Lean On Me By Morgan Freeman

In "Lean on Me" Morgan Freeman plays the role of a high school principal with a policeman mentality and vigilante behavior who is hired to reinstall order and education in the drug-infested Eastside high school in New Jersey in 1987. Mr. Joe Clark, magnificently played by Freeman, first takes control via discipline and then by instilling hope. Wearing heroic white through the whole length of the movie he one-sidedly expels all of the instigators and the problem-causing students as his first official act of cleaning up. The intrigue of the movie centers around the fact that the 75% of the students must pass the basic skills exam administered by the state (only 35% passed prior year) or else control of the skill will be changed from the local to the state government. Several movies of this genre have come out since....teacher or principal coming in to save a high school from itself. This one stands out because of the outstanding performance of Freeman, and it gets credit for being one of the first in this genre.
As tyrannically as he behaves (he is constantly accompanied by a loudspeaker, he shouts, he slams doors, he humiliates, he insults, he punishes and fires students and teachers, etc) the goal he sets up when accepting to come back to Eastside High School is accomplished by the end of the movie. Mr. Clark sets high standards for the school (he also gives a funny note to it by stopping students on the corridors and asking them to sing the school's song), he makes his objects clear from the very beginning during his first meeting with the teachers, and he uses his leader skills by setting up multilateral