This show came out something like 14 years ago. I'm a teacher and I can say that nothing has changed. This is exactly what happens in schools come test time. As Colvin said, "When do shit change?"
Season 4 was the most important season of THE WIRE, because it shows that the system exists to perpetuate itself, not to educate children. It shows why things never change, and it takes unusual determination to escape the cycle.
I've worked in education for years in the UK and it is exactly like this, standardised test teaching. The Wire is so accurate, not just to Baltimore or America.
Colvin tried to replicate his Hamsterdam strategy in schools, by segregating the corner kids and trying to rehab them while separating them from the others, who were then able to benefit from lesser interruptions. And just like Hamsterdam, the top shut it down. Basically this whole season was trying to parallel the similarities between police and school.
In a show that was already pretty depressing, this season was incredibly bleak. I'm glad Naymond made it out all right, but Dookie and Randy fell through the cracks, as do far too many kids in the real world.
"They know exactly what it is they're training for and what it is everyone expects them to be. It's not about you or us or the test or the system. It's what they expect of themselves. Every single one of them know they're headed back to the corners. Their brothers and sisters, shit, their parents. They came through these same classrooms. We pretended to teach them, they pretended to learn and where'd they end up? Same damn corners. They're not fools, these kids. They don't know our world but they know their own. They see right through us."
