Hard Times at Douglass High

"Hard Times at Douglass High" is a must-see HBO documentary film about the hardships that urban schools in impoverished areas faced due to the No Child Left Behind Act. The reality at Frederick Douglass High in Baltimore, MD is bleak for most students, but especially for those in the entering class, 9th grade. Many of the 9th graders have no drive to get an education and believe it is something that will not assist them in the future, like every other urban school film. The faculty have a hard time getting scores to increase in a school where there is a 50% dropout rate. I was reminded of Mr. Dadier when introduced to Mr. Mcdermott, the 9th grade English teacher. He seemed to be hopeful at the start of the film, but by the end of the first semester he had just given up. When asked why, he simply said he was not getting what he wanted out of teaching, which was a sense that he was making a difference. Many of the teachers must have felt this same way after parent teacher night when less than 4 parents came to most of the classes. Mcdermott actually said something during parent night that clicked for me, that out of all the parents of the students in his class, the only ones that came to talk to him were the parents of students that were already succeeding in his course and not the parents of the students who actually needed assistance. It was evident, through every single parent meeting and school show that most of the kids were on their own, with no one to watch them graduate or guide them through life. Following the filming of this documentary, the school was restructured and the principal was fired. I had mixed feelings when hearing about the restructure of the Frederick Douglass High because I felt that the principal was a wonderful lady that truly cared about the futures of her students, even if they did not feel the same way about their own futures. The problem that I saw in her pedagogy was that she seemed to be a bit easy on the students. For example, there were so many students that were not on track to graduate and in order to get the graduation number higher, the principal allowed students to make up work and re-do exams in order to graduate as many students as possible. I, like many of the teachers, disagree with this action because the students are obviously not ready to graduate and definitely not ready for college. With 4th-9th grade reading levels, these students are bound for failure if they intend to move on to college. This documentary reminds viewers of the harsh reality inside urban public schools and just how difficult it must be for staff to foster a good learning environment, when over half of the students do not want to be there.