Top 250 Movies Like The Queen’S Classroom

Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade year — before she begins high school.

It's the fall of 1985. The intertwining tales of three 5th grade friends, Chris, Joe and Ted, unfold in the suburban paradise of Palo Alto, as the threat of a mountain lion looms over the community.

Sylvia, a novice schoolteacher, is hired to teach English in a high school, but she’s met with an apathetic faculty, a delinquent student body and an administration that drowns its staff in paperwork. The following days go from bad to worse as Sylvia struggles to reach her most troubled students.

Gripping, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful, Waiting for Superman is an impassioned indictment of the American school system from An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim.

A teacher conducts an experiment in an American high school where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Based on a true story.

Mildred is one of the young girls at a prestigious witch academy. She can't seem to do anything right and is picked on by classmates and teachers. The headmistress of the school, Miss Cackle, has an evil twin sister who plans to destroy the school. Can Mildred foil the plan before the Grand Wizard comes to the Academy for a Halloween celebration you'll never forget?!!

Never Give Up: The 20th Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper is a 1995 short documentary film about Herbert Zipper. It was written, directed, and produced by Terry Sanders, with Freida Lee Mock co-producing. The extraordinary story of Vienna born musician and conductor Herbert Zipper who survived Dachau, Buchenwald, and a Japanese concentration camp to become one of the great music educators of the world, continuing at 92 to bring music to the inner city schools of America. In Dachau, Zipper organized secret concerts using makeshift instruments. He learned the lesson that music and the arts are essential to the very existence of life. For the last half of the 20th century, Zipper has pioneered in bringing professional orchestras into America's inner city schools. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short at the 68th Academy Awards in 1996.

Based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father's wishes, and eventually became a NASA scientist.

Devon Browning is viewed as an outcast and is a victim of physical and emotional abuse from his classmates. After a tragic death in his family, his life begins to fall off course. He eventually seeks revenge by bringing a gun to school and opening fire on his classmates. The film offers an unwavering look at violence in schools today by showing the causes, effects, and consequences of a school shooting.

A bunch of high school misfits in Hawaii, introduced by their new teacher, attend a science fair in which they draw up inspiration to build their own solar car and win a trip to compete in the 1990 World Solar Challenge in Australia.

No one seemed to care about Jamie Marks until after his death. Hoping to find the love and friendship he never had in life, Jamie’s ghost visits former classmate Adam McCormick, drawing him into the bleak world between the living and the dead.

The high school students didn't mean to kill Mr. Griffin. They wanted to make him suffer. But when their mean English teacher turns up dead, they have to find out who killed them before the police arrests them all.

A business man decides that he wants to teach school in the inner city and chooses a tough school in the South Bronx. He teaches the children how to play the game of chess, and along the way they learn a lot about life.

Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, the movies and fear in a religious school at the beginning of the 1960s. Father Manolo, director of the school and its professor of literature, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three are followed through the next few decades, their reunion marking life and death.

Father O'Malley is sent to St. Mary's, a run-down parochial school on the verge of condemnation. He and Sister Benedict work together in an attempt to save the school, though their differing methods often lead to good-natured disagreements.

A writer returns to his hometown where he faces the childhood nemesis whose life he ultimately ruined, only the bully wants to relive their painful past by torturing him once again.

Richard Dadier is a teacher at North Manual High School, an inner-city school where many of the pupils frequently engage in anti-social behavior. Dadier makes various attempts to engage the students' interest in education, challenging both the school staff and the pupils. He is subjected to violence as well as duplicitous schemes.

In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

Dr. Matthew Clark is the head of a state institution for intellectually disabled children. Jean Hansen, a former music teacher anxious to give her life some meaning, joins the staff of the hospital. Jean, who tries to shelter the children with her love, suspiciously regards Dr. Clark's stern training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, who has been abandoned by his divorced parents.

At an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older instructors, and he discovers that everything at the school is not quite as staid, tranquil and harmless as it seems.

Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.

A lazy, incompetent middle school teacher who hates her job and her students is forced to return to her job to make enough money for a boob job after her rich fiancé dumps her.

A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.

Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

Based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

The story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students at a Yorkshire grammar school in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master, a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores, a grossly out-numbered history teacher, and a headmaster obsessed with results, the boys attempt to pass.

During a harsh Montréal winter, an elementary-school class is left reeling after its teacher commits suicide. Bachir Lazhar, a charismatic Algerian immigrant, steps in as the substitute teacher for the classroom of traumatized children. All the while, he must keep his personal life tucked away: the fact that he is seeking political refuge in Québec – and that he, like the children, has suffered an appalling loss.

