The Schenley Experiment

A Social History of Pittsburgh’s First Public High School

Jake Oresick (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

240 Seiten

2017
Pennsylvania State University Press (Verlag)
978-0-271-07833-5 (ISBN)

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Traces the history of Schenley High, Pittsburgh's first public high school. Includes 150 original interviews examining issues of class, race, ethnicity, and collaboration, and how these reflect on the history of education in Pittsburgh.

The Schenley Experiment is the story of Pittsburgh’s first public high school, a social incubator in a largely segregated city that was highly—even improbably—successful throughout its 156-year existence.

Established in 1855 as Central High School and reorganized in 1916, Schenley High School was a model of innovative public education and an ongoing experiment in diversity. Its graduates include Andy Warhol, actor Bill Nunn, and jazz virtuoso Earl Hines, and its prestigious academic program (and pensions) lured such teachers as future Pulitzer Prize winner Willa Cather. The subject of investment as well as destructive neglect, the school reflects the history of the city of Pittsburgh and provides a study in both the best and worst of urban public education practices there and across the Rust Belt. Integrated decades before Brown v. Board of Education, Schenley succumbed to default segregation during the “white flight” of the 1970s; it rose again to prominence in the late 1980s, when parents camped out in six-day-long lines to enroll their children in visionary superintendent Richard C. Wallace’s reinvigorated school. Although the historic triangular building was a cornerstone of its North Oakland neighborhood and a showpiece for the city of Pittsburgh, officials closed the school in 2008, citing over $50 million in necessary renovations—a controversial event that captured national attention.

Schenley alumnus Jake Oresick tells this story through interviews, historical documents, and hundreds of first-person accounts drawn from a community indelibly tied to the school. A memorable, important work of local and educational history, his book is a case study of desegregation, magnet education, and the changing nature and legacies of America’s oldest public schools.

Jake Oresick is an attorney and public policy analyst.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1Origin Story: The People’s College and Why Schenley High Almost Never Happened

2These Three Walls: The Comprehensive High School, Edward Stotz, and the Fight to Make Schenley Extraordinary

3Enter to Learn: 1916–1929

4Growing Pains: 1930–1949

5Running Uphill: 1950–1964

6The Writing on the Walls: 1965–1979

7If You’re Going to Drop a Bomb: The PHRC, Richard Wallace, and the Teacher Center

8Renaissance: 1983–1993

9The School of Choice: 1994–2007

10Closing Time: Mark Roosevelt, Asbestos, and the “Save Schenley” Movement

11After Oakland: Reizenstein, University Prep, and Obama Academy

Conclusion

Appendix ANotable Central High Alumni

Appendix BNotable Schenley High Alumni

Appendix CAthletics

Appendix DTheater

Appendix EPittsburgh Public High Schools Index

Notes

Erscheinungsdatum	19.04.2017
Reihe/Serie	Keystone Books
Zusatzinfo	4 Maps; 42 Halftones, black and white
Verlagsort	University Park
Sprache	englisch
Maße	140 x 216 mm
Gewicht	363 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Schulpädagogik / Sekundarstufe I+II
ISBN-10	0-271-07833-2 / 0271078332
ISBN-13	978-0-271-07833-5 / 9780271078335
Zustand	Neuware