I feel for my brother and sister teachers in Title I schools, fighting the good fight. With my years of experience, I don't know if I could hang in an inner-city school. Honestly, I feel a little guilt for being able to do my job effectively. Why are our schools failing and failing our students?

I'm not saying The Wire is absolutely wrong and there are no schools like the one portrayed, but most inner city Title 1 schools are not as dire. I've worked an inner city Title 1 middle school and we didn't have nearly as much drug culture (we had some), no stabbings, no weapons hidden around us, no uniforms for that matter. Even in that setting, we see one of Prez's partner teachers can seem to get total class control, so what we see with Prez is also colored by him being a new teacher. The ratio of "stoop kids to corner kids" sounds about right, maybe even worse than what reality is. There aren't many corner kids. They just take so much energy out of the classroom and what do we do to help them and their classmates? (Baltimore also seemed to have particular funding problems we did not. I believe that is historically accurate, but it's not true everywhere -- not that there's ever enough money in these kinds of settings for all that you want, of course.)

Anyway, I currently teach in a suburban high school at the edge of the city, and it's totally different. But my life in Title 1 wasn't really much like The Wire. Granted, the culture was very different at my school as well (Hispanic, ESOL culture), but that's my point: Every Title 1 has unique problems. This amalgam of "inner city, Title 1" problems can be deceiving (let alone Title 1 at all because rural Title 1s are a whole different ball game too).