1964 SPECIAL REPORT: "NYC SCHOOL DESEGREGATION"

Through the use of documentary film footage, interviews with members of the opposing factions and narration, this episode looks at the highly inflammatory school desegregation issue in New York City. When New York?s schools opened in 1964, civil rights groups and the Parents and Taxpayers ? a predominantly white parent group ? were in disagreement over the city Board of Education?s use of the controversial ?Princeton Plan? to achieve racial balance in the schools.


The plan called for transporting white students into schools in other parts of the city where the enrollments are predominantly Negro, and, at the same time, transporting Negro children into neighborhood schools where white pupils are in the majority. The conflict obscured the Board?s plan for a revolutionary reorganization of the school system that eventually could integrate all schools in the city.


A major part of this plan is the emphasis placed on quality education in ghetto schools ? raising theme to a level where integration will come much easier for their graduates ? coupled with the establishment of middle schools that were intended draw pupils from territories large enough to influence integration of Negro and white children at an earlier age than now possible.


Appearing in this episode is Rosemary Gunning, executive secretary for the Parent and Taxpayers Coordinating Council (PAT), which announced the white boycott of New York City schools for September 14, 1964; Jacob Landers, chief of Integration Planning, New York City Board of Education; and June Shagaloff, special assistant for Education, National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP). READING, WRITING AND RACE: a 1964 production for National Educational Television by WNDT, New York.