With severe unemployment and more employers demanding more years of
schooling, high schools also took on a custodial function,
holding youth out of labor markets and off the streets.
>> And, and nowhere was the youth problem more pressing than in New York City,
which boasted the world's largest school system.
To serve the enormous diversity of its school aged population including,
since the turn of the century, a flood of newly arrived immigrants from southern and
eastern Europe, a surge that flowed unabated until the 1920s.
The city built a variety of special schools alongside the regular elementary,
junior, and senior high schools.
So by 1930, New York had a three tier system of elementary, junior high, and
high schools.
The high schools, now comprehensive, offered a differentiated curriculum,
including academic and vocational tracks.
The city also had specialized vocational high schools.