The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The stage version presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the school girl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when a policeman shoots several pupils in a classroom. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of act two. In the movie version Sarafina feels shame at her mother's (played by Miriam Makeba in the film) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.

A British Guianese engineer starts a job as a high school teacher in London’s East End, where his uninterested and delinquent pupils are in desperate need of attention and care.

William Hundert is a passionate and principled Classics professor who finds his tightly-controlled world shaken and inexorably altered when a new student, Sedgewick Bell, walks into his classroom. What begins as a fierce battle of wills gives way to a close student-teacher relationship, but results in a life lesson for Hundert that will still haunt him a quarter of a century later.

A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview.

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.

Because he's the oldest, Jake has been the man of the house, since his parents divorce. When Mom starts seeing Sam, who always seems to be trying some new way to get rich quick, and declares he's the man of the house now, Jake puts up with it. Until he discovers Sam's illegal activities.

Academy Award-honoree Peter O'Toole stars in this musical classic about a prim English schoolmaster who learns to show his compassion through the help of an outgoing showgirl. O'Toole, who received his fourth Oscar-nomination for this performance, is joined by '60s pop star Petula Clark and fellow Oscar-nominee Michael Redgrave.

In 1965, passionate musician Glenn Holland takes a day job as a high school music teacher, convinced it's just a small obstacle on the road to his true calling: writing a historic opus. As the decades roll by with the composition unwritten but generations of students inspired through his teaching, Holland must redefine his life's purpose.

Cleavers are an all-American family living in Ohio - wise father Ward, loving mother June, teen-age son Wally and 8-year-old "Beaver" Theodore. Beaver hopes to get a bike as a gift from his father and to please him tries out for his school football team and he makes it, only to be embarrassed. The bike he gets is quickly stolen. Meanwhile Wally is trying to help his friend Eddie Haskell to get the heart of pretty classmate Karen, but Karen seems to like Wally more, and that leads to tensions between the friends.

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.

A drama teacher's taboo relationship with an unstable student strikes a nerve in her jealous classmate, sparking a vengeful chain of events within their suburban high school that draws parallels to "The Crucible".

Twelve-year-old mathematics genius Prem discovers his recently deceased father was a famous rapper and immediately sets out to learn more about his father’s life and passions. Empowered by imaginative hip-hop music-fueled fantasies, Prem is determined to find out if hip-hop truly is in his DNA.

At an unusual private school for girls, new students, including young Iris, show up in coffins. The establishment's teachers, Mademoiselle Eva and Mademoiselle Edith, introduce Iris and her fellow pupils to the school's curriculum, which includes fairy-like dances through a nearby forest. When night falls, the older girls, who are on the threshold of womanhood, are then given mysterious, life-changing lessons.

A troubled and angry 11-year-old orphan from a small Texas town, ends up at a Boy Choir school after the death of his single mother. Completely out of his element, he finds himself in a battle of wills with a demanding Choir Master who recognises a unique talent in this young boy as he pushes him to discover his creative heart and soul in music.

A coming-of-age story that follows 12-year-old Andy Nichol, a bright student who, like most kids his age, will do anything to avoid conflict for fear of suffering overwhelming ridicule and punishment from his junior high school peers.

A nerdy high school super whiz experiments with a chemical which will transform his guinea pig "Mr. Mumps" from a gentle pet into a ravenous monster. In a fit of rage against his tormentors at the high school, Vernon Potts goes on a killing spree, eliminating all of those who ever picked on him - the Gym Coach, the School Jock, The Creepy Janitor & his hated teacher, Ms. Grindstaff.

Tim, a shy 16-year-old athlete with a natural gift for running, is dealing with the loss of his mother, as well as his sexuality. After a personal video is posted to social media, Tim's private life is about to explode into the public eye.

Based on a collection of stories with the focus on young John Humperkink "Dink" Stover, a student at the Lawrenceville Prepatory School, in 1896, whose family, in Eastcester, New York, have just about given up on his education because he is an incorrigible student. He gets into one situation after another and incurs the dislike of his classmates, who think he is cowardly but he changes their opinion when he challenges several of them to a fight. When he returns home for the summer, he meets Miss Dolly Travers and increases his 'hatred of women' because she does not accept his schoolboy pranks. Back at school, in the fall, he is more difficult than ever until his philosophy is changed by a teacher.

