Education in Harlem

Tito Puente Educational Complex

Education in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem, in Manhattan, is provided in schools and institutions of higher education, both public and private. For many decades, Harlem has had a lower quality of public education than wealthier sections of the city. It is mostly African American and lower-income.

For purposes of this article, the modern boundaries are considered to be West 110th Street, Fifth Avenue, East 96th Street, the East River, the Hudson River, and 155th Street, although some variation occurs with the southwestern boundary.

Community districts

New York City is divided into many Community School Districts (CSDs), although many functions formerly performed at the district level are now distributed elsewhere. Those districts with jurisdiction in parts of Harlem are Districts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 75, with 2, 3, and 6 also serving other parts of Manhattan and 75 being a citywide district covering special education schools.[1]

Some schools located outside of Harlem may have programs that take place in Harlem. An example is City-As-School, a public noncharter high school headquartered in downtown Manhattan that supports education in conjunction with internships across the city, thus potentially including Harlem.

History and quality of education

In the 1930s, overcrowding in schools in Harlem was identified as a major impediment to education and a subject for reform efforts. Lucile Spence, Gertrude Elise McDougald Ayer, and Layle Lane were educators involved in the reform efforts.[2] "Opportunities to enter a racially mixed high school were minimal, and by 1913 fewer than two hundred Black high school students attended racially mixed high schools," Jeffrey Babcock Perry wrote in Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism in 2009.[3]

By 1993, Harlem was predominately African-American with incomes below the current national median. Many residents, who lived in poverty and thus were subject to racism as well as classism, found education disadvantaged. In standardized English and math tests, Harlem schools posted the worst average scores.[4] Not receiving Regents high school diplomas on time was more common in Harlem than in most other communities in the city by 2006. This excluded GEDs, special education diplomas, or alternative certificates, as well as children in the criminal justice system who were not counted.[5]

District 3, which covers most of southwestern Harlem as well as the Upper West Side, did not have any gifted & talented education programs in the Harlem section of the district as of 2017, while in the Upper East Side, there are several gifted programs. The schools in the district are also highly segregated and are gradually losing enrollment to charter schools and better-performing schools elsewhere in the district. Most District 3 schools in Harlem are majority-black and Hispanic with decreasing enrollment over the years, while District 3 schools in the Upper West Side are mostly white with increasing enrollment.[6] This is also true of Harlem schools in general.[7] For example, PS 241 STEM Institute of Manhattan, a school on 113rd Street near Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, lost three-fourths of its enrollment in ten years, going from 582 students in 2007 to 125 students in 2016. Less than 25% of kindergarten students zoned to PS 241 actually attend that school.[6] It was proposed to be closed in 2008–9 but the school was kept open due to opposition from a teachers' union.[8] An October 2016 proposal to merge PS 241 with nearby PS 76 was poorly received by parents from the latter school,[6] so the 2016 merger was also canceled.[9] By contrast, further south in district 3, 89% of kindergartners zoned to PS 87 on West 78th Street are enrolled in that school.[6]

Principals of Harlem public schools give different reasons for low enrollment. Some said that their schools had not been advertised enough, while others stated that charter schools promoted their own enrollment at the expense of public schools.[6][7] As of 2017, two Harlem schools, PS 180 and PS 185, had seen increases in enrollment in the preceding years.[6]

Of the nine charter schools in District 3 as of 2017, eight are in Harlem. Many black and Hispanic families in Harlem send their kids to charter or private schools, or to better-performing public schools elsewhere in the district.[6] The public noncharter schools in Harlem have been criticized for decades as being educationally among the worst in the city. By contrast, the charters in Harlem have been praised for their quality of education, even when compared to charters elsewhere in the nation.[10] Charters have been criticized on other grounds, but not uniquely to Harlem, except for objections to there being so many charters in Harlem competing with public noncharter schools for classroom space. Transfers of teachers involuntarily into Harlem in the 1960s, by sending the teachers to schools with difficult students, were reputedly intended by the City's Board of Education to drive unwanted teachers out of the profession altogether.[11]

Columbia University has periodically planned physical expansion, competing for space with residents, and seeking coordination with New York State for the application of eminent domain on the ground of blight.[12][13][14]

Elementary through high school

This covers pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Public schools

Publicly funded schools include noncharter and charter schools, generally not charging tuition, and getting their funds primarily from state and city governments.

