Bank Street and the 1960s
By 1964, the federal government began to seek out the educational expertise
of Bank Street with some frequency. With the Civil Rights Act in the offing,
the U.S. Commissioner of Education asked Bank Street's president, John
H. Niemeyer, to consult with southern universities to create models for
a desegregation program. That same year, Bank Street faculty were asked
to help shape the national Head Start Program and to create guidelines
for Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. (Indeed, the first Head
Start concept paper prepared by staff in the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity
said, "The basic Head Start classroom should work like a Bank Street College
elementary classroom for nursery/kindergarten.") The College embarked
on program activities on behalf of Project Head Start in 1965 with a national
workshop for administrators of the program, combined with an out-placement
service. It soon established one of the first national model Head Start
programs, the 42nd Street Early Childhood Model Head Start Training Center,
which continued in operation well into the 1970s.
Bank Street's Research Division became part of a national network of
Early Childhood Research Centers devoted to studies relevant to young
children in Head Start and similar programs.
In 1966, Bank Street opened its Early Childhood and Family Resources
Center in Manhattan, another major effort in adapting the College's child
development approach to minority and poor children and their families.
Research studies contributed to the training and development of paraprofessionals
in work with young children.
Also in the 1960s, with the support of the Carnegie Corporation, Bank
Street's Educational Resources Center was started to help in the education
of students handicapped by segregation and/or poverty. Over the years,
in Harlem and later elsewhere, new methods were brought into play with
34,000 of these children.
Another aspect of Bank Street's concern with the quality of education
was the Bank Street Readers. Published in 1965 by the Macmillan
Company, they were the first multiracial, urban-oriented readers portraying
contemporary culture, graphics, and language. The Bank Street Readers
broke the "Dick and Jane" mold and set new standards for the publishing
industry. During the 1960s and '70s, one out of four children in city
schools used the Bank Street Readers.
From 1968 to 1981, Bank Street was one of the prime sponsors of the federal
Follow Through program, which provides educational support services for
elementary school children and their families in economically disadvantaged
areas. Bank Street, which had participated in the design of Follow Through,
was asked by school officials and parents in 14 communities across the
country to run Follow Through programs in 43 schools. Several of these
schools were designated as Demonstration Centers by the U.S. Office of
Education and the National Institute of Education to disseminate the Bank
Street Follow Through method and materials to schools and educators around
the world. Bank Street's involvement with Follow Through continued into
the early 1990s.
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