RACE WAR IN HIGH SCHOOL: The Ten Year Destruction of Franklin K. Lane High School in Brooklyn

by Harold Saltzman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 3, 1972

One man's view of the battle of Franklin K. Lane High School, admittedly biased and regrettably narrowminded. Saltzman taught at Lane and served as UFT chapter chairman when violence by black students made physical safety, not education, the most pressing concern. Saltzman proposed then and reiterates here an easy solution -- reduce substantially, in the name of racial balance, the number of black students which increased from 24.6% in 1960 to 66.6% in 1968. Ipso facto, the Board of Education's refusal to implement this plan is blamed for the destruction of the school. Saltzman is probably right in suggesting that fewer minority students would have made life more peaceful at Franklin lane, but such an ostrich-like position ignores the crucial educational problem of meeting the needs of such students. Saltzman wants to return to the good old Dick and Jane days when the school was populated by tractable, easily educable middle-class kids: ""with the influx of such large numbers of politicized and academically retarded youngsters went what was probably the last hope of saving Lane High School."" This report does offer interesting behind-the-scenes views of educational and union politics as Lindsay, the Board of Education and the UFT tried to put out the fire at Lane without getting burned themselves. Saltzman's reconstruction of events seems credible, although his interpretations of the motivations of Lindsay, Shanker, et al. are open to question. Moderately useful as a primary source for studying racial tensions in the urban secondary school in the late '60's, but hopelessly simplistic as analysis.

Pub Date: Oct. 3, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Arlington House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION