Power, Protest and the Public School by Melissa F. Weiner address the struggles that Jewish and African Americans students went through in the NYC Public School system. Implemented in 1907, the Gary Plan introduced by William Wirt, the Superintendent of Gary, Indiana Schools sought to Americanize 63.4% of students with immigrant backgrounds. It was designed to shape student’s behaviors and equip them with the necessary tools to be successful in a factory environment. “Children were stripped of their languages and cultures and subjected to industrial and manual training classes such as math, history, cooking sewing etc.” In schools, the Gary Plan utilized all sectors of the schools allowing students to rotate from class to class in order to save money.
This plan was eventually introduced to NYC public schools by Mayor John Purroy Mitchel by 1914. With the guidance of Wirt, two schools: P.S. 45 and P.s. 89 were converted to implement the program. As the plan progressed, NYC board added, military training and lengthened the school day, hindering students from working and going to Hebrew schools. Jewish parents in particularly were extremely angry as this hindered their children to attend Hebrew School and practice their religion. Jewish parents were scared that their children may face proselytization and forced to learn the New Testament. Additionally, religion in public schools would change student’s perspective of practicing a religion that deemed fit. By combining religion in schools and stripping student’s cultural backgrounds away, we are limiting their right to think for themselves and practice a religion important to them.
For African Americans, students were faced with segregation, overcrowded classes and dilapidated schools and retarded classes based on test scores. The school system spent $65.10 on white students and only $21.10 on minority students which increased the gap of the type of education received. Schools were unable to provide enough resources and provide adequate education which resulted in the huge gap of test scores. The Harlem 9 set out to increase experienced teachers and raise more funding for African American students. However much of it was unsuccessful. It took multiple tries and confrontation with legislation but it still took years.
From these two ethic groups we can see a similar struggle in which certain rights were violated. Jewish people were not given teh access to practice religion which African Americans did not have the resources to receive a better education. One thing I noticed was that Jewish people are not minorities and can be similarly classified as white. As a result, I personally felt they had a better chance of voicing their opinions and bringing change into the school system. Their voices had more power and it resonated with a majority of the parents. Meanwhile, it was harder for the African Americans to get their wishes. It took multiple attempts and confrontations and there was still little progress. This largely has to do with the fact that they are still minority and their role in society was not important compared to others. This article showcases how different ethnic groups are perceived differently and how they are able to get what they want.
Introducing the Gary Plan in New York City public schools was certainly an attempt to Americanize immigrants as it did in the Gary, Indiana schools. Mayor John Purroy Mitchel advocated that a more “hands-on,” vocational schooling would benefit immigrant children. However, “Jewish parents were neither fooled nor convinced [recognizing that it was] an economy scheme that turned their children into ‘cogs’ through assimilatory and vocational curriculum that hindered academic success” (38). Because these students only received vocational training and were not given access to academic curricula, they were denied the chance of upward social mobility.
These Gary schools were overcrowded and suffered from teacher shortages. As a result, a monitor system was implemented where older students would be placed in charge of younger students; this led to the older students being forced to dedicate the time they should be spending learning to watching other kids. The length of the school day was also extended, reducing access to Hebrew schools and jobs. Not only did Jewish students not have time to attend Hebrew schools, they often were given religious instruction in the New Testament in the public schools. These Gary schools were practically denying Jewish students opportunities to expand their faith.
I do not agree with you that the Gary Plan protests and the Harlem 9 resulted in the Jewish and African American communities getting what they wanted. Some of the students who boycotted and protested the Gary plan schools were expelled. Many outsiders viewing the protests believed that the protestors were misinformed and were not sympathetic to their cause. Although the protests were successful in electing a new mayor, this new mayor basically just changed the name of the Gary Plan. The Harlem 9 were even less successful. Mothers were threatened with loss of custody, as it is illegal not to send their children to school. Although they were able to meet with the Board of Education and the mayor, little to nothing was done. Moreover, the Freedom School was shut down because “the doors opened in the wrong direction” (64). Open enrollment was implemented, but many African Americans were not made aware this was an option. Neither of these protests were really success stories.
I agree with Steven in this case as well – I also believe that Melissa F. Weiner paired these two examples in history together to show how hard people tried to make changes within schools and how little was done by those in charge.
The Gary Plan started off with fairly good intentions – it worked in Indiana, but Indiana is not New York City. The schools it was chosen to be implemented in were mainly schools in which Jewish students attended. These students were children to Jewish immigrants who worked in jobs that required little skill. The Jewish immigrant parents came to America, wanting to give their children the opportunity and education they did not have. The Gary Plan was not doing that – it was providing students with a vocational education. Due to the lengthy school days, students could not have a job after school to help out their parents and on top of that, they were being taught another religion. Mothers joined forces and protested and gathered in meetings to end the Gary Plan. They ended up taking it to the mayoral level and they won in that case because they had the mayor who supported ended the plan elected, yet the only thing they accomplished, as Steven mentioned was a simple name change.
Similarly, the Harlem 9 mothers joined forces to give their children a better education and better funding for their schools. As Ruby mentioned, black schools were unable to provide enough resources which resulted in a huge gap of test scores. Mothers also protested and did not send their kids to school and they also met with the mayor, but very little was accomplished.
Both of these events in history are similar because they both had a lot of hard work, time and effort put into making schools better, yet very little success came about it. What makes them different is the power each group had – the Jewish families had access to influential Jewish individuals, while the African American families did not have influential individuals like that to help them. In addition, the reasoning behind the protest of each group was different as well.
Thanks for these comments. It is interesting to think about both of these groups today compared to the period under discussion. It is important to remember that Jews at the time were certainly seen as a minority, and yet some Jews who had been in New York for multiple generations had become relatively well established and even sat in positions of power in the city. This is not so different from African Americans in the 1950s – they were certainly discriminated against but there were local leaders who had access to some levers of power. The big difference was that African Americans remained segregated in a way that Jews (for the most part) were not, and of course the specifics of what the communities were protesting, and the era in which they were doing so differed as well. One big commonality was that both groups viewed education as crucial to their families’ and communities’ ability (or inability) to improve their material and social conditions, and they thus sought reform as an avenue for social mobility.