Schools in the
Danger Zone
An inner-city education provides
more than just a report card
Ted waits behind Burlington
City High School in Burlington,
NJ. The area is a well-known
hangout for students and a mar
ketplace for drugs.
But Ted, a former student at the
high school, is not interested in
drugs today. Nor is he interested in
meeting with friends at the ap
proaching lunch hour. He’s wait
ing for Johnny. He’s waiting for
revenge.
A week before, Johnny accused
Ted of stealing his coat. During
the week, the two taunted each
other in the halls and out on the
street. When school administra
tors discovered that Ted had the
coat, they expelled him. Now Ted,
concealing a screwdriver, waits
patiently for his accuser.
At lunch break, the students
begin leaving school. They go
about their business—some head
ing for the many fast-food chains
in the neighborhood, others head
ing across the street to buy and sell
drugs.
IV 71_ FI _
rrricn junnny appears, lea
takes out the screwdriver. Johnny
spots Ted and runs. Ted follows. I
The chase continues for afewfeet; \
then Johnny tries to leap a nearby
bush, but trips and falls into it. i
Ted catches him at the bush and
jabs at the entangled body four
times, connecting twice. Johnny
untangles himself and eventually
eludes Ted.
Johnny’s wounds aren’t seri
ous, but later the police charge
Ted with assault.
harles Fryar witnessed a
incident similar to this one
while he was a high school
student in Burlington.
Fryar, a junior at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln and a comer
back for the Nebraska football
team, says he has also seen many
fights and some riots.
Burlington, a school of about
3,000 students, is near a ghetto and
is 85 to 90 percent black, Fryar
says. Students need identification
cards to get into the school and
passes when they arc in the halls.
This policy, Fryar says, keeps out
non-students who might cause
trouble, such as drug pushers.
Many other high schools across i
the United States suffer problems
like those at Burlington. In the last
40 years, many inner-city schools
have experienced rampant drug
use, gangs, high enrollment and
poor instruction.
Jay Corzine, an associate pro
fessor of sociology at UNL, says
some inner-city schools suffer
because they arc supported
through local property taxes. Poor
neighborhoods pay less taxes and
schools can’t afford to pay good
teachers, he says.
Cor/.inc, who did research at
McKinley High School in St. j
Louis during 1974-75, says stu
dents who are enrolled in poor
inner-city high schools know the
education is poor. As a result, they
find other activities to occupy their
time, he says.
Fryar says most Burlington
students didn’t attend school to
learn.
“It was a social thing,” Fryar
says. “Everybody came to school
to sec everybody else.”
Linetta Wilson, a UNL senior,
agreed with Fryar. Wilson, who
attended John Muir High School
in Pasadena, Calif., says student
were there to hang out rather than
learn. She says the school em
ployed about eight security
guards.
“When you’re doing other
things, your interest in school is
not there,” says Wilson, a member
of the Nebraska track team. “You
go to school to meet with some
body and do other things.”
Those other things include
joining gangs, fighting
and taking drugs. Many
students are forced into doing
hem because of peer pressure and
ear. <
rryar says drug use was com
non at Burlington. I
“If you’re not doing drugs,
you’re pushing them,” Fryar says.
Drugs are so common, Fryar
says, that he often carried on con
versations in the street with friends
who were looking to make a sale.
From time to time, his friends
stopped the conversation, walked
a few feet away and made a sale,
Fryar says.
This acceptance of drugs also
was prevalent at Muir. Wilson
says drugs were so common at
Muir that even the teachers took
them.
“Like, if you’re not doing
drugs, there’s something wrong
with you,’’ Wilson says.
Corzinc says the effect of drugs
on students is obvious.
“If you got a kid who’s getting
stoned a lot in school, then he’s
probably not getting a hell of a lot
out of it,” he says.
Drugs also lead to violence,
Cor/ine says. Drug users
arc not thugs, but pushers
often try to monopolize the drug
radc by violently eliminating or
ntimidating their competitors.
Violent schools also sprout in
■ough neighborhoods, Corzinc
;ays. Street gangs terrorize the
neighborhoods and schools.
Wilson says two gangs roamed
he halls at Muir: the Bloods and
he Crips.
Wilson was a member of one of
he gangs, although she wouldn’t
ay which one. She joined, as did
nany other students, for protec
ion and self-esteem, she says.
“If you walk around with five or
ix girls,’’ Wilson says, “nobody’s j
going lo mess with you.
