{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/5q4rj4915n/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Acquavita, Fred, 2003 June 25"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/013/original/yale-blue.png?1678220072","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Acquavita, Fred, 2003 June 25. Oral Histories Documenting New Haven, Connecticut (RU 1055). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.\n\n https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/2867."]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/archival_objects/1002501"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library."]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["The materials are open for research.\n\nOriginal audiovisual materials, as well as preservation and duplicating masters, may not be played. Researchers must consult use copies, or if none exist must pay for a use copy, which is retained by the repository. Researchers wishing to obtain an additional copy for their personal use should consult Copying Services information on the Manuscripts and Archives web site."]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["mssa.ru.1055 (EAD ID)","RU 1055 (Call Number)","ru_1055_2008-A-001_Acquavita,Fred_1.mp3 (Digital Object ID)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2003 June 25 (Creation)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Fred Acquavita started teaching in the New Haven Public Schools in 1968, part of a crop of young, radical teachers to enter the New Haven schools at that time. He discusses his radicalization as a teacher and member of the teachers' union, the New Haven Federation of Teachers, in which he served in leadership positions. He describes his conflicts with the Board of Education and \"conservative\" teachers, describes his attempts at progressive teaching in various schools across the city, and offers his perspectives on education and unionization. \n\nInterviewer: Strohl, Nicholas \n\nLength (min): 80, 5 (Scope and Content Note)","https://preservica.library.yale.edu/explorer/explorer.html#prop:4\u0026amp;7eec899a-a826-47ff-9d15-08ad4d6dc407 (Other Finding Aid Note)","As a preservation measure, original materials may not be used. Digital access copies must be provided for use. Contact Manuscripts and Archives at beinecke.library@yale.edu to request access (Accessrestrict)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["computer files (wav)","duration_HH_MM_SS_mmm","audio/mpeg"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preservica Representation Type"]},"value":{"en":["Access-2"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preservica Uri"]},"value":{"en":["/structural-objects/6ac0438d-f0a6-470d-ac0c-9dd5f4a1e3ce"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Fred Acquavita started teaching in the New Haven Public Schools in 1968, part of a crop of young, radical teachers to enter the New Haven schools at that time. He discusses his radicalization as a teacher and member of the teachers' union, the New Haven Federation of Teachers, in which he served in leadership positions. He describes his conflicts with the Board of Education and \"conservative\" teachers, describes his attempts at progressive teaching in various schools across the city, and offers his perspectives on education and unionization. \n\nInterviewer: Strohl, Nicholas \n\nLength (min): 80, 5","https://preservica.library.yale.edu/explorer/explorer.html#prop:4\u0026amp;7eec899a-a826-47ff-9d15-08ad4d6dc407","As a preservation measure, original materials may not be used. Digital access copies must be provided for use. Contact Manuscripts and Archives at beinecke.library@yale.edu to request access"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["The materials are open for research.\n\nOriginal audiovisual materials, as well as preservation and duplicating masters, may not be played. Researchers must consult use copies, or if none exist must pay for a use copy, which is retained by the repository. Researchers wishing to obtain an additional copy for their personal use should consult Copying Services information on the Manuscripts and Archives web site."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Manuscripts and Archives Yale University Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/013/original/yale-blue.png?1678220072","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20201008-791-1al0eiz.mpga"]},"duration":5041.872,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-yalemssa.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/098/365/original/open-uri20201008-791-1al0eiz.mpga?1602160010","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":5041.872,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Legacy Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Fred Acquavita, interviewed by Nicholas Strohl. June 25, 2003. NHOHP 074. \r\n\r\nNicholas Strohl: Just to start out here I'd like to know a little bit about where you come from. Your educational background. What got you interested in teaching?\r\n\r\nFred Acquavita: Well, I was a kid from New Haven, a blue-collar family. In the old Legion Ave. Oak St. area, which was quite famous actually in terms of immigrants. About 5 generations of immigrants, kind of a New York neighborhood. A mixture of Jews, Italians, some blacks, Irish. And came out of that neighborhood, went to the local public schools in New Haven: Hillhouse, I graduated from Hillhouse. Wasn't really a stellar student. I did play football though so I went out West. I actually applied to a school, a junior college out west to play football. But never did. And ultimately went to a state teachers college in Kansas believe it or not. Went out there and loved it and my goal was to go out there and transfer back here. But ended up staying there and graduating there with a teaching degree in elementary education. Signed a contract to teach in Kansas City, MO. And they were so excited to get me because I was one of the few people in Midwest to express and interest in working in the inner-city. So when I did my teaching in this little town in Kansas, I said yeah, I'd like to be working with inner-city kids to they put right in the center of the town. And, actually they were pretty tough kids actually. Sure enough they were all white basically. But at any rate I signed a contract to teach in Kansas City. They liked me a lot. They told me they were going to put me in an all-black school where the principal there was getting ready for retirement