Goodbye Homeboy

Genre: Dramedy
Period: early 1980s
Location: Fort Apache section of the South Bronx
Soundtrack: old-school hip hop

After teens viciously mug a young businessman in broad daylight, he takes the dubious advice of a wacky therapist to become “a teacher of dangerous students in dangerous schools,” in order to treat his nightmares.

Steve Mariotti loses control of his remedial-math students daily–until he realizes he can grab their attention if he ties his lessons to making money. Unfortunately, Steve’s approach enrages school administrators. He’s transferred–a lot–until he lands at Jane Addams High in the burned-out South Bronx.

The sympathetic principal gives Steve one last chance to save his career: Do something—anything!--with 16 special ed teens expelled for violent crimes. Steve teaches these troubled kids how to start small businesses so that they can stop selling drugs and earn money legally. The entrepreneurship program
they create together transforms all their lives.

By turns tragic and hilarious, this inspiring true story is “a call to action for anyone who dares to dream, and dream big!” says The Freedom Writers Diary author Erin Gruwell. Based on Steve Mariotti’s memoir Goodbye Homeboy: How My Students Drove Me Crazy and Inspired a Movement, which reached #22 in Amazon Biographies, #1 in four additional Amazon categories, and won multiple awards.