In London, eccentric piano instructor Madame Sousatzka takes on a new prize protégé, Manek, a teenage Bengali immigrant who displays incredible talent. Manek forms a close bond with his teacher, but soon discovers that she expects her pupils to become disciplined in all areas of life, and not just behind the piano

A first-year law student struggles with balancing his coursework and his relationship with the daughter of a stern professor.

Set in New York City, the epicenter of a phenomenon cropping up in communities across the United States, "Nursery University" reveals the oddly competitive process of nursery school admissions. The film tells the story of five families attempting to place their toddlers in preschool classrooms that have limited space and high price tags.

With the help of their high school's newest teacher, four Hispanic students form a robotics club. Although they have no experience, the youths set their sights on a national robotics contest. With $800 and parts scavenged from old cars, they build a robot and compete against reigning champion MIT. Along the way, the students learn not only how to build a robot but something far more important: how to forge bonds that will last a lifetime.

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside Northeast High School as a fly on the wall to observe the teachers and how they interact with the students.

A high school shooting has repercussions on the town and students.

When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels suspected drug dealers, padlocks doors and demands effort and results from students, staff and parents. Autocratic to a fault, this real-life educator put it all on the line.

Devoted teacher Anne Sullivan leads deaf, blind and mute Helen Keller out of solitude and helps integrate her into the world.

Story of a schoolteacher's struggle to teach violin to inner-city Harlem kids.

Leda Beth Vincent lives in the small town of Shiloh and works as a cocktail waitress there. She is not too well thought of as she is nothing of a blushing virgin. But she is far from a whore and brings up her daughter Julie, a high school student, as a loving responsible mother. So, when she becomes aware that Julie's very popular history teacher, Mr Baker, spreads antisemitic ideas among his pupils, Leda Beth decides to ask Mr Baker for an explanation. But she comes up against a wall. Nobody in town - Julie less than all others - wants to support her and it looks as if she will have to bring the Board of Education to court. The trouble is that a school dropout and a tramp of her kind does not count for much compared to the holders of knowledge and of morality.

At Fallbrook Middle School, the annual student-elected Teacher of the Year award is held. And every year for the last 43 years Norman Warner or most fondly called Stormin' Norman Warner has won the award. Now that he has died, the burden of carrying the legacy falls into the hands of Matt Warner, the son of the late Norman Warner who has always lived in the shadow of his father.

Akeelah is a precocious 11-year-old girl from south Los Angeles with a gift for words. Despite her mother's objections, Akeelah enters various spelling contests, for which she is tutored by the forthright Dr. Larabee, her principal Mr. Welch, and the proud residents of her neighborhood. Akeelah's aptitude earns her an opportunity to compete for a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.

When six-year-old Ruby Bridges is chosen to be the first African-American to integrate her local elementary school, she is subjected to the true ugliness of racism for the first time.

After thirty years teaching in London, Mark Thackeray retires and returns to Chicago. There, however, the challenge of teaching kids in an inner city school proves to be too much to resist.

Deloris Van Cartier is again asked to don the nun's habit to help a run-down Catholic school, presided over by Mother Superior. And if trying to reach out to a class full of uninterested students wasn't bad enough, the sisters discover that the school is due to be closed by the unscrupulous chief of a local authority.

William Franklin is a teacher who was born in Ireland and moved to the United States only to repatriate in 1939 after his leftist political views cause him to lose his job. Franklin becomes the first non-cleric instructor at St. Jude's, a school for wayward boys run by Brother John, who is a firm believer in strong discipline.

The determined new headmaster of an English prep school attempts to reform the frequently unruly students, who are tormented by a ruthless bully.

Young Ju is forced to take English classes after failing to assist a foreigner at her government office. At English class she develops feelings for classmate Moon Su, but he might not feel the same way.

A popular high school girl is harassed by a delinquent boy until they are placed in creative writing class together. Through written words, they create a bond, but tragically a bond that cannot withstand her social pressures or his brutal home life.

The true story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford.

An unimpressive, boring high-school geek is bitten and contracts vampirical symptoms, transforming him into a confident coolio.

Eddie lands his first teaching gig at an inner city middle school and finds his highly pubescent pupils are receiving no form of sexual education. Eddie isn't really equipped to teach them...he's not exactly experienced romantically.

A straight-edged teacher finds trouble when an honors student is willing to do anything to get an A.

