Teach Us All

Segregation and Education in the United States

Sixty years after the Little Rock Nine faced mobs of racially charged hatred and became cornerstones of the Civil Rights movement, TEACH US ALL examines how the present day United States education system fails to live up to that promise of desegregation as it slides back into a re-segregation of its modern schools.

Due to storied histories of discriminatory housing practices which enforced segregation, case studies of the public schools in Little Rock, New York City, and Los Angeles present microcosms of the inequities and challenges manifesting in classrooms across America. Educator turnover rates become such that some schools just have to depend on warm bodies. Applying to a high school in a better neighborhood becomes more competitive than applying for an Ivy League university. The labyrinthine admissions process leaves working-class and minority parents out in the cold, and students believe their high schools are just pipelines into the prison system.

The film weaves together interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, archival images, and news footage to ask: How far have we really come in 60 years and where do we go from here?