nonexistent. This was an issue not only for students but also for Spanish-speaking parents, who lacked the means to meaningfully participate in their children’s education, including school events, parent teacher conferences, and advocacy on behalf of their children.
Asian and Latino students faced punishment for speaking their native languages in school. Their cultures were also excluded from school life. Lunch menus lacked Chinese and Puerto Rican foods, libraries had no books representing their communities, and curricula failed to reflect their histories. Instead, textbooks promoted racist stereotypes, portraying Chinese-Americans as the “Model Minority;” obedient, hardworking, and submissive to labor demands. Despite their different backgrounds, Chinese-American and Puerto Rican families in Two Bridges shared common struggles in how their children were denied both quality education and a school environment that honored their identities.
Fela Barclift, who grew up in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, recounted that “there was a way of treating the Black children in those schools as if they were not fully human.” Accordingly, the goal of educating children in a way that was empowering was key to restoring their sense of dignity and humanity. This vision was central to the philosophy of Community Control, which sought to ensure that marginalized children could receive an education grounded in their cultural identity and responsive to their needs.