“We helped each other out. We
didn’t have to take burdens upon
ourselves. And if somebody both
ered us (or) we were scared about
something, we took care of that
together.”
Fighting usually was how they
took care of problems. Wilson
says her gang fought about once a
week. But the gang didn’t always
fight for protection. Sometimes
they fought over insults, Wilson
says. Other times they would just
fight another gang on the street.
Wilson says she has mel
lowed since then. She says
she has lost the macho
attitude she had in high school and
now concentrates on track and
school. Gangs arc a thing of the
past for her, but not for Pasadena or
for her home in Altcnda, Calif.
“They’re still going on out
there,.and they’re as serious as
ever,” she says.
Gang fights also erupted at
Martin Luther King Jr. High
School on the south side of Chi
cago, where UNL freshman Rich
ard Smith went to school. Smith
>ays 15 gangs roamed the halls at
King. Smith, a 6-foot-7 forward on
he Nebraska basketbal 1 team, says
the gangs would fight over any
thine.
“They’d fight over crap games
in the bathroom,” Smith says, “or
somebody might have sold some
body some tea instead of some
reefer.”
Smith says the gangs also fight
with anything. On the first school
day of his senior year, he says, two
gangs got into a belt fight in front
of the school. Other students car
ried knives and a few carried guns,
he says.
Smith says he was walking to
basketball practice one day when
he saw a student with a gun. The
student, running toward Smith,
had the gun pointed toward the
ceiling.
“I don’t know what he was
doing or who he was after, but I ran
into the gym and went under the
bleachers,” Smith says.
Smith says he doesn’t know
what happened alter that. But he
heard no shots.
Smith says such incidents
weren’t common at his high
school, but he wasn’t surprised
when they happened. Violence
and intimidation were more com
mon, he says, and it takes its toll on
students. Many are afraid to attend
school, he says.
“It’s hard to go to school when
you know somebody’s going to
beat you up and take your money,”
Smith says.
Students by themselves are
vulnerable. But students
in a group are protected.
As a result, many students are
?ressured to join gangs, Smith
Smith
says. Peer pressure and the desire
to be accepted also pressure them,
he says.
“They don’t want to get picked
on,” Smith says. “They want to
pick on people.”
Smith says King administrators
tried to correct some of the prob
lems by having police patrol the
halls and lunch room. The police
did well to keep order inside the
school, Smith says, but they
couldn’t control violence outside.
King also used assistant princi
pal Melver Scott, who could keep
control.
“He knew everything that was
going down,” Smith said.
Wilson says Muir adminis
trators developed a 13
point system. Students
who lost all 13 points were trans
ferred to a reform school, Wilson
says.
Muir students lost points for
being tardy or being caught in the
halls during class, she says. Other
wrongdoings brought on a punish
ment familiar to most high schools
— detention.
Other administrators at inner
city schools take more drastic
measures. Joe Clark, principal at
Easlsidc High in Paterson, N.J.,
has received much attention from
the media for expelling drug push
ers and students who don’t earn
any credits.
i !“sJlrst year at Eastsidc in
J-^ expelled 300 students.
When he was accused of expelling
66 students without due process
last December, the media attention
returned.
Some believe he has turned a
school that was full of drug push
ers and thugs into a safe place
where education can be nurtured.
Two of Clark’s supporters are
President Reagan and Secretary of
Education William Bennett, who
have called Clark a tough leader. ;
But others aren’t so quick to
praise Clark’s approach.
Thomas Christie, a so
ciology teacher at Lincoln High
School, says Clark has quick an
swers for complicated problems.
Christie, who attended Wana
maker Junior High in a Philadel
phia ghetto during the early 1960s,
says Clark is “full of crap.”
Christie says he thinks some
students need alternatives to high
school. But Clark’s reference to
students as “leeches and parasites”
is degrading and his expulsions
without due process are unneces
sary, Christie says.
“If (Clark) wants to be great,
Christie says, “why doesn’t he
leach kids to lobby the city council
or the police department so they
treat people with more dignity in
those neighborhoods. If he wants
to be great, why doesn’t he set up
gang relations with the scluxil and
gang leaders in the community."
Cor/.inc says that although
he doesn’t appreciate
Clark’s methods, his “get
tough’’ attitude is the only solution
in some cases. Clark hasn’t made
significant improvements in edu
cation, Corzine says, but he has
made the school a safe place.
“Given the limitations of what
you have to work with, it’s proba
