It’s been a little hard to stay focused on education for the last week, what with the sense that outside our small office overlooking Connecticut Avenue, history is unfolding by the minute, hour and day. And because I’ve been somewhat obsessively reading the many moving tributes to and reflections on David Foster Wallace, who died [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'The Wire'
The Wire Finale
In which everything comes full circle, and Baltimore remains the same.
Summary: Dukie becomes Bubbles, while Bubbles comes up from the depths into–and onto–the Sun. Michael becomes Omar, while Omar passes into myth. Carver becomes Daniels and/or Bunny, while Daniels decides he can’t be part of the lie that destroyed the job. Sydnor becomes Lester, while [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 9
MY NAME IS MY NAME! I think I want that to be my ringtone.
That’s also Marlo, all of him, in five words. The longer the Game goes on, the more the logic of it means that the only winners will be those who ignore money, loyalty, family, honor, delusions of respectability, anything, and play it [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 8
At this point, I think the major weakness of Season Five is clear: David Simon didn’t have the good sense to repeat himself. Imagine this: There is no Scott Templeton. Instead, the season revolves around Alma Gutierrez. She’s young, a little naïve, and wants to write about Baltimore’s rapidly-growing Latino population (according to Simon, the [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 7
In which Clay Davis plays every card in the race deck, except, presumably, the King of Diamonds, because that’s McNulty.
Summary: Davis beats the rap with the help of real-life Baltimore criminal defense attorney Billy Murphy, who once got Don King acquitted, so I’m guessing this wasn’t much of a stretch. McNulty gets everything he ever [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 6
Last week, we noted that Omar is apparently Superman. This week, Marlo clarifies: Omar is Spider-Man, albeit more of the rage-filled alien black suit variety.
Summary: The New Day is done, as Marlo takes control of the B’more drug trade with Omar hobbled but bent on revenge. Nancy Grace does a hilarious cameo suggesting she has [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode Five
I which Marlo reminds us that the future ain’t promised to no one, as he seizes the crown. When it became clear that Marlo was going to become the new force on the West Side at the end of Season 3, I was relatively non-plussed; I wasn’t sure what more could be said after the [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 4
This week, we learn that Baltimore is no city for old men.
First, Clay Davis continues hurtling toward an indictment, and gets the perp walk treatment from the DA to boot. I almost feel sorry for him, except not really. Then Commissioner Burrell gets the final word on his ouster. He tries to play the Daniels [...]
This is Probably True
Per The Onion:
TV Critics Admit To Never Having Watched The Wire
NEW YORK—Despite heaping lavish praise on the HBO crime drama The Wire, television critics across the country admitted Monday that not one of them has ever sat down to watch an entire episode of the show. “The Wire has done what no other television program [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 3
Summary: McNulty successfully fakes evidence of a Baltimore serial killer, yet nobody cares. Lester explains that he’s failed to include the kind of lurid psycho-sexual element that will bump the story onto the front page. Bunk is increasingly (and amusingly) aghast. Prop Joe gives Marlo money-laundering lessons. The Sun’s parent company hands down a new [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode Two
I watched this episode On Demand in the middle of last week, and I have to say it was unsettling to listen to Saint Gus of the Newsroom talk about how life is always tough for Mother of Four, and then listen to characters lament that the only time Baltimore makes national news is when [...]
The Wire, Season Five, Episode 1
After more than a year’s hiatus, the final season of The Wire debuted tonight. By popular demand, we’re back with the weekly blogging. If you’ve been catching up on the DVDs recently–and if you haven’t been, you should start–see here for the final post from last season (or just search for “wire” in the search [...]
The Wire Season Finale
Season Four of The Wire comes to a close. I think Craig’s take on the strengths and weaknesses of the show’s examination of the Baltimore school system and contemporary education policy is exactly right and better than I could have written. Many thanks to Craig for his insightful analysis and commentary.
As to the finale and [...]
The Wire: Craig’s Final Grades
At the beginning of the season, I wondered if The Wire would break the entertainment industry’s record of getting urban education wrong by reducing it to a string of hackneyed set pieces about cardboard kids (either saints or hard-cases-with-hearts-of-gold) and heroic teachers (usually white) who swoop in to save them. I expected it to accomplish [...]
The Wire Week Eleven: Everything Goes Wrong
This week on The Wire, poor, anonymous Sherrod dies of accidental cyanide poisoning while trying to get high in the middle of the night in his homeless drug-addict uncle’s unheated hovel. Randy’s foster mother is burned alive and nearly killed after their house is fire-bombed by neighborhood kids angry that Randy helped the incompetent police [...]
The Wire Week Nine: The Beginning of the End
After a couple of very good but not great weeks, The Wire launches into the final third of the season with a vengeance.
First, I hope the foolishness with sticking students in 90-minute test prep classes, but then turning up the heat in order to keep them docile in said classes, apparently without considering that the [...]
The Wire, Week Nine: Ain’t No Jukin’ It!
This week the writers ramped up the education subplot in a scene where Tilghman’s principal and vice principal order teachers to spend the next six weeks preparing students to take an upcoming standardized test. The word has come from downtown: Teachers are given test preparation materials and enjoined to drill students in how to [...]
The Wire Week Seven: A Man’s Got to Have a Code
The signal moment in this week’s episode of The Wire came during the prison exchange between Omar and Bunk. Omar’s been framed by Marlo for killing an innocent citizen. Bunk knows that Omar only robs and murders drug dealers, but begins by saying “Hey, even if you didn’t kill this woman you’ve killed lots of [...]
Charter Schooling in the Wolverine State
This is the picture that I wanted to have on the cover of Education Sector’s new report on charter schooling in Michigan (see, I don’t hate boys). Sadly, I was vetoed by people who claim to have taste and didn’t want to pay big licensing fees for the image.
So, without Hugh Jackman’s mug on the [...]
The Wire, Week Five — Ain’t Misbehavin’!
This week The Wire took us inside one of the toughest jobs you could ever have: establishing order and discipline in a middle school classroom. But there’s something making it much tougher in Prez’s case—the dismally low-level classroom assignments he’s asking students to complete and the depressingly low expectations that such assignments embody. (As Stephanie [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/19/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on college graduation rates and the NCAA Tournament in the Detroit Free Press.
03/19/10 | Linda Perlstein links to Education Sector's "College- and Career-Ready" event.
03/17/10 | Ben Miller's column on graduation rates and NCAA Tournament eligibility is mentioned on The Wall Street Journal's The Daily Fix.
03/17/10 | Kevin Carey's critique of Diane Ravitch's latest book is quoted in Doublethink's Conventional Folly blog.
03/15/10 | Ben Miller pens an op-ed for US News & World Report on using graduation rates to determine NCAA Tournament eligibility.