By Beverly Danquah
For most students, taking a “selfie” on their smartphones in school with their location function on, results in their picture saying “taken in Franklin High School.”
A school best known for being the state champions in basketball, Benjamin Franklin High School was bedeviled by its low reading scores, low attendance and in 1981, the smallest graduating class in the city. Only 7% of the seniors in the class of 1981 received a high school diploma. On a good day, the school saw an attendance rate of 44%.
Our beautiful school: then and now!
Benjamin Franklin High School opened in 1934, and was located at 200 Pleasant Avenue.
People such as Carlos Medina, then Superintendent of District 4, are among those responsible for helping to start Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in 1981.
“Franklin was one of the worst schools in the city. The track team would run in the hallways. I knew something had to be done.”
Welcoming a school to East Harlem which specialized in science and math was something that would be new to the community, since at the time, Bronx High School for Science and Math was the only school of its kind.
Back then, there was no test for Manhattan Center. All a student had to say was, “I want to go to this school”, and they were granted admission.
“We had a diverse population. The principal, Mr. Genn, went on to become a very famous man. They did a show on 60 minutes for him, and he got all kinds of awards. He liked kids who weren’t at the top of their class,” said John Falco, VP of the Network, or the Center for Educational Innovation. “Any principal who had a kid that had some difficulty would call him up and say ‘Mr. Genn, there’s this kid here, hes got potential,’ and that was another way a kid got into the school.”
Medina and other like-minded individuals went to Albany to petition for the new school. Former Senator of New York, Daniel Moynihan, disapproved of the new school. Moynihan was a graduate of Benjamin Franklin High School, and believed that if this school was removed, it would also remove part of his legacy.
“When we showed him that only 7% of the students in their senior class graduated, or 90% had dropped out, he said ‘That’s it, change it.” Medina said.
“This school is like a DREAM Center. This is where dreams come true for kids,” said Falco.
The former president of Hunter College, Donna Shalala, went to the new school in its second week and promised scholarships to each student who wanted to go to Hunter and graduated from Manhattan Center. Students were so excited by the offer that they began to excel.
Of the first 400 students who were accepted to Manhattan Center for Science and Math in September of 1982, all 400 graduated in June of 1986. 37 of the graduates enrolled at Hunter that fall.
The 95% of the students belonging to the Class of 2015 who are graduating this year from Manhattan Center almost equate to the 93% who didn’t graduate in Benjamin Franklin’s class of 1981.
“On the first week, one thing we promised each student was that if you come to Manhattan Center, you’ll go to college,” said Falco.
To this day, Manhattan Center sees a graduation rate of 90%+ each year.