One day I was driving around ...
Question: One day I was driving around with my dad in Plainfield, N.J., and he mentioned how bad the schools were there. He told me the high school was almost taken over by the state, like in the movie Lean on Me. Is that movie based on actual events and, if so, did it really happen in New Jersey?
Answer: The movie Lean on Me (1989) was inspired by Principal Joe Lewis Clark's campaign to reform crime-ridden Eastside High in Paterson, N.J., in the early '80s. Clark became Eastside's principal in 1983 and within two years had turned it into something resembling a model school. Lean on Me, which starred Morgan Freeman as Principal Clark, was shot on location at Eastside High.