and in 2 or 3 years they were going to make me a principal. I said o my god that's incredible. In the meantime my family sent me information about New Haven. The union just had gotten into New Haven and they renegotiated the contract. At that point, KC was making more money than New Haven. And then with one stroke of the pen, New Haven went up to about $6800. So that and some other factors, family factors, my wife, I was married in college and my wife has a large family so we decided to move back to New Haven. So I came back in 1968 and I began teaching in Kimberly Ave. School which is no longer there. The Betsy Ross magnet school has been built there on Kimberly Ave. And I was just an average teacher, you know, I wasn't politically motivated in any specific way. I didn't have that background at all, but just had a sense that something was drastically wrong. And the word got out-I became very interested. . . well, first of all I knew the school was failing, and trust me the schools were failing and trust me I was not a rocket scientist and I was saying God if I can figure this out it's scary, you know, really scary stuff going on. And all black kids basically. Taught 5th and 6th grade and I guess the reading levels went from Pre-K right up to 6th grade. And not many at the top. So the reading issue became a focal point for me and I started to figure out ways . . The kids were unhappy. There was a high absentee rate. A lot of anger, mistrust. So the first radical thing I did as a teacher was, it was a slow process in the first 3 months of school but I gradually moved and heard and learned more and more about progressive education model. And it made sense to me, based on my own failures as a student. I was never a great student, either. Although by elementary school, in retrospect now, was a very progressive school. A lab school for Southern CT State university. So once I started reading a lot about progressive ed I realized that basically what was happening was happening to me in my elementary grades which was the strongest part of my educational background. From 7th grade on it was just girls and football. And hanging out with the guys on the corner, you know, big time. I'm not bragging about this, I don't think I read a book in HS. In elementary I had a great education, very science-centered. Very Piagean and Dewey-centered. So I had a good background, a good lower school background. So anyways I looked at the public schools and the particular class I had and started to make some changes. The kids resisted though, which was interesting because they were used to certain ways. I was moving towards a non-textbook approach. Around November it was open house night-and this was what really became like the first step in becoming a radical teacher. I was very anxious to meet all these parents. And had 36 children. And that year, a book was written called 36 Children by Herbert Kohl. I think it was Herbert Kohl. And I started reading it, I said halfway through, I don't have to read this. I said this guy was a fly on my wall. I said this is my life what he wrote about here in my short teaching career. So I waited anxiously for all these parents to come and no one came. Not one parent came. 36 children. So I thought a lot about it and I said, you know what, I'm going to see them. So I wrote them a letter and I said I'm going to come. I set up all these home visits. And that's when I learned about poverty. I mean I was a poor kid, too, but never that poor. I mean we all had jobs basically and lived in an insulated area in New Haven but never like this. In object poverty. It was just awful. You know, all mothers, no fathers. A lot of kids. A lot of anger. A lot of frustration. But I still believed that all the children wanted to learn. And that was the difference between me and the average teacher in my school. And, it's called institutional racism. Low expectations. I never bought into that so I always blame myself or the school for whatever problems the kid had. But there were certain realities, you know, so I was. The word got out about me and things I was doing in that school and before I knew it there were other teachers feeling the same way. And somehow, some parents, some very significant parents who were connected to the Yale Divinity School actually. \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=0.0,405.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" \r\n\r\nWho were parents in the school system who wanted to make change, to create change. Had the sense and the organizational skills to pull us all together, and we started meeting on a regular basis. And out of that came the Teacher Center. Now the Teacher Center was a grassroots-by the way we were all union teachers, I guess that's where I'm going with all this. And the Teacher Center was not union, only that there were a lot of union teachers involved in it. So it was a collaboration between teachers and parents trying to make change and it was a bottom-up model. So it wasn't very popular with the school system. Other school systems once they realized the potential of these teacher centers, adopted their own teacher centers, but it was a top-down model. We clearly saw ours as a vehicle for change. So there was a political edge to it. A progressive political edge. However, when we finally got our own space, which was down in the basement of the First Methodist church in New Haven, the teachers that started using the teacher center were all suburban teachers who had the motivation had the money. They weren't depressed. Morale was not to the point where people were just seeking solutions. It was too bad. So it never really became a political vehicle although we did some wonderful, wonderful things and we brought some really significant people to talk to teachers. It was a drop-in center, a recycling center. It had an advisor system that was predicated on talent, not status. So in other words, if Nick from Cleveland knew how to make a terrarium, he was on the same level and Dr. whatever from the physics department at Yale. We just paid everybody the same. $25 a workshop you know. And it was just a nice concept. There actually were a number of teacher centers throughout the country. The only other one that was similar to New Haven was the Red Pencil? Or the Red Schoolhouse? Up in Boston. Very radical group of teacher sup there. So it was a small group of us but we were clearly one of the leaders in this whole area. In England it was based on the models coming from England. At that time the British primary schools were revamped based on a report called the Plowden report . . . A report clearly saying that these school systems in England were a disaster. So they started to revamp them, and based on the work down by Piaget and John Dewey, they became very child-centered and the teacher was viewed more as a facilitator. Transferred over to the United States we call it the open classroom . . . Many of us if we'd have to do it over, we'd restructure it a little bit. And that's what I've done here at St. Thomas'. It's the same philosophy though we teach reading, writing and arithmetic in a traditional way. But we still have the child-centerness . . . Instead what we did is created nice environments. And that's really-my public school education-if I had to choose one things that summed it all up was that I did create a learning environment where kids loved to come to school. These are children of severe poverty and all sorts of social problems. But they used to love to come to school and stay late and worked on projects. I just didn't teach them enough skills, it was too open-ended. In fact I moved. My experience is really unique, to be honest with you. Not that I had any special talents it was just the right place at the right time . . . I was a 5th grade teacher in a traditional school and the school became overcrowded. So they rented a Catholic church, an old Catholic church, they built the new one, St. Peter's, which they knocked down to built the Betsy Ross Art Magnet . . . but next door the entire inside of the church was available. And the confessions are bathrooms now and the stage. Had a curtain. So that was my classroom. They moved me there with another teacher in '72. And that's where I became radicalized. In that space. I started experimenting with space. And realize that space was an important thing in schools. And I've always had luck. I met this minister from the Yale Div School and he funneled just wonderful kids like yourself into my classrooms. There was a steady flow of really, really bright people . . . came with all kinds of skills . . . I almost became a school system within a school system. I'll give you an example what happened to me: In one year, I got a letter from the school system, from the administration, saying that I was one of the most outstanding, one of many outstanding young teaches in the school system. Consequently they were going to give me student teachers-which was unusually to be so young and getting student teachers. In one year, the second year I got a letter saying that I was such a bad influence on these teachers they were taking them away. So what happened in that one year I moved to a more radical position . . . Because there was any principal, we were literally two blocks down. Two blocks is like being in Siberia. Nobody wants to walk two blocks. And they just let us do what we wanted. And I worked with a very conservative teacher. But I sort of won him over and we did a lot of experimentation. I had kids working on cars. I mean there was a professor at Southern CT. He was so crazy, his name was Bud Stone. So crazy out there in terms of thinking of creative ways for kids to learn science. He came to visit my classroom. He said this, I think, is one of the best classrooms in the whole city. It's so chaotic . . . He started funneling kids from his class . . . He made it a requirement of his elementary school science class that you had to spend some time in my classroom doing this. So that's the kind of environment I was in. Did we teach kids a lot of stuff? I don't know. We did a lot of creative writing . . . But if I had to do it over again, based on what I know now, I would have been really strict about teaching kids about reading skills and math skills . . . \r\n\r\n[14: 36] \r\n\r\nAnyways, to move towards the union. All this was happening, it was just so active. You had every major radical group in New Haven represented somewhere. So whenever you had a union meeting. You would get all these elements coming. It was a strange time. Now, I wasn't well read politically. So I was just going on gut, you know, basically. You know, things were wrong, let's try to fix them. What's the big deal? I knew principals was an issue. I knew political patronage was an issue in the school system. I knew the bureaucracy could never solve a problem . . . If you'd have played ball with the political system you were like, dead in the water. So it made no difference who you were, the system had a life of its own. So many of us recognized this 30 years ago. And still if someone asked me what is the major problem in this system, that's the first thing I go to. Not the kids. Cause I always had a sense that the kids came wanting to learn. The other thing that happened to me is that I left Kimberly School and a group of parents at Helene Grant school, just smack in the middle of New Haven, there were again a group of parents who were highly motivated and there were two wonderful teachers there doing open classroom. There was a space for a third teacher. They raised money to hire a third teacher. They asked me to go over there and in one year-I just couldn't work with the principal. You know I would bring in books . . . and he just wasn't there. So I got  a little frustrated there. So I went to a middle school in the Hill. And I worked next to this fellow who really changed my whole view about working with inner-city kids. Kids in general. And when I first met him, his name was . . . So he was Mr. A. Tom Anastasia. So he was a weird duck to say the least. Strange guy. And my classroom was next to him, and I used to watch him. And I was this big, liberal, progressive, and loving the kids all week long . . . This guy, he was so strict, it was scary. In fact I thought of reporting him. I thought he was abusive. But you know what happened. In two months, those same kids that I had. They loved me, they were still throwing chairs in the room, killing each other . . . His kids, he didn't even have to watch them anymore, they were so trained. And I said you know, something's wrong here. There's a piece missing to my philosophy. Well, I'm exaggerating this a bit. But we teamed up. And this is the classic thing that happened in the 60s and 70s. We went to the principal. We said, look, it was a small middle school, from that group they built Roberto Clemente, which is the big middle school on the Hill, but it wasn't there. So we went to the principal and said look, give us the hundred worst kids, and the two worst teachers, and