ARTS & EVENTS

Silverdocs 2008: 'Hard Times at Douglass High'

Photo courtesy Silverdocs

SUSAN AND ALAN RAYMOND have been "capturing reality" for more than 40 years. The husband-and-wife team's 1973 PBS series, "An American Family," captured the daily life of the Louds, and the production shocked audiences with its candor.

The Raymonds have stayed dedicated to cinema verite, and to issues of family and children in general. Their 1994 feature "I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School," won the Academy Award for best documentary, and the Raymonds' latest work, "Hard Times at Douglass High," continues on the theme of public education in America.

Baltimore's Frederick Douglass High School is a historically African-American high school, and its distinguished alumni include jazz man Cab Calloway and Thurgood Marshall, the first black person to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

As "The Wire" documented so well in its fourth season, Baltimore's public schools are in a world of hurt right now. But "Hard Times at Douglass High," which chronicles a year-in-the-life at the school, isn't just about Frederick Douglass High School.

"You see the issue of urban education through the lens of one school's experience, but it's not necessarily a film about the Baltimore City public school system," Alan Raymond said. "I think if you did the film in Philadelphia, you'd find the same set of circumstances you'd find in that school."

The documentary shines a light on many of the school's problems, but it also shows the school's finer moments, such as the well-regarded music program and its boys basketball team, which has claimed the Maryland state title.

"Douglass had a nice atmosphere in the school," Alan Raymond said. "I think the school is, by and large, a safe environment. I know we have that one fight scene, which I know kind of regret putting in the film, but it was a relatively safe environment."

The Raymonds will be at the world premiere of "Hard Times at Douglass High" on Friday, 2 p.m., at Silverdocs. (The documentary also premieres June 23 on HBO.) The couple will also participate in a Saturday, 12:30 p.m., panel discussion at Silverdocs for their pioneering "An American Family."

Express spoke to the Raymonds about "Hard Times" and No Child Left Behind.

» EXPRESS: What drew you to this story?
» SUSAN: We're interested in children's rights children's issues and education. We prevbiously made another film on children, called "I Am a Promise, " which was done in 1994, about an elementary school in an inner-city neighborhood. It was very well received, including an Academy Award. So we thought we'd pursue the same subject but with an older group.

The other very main ingredient is that the No Child Left Behind Act has totally changed the face of public education, so we thought we'd go to a school that was trying to meet those demands — and struggling to meet those demands. One of the Act's main purposes is to eradicate the achievement gap, so that meant we should do a film on minority education.

» EXPRESS: Did you have to do a lot of convincing with the administrators to have them let you film in their school?
» ALAN: We're based in Philadelphia, and we looked at some Philadelphia high schools. … We also looked at a number of schools and cities in New Jersey, and then kind of worked our way down to Baltimore. Baltimore, out of the three state school systems, was the most receptive. And the person who was the CEO at the time we sought permission was very supportive — in fact, they recommended Douglass as the high school to make the film in, because it was a historically black school with a long history. But they did have the caveat that the principal had to agree, and that was a key piece of the process. Because many of the principals that we spoke to during our research were OK with us doing a documentary on their school — until we said we wanted to be there for 10 months, during the academic year. That's usually when the rubber met the road. … But Isabelle Grant, the principle at the Frederick Douglass High School, was much more open and said we could come and film as long as we wanted.

***SPOILER ALERT***

» EXPRESS: The end of the film reveals that Mrs. Grant was let go, which totally surprised me since she had increased graduation rates to its highest rate in 10 years.
» SUSAN: The adequate yearly progress wasn't good enough. That's the problem with No Child Left Behind and that's why so many educators are up in arms and screaming. You have to meet these standards, these demands, and if you don't meet them, sanctions come against you. And she failed to meet the demand, even though she incrementally increased [the graduation rate] … it wasn't good enough. … A lot of educators feel that the adequately yearly progress is asking for too rapid an improvement when you take under consideration all the variables: no books, no teachers, attendance is low. .. Right now, just about half of all inner-city high schools are in restructuring. So Baltimore really stands as a microcosm of the larger problem; it's not the exception to the rule — it's common.
» ALAN: Our documentary offers no magic bullet solution to the problems of struggling urban schools, I think people should also understand there are no magic bullets — even when your bring a concentrated effort into a school to raise the standards, it often takes years and it's very, very slow to show any dramatic results.
» SUSAN: The law mandates that by 2014, all students will be proficient in reading and math — it's '08 and those kids are, like, 17 percent in English and you're going to bring them up to proficiency? It's pretty frightening, the demands, the distance they have to go. ... I don't think they can meet the demands, and what's going to happen next is that they're going to fire all the teachers.
» ALAN: When they restructure, they actually fire every teacher in the school and make them reapply for their jobs.

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