Apartheid. USA 1988

January 14, 1987:

Eastside High School is an inner-city educational institution in Paterson, New Jersey. It had gradually become ‘a caldron of terror and violence’, until Joe Clark, a black educator became principal in 1982. He began personally to patrol the hallways with bullhorn and baseball bat in hand. He restored order in a record time and was praised for it by students and parents alike. In 1982 he began by throwing out 300 of the 3 000 students. They were ‘the leeches, miscreants and hoodlums’. Eastside High is made up almost entirely of black and Hispanic students many of whom are poor. New Jersey State officials include Patterson High among nine school districts ‘on the verge of educational bankruptcy’. In 1986 620 students dropped out or were forced out at Eastside High. In three years 1 904 left school. At the city's other high school, John F Kennedy, 365 out of 2 200 students left. Paterson's superintendent of schools, Dr Frank Napier asked, ‘What happened to these kids? People don't want to know the answer. Who cares about minority kids getting an education?’ Eastside High scores on a state-wide proficiency test at the end of the freshman year are rising. Still, in 1986, fewer than half of the Eastside High School passed math and writing compared to statewide averages of 77 percent and 85.9 percent. At Eastside High only 52.2 percent passed a state-wide reading test compared with 91 percent state-wide.^23.

23. The New York Times, from a report by Sara Rimer