With A Brooklyn Accent: The Magic of Community History-What Test Based Accountability and School Closings Ruined in the Bronx

With A Brooklyn Accent: The Magic of Community History-What Test Based Accountability and School Closings Ruined in the Bronx:

The Magic of Community History-What Test Based Accountability and School Closings Ruined in the Bronx

Yesterday, while going through my files to do the footnotes for a book of African American Bronx oral histories I was completing, I came upon a document that filled me with great sadness. It was a speech, and powerpoint presentation I gave in February 2006 to over 600 Bronx social studies teachers assembled at Lehman college about the musical traditions of the Bronx- supplemented by nearly 20 songs.

The response from the teachers, principals and assistant principals in the audience was incredible- some of them were dancing in the aisles- and out of this experience came the opportunity to work in over 20 Bronx schools doing community history projects, lectures and neighborhood tours. In every school I entered, the teachers, administrators, students and parents took ownership of the material I presented, creating amazing projects, presentations ,displays and musical performances. So incredible were these teacher/student developed projects that I decided to showcase them at the 2008 Organization of American Historians Convention at the New York Hilton. as an example of the kind of community history projects scholars all over the nation should be doing.
Little did I know, when I organized the program for the OAH, that within two years, all of these programs would be gone. By 2010 my invitations from Bronx schools would shrink to nearly zero, with one school in Morrisania, PS 140, being the only hold out.
What happened?
In 2007, under the aegis of a misguided Columbia law professor named With A Brooklyn Accent: The Magic of Community History-What Test Based Accountability and School Closings Ruined in the Bronx: