‘Hang In There,’ Bennett Urges Embattled Inner-City Principal

Education Secretary William J. Bennett rallied to the defense of Paterson, N.J., principal Joe Clark on Tuesday, saying the embattled disciplinarian is a victim of “the blob” of school bureaucracy.

Bennett, who toured Eastside High School in 1986 and has extolled Clark’s methods in the past, criticized the Paterson school board, which voted Monday to draw up insubordination charges against the inner-city principal for expelling 60 students.

Bennett said he called Clark earlier Tuesday to encourage him to “hang in there.”

“It’s man versus blob,” said Bennett, a frequent critic of what he regards as outsized bureaucracies running U.S. public schools.

‘Clark Is a Folk Hero’

“Joe Clark is a folk hero, and I think largely deserves to be,” Bennett said in a telephone interview. “He is not Mother Teresa . . . but look at the situation he was in and look what he’s made of it. It’s a much healthier place where learning is going on.”

Clark has gained national fame for prowling the halls of Eastside High School with a bullhorn and baseball bat in hand, harrying laggards to class and demanding that teens address him as Mr. Clark. Most of the 3,000 students at Eastside are black or Latino; Clark himself is black.

Clark has argued that the expelled students, some as old as 21, were chronic failures who belong in alternative schools. He also got in trouble with the school board for locking fire doors. Clark says he took the step to keep drug dealers out of the school.