Barry Goldwater Elementary is on the brink of collapse: the lowest test scores in the state, teachers who are either drunk or having sex on school grounds, and a principal who extorts money from parents. It's up to Tom, the down-on-his-luck vice-principal, to rally the lazy teachers, expose the principal's corruption, and turn the school around before an end of the day board decision.

A group of teenagers wish to rebel against the administrators and teachers (the system) in their suburban Chicago high school called New Port South

Larry, a 16-year-old Tlicho Indian, lives in the small northern town of Fort Simmer. He has a crush on his classmate, Juliet Hope. Larry's past holds a variety of terrors—his father is abusive and he once had an accident that nearly killed him. When Johnny Beck , a young Métis from Hay River, moves to town, things heat up, for better or worse.

Plucky and innocent Laci Cox is hired to teach a rowdy and experienced group of hormonal high schoolers about sex. The only problems is... she's a virgin! Laci must lose her virginity before she loses her job.

To prove his brother's innocence, undercover officer Nick enrolls in high school again, dealing with crushes, bullies, humiliations, popularity swings, and quirky teachers and staff to find the real murderer.

Peter Gifford is a likable, dedicated schoolteacher that teaches a senior life skills class. When student Janet Sommers brings up the topic of sex and dating, he asks students to write questions on the topic, and will cover them in the next class. The parents get wind of what Gifford is about to do, notify the principal, and he warns Peter not to read the questions in class. Gifford decides to go against this and is suspended. The whole student body protests, and the administration gets worried on what to do.

As the debate over the state of America's public school system rages on, one thing everyone agrees on is the need for great teachers. Yet, while research proves that teachers are the most important school factor in a child's future success, America's teachers are so woefully underpaid that almost a third must divide their time between a second job in order to make a living. Chronicling the stories of four teachers in different areas of the country, American Teacher reveals the frustrating realities of today's educators, the difficulty of attracting talented new teachers, and why so many of our best teachers feel forced to leave the profession altogether. But this wake-up call to our system's failings also looks at possibilities for reform. Can we re-value teaching in the United States and turn it into a prestigious, financially attractive and competitive profession? With almost half of American teachers leaving the field in the next five years, now is the time to find out.

A once reluctant homeschool family sells their home and everything in it, packs up in an RV and travels the country to tell the story of the millions of American families who are a part of the Homeschool Revolution. After talking with education experts, homeschooling pioneers, and regular families at every step in their home education journey, they learn come away convinced that it's time for America to bring their children home. The movie follows host, Yvette Hampton, as she travels the country with her family talking with education experts, curriculum developers, college and university faculty and administrators, and homeschooling families at every stage in the process, from kindergarten to college graduation and beyond. As viewers follow Yvette on this journey and share in her challenges and victories as a homeschool mom, they will gather the necessary resources and encouragement to homeschool their own children with excellence.

Character-driven satirical drama about a young, extraordinarily intellectual "black activist" wannabe who is discovered as the political critic sending out anonymous emails that criticize today's black leadership. Instead of holding it against him, the black leader who finds him out hires his worst critic as a second adviser.

Inspired by a true story, “Beyond the Blackboard” is about a 24-year-old first-time teacher who makes a difference in the lives of the homeless children she teaches in a shelter’s makeshift classroom. Set in 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this movie tells the story a brand-new teacher and Mom who is given a tougher than expected teaching job and winds up teaching homeless children in a school that is housed in a room and called, literally, The School with No Name. She has some personal prejudicial hurdles to cross before she is able to be a true teacher for these children and of course there are hurdles like the lack of books and supplies.

Teacher Jake Downey has relocated to a small town in Wyoming hoping to escape the urban problems of his last assignment. His myth of rural bliss is shattered when a former police officer comes unglued, builds a bomb and takes Jake's class hostage. The heroism of his true story unfolds as the hostage drama takes many surprising turns towards the phenomenal conclusion.

Story of a New England boys' school and of one of the students who is infatuated with an instructor's wife who has Multiple Sclerosis. The woman struggles to show her strict husband how love rather than demands helps the student to blossom, but finally she falls into a coma. While she is able to have some 'looking down' awareness of what is happening, her coma is what brings her husband to an understanding of the needs of others.

On February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, eighth-grade student Brandon McInerney shot his classmate Larry King twice in the back of the head during first period. When Larry died two days later, his murder shocked the nation. Was this a hate crime, one perpetrated by a budding neo-Nazi whose masculinity was threatened by an effeminate gay kid who may have had a crush on him? Or was there even more to it?

