If the students never learn, it is never their fault.

City Springs elementary school is a failing Baltimore school, more than 3 years behind its suburban counterparts. The school's answer to its failing system was the implementation of Direction Instruction, or DI. I'm not sure if the film we watched is meant to be a success story of the school improving ( as seen in the percentage of children scoring higher on standardized tests) or whether is an example of a school being subjegated to the failing banking system. With doubt in mind, the kids improve in their reading skills and learn how to follow direction. The film explicitly follows the youngest children in the program, the kingergarden and first graders. Question, what are all the other kids undefoing? Hiw are the old kids reacting to this form of treatment? I ask myself, why does the rpincipak feel that implementing the DI at the younger children's level is the most affective.
A couple things that stuck out to me from the beginning was that children are placed in grades relative to their level of comprehe soon. If you have a child reading t a second grade reading level, then he should be put in a higher level course. This makes esnse, but I was wondering, what happens to all the other kids? I have heard of situations based on standardized testing in which teachers and prinicipals try to focus their energy on the success of a few studnets, rather then the general progress of the majority of students. I know the benefit of focusing on a couple good students is that a schools general test scores will improve. At that point what is education for?
I can honestly say that when I was watching this, I was being overly critical of the interactions between the prinicipal and the teachers, the teachers and the children and the chidlren with each other. I felt that unlike the Free School documentary, there was some context added to the film, but there was till a significant amount of context missing. What kind of school is the neighboring middle school? What is the goal of the students  graduating from this school? The elementary school is trainging people to succeed in the cshool system. Or better yet it is meant to make the school system make it look like it is succeeding. But in the end, what is this success amount to?