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Militant, organized Negroes argue that the only solution is to import white students to Negro schools on the bitter theory that this will guarantee adequate teaching. Superintendent Gross has ruled that out. He backs every integration step "short of the compulsory interchange of Negro and white students between distant communities." Gross relies heavily on upgrading mostly Negro schools, but to mitigate the hurts of de facto segregation he intends to amplify the city's "open enrollment" plan by permitting children of all races "free choice" to enter underused schools throughout the city.
Overburden. Getting money is a big problem, but not the biggest, for Gross. The city's board of education has no taxing power—probably an advantage, since it would otherwise have to persuade a presumably reluctant electorate to vote for higher taxes and bond issues. This means that the board must appeal for cash to the city's Democratic administration, which in turn depends on the state's Republican legislature for about one-third of its school funds, but New York does manage to scrape up more per pupil (an average of $625 last year) than any other major city.
Yet, by one estimate, it should be spending at least one-third more to restore the schools' position of 20 years ago. The key barrier is "municipal overburden"—the expense of such extra city services as subsidized subways. Only 21% of the city budget goes to education, compared with as much as 70% in small communities.
Rush-Hour Education. New building is years behind—the city needs at least 20 new high schools. The 57 academic high schools it has now are so loaded that last year Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High had 6,886 students, or 2,000 more than capacity. George Washington High has five overlapping daily sessions; students waiting for empty classrooms jam the auditorium like commuters in Grand Central. Last year 57,459 New York children got less than a full day's schooling, in effect cutting their school year by as much as two months.
Such obstacles, in part, led 1,018 teachers last year to give up New York's classroom battle—many quitting for the suburbs. Those who remain are willing but not always able. The greenest college graduate can get a substitute teaching job; a third of all New York teachers are substitutes, too many of them thrown into the difficult schools that veterans are allowed to avoid. Yet to get a regular teaching license in New York City requires not only a state certificate but also a special city exam given by the powerful board of examiners, a fusty fief run by nine old-minded men. "An Einstein who was also a Professor of Educational Methods at Harvard University could not get a regular position as a teacher of science in New York City without taking the examination," wrote Cleveland's former School Superintendent Mark Schinnerer in a 1961 appraisal of New York's schools.