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LESSON FROM HARLEM
WILSON

The Board of Education has not wished to relinquish power, even when the relinquishing of power was imperative, possible or desirable. The struggle then is not just a struggle of black versus white or local community versus the Board of Education, it is a struggle between an educational bureaucracy versus the forces pushing for educational democracy. That the people of this city have to a large measure been spectators is a clue about the true nature of this kind of educational system. It is a society in which everybody talks about "democracy," then settles down to allow a professional bureaucracy to operate the show as long as their own children or the children of their own particular group can make their way through the maze.
the case for community control
The case for community control rests on and in the schools themselves; in the operation or rather malfunctioning of the schools. In the 201 Complex, that area is an irregular polygon hewn out of the northeast section of East Harlem and an adjacent piece of central Harlem real estate around 127th Street, east of Seventh Avenue. While the majority of the community is black, there is a sizeable Puerto Rican minority (8.1%). The median income level, at $3,700 per annum as well as the median educational achievement level, at 8.1 grades, contribute and conspire to keep the people in the same place that they have always been-at the bottom. 
The Complex contains four feeder elementary schools and an intermediate school. Two of the elementary schools have classes running from Pre-K to 4; another Pre-K to 5 and the fourth Pre-K to 6. This creates nightmares for anyone attempting to plan programs for so many different groups entering at different levels. Further, the uneven pattern sets up a huge internal barrier to the achievement of the NYC Board of Education's stated "4-4-4" plan for its schools. 
The older schools of the 201 Complex area possess largely antiquated or outdated facilities. Two of the schools, for all practical purposes, lack gymnasiums, real auditoriums and teachers are forced to use classrooms in one school for the teachers lunchroom. One of the older schools, with a student body of 650, reports but one bathroom for boys and one bathroom for girls. The oldest school with the most limited facilities is paradoxically the most crowded. Even the newest school, I.S. 201 itself, the four-year-old windowless showcase, has a number of major defects. Cinderblocks and red tape blocked the air conditioning ducts for most of the school's life. 
In the old buildings or in the new ones, a traditional pattern of
                                                       
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