Hard Times At Douglass High – HBO

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by Lamar Tyler | on June 27th, 2008 | 16 comments

Has anyone caught this on HBO this week? It’s come on the past two nights and it’s some serious stuff. Here’s an excerpt from the website :

Douglass Principal Isabelle Grant oversees a staff of teachers that is two-thirds non-certified, while many are substitutes unqualified to teach their subject areas. The lack of resources in the school is palpable with most classrooms lacking enough textbooks for the students. On any given day, 200 to 300 students are absent out of a total enrollment of 1100. Due to an achievement gap of four to five years below grade level, the ninth grade students present the greatest challenge and will require intensive intervention from an already overwhelmed teaching staff. By the end of the school year, 50% will drop out or simply not attend school. Mrs. Grant and her staff struggle to raise state assessment scores as a Maryland State monitor continually watches over Douglass with the threat of a state takeover.

The film focuses on the No Child Left Behind Act and is a tale of inner city schools around the country really. From the students to the teachers to the resources. It’s some sad stuff. Definitely worth checking out if you get a chance.

Did anyone see it? If so what did you think of the film, students, teachers, parents?

About the author

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler are the creators of the award-winning blog BlackandMarriedWithKids.com . They also are behind the Amazon.com bestselling DVDs Happily Ever After: A Positive Image of Black Marriage, You Saved Me and Men Ain’t Boys that explores manhood in the African American community. The Tylers are also the proud parents of four children.

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Comments (16)

sisterknits Friday - 27 / 06 / 2008 Reply

Dear BMWK, I had not heard about this documentary. Thanks for letting us know. It looks like it will be like season 3 of the TV show, "The Wire," which was all about the lives of kids in the Baltimore City Schools. I have it programmed on tivo--Can't wait to see it. I can always count on BMWK to keep me up on what's going on.
sisterknits Friday - 27 / 06 / 2008 Reply

Dear BMWK, I had not heard about this documentary. Thanks for letting us know. It looks like it will be like season 3 of the TV show, "The Wire," which was all about the lives of kids in the Baltimore City Schools. I have it programmed on tivo--Can't wait to see it. I can always count on BMWK to keep me up on what's going on. thanks again!
Anonymous Friday - 27 / 06 / 2008 Reply

I cannot believe the Baltimore School System has a over a billion dollar budget and yet can't find certitied teachers, students without text book, etc.
TheDad Friday - 27 / 06 / 2008 Reply

Yeah watching it was making me just mad. Mad at students for being so disrespectful and not wanting nothing for themselves, mad at the parents that didn't care what their kids were doing in school, mad at the school for pushing the kids through and not making them accountable (which is what happens in the real world) mad at the entire system. If there is a kid that wants to learn how can you in all of that mess.
pollister Friday - 27 / 06 / 2008 Reply

I could not find myself blaming the teachers for this problem. This film showed the amazing amount of work that they attempt and get so little response from students who have no interest - none! - in being in school. The "I don't wanna do anything" mentality that pervaded the youth shown here (especially the Grade 9s who we discover will lose half of their enrollment by the end of the year due to transfers, incarceration, expulsion, or dropping out) was shocking to see. As one teacher said, they have the mentality of young toddlers: they just want to run around and play, or fight, or just hang out in the halls. There are many of them who seldom enter a classroom and instead spend their days wandering the hallways, where as one boy said "nobody tells us what to do there". What was especially said was to see a poor embattled teacher being given a failing grade by the Maryland State Education monitor - a grade that will go on her permanent record and probably rob her of any chance to ever be employed as a teacher again. If she had taught at a suburban school that may not have happened; instead by trying to help underprivileged kids, she doomed herself. Even sadder in the end, was that the entire staff (including the principal who was herself a graduate of that school) were fired and replaced. A new bunch will come in who will probably only last a year or so themselves. I see the film as a well deserved condemnation of the No Child Left Behind program. This is one of those mandatory programs that on the surface seem to be progressive yet are inevitably counter-productive.
Anna Friday - 27 / 06 / 2008 Reply

Where I live our schools and teachers also get graded. Schools that are on "academic watch" are then able to send out notices that their chidren can register in a different school district. Why should I who bought a house with a school in my neighborhood have to uproot my childs schooling due to lack of a inexperienced school system? It is time to fix the problem and quit trying to shift the problem on others. I am paying taxes where I live and my children who did go to public school should be able to go to the shcool in their zip code. We had a great superintendent who cleaned up our school system and for that I thank him. He has since taken a job in another city. What ever school system got Eugene Sanders are very blessed ppl. Mr Sanders is like a "Joe Clark" he did not play. He did get the job done but only in a nicer way. LOL.
lynn Saturday - 28 / 06 / 2008 Reply

