Magnet Schools, Exam Schools, Teachers Theories on Improving Education

A) Social and Community programming was conducted primarily in the 1950s and 1960s.  This series contains records from some of Boston's earliest diversity programs for children, youth, and adults.  Files include organizational files, minutes, brochures, flyers, correspondence, newsletters, and reports.  

B) Urban Renewal program files cover the involvement of Freedom House in neighborhood clean-up projects and block organizations, and its participation in contracts with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) and the Action Boston Community Development (ABCD) from 1949-1968. Materials include organizational files, correspondence, minutes, reports, proceedings, notices, contracts, and public relations materials. 

C) Housing Programs began during urban renewal with the incorporation of the Freedom House Development Corporation, a non-profit organization established to build Brunswick Gardens, a housing development in Roxbury. Later efforts to develop in the Grove Hall area and programs to assist home buyers are also documented in these files.  Materials include legal records, applications, correspondence, plans, reports, brochures and proposals.  

D) Education and Desegregation files document the involvement of Freedom House with the issue of desegregation prior to 1965 when the Racial Imbalance Law was passed and focus on Freedom House's response to the 1974 ruling by Judge Garrity to enforce desegregation of the Boston Public Schools.  They also cover educational programming in the 1980s and 1990s.   The Institute on Schools and Education was established by Freedom House to coordinate the response of Freedom House and the organizations with which it worked.  Hotline and rumor control records, reports and formal responses, director's notebooks, and conference and meeting records are included. Reference files include newspaper clippings, filings and responses to the court order, and filings of the Boston School Committee's Department of Implementation, and subject files that provide background to the issue of desegregation throughout the country and its implementation in Boston.  Freedom House also formed collaborations with Operation Exodus, the Freedom House Coalition, and the Coordinated Social Service Council.  Position papers, minutes, press releases, and other organizational materials from these groups are included in this subseries. Later educational programming focused almost entirely on educational preparation, computer literacy, and scholarships. The bulk of these materials document Project REACH.

E) Career Development programs were primarily aimed at adult education and skill enhancement.  The files document some of the many collaborations between Freedom House and local corporations.  Materials include organizational files, correspondence, and notices.