Noncharter schools

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
PS 46

The New York City Department of Education runs public noncharter schools in Harlem and provides a locator service for finding them. These include:

Charter schools

Charter schools are authorized by any of three authorizing agencies and operate under fewer rules than do noncharter schools, and often have higher expectations for students. In Harlem, many charters outperform noncharter schools,[10] doing a better job of educating students in math and English as measured by state examinations. Charters are generally free of tuition to attend. When a charter school receives more qualified applicants than it has classroom space to admit, it usually runs a lottery and places everyone who is not admitted that way onto a waitlist for possible openings later in the year. Schools offer classes in various grades and some add a grade each year, so that a student, once started, can continue studying in the same school.

In Harlem, about 20 percent of children who are eligible by age are enrolled in charters, and that does not count applicants who are denied admission because of lack of room.[10]

Charter schools in Harlem include:

  • Amber Charter School, grades K–5, 220 E. 106th St., in Community School District 4; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY):[15]
  • Democracy Prep Charter School, grades 6–9, 207 W. 133rd St., in Community School District 5; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
  • Dream Charter School, grades K–2, 232 E. 103rd St., in Community School District 4; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
  • Future Leaders Institute Charter School, grades K–8, 134 W. 122nd St., in Community School District 3; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
  • Harbor Science and Arts Charter School, grades 1–8, 1 E. 104th St., in Community School District 4; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
  • Harlem Children's Zone:
    • Harlem Children's Zone/Promise Academy I Charter School, grades K–6 & 9–10, 35 E. 125th St., in Community School District 5; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
    • Harlem Children's Zone/Promise Academy II, grades K–5, 2005 Madison Av., in Community School District 5; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
  • Harlem Day Charter School, grades K–5, 240 E. 123rd St., in Community School District 4; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
  • Harlem Link Charter School, grades K–5, 20 W. 112th St., in Community School District 3; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
  • Harlem Village Academies:
    • Harlem Village Academy Charter School, grades 5–11, 244 W. 144th St., in Community School District 5; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
    • Harlem Village Academy Leadership Charter School, grades 5–9, 2351 1st Av., in Community School District 4; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
  • Knowledge Is Power Program
    • Kipp Infinity Charter School, grades K & 5–9, 625 W. 133rd St., in Community School District 5; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
    • KIPP S.T.A.R. College Preparatory, grades 5–9, 425 W. 123rd St., in Community School District 5; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
  • New Heights Academy Charter School, grades 5–12, 1818 Amsterdam Av., in Community School District 6; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
  • New York City Center for Autism Charter School, grades 1–6 & 8, 433 E. 100th St., in Community School District 4; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
  • The Opportunity Charter School, grades 6–12, 240 W. 113th St., in Community School District; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.:[15]
  • Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation, 410 E 100th St.[16][17]
  • The Sisulu-Walker Charter School of Harlem, grades K–5, 125 W. 115th St., in Community School District 3; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
  • St. HOPE Leadership Academy Charter School, grades 5–8, 222 W. 134th St., in Community School District 5; school chartered by N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ.[15]
Success Academy Harlem 1 schoolhouse
Schoolhouse of Success Academy Harlem 1
  • Success Academy Charter Schools:
    • Success Academy Harlem 1, grades K–6, 34 W. 118th St., in Community School District 3; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY):[15]
    • Success Academy Harlem 2, grades K–4, 301 W. 140th St., in Community School District 5; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
    • Success Academy Harlem 3, grades K–4, 141 E. 111th St., in Community School District 4; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
    • Success Academy Harlem 4, grades K–4, 240 W. 113th St., in Community School District 3; school chartered by State Univ. of N.Y. (SUNY)[15]
    • The Success Academy Charter Schools group planned to open another elementary school in Harlem in 2013.[18]

Private schools

Private schools generally charge tuition to attend.

