"The Shame of the Nation" and "The Wire": Hope for Change in the Urban Education System

While it's easy to see that there are problems with the education system in the inner-city, it is much harder to distinguish where the cause of these problems actually lies. It's not difficult to make a scapegoat out of one institution or another for the entire problem-some blame the teachers, some blame the students, and still others blame the schools. But season four of the The Wire and Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation dare to look deeper into the issue. Both of these sources agree that the education system of the inner-city is in shambles, but they contrast on its ability to be salvaged. While Kozol argues that there's still much hope to change the situation of urban schools, The Wire presents the situation as bleak and hopeless. Moreover, The Wire and The Shame of the Nation each rely on a different means of expression to support their views, and each means of expression has both powerful uses and constricting limitations. The Wire's fictional style allows it to contrive scenarios that support its argument, but at the same time it misleads the viewer by focusing entirely on the faults of the inner-city and the failures of its inhabitants. On the other hand, The Shame of the Nation's non-fictional approach allows the use of real life testimony, statistics, and experiences to support its notion, but it misleads the reader by excluding counter-claims and oversimplifying the issue. While each of these works gives a distorted view of how possible it is to save the urban education system, through looking at both sources together we are able to see the truth-that while no quick or easy solution exists, there is still hope.

Because The Wire is a work of fiction, it is able to craft situations that drive its point across. Through the use of characterization, for example, The Wire creates a hopeless atmosphere where students lack motivation, teachers lack experience, and schools lack resources-and each element of this cycle perpetuates the other elements, creating a downward spiral of illiteracy, crime, and poverty that is seemingly impossible to escape. For example, through the show's characterization of Randy, an 8th-grade member of the Fayette Street Mafia, as well as inner-city children in general, the viewer is able to see how the inadequate funding of urban schools, in combination with these schools' inexperienced teachers, causes students to lose motivation. From afar, Randy seems like a polite, intelligent kid who could really go far in life. He runs a business selling candy in the streets (The Wire 4.1) and in his school (The Wire 4.3), and knows what he wants to do when he grows up-own his own store (The Wire 4.5). This shows Randy as a hard working entrepreneur who has legitimate goals in life. Randy is also characterized as courteous. For example, Randy's respect is evident in the scene that depicts his first day of class. While all the other kids are talking to each other and ignoring their teacher as they enter the classroom, Randy introduces himself and offers a handshake to his new teacher (The Wire 4.3). A few moments later, when the teacher is unable to hush the students, Randy quiets the class so the teacher can begin his lesson (The Wire 4.3). Later, Randy even helps out with the mayor-to-be's campaign, even though he was paid up front and could have ran off with the money (The Wire 4.6). By staying to do the actual job as well as helping his teacher, Randy is characterized as a respectful, honorable character.

However, in school, Randy is not motivated. Because the inexperienced teachers cannot keep their classes in order long enough to teach the kids, most students fail, causing them to feel stupid and incapable, as well as to see school as a waste of time, leading to a loss of motivation. This is evident in the faces of the students of one class, who look extremely bored as a teacher scolds them while passing back their failing test grades, saying the horrible test grades symbolize "the amount of interest [they're] taking in [their] own future[s]"-none (The Wire 4.4). But Randy is actually too smart for his class. Because teachers have so much trouble keeping their classes in line, their students learn new things very slowly. Randy already knows what is being taught in class, and so feels unmotivated to continue with his teacher's slow, boring pace. This is evident when Randy's teacher asks him to answer a math question, to which Randy responds, "Is this a trick question?" because it is so easy for him to answer that he can't believe it is actually being asked of him (The Wire 4.3). Since he is learning next to nothing in school, Randy decides to use his time in the building to pursue his candy-selling venture, which leads him into a world of trouble. Instead of attending class, Randy's lack of motivation in school leads him to steal hall passes (The Wire 4.3), skip class (The Wire 4.3), impersonate children of other grades to sell them candy without getting caught (The Wire 4.3), and act as lookout during a possible rape (The Wire 4.6).

Through The Wire's vivid characterization, we are able to see Randy's fall from promising individual to lowly criminal. While Randy may be a fictional character, he is a testament to the many students in the urban school system whose lack of motivation has lead them astray. Without motivation, many of these students drop out of school, get involved in illegal activities, or become addicted to drugs-locking themselves and their children into the same hopeless future they were born into.

But the fact that The Wire is a work of fiction also takes away from its message, because it is seen by the viewer as less realistic than a non-fiction work. This is where Kozol's non-fiction Shame of the Nation has an advantage. While the book is non-fiction and therefore can't contrive situations to drive its point across, it can rely on actual real life experiences, testimony, and statistics to show how horrible the situation is in inner-city schools. Through his travels, Kozol found that many inner-city schools have an inadequate size and/or location to educate students effectively. For example, Kozol notes a "make-shift elementary school housed in a former skating rink" that was so short on space that it taught four kindergarten classes and a sixth grade class simultaneously in a "single room that had no windows" (Kozol 41). He also speaks of a school so overcrowded that it had "15 fewer bathrooms than the law requires" (Kozol 177). He even visited many schools that were forced by the government to take in so many students that, in order to school them all, had "half the student body [start] class very early in the morning" and depart after lunch, and the other half "begin the school day