A Lubavitch Hasid with ROTC training—principal of a nearly all-black and Hispanic Bronx junior High? It's so crazy it just might work. And, according to the New York Times, it has! Shimon Waronker has been the principal of JHS 22 in the South Bronx since 2004, and the formerly dangerous and failing school has seen something of a revival, with students suddenly attending class and injuring each other with slightly less frequency. And all Waronker had to do was fire half the staff and run his school with occasionally illegal efficiency (the fact that public schools do not have the authority to send children home for not wearing uniforms has not deterred him). He won over his critics, including one mother, who, upon learning of the hire, asked herself: "Wow, we're going to have a Jewish person, what's going to happen? Are the kids going to have to pay for lunch?" New York's racial tensions are always good for a laugh! Of course, the school is still "one of 32 in the city that the state lists as failing and at risk of closing," but if it worked for Gabe Kotter, it'll work here. [NYT]