"Opportunity of a lifetime": Paraprofessionals in New York City schools, 1967-1978

This paper examines the impact of paraprofessionals on public schools in New York City, the United Federation of Teachers (the local teachers' union), and the local communities from which the paraprofessionals themselves were drawn. Launched in 1967, the paraprofessional program sought to improve classroom education, create jobs, and enhance school-community relationships through the recruitment of local women on public assistance in New York City's "poverty areas." Hired as low-wage workers, paraprofessionals organized through the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) at a time when the UFT was deeply distrusted in their communities on account of the racially-inflected fight over "community control" of schools in 1968. Asserting their status as pedagogical employees and their right to a living wage, these women, the vast majority of whom were African-American or Latina, won sizable raises and developed a career ladder program through their contract that helped many of them to become teachers. As paraprofessionals, they also engaged their communities, working to improve relationships between parents and teachers and educating teachers on local perspectives, needs, and cultures. Running counter to the dominant narratives about the failure of community control, the limits of the War on Povery, and the power of the conservative backlash, the paraprofessional story demonstrates the potential for a seemingly marginal group to reshape education and open municipal bureaucracies to local issues. While the paraprofessionals were not and are not a panacea, their experience suggests lessons about the ways in which education might be democratized and improved through engagement with communities.