ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a ghetto school located in Newark, New Jersey. 1 In this city
with a substantial homeless population, the school system had at the time of my research (1991-1993) few provisions for its homeless students. McKinney Act money provided funds for an after-school program for 2 years in two schools. Marcy School, the site of my research, was designated The Magnet School for the Homeless on the grant application for McKinney Act funding. This chapter summarizes characteristics of the school milieu and discusses the history of the city in order to document the political and economic trends and decisions that led to the present situation. Marcy School illustrates the central point that children who are homeless experience what most poor children in America experience: slipshod, sometimes abusive education.
