IN THE CLASSROOM: Dispatches from an Inner-City School that Works

Unlike any recent book on education and inner-city life, In the Classroom provides an intimate, unsparing, and hopeful portrait of a poor parochial high school that turns scant resources into success through discipline, faith, and the often untapped power of parents and teachers.
When Mark Gerson walked through the doors of a spartan Jersey City Catholic high school to begin a year of teaching, he entered a world that he, like most affluent young people, had never known. A young, Jewish, Frank Sinatra-loving, jacket-and-tie-wearing suburbanite, Gerson was placed in charge of mostly black and Hispanic inner-city students with a penchant for rap music, tough talk (and action), and oversized jeans. After he won their respect in the classroom and on the basketball court, the students opened up with Gerson, sharing with him a world of their conflicts and hopes and their stark opinions on race, crime, welfare, sex, and religion.
The views of this new generation of city kids and their families will often surprise: they fit no easy categories and show a powerful determination to succeed that goes beyond the limited choices and opportunities offered in our present schooling system.