give us the basement of the school and leave us alone. And he said fine. And that's where it all started for me. We went down there . . . And that wasn't the political end of it, that's just the school end of it. And that's where I learned about balance. And that, in simple terms what inner-city kids . . . we also learned that in any given inner-city school there's maybe 10-15 percent of the kids, are street kids. And no matter who you are, black, black militant, black basketball player, 10 feet tall, nobody could control these kids. Their parents, no one. The street has taken over. They come into the school and they dictate the tempo. And where the racism comes in, or the institutional racism is that . . . that group dominates the culture of the school. The other kids-here's a quick story: You're the teacher, it's the beginning of the year. And you're white, or black, but you're middle class. That's the difference. Not the race. Middle class. So your whole experience has been ok, it is a conflict we're going to negotiate, we're going to discuss and we're going to resolve it and move on . . . well, it's the first day of school and everybody's looking around and they're looking over in the corner and there's Willie. Everybody in the school except that teacher knows that Willie is freakin' crazy, nuts, out and out crazy, who can kill somebody. So I sit there and I'm looking at the teacher I'm saying well, here's the deal, if the teacher wins, I'm on her side, or his side. If Willie wins, I'm going with Willie. And unfortunately in many inner city schools, the Willies win, or the Johnny's win, or the Mary's win....  \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=405.0,1208.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nWhat we learned to do down in that basement in confront Willie day one. So we became like the crazy people . . . And it was a poor model. You couldn't go around the country talking about this model because they would lock you up. But what we learned to do is confront Willie early. And what it did is to put everyone at ease. And ultimately we got rid of Willie if we couldn't handle him. We figured out ways to get rid of him. So the comfort level just rose to the top. And these were all the kids that were thrown out of the classes on the top floor. And in one month I had 50 kids I was responsible for and Tom had 50. The two teachers, in two months, they loved this guy. You know, why, he sat there and he taught them math. More math than Tom and I even knew. No discipline problems he had. So, in a nutshell, what that meant was basically setting a high standard. Not making excuses. And I learned this from Tom Anastasio. He would sit around a group of kids in a circle. And they would ready. Always reading. Handouts, just reading . . . and a lot of math . . . At one point our kids scored the highest in math in the city from that one little school. I mean huge. But I mean he would have ongoing dialogue with these kids. And I remember this one girl got up and-this really dark-skinned black, which is an issue-all the dark kids know that all the white teachers and even the black teachers like the light skinned kids . . . I essence what we did is created a situation where we didn't make any excuses for the kids. That's where we find ourself. We set high standards, high teaching standards. We did a lot of teaching, a lot of instruction. And bingo, we won the kids over . . . \r\n . . . And the radical part was Tom was strictly for the kids. At that point I had a strong political agenda. So I was out in the community more than he was. He didn't care about stuff like that. So I would get the kids jobs. He kept school open like 24 hrs a day. He got divorced, I mean this was not a great model. He was always there for them. So I would get them jobs during the day through my network, you know, carpenters' helpers, what not, and then they would go to school at night. And what happened was the assistant superintendent of schools Jerry Turazzi who went on to become the superintendent and then ultimately became the commissioner of education in New Haven and is now head of the National Association of high School principals. He moved right on up. He liked us for some reason. He liked us. He had a sense of what we were doing. So he was very supportive and protective. But when he became superintendent, there was a lot of pressure on him from his middle management team up there downtown. And they were basically saying, how could you let these two white guys have all this power. These two teachers have all this power. They have their own school system there. So they put a lot of pressure on us to conform to rules, and standards and regulations . . . so then I left and went to another middle school and in one year, it was like suffocation . . . Teachers were into lunchtime, selling oil . . . No one wanted to discuss the problems of this middle school . . . They had these incredible lunchroom situations, with a bullhorn. It looked like prison . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=1208.0,1710.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nIf I had to go back. If I was talking to a group of radical teachers, I would say look, forget the ten meetings a night in the community. Figure out a way to teach that kid to read. That's the most radical thing you can do. And that's what releases and frees people. You know, Paolo Freire, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, you know, teach them to read. That's the most radical thing you can do as a teacher. I went to more freakin meetings. We were bumping into each other. It made us all feel good that we're part of the solution . . . That's why I worry about liberals, and I'm a liberal. Sometimes they operate at that level rather than the concrete level of really making change. It's almost like if you eliminate the problem what the hell are you going to do, right? But anyway, so I think if I went back to public school, and that was my message to Amistad . . . Teach the kids to read and consequently they created a model, a tutorial . . . So that's what St. Thomas' is. Basically the kind of model I would use in any inner-city school if I was there tomorrow. And parents are the key. You have to communicate with parents. So this whole message is what we were trying to get the union to do. That's really where I'm trying to go with this. \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=1710.0,1817.