Kirkus Reviews QR Code
 110 Livingston Street: A Study of Politics and Administration in the New York City Schools by David Rogers

110 Livingston Street: A Study of Politics and Administration in the New York City Schools

By

Pub Date: Oct. 28th, 1968
Publisher: Random House

This is a rigorous sociological examination of ""bureaucratic pathology within the school system."" Rogers, who chooses New York City as a ""strategic case"" of a national sickness in public education, conducted this study for the Center for Urban Education. Here he presents a full history: unofficial blocking of desegregation, inefficiency, fragmentation of functions, failure. Diagnosing the Board of Education, principals and teachers, Rogers also examines the allied factors of client pressure, their increasing expectations, ghetto pathology, insufficient planning, and the generally ailing agencies of city government. The disease: in- action. The prognosis clearly not very hopeful: ""I would conclude, then, that there may be no solution for the failures of big cities and urban education over the short run, and that conditions will probably get worse before they improve."" But there is a prescription for at least partial cure: decentralization of operations (a principal ought to be able to get the air conditioning repaired) and greater centralization of planning. ""The structure of the school system itself must be changed."" In a sense, then, Rogers calls for major surgery.