World Premiere

Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School is in disarray, and filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond present a layered portrait of the crisis in order to ascertain why this once-esteemed school is crumbling. Allowing the daily ordeals of administrators, teachers and students to unfold before the camera, the Raymonds highlight the personal trials at the heart of a larger dilemma. The No Child Left Behind Act is one easily identified culprit, but the opening images of decrepit Baltimore streets point to institutional, social, and economic concerns.

HARD TIMES AT DOUGLASS HIGH introduces us to the endless and frustrating battle for quality public education in the country’s second-oldest African-American high school. The participants in this struggle include the well-intentioned administrators and teachers who attempt to control and improve the situation while the State of Maryland hovers over them. The students, meanwhile, range from ambitious to apathetic to hostile. Attrition whittles down the student body as it advances through the ranks, and even graduation (for the few who make it) is a negotiation.

All are victims. Several educators also emphasize that the new graduates will face even greater victimization later in life because they did not get the education they desperately required. HARD TIMES leaves us grasping for solutions to problems that have endangered the African-American community and, certainly, the nation.

-Deborah L. Jaramillo