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nSo these young teachers like myself, the teachers who started HSC had a different political orientation. More of a Marxist orientation. One of their key members, who wasn't part of the school system but was part of their group, called the American Independent Movement AIM, was a Marxist economist, famous, Rick Wolfe . . . He was sort of their philosophical centerpiece. He actually ran for mayor of New Haven once. But he must be the only Marxist-economist left in the world. But he teaches up at U. Mass. But that group started the HSC. So that group, which were HS people. Then there was a bunch of us who were elementary. Craig O'Connell and myself were the primary players. But together we got involved with the union and basically took the union over. And we had a black president, Charlie Leak . . . basically he was a figure head. So we had control of the union. And we were pushing a strong social agenda. One of which was to create daycare centers throughout the city. Start out with 8 and keep increasing them . . . So little by little we were pushed out by the more moderate teachers and that's where Frank Carrano came in . . . but I think when you really analyze his influence, he really downloaded the union. I mean it's almost lifeless. Maybe there were certain economic forces that forced that, but to me it always makes sense, if I were president of the union, I think Pat Lucan is moving in this direction. You can't separate what's good for kids and what's good for teachers. You just can't. You have to make them the primary agenda and the rest will fall into place. I mean the union should be primarily responsible for getting the best wages and working conditions for the employees, for the union members, but unlike Ford Motor Company you're dealing with children. So it makes you a little different. And it might make you more spiritually centered or more morally centered. So what's good for kids is good for teachers. But my model and the model of the teacher's that I associated with in the union turned the power pyramid upside down and put teachers and children and parents at the top . . . And Craig O'Connell and I wrote and made it part of the union negotiation, it was called More Effective Schools. And in essence what it was was teacher-run school. Where you had a facilitator and it was a teacher chosen by a group of teachers and the teachers would basically de-centralize the school system. Systematically de-centralizing it. Not in a negative sense like in New York City because it was so politically driven in NYC but in a philosophical and a curriculum-we didn't care about the money or the budget. Although we felt that each school should do its own budget and submit it to the central office. I still think it's a pretty good model. Because in essence what has happened, what we were proposing Is what exactly happened with charter schools and magnet schools. . . most people get involved in charter schools because they've had it up to here with the bureaucracy. It's not because of the children it's basically because of their professional future. And that's basically what we were proposing 30 years ago. As far as the union is concerned I was involved, I was a leader. I had two positions. I was the elementary school VP on the Ex board and I was also the grievance chairperson . . . So I had a good sense of the school system. But then I said I got pushed out from Carrano and by Ronny O'Brien, and they did a write-in. And from that point that radical elements was pretty much out of the union. There was only a few left. One was Matt Borenstein who people just tolerated because he was so bright and so statistically driven. I mean he had all the information, he had a history, you know he's gone through numerous evaluations . . . and Steve Kass could write, so he took over the paper . . . Now as far as negotiations were concerned, early on in the 70s I was involved in negotiations and I did go to jail. 13 of us went to jail, Mary Johnson was the only female. That was in 71. Most of the teachers who are in the union now don't remember that. It's out of their mindset . . . [jail experience] . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=1817.0,2410.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\n . . . [Mary Johnson with most difficult time] . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=2410.0,2493.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" \r\n\r\nSo as soon as we got out of jail we went right back to negotiations. And we basically settled the strike . . . One of the problems we had with the teachers is that teachers were still caught on that attitude about professionalism. Those of us in leadership positions knew right away that teachers were not professionals. They thought they were, but they were not treated like professionals. And that was always my argument when I was trying to organize for the union; trying to convince teachers that if you were true professional, you control, in simple terms, who enters or leaves your profession, like the AMA or the bar association. And the reason why they do that not only to maintain standards. It's also whenever you have that situation in American the salaries go sky high. CPA, right? Teachers are controlled and dictated to by state legislatures. And they're always looking to keep taxes down. So you can't think like a professional. You have to behave like a professional, but think like a unionist. So, to me-cause when I was in college I belonged to the NEA, I thought it was the best thing since apple pie, you know. Once I got out I said, o my god, these people are in lala land. They think they're like doctors and lawyers. And you really see this when you have the opportunity to sit across from school administrators at a bargaining table. It's all about numbers. They could care less about professionalism. And it's hard to convey that to teachers because they don't even believe their own union people . . . [steward system] . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=2493.0,2608.