Customer Reviews

Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw this one day while flipping thru the channels. After watching it I felt as if someone had followed me personally around with a camera at the schools where I worked. I live in New Orleans, but the issues in the school featured in this doc are the EXACT one I and other teachers faced. This is an awesome doc

I put this on with some hesitation that it might portray troubled public schools in an inaccurate light. It didn't. It was scarily accurate. From 2004-2008, I worked as a special education teacher for a program like Teach for America in Queens. This film conveys exactly what the experience was like for me. It doesn't paint an unrealistically happy picture, nor suggest any solutions to the problems plaguing America's "failing" schools. It just tells it like it is. I highly recommend.

I am an assist. Professor at a community college that teaches two introductory education courses. I used this video as a capstone assignment for the first time this semester - at the end of the second course. There is a triangulation between NCLB, administration and the student/teachers that takes place in this story. The students had to watch and review it followed by a writing assignment that covered specific open-ended topics. On their own, they conducted a class discussion that brought out what they had learned in the second multicultural ed. course. I had excellent results and was very pleased with the critical thinking and problem solving skills that they displayed. I encourage other teacher educators to use this in their classroom to assess student progress. Be sure that you warn students of the language ahead of time, in the event that there are students that are offended by profanity. They will still want to watch it, but are not taken off guard by the language. This gives future teachers a real life experience situation from which they can start formulating their own ideas and viewpoints.

I watched this right now on HBO. Every parent should watch this documentary. Even if your own kids go to a good school, you SHOULD make it a point to watch this show. Most kids in this documentary, instead of helping us compete against our Chinese and Indian counterparts, are going to be at the mercy of our tethering welfare system.

This documentary spends no time debating the pros/cons of the No Child Left Behind policy. Rather, it focuses on the daily struggles at a one of the many schools that does not make the grade. Some of the scenes will, without a doubt, shock you; embarrass you and might make you want to reach into the your set and choke a couple of those kids.

To Alan and Susan Raymond ... can you please make a PG version of your documentary ? I am sure some parents would like to show this documentary to their middle-school kids and teach them - how not to go wrong.

I sat down and watched this documentary with my 17 year old nephew. He now resides with me in Columbia, Maryland (relocated from New York City) and I really wanted him to see and appreciate how fortunate he is to be receiving a 'magnet' quality High School education with an emphasis on family support of and participation in his personal development. Many of the children shown in the film are very misguided and most of this is a direct result of the shape of the communities in which they reside; They have little say in how they are raised. The strong children rise above the adversities and move forward in an upward mobile direction, others fall by the wayside. So sad to watch, yet it is the reality.

Documentary sets it straight on the effects of the No Child Left Behind program on the inner-city school system; particularly in Baltimore, Maryland. The documentary gives insight on how so many children slip through the cracks and fall short of life's goals and opportunities in a life that is so full of promises.

This dvd will make you say wow!! I was not surprised by the students' responses and concerns about getting an education. I was born, raised, and still live in Murderland (Baltimore, Md). The reactions and responses by the people in this video are not edited or staged, even though I wish they were. This is, unfortunately, how life and education is viewed, not just at Douglass, but at a lot, if not all the city schools. It's always darkest, before the dawn. I feel bad for saying this, but in Baltimore, its dark, been dark, and the people are so used to the dark, that they have become immune. Not all, but most Baltimoreans would probably run from or doubt the light (the dawn), when it does eventually come. Please see this documentary, that is all I have to say.

Blame the teachers. Blame the administrators. Blame the schools. Blame the politicians. Blame everyone except those truly responsible -- the parents and the students (particularly the former). Only a handful of parents show up for parent-teacher conferences, yet hundreds show up for basketball and football games. Teachers giving open book final exams. Something tells me that the 2005 graduating class should have been far smaller than 200 students. The narrator states, "This historically black school continues to survive America's treatment of minority education." Blame America, too. The narrator is obviously clueless. Yet I highly recommend watching this documentary just to serve as an example of sickening excuse making.