Parochial schools

Parochial schools are generally run by religious institutions. Some include:

Nonparochial schools

Some private schools are not run by religious institutions. Some include:

Nurseries

Nurseries, sorted by the youngest age they generally accept, include:

Higher education

Colleges and universities include:

Libraries

Morningside branch

Public libraries are suited to self-directed learning and the New York Public Library offer free online access from home to databases for research. In Harlem, the NYPL system has one research library and ten local branches (listed here with the research library first followed by the local branches approximately from south to north):

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Map of School Districts" (PDF). nyc.gov. New York City Department of Education.
  2. ↑ Johnson, Lauri, A Generation of Women Activists: African American Female Educators in Harlem, 1930–1950, in The Journal of African American History, vol. 89, no. 3 (Summer, 2004), New Directions in African American Women's History, in JStor (database), as accessed Jun. 26, 2010, pp. 223–240 (biographies "of three African American female educators and community leaders who lived and worked in Harlem from the 1920s through the 1950s", id., p. 223; "overcrowded public schools disproportionately affected the average Harlemite", id., p. 224; "Harlem in the 1930s . . . became the site of intense organizing and social reform efforts . . . . [and] [p]rime areas of concern included . . . school reform", id., p. 225 (fn. omitted); add'l content not quoted here) (Stable URL).
  3. ↑ Perry, Jeffrey Babcock, Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883–1918 (N.Y.: Columbia University Press, cloth [2nd printing?] 2009 ( ISBN 978-0-231-13910-6)), pp. 56–57. Id., p. 57 n. 12, cites "[f]or the statistics" Blascoer, Francis (sic (probably should be "Frances")), Colored School Children in New York (1915; N.Y.: Negro Universities Press, 1970).
  4. ↑ Fliegel, Seymour, with James MacGuire, Miracle in East Harlem: The Fight for Choice in Public Education (N.Y.: Times Books (div. of Random House) (Manhattan Institute book) 1st ed. [2nd printing?] 1993 ( ISBN 0-8129-2039-2)), p. 23.
  5. ↑ Losen, Daniel J., Behind the Dropout Rate, in GothamGazette: The Place For NYC Politics and Policy (§ Archives), Mar. 20, 2006, as accessed Oct. 5, 2010 (website by Citizens Union Foundation) (author sr. educ. law & policy assoc., Civil Rights Project, Harvard Law School) (the article does not mention Harlem but the map in the article shows higher dropout rates in Census tracts that approximately coincide with Harlem).
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Taylor, Kate (2015-10-27). "Manhattan Rezoning Fight Involves a School Called 'Persistently Dangerous'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  7. 1 2 Medina, Jennifer (2010-03-09). "Pressed by Charters, Harlem Public Schools Turn to Marketing". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  8. ↑ Hernandez, Javier C. (2009-03-25). "Replacing Schools in Harlem and Brooklyn With Charters Is Challenged". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  9. ↑ Taylor, Kate (2016-12-12). "New York Education Department Drops Plan to Merge 2 Harlem Schools". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  10. 1 2 3 Brill, Steven (2010-05-17). "The Teachers' Unions' Last Stand". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  11. ↑ Kohl, Herbert R., 36 Children (N.Y.: New American Library (Plume book) (div. of Penguin) 1st Plume printing Sep. 1988 [17th printing?] 1967 (copyright of main text) ( ISBN 0-452-26463-4)) (author taught Harlem public school 6th-grade classes in 1960s; school was at 119th St. & Madison Av.; book is an experiential journal)., p. vi (Introduction to the 1988 Edition (Mar., 1988)).