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" \r\n\r\nThere are teachers to this day who still don't talk to each other. Those that crossed the picket line . . . So anyway there were two other strikes that were basically moderately successful. And over time the union negotiated, lost some language in its contract that people worked so hard for. And too a moderate position and I'm sure there are some pretty good reasons for it . . . I feel that when you're a union leader you just can't go that way. It's a short term gain, long-term loss. You just can't compromise. You've got to keep that edge going all the time. And my biggest complaint with the union is that it has virtually done nothing for the kids. And that's what the black community has always accused us of. So, backing up a little bit, when all of us sort of got pushed out of the union we regrouped. And through that time in the union we had our own caucus and that was TPU. And that's where we would sort of read. And we had a lot of influence in the union. We controlled the paper, we controlled negotiations. We had key people in key positions. So the union was very, very progressive. We were going around supporting other teachers in. I remember going to Newark supporting teachers in Newark. So it was that kind of environment. But then, after a while, we realized we were going nowhere. And some of us got together and said, you know, we've put all this time in, we've gone to all these meetings, and the system is worse than it was when we first came. So we said maybe we're doing something wrong. And the one things that we realized, and this is sort of my model now-is we got together and we realized that we had no historical political analysis. We were all operating out of the gut. And we were repeating things that were going on for hundreds of years, you know, in unions in relationship with employers. So we started to formulate a political analysis, an historical analysis of school change. So we would meet on a weekly basis and we would read. And that's where I became introduced to Piaget. Not Piaget but . . . Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. And we read a number of books that were like that. Jonathan Kozell . . . and came up with a very very good analysis that I think, if you read some of our articles you could almost change the dates and publish them today the analysis holds true. So we always felt that we were way ahead of everyone, to be honest with you . . . I came out of poor education, highly motivated, a problem solver, but poorly educated really, in all honesty . . . Steve Strom, there's a guy you might want to talk to. Lives on Livingston St. A Yale grad, he could have become a doctor, a lawyer, whatever. He became a teacher and, you know, and ultimately he did become a lawyer. We all left, all of us left, basically. So it was this lack of history, this lack of analysis . . .that we really felt was in the way of organizing. So what we did is gather all this information. We started looking at a school system in a systematic way, in a very analytical way and we said, put the information out in this newspaper called BADD Times. And some of the articles were very, very well written. And the stats were right on the money. We were the first ones to publish the dropout rate in the school system. It's interesting . . . What we're doing here is trying to get the teachers to do here is to move the teachers to another level in terms of analyzing what we do with kids on a day to day basis. And one thing to do is look at the latest research being done about the brain . . . But we were way ahead of our time. Even going back to the Jepson school. Craig O'Connell and I were the first teachers, along with Carol Donovan who was at the Jepson school, and Craig's wife works there. We were the first ones to start that years and years ago. In fact, the state commissioner of education was so excite about it he assigned one of his staff to come and meet with us on a regular basis. We just couldn't get the school system to buy into it. Basically, we were asking for a teacher-run school . . . it never really lived up to its expectation . . . When I was at Kimberly school they were going to build Hill Central, which is a elementary school right behind Roberto Clemente. Brand new school, they were going to build it, open classroom. So I called the assistant superintendent of schools in instruction . . .I said, look, I'm in contact weekly with 20 teachers who would plan-wouldn't cost the system a nickel, we're doing it now-take all of us and put us in one school. He was so excited. Two days later he called me back and said they won't do it. They want to choose the principal first. You see, here's where there bureaucracy strangles the system. They choose a nice guy, a very conservative reading teacher. Former reading supervisor. And bingo, the whole system shut down and it became a very traditional school in an open space . . . \r\n . . . Just one more thing, I want to really stress the history thing. Because what I see happening now, when I go to a conference and there's young teachers involved. And in a few minutes they either think I'm an asshole or, they don't know what to do with me. I have so much information. Again, I am not a rocket scientist, but I have a lot of experience. They are so clueless. And it's not a generational thing. A little bit maybe. And what's missing is they have no history. Absolutely no history of change. We're in big trouble unless they get it. Because those that are motivated, they're clueless. They have no history of change and that's what hurting the union. The mistake the union has made is not educating the young teacher's about unionism. Because it is a movement. And teacher unions are still have that core of what made unions in this country strong and that is there is an inequity and its universal. You know, teacher salaries are low. Kids not being educated. So it's a prime area where people want to organize and change. So the teacher union can be the strongest union in the country. It's the largest. \r\n\r\nNicholas Strohl: You know you talk about all these people, at the time in the 70s. Teachers talking with each. It seems like a given individual knew a lot of people at schools around the district. Today, from my experience at Sheridan another schools I've seen. Teachers seem more isolated . . .\r\n\r\nFred Acquavita: Oh yeah, there's no vehicle for that to happen . . . There's no [minister Forsberg] who made it is business to pull us all together . . . Some of these radicals that came into the system were organizers. I mean one guy who befriended me and Craig O'Connell, we found out later was really high on the FBI list as a radical. And it's interesting. An article was written about people like him and I read the article it said, it's just like Tim . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=2608.0,3242.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\n . . . Tim Craine . . . Frank Annunziato . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=3242.0,3353.