On to series 5 of The Wire. Series 3 was, so far, the poorest (INHumbleO), the rest were great. The writing is great but so is the acting.
I'm surprised you haven't said specifically what you thought of series 4. Or was there no real comparison with your professional experience?
That's a good point, and yes it was very pertinent. It was weird watching it now, 15 years after production, because to some extent US experience was a precursor to UK experience in education.
Still is, actually. You may have seen my posts on another thread about my own school adopting draconian 'ready to learn' strategies....its a US import. And we are asked to use a teaching model based on Rosenshine, again American.
So yes the stuff about SAT/GCSE type tests was very much the same stuff that has gone on in UK.
Over here the floor targets took no account, until progress
8, of school intake, so all sorts of shenanigans went on to try and get close to the unachievable, most notably making the weakest, disruptive kids disappear by "off rolling".