The City As A Schoolhouse: The Story Of The Parkway Program

The City as a Schoolhouse: The Story of the Parkway Program

"The City as a Schoolhouse" tells the story of radical change within a large city school system. In Philadelphia a new high school was organized not in a costly new building, but in the museums, art galleries, and businesses along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. This high school, the Parkway Program, was the first school without walls to be established within a public school system in the U.S.A. While it incorporates many of the advantages of the free school, it has the broad-based support of the public school system. Author Cox interviewed the leading persons involved in the founding of the school and tells their story. The book graphically describes the way in which founders of the Parkway Program overcame political and educational opposition to this new alternative to the traditional high school. Those who despair of making significant changes within the system will be given new hope by this story.