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nNicholas Strohl: One thing I'm interested in is the organizational structure of the union and how that kind of relates to the job of teaching itself. I mean like you said, on the job you kind of have to behave as a professional but I guess, you know, as a member of the union it's still a blue-collar job, teaching . . . I mean the teacher union is organized as any other industrial would be organized. And I wonder if teaching is not like producing cars . . . \r\n\r\nFred Acquavita: Well, teacher's unions are organized in some ways like any other union. However, you don't have the level of complaints that you find in a factory. Cause people are talking. There is some element of professionalism still there. I mean teachers would not complain about correcting three more papers than they are supposed to . . .but what has happened. My son is a teacher in New Haven, and he's a football coach and he teaches at Troupe. He has pretty good leadership skills so they asked him to be the steward. He gave it up, he said I can't deal with the teachers anymore, they're whining about everything, you know . . . support the principals. But he doesn't have an analysis either, even though he grew up in a home where these meetings were taking place. He doesn't have a strong historical-political analysis. He just has common sense and he's not a whiner and he has good leadership abilities. But the structure right now is the executive committee, the board and then there's a web of stewards in each school . . . Traditionally the concerns would be around class size, prep times, being asked to stay beyond what the union contract says. Those are the big issues. And of course, money and benefits. But teaching duties . . . so what has happened is it's created an environment where-and this is our arguments-the teachers, it appears the teachers want less and the administrators want them to do more for the sake of the children. Which is not true at all. And the teachers have always been forced into that position. It's hard, in terms of public relations it was hard to undo that image in the black community, who want the best for their kids, to see all these white teachers or middle-class teachers who want to do less duties, get out early, and abdicate responsibility for the problems. As our caucus tried to do away with that by saying, if you decentralize, if you empower teachers, they will stay . . . I mean look at the charter schools. They're staying till 5, 8, 10 o'clock at night . . . [staying after school] . . . But I think that structure and those issues are what create the tensions. But ultimately the kids suffer for it. But most of us in sort of the radical elements of the union never differentiated between what's good for kids and what's good for teachers. We clearly saw it as one . . . We read a wonderful book, and it's a book that changed my entire attitude . . . Michael Katz . . . Class, Bureaucracy and the Schools. And he put forth a political analysis of the public schools in this country. That it's not so much racism that's driven the engine it's classism. And it's the old saying: If all the children in Harlem learned to read, who would wash the toilets in Scarsdale . . . If all these kids learned to read, who are they going to compete with. \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=3353.0,3757.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nNicholas Strohl: Can you talk about how the class background of teachers in the early 70s varied and how that came to affect people in thinking what the union can do for them. Cause you know there were at least a small group of teachers coming from places like Wesleyan and places like that . . .\r\n\r\nFred Acquavita: No one was prepared no matter where you came from. Wesleyan, Southern . . . because there was a book written. You know, it sound like I'm bragging about this but we really solved the problem in all honesty. This Tom Anastasio solved the problem, I learned from him. And a book was written about what we did. And unbeknownst to us . . . And the book was called, Ribbin' and Jivin' and Playing the Dozens. Now playing the dozens in school is when I start pickin on your mother . . . constant. Day by day, hour by hour, this made up the school system . . . So basically he took the position, the same position, his name was Foster . . . and he's white which is also amazing to me. But he wrote this book and basically what he did, he chronicled his experience in a school similar to what we did here in New Haven only they had schools called the 600 schools and if you were in the 600 school you were one step out or in jail. And what they did there is they just reversed everything. They set high standards, made no excuses. And the kids just did incredibly well . . . And ribbin and jivin was a strategy on how to deal with these children. And the strategy was that you can't go into these inner-city situations with middle class values. You can end up there but you can't start there. You have to start with the kids you have. So my philosophy is, in doing workshops for teachers . . . they thought I was Attila the Hun....\r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=3757.0,3936.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":" \r\n\r\nAnd all I was saying was that initially you have to start that way. You can't get these kids to sit and have dialogue when ten minutes after dismissal someone's gonna kick their ass for looking at them the wrong way. So you have to figure out a way to deal with it. So we were very, very strict. Almost like military strict. That's why people used to laugh at me when I said I supported Joe Clark . . . black principal in NJ, used to walk around with a 2 x 4 to keep the drug addicts from breaking into the school. And he ran the school like a Gestapo. But the kids loved it. They were safe. Not that I would go to that extreme but you have to create an environment-listen, we created an environment. You wouldn't find one piece of graffiti in our school. You know why, because the kids painted it, the kids cleaned it . . . it was open all night. It became a beacon in the community . . . But you know what the sad thing is is that I'd say 90 percent of the kids in this program are dead or incarcerated. However, when we were at that school in Trowbridge in this Hill, we did get some information from the police department. They said the crime rate dropped. These kids were robbing all of you Yalies coming off the train thru Church