Ghetto School: Class Warfare in an Elementary School

by Gerald. Levy

Book by Gerald E. Levy

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Zack]

this book was about a school in a black and puerto rican ghetto in new york city in the late sixties. the author got a job as a floater teacher and didn't tell people he was just using it as an excuse to do secret research on his phd paper about race relations in schools. o my this was a very interesting and very sad book. the school was a complete nightmare. kids running wild and fighting each other. teachers beating kids. the author did a good job of showing how the white teachers just completely couldn't relate to these kids and how the black teachers just conformed to what the white teachers expected. the book was written, though, in a voice quite removed from the situation. the writer seemed to be just an observer. it would have been more powerful/interesting if the author spoke more about his personal experiences with these students and teachers and administrators. still, its worth a read if your interested in race relations in schools during the late sixties in the usa.

[Doug Mart Fischer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely eye-opening and mind-blowing how chaotic, uncontrolled, poorly administrated/managed, and messed up Midway as an educational establishment was. Really depressing, especially considering the ineluctable fate of the kids to follow in their parents footsteps, remaining in ghetto status. I thought the book itself was lacking an underlying and cohesive thesis/argument. Levy sort of just threw a bunch of repetitive observations and experiences together varying between a subjective and objective perspective. It would've been nice for him to have covered a few different schools, compiled more definitive statistics and resultantly ascribe a clearer purpose/conclusion.