I started reading the book and initially enjoyed it. However, Sachar quickly displays her ignorance, racism and how incredibly self-involved she is. She claims that before she started teaching she read up on teaching subjects - yet when she gets in the classroom she is surprised at how inept she is and chooses not to apply any techniques (discipline, etc.). She also claims to be an education reporter, which left me wondering how she knew absolutely nothing about what she was getting into.
If I had been a teacher with her, I wouldn't have trusted her either. She wasn't a teacher. She was merely a reporter writing a book. I searched for some kind of sign that she had contributed some of the profits from the book to the school. but no.
So at the end of the day, she was just an ignorant, oblivious, opportunistic woman who truly made a difference in people's lives - a negative one. Don't read it - it will just frustrate you.

This is an incredible book on a reporter's year as a teacher in an inner city school. Ms. Sachar provides a needed and welcome inside perspective on many of the controversial issues in education.
Teachers cannot use the same techniques that are used in industry: software engineers don't deal with programs which don't WANT to run, and lumbermills don't have to convince their lumber to WANT to be cut. Nor does the lumbermill have to deal with the trees' parents. One tree is just like another: line it up and cut it. Yet, teachers work with students who are all different, and whose intrinsic motivation is crucial to the teacher's success in changing them.
Emily Sachar deeply explores the issues of racial tensions and preferences among the staff and students, social promotion, the problems of eliminating ineffective administrators and teachers, needless paperwork, unreasonable expectations, inadequate facilities and funding, the despair and wonder of teaching, and more.
These are woven through the personal and moving narrative of her year-long odyssey as a new teacher.
This is a superb book, which I highly recommend.

Emily Sachar identifies herself as a journalist, but she is a born teacher, in contrast to Jonathan Kozol, who taught for two years, then left to be a reporter. He understood nothing at all about teaching, but Emily has the instincts of the true mentor. She notices the poor physical surroundings, but she knows that the real obstacles to learning in this school are otherwise. Her obstinacy and love for her pupils make all the difference. If only teachers colleges taught the love of learning and the truth that all children can learn if taught according to their needs, we would have more Emily Sachars, and our schools would be as good as the schools before World War II, when there were only dedicated teachers. With the low salaries of that time, teachers had to make sacrifices to follow their calling, and it was a real calling. I am glad that salaries are enough today to support a family, so that a married man is not eliminated, but there are far too many young people who see teaching as merely a job where there are perks; e.g. short hours (they lock the door at three o'clock and go out to their little sports cars); long vacations with the money for European jaunts; and tenure after three years. What is wrong with education is the calibre of teachers graduated from teachers colleges. Who knows? Perhaps we need more journalists in the profession.