This documentary analyzes how Little Rock Central High School has changed in the 50 years following the initial integration of African-American students into the school. Little Rock Central is quite an unusual school. In most areas around the U.S., schools that are surrounded by poor neighborhoods are likely to have poor academic performance. Little Rock Central is surrounded by a number of poor neighborhoods, but it has some of the highest ratings in terms of academic performance and college readiness in the country. This academic performance is not demonstrated by all students, though. The majority of Little Rock Central students are African-American. Many of these students are poor and live with broken families. Most of these African-American …show more content…
On one hand, you see these underprivileged students giving almost no effort to their classwork. You want to tell them to try harder. If these students put in the effort, they have the chance to graduate with a high school degree that is well-respected and could get them into a lot of colleges. There are students far less fortunate in terms of school location. Some students can perform well in high school but have almost no chance to get into respected schools because their high schools have a bad academic reputation. So, in some ways, all students at Little Rock Central are more privileged than many other students who have to attend public schools in other districts around the country. The issue is that not all students are able to commit themselves fully to school. Some students have brothers and sisters they have to take care of because their single-parent mothers have to work late. Some students have children too early and have to take care of them. Others have to work jobs to help keep the lights on in their house. And then there are others who are more worried about surviving to see the next day than writing that paper that is due in class. In most cases, these students are minorities. Many of the white students drive home and have no pressing responsibilities, so they can commit their energy to their schoolwork. This creates the huge divide in academic performance between black and white