The Struggle over I.S. 201: Babette Edwards Education Reform in Harlem Collection

This blog post is part of the #SchomburgSyllabus series edited by Zakiya Collier, Digital Archivist, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division. The #SchomburgSyllabus project archives Black-authored and Black-related online educational resources to document Black studies, movements, and experiences in the twenty-first century. In connecting these web-archived resources to the Schomburg Center’s own unique materials, the project honors and recognizes the source and strength of Black self-education practices, collective study, and librarianship.The #SchomburgSyllabus is curated by Schomburg Center staff and organized into twenty-seven themes to foster a greater understanding of the Black experience.

The year 2020 was a difficult one for all; it was especially challenging for students in pre-kindergarten through high school, where remote learning provided new struggles, especially in communities of color. Using resources in the Schomburg Center’s Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, we can learn more about similar experiences in history and find inspiration for ways to address today's challenges.

The Babette Edwards Education Reform in Harlem collection documents inequities at Intermediate School (I.S.) 201 in East Harlem, New York, in the 1960s–70s. A windowless school with mostly Black and Puerto Rican students, I.S. 201 was unintegrated, failing its students, and led by a governing body that did not prioritize its constituents. Just as local efforts are enacted today to counteract disparities in learning that add to racial and socioeconomic gaps, efforts to enact change at I.S. 201 were driven by grassroots endeavors, led by parents and local community leaders.

Decentralization was a goal for many public schools in New York City in the 1960s–70s as parents, community leaders, and teachers wanted to be more involved in the governance of their school. At I.S. 201, which was mostly populated by Black and Puerto Rican students, parents and community leaders wanted community control in order to integrate the

school and prevent it from becoming an inferior institution. Detailed proposals for the formation of an I.S. 201 complex (to include I.S. 201 and four neighboring elementary schools) governed by a locally elected board were written by parents and community leaders, such as Babette Edwards. Edwards was a central figure in the formation of I.S. 201 (in 1958) and the transfer of its governance to a local governing board in 1967, to which she was elected a community representative.

Additional programs and unconventional teaching methods were pursued in response to the needs of the students, such as after-school programs

and the implementation of the Gattegno approach to learning. This approach involved learning to read via the same process as learning to speak; the idea was that speaking was not taught, so neither should reading. There was a focus on five clues: that the written language is linear, runs from left to right and top to bottom, has spaces between words, and has certain designs that prompt special sounds. 

Parents and community leaders used grassroots approaches to voice their dissatisfaction. Protests, rallies, and boycotts were planned and implemented.

In September of 1968, I.S. 201 received funding from the state of New York as one of three Community Education Centers, known as "Demonstration Districts," whose purpose was to demonstrate how community control of a school district could improve the school.

However, in 1970, Edwards and the Governing Board of I.S. 201 called for a boycott of the community board elections in response to the Decentralization Law of 1969.This new law placed control of the school's budget, staff hiring, textbook selection, curriculum, and construction under the jurisdiction of the New York City Board of Education, and created much larger school districts; in effect, the parents and community leaders were back at square one. Controversy also surrounded the name for the school, the Arthur A. Schomburg School. As Vincent Cannato describes in The Ungovernable City,there was disagreement over who chose the name; the parents' association claimed that they were supposed to name the school, but the Board of Education decided on the name without their consult. The district superintendent stated that the name was agreed upon at a local school board meeting. Regardless, the temporary controversy demonstrated how distrusting the parents and local community were of the Board of Education.

In 1971, Edwards resigned from the Governing Board and soon after, the Board of Education voted to eliminate the demonstration districts. Babette Edwards went on to co-found and work as executive director of The Harlem Parents Union (HPU) in 1969; the organization’s mission was to improve schools in Harlem and the education its students received. She oversaw further boycotts of schools; created alternative methods of learning, such as an alternative school; and sponsored new programs, such as a voucher system for students in underfunded schools, all in pursuit of equal educational opportunities for all students, regardless of their background.

As stated by Michael R. Glass in "A Series of Blunders and Broken Promises’: IS 201 as a Turning Point", "I.S. 201 must be seen as part and parcel of a long struggle for quality, integrated education in New York City’s segregated schools—a struggle that began long before 1966, and a struggle that, in many ways, continues today.” Although the school’s struggle might not be viewed as a success story, as seen through the various documentary evidence in the Babette Edwards Education Reform in Harlem collection, it led to greater citizen participation through boycotts and protests and demonstrated the power of grassroots educational activism. It also reflects current educational activism efforts, such as Harlem’s Education Movements, and other historical efforts for integration and decentralization, as seen in the Milton Galamison papers and the Preston Wilcox papers, also found in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division of the Schomburg Center.