  12. ↑ Bagli, Charles V., Court Upholds Columbia Campus Expansion Plan, in The New York Times, June 24 or 25, 2010, p. A1, § N.Y. / Region (N.Y. ed.), as accessed Sep. 20, 2010.
  13. ↑ Irwin, Demetria, Columbia's Expansion Plan Moves Forward, in (The) New York Amsterdam News, vol. 99, issue 1 ( ISSN 1059-1818), Dec. 27, 2007 – Jan. 2, 2008, pp. 3 & 31 (article), in Academic Search Premier (EbscoHost) (database) (PDF Full Text), as accessed Sep. 20, 2010.
  14. ↑ Boyd, Herb, Harlem Says No: Community Board Soundly Rejects Columbia Plan, in (The) New York Amsterdam News, vol. 98, issue 35 ( ISSN 1059-1818), Aug. 23–29, 2007, pp. 1 & 30 (article) (cover story), in Academic Search Premier (EbscoHost) (database) (PDF Full Text), as accessed Sep. 20, 2010.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 N.Y.C. Department of Education, New York City Charter Schools, as accessed Sep. 26, 2010, column listing Charter Authorizer as "NYCDOE", "SUNY", or "NYSED".
  16. ↑ "The Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation". Innovation High School. 2017. Retrieved 2017-12-05.
  17. ↑ "School Information - Charter School Directory". NYC Department of Schools. Retrieved 2017-12-05.
  18. ↑ Fleisher, Lisa, New Charters Proposed for Manhattan, in The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2012, 10:17 p.m., E.T., [§] New York, as accessed July 25, 2012 (a version printed as New Charters Proposed for Manhattan., p. A17 (U.S. ed.), July 16, 2012).
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Goldman, Victoria, & Catherine Hausman, revised by Victoria Goldman, The Manhattan Family Guide to Private Schools and Selective Public Schools (N.Y.: Soho Press, 5th ed. 2005 ( ISBN 1-56947-389-7)).
  20. ↑ Shining Stars: East Harlem's Cristo Rey High School Is an Educational Beacon, in N.Y. Daily News, Jun. 10, 2010 (§ Editorials), as accessed Jun. 26, 2010.
  21. ↑ Harlem Academy's website, school's mission, as accessed Feb. 22, 2012.
  22. 1 2 The City College: Graduate Bulletin 2008–2010, pp. 26–27, as accessed Sep. 26, 2010.
  23. ↑ Overview of Child Development at CCNY
  24. ↑ Overview of the preschool at GreatSchools.org, as accessed Sep. 26, 2010.
  25. ↑ Schomburg's Web page, as accessed Oct. 5, 2010
  26. ↑ 96th St. Library's Web page
  27. ↑ Aguilar Library's Web page
  28. ↑ Morningside Heights library's Web page, as accessed Oct. 5, 2010 (the word "library" is not part of the official name of the branch and is not capitalized here, unlike with various other branches)
  29. ↑ 115th St. Library's Web page
  30. ↑ Harlem Library's Web page, as accessed Oct. 5, 2010
  31. ↑ 125th St. Library's Web page
  32. ↑ George Bruce Library's Web page
  33. ↑ Hamilton Grange Library's Web page
  34. ↑ Macomb's Bridge Library's Web page
  • Meier, Deborah, The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons for America From a Small School in Harlem (1995).

Further reading

  • Haynes, Aquila E., ed., Directory of NYC Charter Schools: New York City Department of Education: 2010 – 2011 (Dep't of Educ.) (editor of N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ., Charter School Office) (updates website)
  • Goldman, Victoria, The Manhattan Directory of Private Nursery Schools (N.Y.: Soho Press, 6th ed. 2007 ( ISBN 978-1-56947-449-5)), esp. for neighborhoods or areas Uptown and Eastside
  • Private Independent Schools (Wallingford, Conn.: Bunting & Lyon, 62d ed. 2009 ( ISBN 0-913094-62-5) ( ISSN 0079-5399)) (The Bunting and Lyon Blue Book)

Coordinates: 40°48′32.52″N 73°56′54.14″W / 40.8090333°N 73.9483722°W / 40.8090333; -73.9483722

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