This showed how "no child left behind" does not work. The NCLB does not offer any type of family support. Something these kids need badly. If your mother is going to the club every Saturday, leave you at home to do what you want, what would you do? She does not care what you do in school, and will defend you no mater what you did. The teaching under NCLB is done in a way where it gives the kids answers to the test. So they are not learning anything. Here In GA, (Savannah Area) almost half of the 8th graders failed the state CRCT test this spring. (Math, and social Studies) The teaching was fine tuned, and the kids failed.
Treina Saturday - 28 / 06 / 2008 Reply

I have been a teacher for five years and everything that you saw was true. This is a problem in our community and the only way that it is going to be solved is if parents and the business communities take action.
Anna Sunday - 29 / 06 / 2008 Reply

@ Treina Says: June 28th, 2008 at 11:47 pm I have been a teacher for five years and everything that you saw was true. This is a problem in our community and the only way that it is going to be solved is if parents and the business communities take action. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AMEN. Ppl forget it takes a village. Any/Every single woman is not really a single parent. Somebody in some way has helped you to raise your child. Give a fist pound to your childs teacher. My kids church paid (many years ago) for my t kids to go to baskeball camp for a week. I paid it forward and paid for not only my own kids but my nephews a few years in a row. My point is, there is no such thing as a single parent. Everyone has use to community resourses to help raise a child(ren). If you enroll your kid in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, you are not a single parent you have a community to help you raise your child.
ldr Wednesday - 06 / 08 / 2008 Reply

I am a currently a high school student, and when I saw this video my heart went out to the teachers, students and principals.I felt so bad, I couldnt get my mind off of it for days. Living in Detroit, 90% of our public high schools are the same way, thankfully i got to a magnet school, but not all kids are as blessed as I am. I just feel really bad for the children who really want to learn, but are stuck in a bad school
TheDad Wednesday - 06 / 08 / 2008 Reply

ldr, keep your head up and do well and perhaps in the future you'll be one of the people that makes changes that will affect these kids lives and the way our school systems are currently run.
Gail Sunday - 10 / 08 / 2008 Reply

I used to teach for three years in such a school, and finally got myself out for just the reasons shown here. Who wants to put herself through years of cursing, disruptive students and an unrealistic and unsupportive principal? Moreover, I would occasionally see the parent of one of our tougher students. She would come in, often clearly "on" something, and curse us out because the only reason her kid was failing was because we were racist. Riiiiiiight. Ironic that I'm choosing to teach her child and she's not. I teach in a suburban district now, and it is a world of difference.
Richard Wednesday - 08 / 04 / 2009 Reply

I seen this documentary a few times and there were a lot of disturbing things going at that school: 1. You have kids that dont want to be in school and 17 year olds in the 9th grade? If these kids dont want to be in school kick them out. 2. The school has some of the worst academics in the state but they were able to win a state title in basketball. 3. The teachers had no control over their classrooms. 4. The teachers are forced to give the seniors a second chance at the end of the year so they can try and correct a year worth of laziness just to graduate them. Hard to believe schools in America are like this. This documentary is a perfect example of why my kids go to private school.
itsJamesP Monday - 20 / 07 / 2009 Reply

Its So funny watching these comments. I went to Douglass, graduated in '06. This documentary wasnt made to make the school look bad it was to show that the no child left behind act left lots of us behind. Theres alot of footage that wasnt shown. And Mrs. Grant was the BEST principal ever, she was the only principal who cared, and even knew your name. If it wasnt for her, alot of my fellow class mates would have a different life. Trust me, everything isnt as it seems...
erly Wednesday - 13 / 01 / 2010 Reply

The problem isn't the "No child left behind" program. It's the sub-human students. These kids are nothing but welfare trash they should be lined up and shot.
- J. Tuesday - 03 / 05 / 2011 Reply
  
  Maybe we should castrate all the disabled and mentally ill people while we're at it. There is plenty of blame to go around. Starting with the unqualified/absentee parents, poverty, drugs, and ignorance. How can you blame the people who are oblivious to the middle class values that most of us have? They live in a different world that we cannot understand. Remember, this documentary showed the extreme. I have been teaching for eleven years in a Baltimore suburb and everyday parents from Baltimore city move to our area to escape the cycle and try to give their kids a chance. Unfortunately, they bring the violence, disrespect and misbehavior and bring down our suburban schools. We can each find a way to reach just one of these "lost" kids through Big Brother, Big Sisters or other organizations instead of saying they should be shot.