THE CHASM: The Life and Death of a Great Experiment in Ghetto Education

by Robert Campbell ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 1974

In 1969 Campbell started on a three-year investigation of school systems for ghetto children, a period during which he met Charles Wilson of I.S. 210 in Harlem and Rhody McCoy of Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn -- two experimental districts accomplishing a dream of quality education for students. The schools were beginning to bridge the chasm which Campbell perceives as social injustice and narrow-mindedness of educational bureaucracy which predetermined as hopeless the fight to improve education for children trapped in poverty or minority areas. Campbell saw the innovative personalities of Wilson and McCoy reflected in the teachers, students and the community, all interested and enlivened by the work in the schools. Yet these schools challenged political and educational tradition, specifically the Board of Education and the Teachers' Union. Battles ensued, the experiment was foreclosed. This book, then, is a postscript which documents the accomplishments of decentralization -- with the hope that the experiment will be revived.

Pub Date: May 13, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION