 Attention
Deficit Disorder: A Dubious Diagnosis?
Is A.D.D. real? Strong evidence suggests that the ADD epidemic is a result of a long-term, unpublicized financial relationship
between a drug company and the nation's largest A.D.D. Support Group. This provocative
documentary helps parents and educators find alternatives
to unnecessary labels and powerful drugs. [more] |
 Big Time Losers
Big Time Losers examines the price colleges and athletes pay when sports become big business.
Told through the stories of six athletes, the film examines the impact of sports on academics at elite schools and at big-time state universities where football and basketball traditions run deep. [more] |
 California Schools: America's Future
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is scrambling to avoid $4.8 billion in potential cuts to public school funding. His controversial plans hinge on lawmakers' approval. Unfortunately, it's not the first time California's public schools have been on the brink. California Schools: America’s Future traces the roots of the current crisis. [more] |
 Caught
In the Crossfire
Frances Davis lost all three of her sons to street violence.
Caught in the Crossfire examines the roots
of the violence that killed Frances Davis' sons and countless
other children nationwide. Looking for a remedy, the program profiles
the efforts of community activists involved in the search for
solutions. This moving documentary has earned several
awards and is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of
Television and Radio. [more] |
 Declining
by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk
How good is higher education in America today? The
competition for admission into certain highly selective colleges
and universities may be greater than ever, but the vast majority
of American college students don’t attend those schools. And,
even if they did, the same question arises: Does the reality of
higher education measure up to the dream of millions of individuals
and to the educational needs of the nation? [more] |
 Discounted Dreams
Community colleges are the fastest growing segment of American higher education–and some say the most vital to America’s future. They offer an array of classes and job training programs. But growing enrollment is straining the system, underfunding persists, and in spite of some remarkable success stories, they fail to graduate even half of those who come. [more] |
 Early
Learning
Most American parents believe that their children's schools are at least okay, but American students are outperformed by students in nearly every other industrialized nation. That' s the bad news. The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way. This program profiles four very different approaches to reforming schools. [more] |
 Education's
Big Gamble: Charter Schools
Charter schools server over 105,000 students across the country. They're exempt from most
state regulations and oversight. But are charter schools gambling with
our children and our tax dollars, and avoiding accountability?
Or are they changing education for the better? [more] |
 Elementary
Confusion
American education seems to lack both national standards
and common sense. This program follows up on two schools previously featured in "Early
Learning," which traced the efforts of first,
second, and third grade students learning math and reading. learning to read and do math. How have the students progressed since we first met them? [more] |
 Failing
Forward
Social
promotion is the practice of promoting students to the next grade despite their low achievement. And it's just the beginning of a seriously flawed system. Who's really losing out when student's only have to show up to get a passing grade? [more] |
 The
Fifty Million Dollar Gamble
This documentary (based on three years of videotaping in one high
school) details the often painfully slow progress of school reform:
teachers and bureaucrats squabble, even as some students are making
great progress. It's the most detailed look at one of the country's
leading education reforms, the Essential Schools Movement, and
its founder, Dr. Theodore Sizer. [more] |
 First
to Worst
Explores the roots of California's current education
crisis, tracing it to the anti-tax movement of the 1970's and 80's
and to civil rights lawsuits that aimed to equalize school spending
but resulted instead in disastrous funding limits on schools. Years of state intrusion into classroom
teaching produced educational disasters in the form of teaching
fads. Today,
California is trying to regain its footing. [more] |
 Growing
Up in the City
Sasha, Paul, Jessica and James attend the same
magnet school on the upper west side of Manhattan in New York
City. In this three-part series, host John Merrow takes you on
an engaging and honest journey inside these young adolescent's
lives, who differ in race, gender, and ethnic background. [more] |
 In
Schools We Trust
Public education has been around for approximately 150 years. History tells us that Americans have
great faith in public education, but it also shows we rarely agree
on what public schools are supposed to do. [more] |
 It's
Your Money
We spend more than $220 billion a year on public
schools, and millions more on lawyers fighting about how we spend
it. What are we getting for our money?
Spending conditions vary dramatically within each school district, often
depending on how much money a community can raise through local
property taxes. [more] |
 Living
with AIDS and Teaching
Dawn Marcal is 25 and lives in San Francisco.
She is HIV positive and has AIDS. Dawn has chosen to do volunteer
work in local high schools--educating students to the consequences
of experimenting with drugs and sex at an early age. Dawn is also
putting a face on a disease that most everyone has heard about
but has not experienced on a personal level. [more] |
 Lost
in Translation: Latinos, School & Society
The extraordinarily high drop-out rate among Latinos is the result
of many factors, one of which is language. But it's only part of the picture. This documentary explores the
successes and failures of different types of language programs: English only, bilingual, and dual. Available in both English
and Spanish. [more] |
 Making
the Grade
Unable to find
enough qualified teachers for its worst public schools, New York
City set up a crash program--one month of training--for 350 men
and women. Called 'Teaching Fellows', they're earning $31,500
and getting free tuition toward a Masters Degree, in return for
a 2-year commitment. We talk with twelve of the Teaching Fellows assigned
to PS/IS 25 in Brooklyn, NY. [more] |
 The
Promise of Preschool
For parents,
educators, and lawmakers, the promise of preschool is that children
will enter school ready to learn, but, in reality, the results
are mixed. This program chronicles the experiences of
four families and reveals the range of preschool education available. [more] |
 Promises,
Promises
For more than a century, educational technology has been promising
to revolutionize learning
yet this promise has never been kept. Technology in the 90's exploded, but why haven't schools been able to keep up?
[more] |
 Public
Schools Inc.
Is it
is possible to create world-class schools that turn a profit?
Frontline and Learning Matters join forces with The New York
Times to investigate the intertwined fortunes of Edison Schools
and its charismatic, controversial leader, Chris Whittle. Through
interviews with educators, administrators, and observers on both
sides of the debate -- including Whittle himself, this program
explores whether the larger-than-life Whittle is Edison's biggest
asset or its greatest liability. [more]
|
 Saving
the Arts
What will be lost if the arts disappear from our public schools?
The arts teach discipline, problem solving, cooperation,
concentration-a nearly endless list of educational benefits. Adding
an arts program to a school's curriculum increases student attendance,
participation, test scores and graduation rate--all commonly accepted
measures of excellence. Yet when school budgets are cut, the arts
seem to be the first to go. [more] |
 School
Crusade: A Tale of Urban School Reform
In 1994, Philadelphia was one of the worst school
districts in the United States. Looking for a radical change,
the city hired an untested superintendent, a lawyer with a background
in theology, David Hornbeck. Hornbeck's "Children Achieving" program
was designed to trim the bureaucracy, add kindergarten, introduce
technology, create a new testing system, and hold teachers accountable
for student learning. But Hornbeck's dream and the reality turned
out to be two different things. [more] |
 School
Sleuth: The Case of an Excellent School
Host John Merrow
turns private detective in this tongue-in-cheek drama to solve
"The Case of an Excellent School." Private Detective Merrow explores
five aspects of schooling: safety, the academics, the physical
environment, the adults in the building, and a school's sense
of purpose. School Sleuth shows there are many ways to evaluate
schools beyond standardized test scores and college acceptance
rates.[more] |
 Searching
for Heroes
The six extraordinary heroes profiled
in the program--a social worker in Dallas, a librarian in Los
Angeles, a conductor in Washington, DC, a youth worker in Milwaukee,
a grandmother in Orlando, and a principal in Indianapolis--represent
just some people committed to the lives of children. [more] |
 The
Search for Values
Where do children learn their moral values? Who is responsible for teaching them? And what message are our
schools sending if they try to avoid the issue entirely. Are
our schools, as one observer said, becoming "...morally dangerous
places" for children? Can school become the meeting ground instead of the battleground on which to work out our differences? [more] |
 Starting
Over
Starting over is possible, even in difficult economic
times. In fact,
starting over will be every worker's job, at some point: the average person will change careers at least three times.
Despite the myth that people only contemplate
career change in mid-life, 90 percent of those who change careers
are not in mid-life. People can and do change careers at all ages. [more] |
 A
Tale of Three Cities
Several major American cities have accepted the
challenge of school reform but none with more energy, commitment,
and public attention than Philadelphia, Chicago, and Seattle.
A Tale of Three Cities tracks the dramatically different approaches–and varying results–of these school districts. [more] |
 Teacher
Shortage: False Alarm?
Why do 30% percent of new teachers– 50% in
urban areas– leave teaching within five years? Is the problem
one of recruitment or retention? This documentary examines
several areas that are the result of or may be the cause of the
so-called "teacher shortage." [more] |
 Teachers
Wanted: No Experience Necessary
A follow–up program to the "Making
the Grade" segments, this documentary revisits the four
rookie teachers in the New York City public schools through their
first year. These individuals had no prior classroom experience
and seven weeks of summer training. It asks the tough questions:
Is it possible to learn on the job and be an effective teacher?
Is teacher on–the–job training fair to students? (Running
time: 56 minutes) |
 Teaching:
The First Year
The gap that exists between the vision of a bright-eyed graduate
of a school of education and the reality of a first year teacher
with his or her own classes is one that must be faced and crossed
by all beginning teachers. This program helps
future teachers discover and discuss the gap and develop
tools to help make the transition from graduation to classroom. [more] |
 Testing
Our Schools
Testing
Our Schools explores the closely intertwined issues of standards
and accountability. Standards are necessary, of course, and so
is accountability, but are schools being backed into a corner?
If they continue to live by test results, will they die that way?
How these issues are resolved will shape the future
of American public education. [more] |
 Testing...Testing...Testing
Testing...Testing...Testing poses 12 provocative
questions covering the complex and controversial issues of measuring
learning, achievement and intelligence in children.
We put six experts--test writers, critics, and professors--to the test, our test. They provide the answers to our questions
and to your concerns about testing in public schools. [more] |
 Toughest
Job in America
This gripping story follows Philadelphia superintendent
David Hornbeck's six year battle against an entrenched bureaucracy,
a stubborn union, hostile politicians, budget deficits, and a
deep-rooted belief that poor and minority children cannot achieve.
But complicating the story are Hornbeck's own inflexible streak
of moralism and his tendency to alienate even his ardent supporters.
What led to his eventual and sudden resignation? [more] |
 What's
So Special About Special Education?
Twenty-one years after guaranteeing the disabled
the right to go to public school, how well are we educating them?
To test our progress, this program follows two disabled girls
through a year of Denver's public school system: one, a second
grader with autism; the other, a seventh grader with Down's Syndrome.
Both students are have access to "regular" classes, but does this translate to an equal or adequate education? [more] |
 Young
Scientists with John Merrow
High school students conduct serious independent
research in anticipation of competing for millions of dollars
in awards and scholarships in the world's largest science fair,
Intel's International Science and Engineering Fair. [more] |