St. south . . . Four or five of those kids I brought into school as parents. In fact one of the little girls, whose father was one of my kids. I got three of them into Hopkins, one into Laurelton Hall . . . But the Ribbin' and Jivin' . . . What he said was basically, life if you got the job teaching at Hill Central. You're this idealistic, well-educated person. You come in. you love the kids to death . . . you have to have an agenda to survive and do the best for the children. Cause the kids know, even though you love them, the kids know, he's leaving . . . The average person doesn't realize that about inner-city kids; they see this big hulking muscular kid coming down the hall, his pants leg rolled up. And back when I taught they had big Afros and all that . . . he's a baby, a freakin' baby . . . This Tom Anastasio was a great basketball coach and you should see the problem he had getting his kids getting ready to go to a suburban town like Guilford to play basketball. Frightened out of their mind to leave the city . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=3936.0,4305.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nNicholas Strohl: One other question I have is: From the histories that I've heard the strikes in the 70s generated a lot of energy for the union. And then since, of course, '76 and the binding arbitration, there haven't been any strikes. And I'm wondering how unions can-what's the best way for them to galvanize people?\r\n\r\nFred Acquavita: That's my argument. You know, like I said, I did give Carrano the benefit of the doubt. What you just described it accurate. And so it did take  some of the steam out. However, the mistake he made is not to use the union as a vehicle for change for kids. And then he could have kept that light burning and that passion burning. Because there is a huge inequity out there. And so now the image is the teachers only want their money. And then you have Rowland making a statement . . . And the reality is it's not true, many of these teachers . . . But the union has missed the boat. And I hope that Patty Lucan will be able to restore that fight. Cause' there are serious problems . . . These magnet schools are useless. I would do away with them. I would just make-the charter schools are a good thing but they are good for the adults that work there. Amistad is a unique situation . . . What New Haven needs is a k-8 initiative. Everyone between 5-13 . . . should get the same curriculum, the same intensity as what's happening at Amistad. Nothing less. Don't give me this about, you have to do an international theme in your school. \r\n\r\nNicholas Strohl: I'm at a magnet . .. . Sheridan. The communications and technology magnet . . .\r\n\r\nFred Acquavita:  . . . Yeah. But teach the kids to read and write so that they can compete with you. Go to private schools, go to Yale . . . It's about jobs. When you have a job, you're a different person. That's why, if I had to do it over again, teaching a young child to read is really where it's at. Once you know how to read and speak and do some math, I mean in this country it's all open for you . . . it's unfortunate because New Haven is such a small system and has some of the most incredible alternative high schools available anywhere in the country. I mean the breadth of the Sound School, HSC . . . Have a strong k-8 initiative and then sit down with your mother and father and decide where you want to go . . . So I think the union could say something like that. That would be a good thing for a union to say, take a strong position. Go up against the politicians who use the school system . . . New Haven in the 60s was known as the model city. Police officers used to wear a patch, 'the model city,' they received wheelbarrows of money from the federal government. Especially when Kennedy got in because there was a strong connection to Dick Lee. Every social program under the sun was in New Haven. And what Dick Lee did, and this is the downfall of the school system, he took, I believe, some of that money and created political patronage in the school system. So when I came in in 68 one of the statistics that we started to publish right away: for every 9 teachers there was an administrator. And New Haven has never been able to solve that problem. Even when the Rockefeller Foundation gave New Haven a sizeable amount of money to do some work with principals. They call it a principals institute or something . . . I talked to the people at Uconn, they couldn't believe the level of incompetency at the middle management level . . . It's a middle management issue. New Haven has always had a wonderful group of teachers . . . They've never had the middle management. Now they've made some inroads. They've brought in some good principals . . . I was the one who kept nailing the school system . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=4305.0,4710.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nThen, the Board of Ed was controlled by real estate interests. Now, you go to a board of ed meeting they are going to be talking about the same thing you are talking about. Low-expectations. Praising the Amistad school. But the problems really haven't changed all that much . . . If I were a principal in the New Haven schools tomorrow the first thing I would do is organize the parents, knowing the type of person that I am, I'll probably get fired very quickly-I'll probably get fired anyway-but at least I'll have a group of people that might support me. See the difference is I would see myself as an agent to that community. Not to the school system . . . \r\n\r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=4710.0,4946.0"},{"id":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365/transcript/19299/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\r\n\r\nNicholas Strohl: What year did you start at St. Thomas?\r\n\r\nFred Acquavita: '81. I was a teacher in New Haven for 13 years and I've been here 22. '68 I started. I told you what happened. He was actually a neighborhood friend . . . The recruiter for New Haven. He hired all these radical teachers, unbeknownst to him. It was incredible. I mean, you went to these meetings. Oh my God. It was exciting. You don't see that anymore. I don't see the young people questioning . . . Clearly in the schools there is a lack of analysis . . . \r\n\r\n . . . \r\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://yalemssa.aviaryplatform.com/collections/988/collection_resources/26083/file/98365#t=4946.0,5041.872"}]}]}]}