Documentary's Title Leaves Viewers Wondering if the Film Proved Its Point

The newly released documentary, Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card, means to touch upon the issues that its title suggests, but spends much of its time observing the students and teachers and whether anything can help them.

The two-hour film by Alan and Susan Raymond premiered on HBO on Monday, reports the New York Times. It follows the students of Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore in 2005. However, the film does not focus as much on the school's inability to meet the "No Child Left Behind" benchmarks or the law's preoccupation with test taking, says the Times. The film takes more of a "what you see is what you get" standpoint as viewers watch the administrators hard at work, and the students not.

The documentary shows the lack of parental support at the high school and dwindling numbers of educators. At "Back-to-school night" and the yearly Christmas concert, students looked out to an almost empty auditorium, according to the Times. The film documents a moment in which a young English teacher quits after his third year at the school, saying it was "the year that (he) stopped seeing progress in kids." Sixty-six percent of the teachers at Douglass High are not certified and many classrooms are run by substitutes and fill-ins.

While the film aims at questioning the effects of "No Child Left Behind," it leaves watchers wondering what, if anything, can help schools such as Douglass High at all.