Biggs, Julian Glascock, Baylis

Description

Medill Bair [his first name is misspelled as “Medel” in the video title], superintendent of Hartford Public Schools, sits at his desk and discusses how he was hired, the differences between suburban and city school systems, and an example of a successful change at a neighborhood Hartford school. Bair says that he has been a superintendent for the past three years. When he was interviewed by the Board of Education he was asked if he knew about cities, about teacher unions, and about Negros and Puerto Ricans and although he had answered that he had no experience with any of these, he was hired. As a man who had been superintendent of two wealthy school districts in Massachusetts and California before he came to Hartford, he discusses the differences he perceives between suburban and urban schools. Bair says that one of the differences is that the cities lack parents with the information they need to be “pressure people,” such as those parents who are always putting pressure on the superintendent in suburban districts. He observes that many of these “pressure people” had already moved to West Hartford, Simsbury, and Glastonbury and therefore the remaining families need to be educated in how to pressure the system and that he supposes he would be fired if he were successful because he believes parents would not be satisfied with the current educational system. He discusses what he calls the “handicaps” that city children have, including the one-thousand mainly Puerto Rican children who come...

Record Contributed By

Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library

Record Harvested From

Connecticut Digital Archive