Uses the case of a boy from Quincy, Illinois, who dropped out of school in the tenth grade to highlight the problem of school drop-outs. Includes interviews with the ex-student, his mother, his teachers, and other local educators to indicate some of the difficulties in assessing causes of drop-outs. Describes the attempts of society and schools to remedy the problem.
Uses the case of a boy from Quincy, Illinois, who dropped out of school in the tenth grade to highlight the problem of school drop-outs. Includes interviews with the ex-student, his mother, his teachers, and other local educators to indicate some of the difficulties in assessing causes of drop-outs. Describes the attempts of society and schools to remedy the problem.
Teddy Walker is a successful salesman whose life takes an unexpected turn when he accidentally blows up his place of employment. Forced to attend night school to get his GED, Teddy soon finds himself dealing with a group of misfit students, his former high school nemesis and a feisty teacher who doesn't think he's too bright.
Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.
An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future.
Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he was to become.
A quiet teenage artist Rafe Katchadorian has a wild imagination and is sick of middle school and the rules that have been put before him. Rafe and his best friend Leo have come up with a plan: break every rule in the school hand book and as you expect trouble follows.
When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels suspected drug dealers, padlocks doors and demands effort and results from students, staff and parents. Autocratic to a fault, this real-life educator put it all on the line.
The story of Bea Johnson from birth to graduation as she navigates life with an intellectually disabled parent and an extended family who can't quite agree on the best way to help.
A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.
A destitute 14-year-old struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's hands, harsher abuse at his father's, and a growing separation from his slightly older brother.
Follows a young boy who runs away from home in the search of his estranged mother.