Laying Down the Law: Joe Clark's Strategy for Saving Our Schools

Rating:
Summary: The Principal that hit a home run !
Review: As a teacher of a 6th Grade class in a New York City public school, it is very rare to find a Principal who cares about the children in their school. There are other school administrators who allow students to literally " Run the school ". Disruptions of any kind in the school setting are not to be tolarated. In many instances, it is the Principal of a school who " Lays Down the Law ". Those in the education profession that take on the mindset of Principal Clark will have model school and classroom settings to be proud of. Principal Clark's demeanor is definately needed in the urban school environmment to bring about positive results.

Rating:
Summary: Equality?
Review: Feel good I have a Dream speeches are not going to reform urban schools in America, tough love and discipline will. Obviously the above reviewer went to a nice middle class school, because these urban ones, like Chicago Public, are a nightmare and quite dangerous. One feels like their in a correctional facilty instead of a learning center. Gang members and drugdealers are not in need of saving by teachers. Thats not their job. They are their to teach. Youth who have decided to be urban terrorists need to be kicked out and let the correctional facilities handle them if their parents can't. 2700 shouldn't suffer because bleeding hearts want to stuff 300 miscreants and thugs in with them. Those 300 need to be in a boot camp. Gangs should be zero intolerable, not tolerated. But who cares if poor urban youth are terrorized by gangs in their school? While the ehite kids get a nice safe education.

Rating:
Summary: INCREDIBLE BOOK!
Review: If you enjoyed the movie "Lean on Me" you will love this novel written by the main character, Principal Joe Clark. As a teacher myself, this is a must read for anyone interested in the importance of education in a multicultural diverse or poverty stricken environment. I love this book and give it my highest recommendation!

Rating:
Summary: Equality, not a baseball bat
Review: The previous reviewer, as a teacher, should know that a nonfiction work such as this one, which is part-autobiography, part-pitch plan, is not a "novel." What people like Joe Clark -- and the zillions who were regrettably wooed by Morgan Freeman's bat-wielding rendition of him in the schmaltzy, tearjerking movie "Lean on Me" -- is that what America's urban schoolchildren need most urgently is not a beating near the home-stretch of a losing race but a fair chance from the get-go. We American have always believed starts with quality equal education for alll. A proposal like this doesn't make for a feel-good movie because it involves heady-sounding things like funding redistribution, rezoning and real attempts at racial and socioeconomic integration. But it would go a lot further toward making meaningful and lasting change than Clark's "boot 'em if they fail" and "beat the failure out of them" mentality. By the way, two-thirds of the 300 students Clark expelled from East Side High in Paterson, New Jersey now occupy cells in the Passaic County Jail. This costs the county and the state of New Jersey a great deal. How much less would it have cost if we had provided them with a real, functional education from childhood on?

Rating:
Summary: Equality, not a baseball bat
Review: The previous reviewer, as a teacher, should know that a nonfiction work such as this one, which is part-autobiography, part-pitch plan, is not a "novel." What people like Joe Clark -- and the zillions who were regrettably wooed by Morgan Freeman's bat-wielding rendition of him in the schmaltzy, tearjerking movie "Lean on Me" -- is that what America's urban schoolchildren need most urgently is not a beating near the home-stretch of a losing race but a fair chance from the get-go. We American have always believed starts with quality equal education for alll. A proposal like this doesn't make for a feel-good movie because it involves heady-sounding things like funding redistribution, rezoning and real attempts at racial and socioeconomic integration. But it would go a lot further toward making meaningful and lasting change than Clark's "boot 'em if they fail" and "beat the failure out of them" mentality. By the way, two-thirds of the 300 students Clark expelled from East Side High in Paterson, New Jersey now occupy cells in the Passaic County Jail. This costs the county and the state of New Jersey a great deal. How much less would it have cost if we had provided them with a real, functional education from childhood on?