Walkout is the true story of a young Mexican American high school teacher, Sal Castro. He mentors a group of students in East Los Angeles, when the students decide to stage a peaceful walkout to protest the injustices of the public school system. Set against the background of the civil rights movement of 1968, it is a story of courage and the fight for justice and empowerment.

When Rickey and his friends put a snake in the desk of the new substitute teacher, to their surprise, she lovingly picks it up and puts it around her neck. Soon her strange stories of the wonders and beauty of the world around them helps them to see there is more to life than ever imagined.

Inner city kids are given new direction when they are convinced to join the school chess team.

Greg Heffley is a scrawny but ambitious kid with an active imagination and big plans to be rich and famous – he just has to survive middle school first.

A new school year, his brother Rodrick teases him over and over and over and over again. Will Greg manage to get along with him? Or will a secret ruin everything?

The true story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, a gripping battle to overcome impossible obstacles and the struggle to communicate. As a young girl, Helen Keller is stricken with scarlet fever. The illness leaves her blind, mute, and deaf. Sealed off from the world, Helen cannot communicate with anyone, nor anyone with her. Often frustrated and desperate, Helen flies into uncontrollable rages and tantrums that terrify her hopeless family. The gifted teacher Annie Sullivan is summoned by the family to help the girl understand the world from which she is isolated, freeing Helen Keller from her internal prison forever. Television remake of the 1962 film which also starred Patty Duke in the role of Helen Keller.

A passionate and innovative teacher leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to this students, Ron Clark must use unconventional methods, including his ground-breaking classroom rules, to drive them toward their potential.

Some students taking driver's ed during the summer. Among the students is Riko, a cocky guy; Chad, a guy from a privileged background, who's terrified to get behind the wheel; Vanessa, who's over protective mom who wouldn't allow her to take the course, who went behind her back; and Maria, a spoiled foreign student. Now the principal wants the students to pass so he tells the instructor, who's still not over his wife leaving and is not exactly up to the task, that it's important for the students to pass so he brought in a special instructor, who's very tough. And the principal also tells one of his teachers to let, one of the students Maslanski who's the school football star, pass the test he failed so that he can concentrate on driver's ed. But the teacher, seeing this as an opportunity to expose the principal as not doing his job and thus paving the way for him to be the new principal, makes Maslanski take a make up test

Levi Collins' future is looking great. He's set to attend the local university on a tennis scholarship, but there s just one small problem, he didn't graduate. Now he s got to take summer school before his parents find out he failed senior science, and a budding romance with a classmate may show him there's more to education than grades.

Taking place in real time, elementary school teacher Emily organizes a mixer of like-minded women, but an altercation between a woman from Emily’s past and the group leads to a volatile chain of events.

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries a radical new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential… and maybe even their genius. Based on a true story.

Based on a true story from 1998, five Latino and Black teenagers from the toughest underserved ghetto in Miami fight their way into the National Chess Championship under the guidance of their unconventional but inspirational teacher.

As a war rages on in the province of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, a young girl becomes transfixed by the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, which is being read at school by the only white man in the village. In 1991, a war over a copper mine in the South Pacific tore the island of Bougainville apart. The reclusive “Popeye” (Hugh Laurie) offers the children in fourteen-year-old Matilda’s tiny village an escape with Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. But on an island at war, fiction can have dangerous consequences.

Based on the story by Ray Bradbury. Set on a planet where the sun shines for just a few minutes once every nine years, this is a classic tale of suffering and forgiveness. A classroom full of young children are excited to hear that today the rain will stop. However, they are also resentful of a new classmate from Earth who remembers what it's like to see the sun. "This gripping, unsettling production softens the original story’s abrupt conclusion without diminishing its punch. A masterful work." - Booklist. Winner of a CINE Golden Eagle, and honored by Instructor Magazine as one of the 25 Best Films of the Year.

A schoolteacher plagued by alcoholism and his refusal to serve in World War II, Graham Weir inspires contempt in almost everyone around him, including his bitter wife, Anna. When the lovely young Shirley Taylor, one of Weir's students, falls for her unfortunate instructor, he is tempted and flattered but turns down her advances. Taylor's subsequent actions make Weir's life even more complicated.

When new teacher Steve Drake joins the faculty at a school for special-needs students, his unorthodox instruction methods raise eyebrows. But attitudes begin to change when he makes a connection with a particularly unruly student.

A new teacher at a highly problematic comprehensive school feels that corporal punishment may just be inflaming the problems, and so begins to campaign against it.

An unflinching verité portrait of the children of Stanton Elementary School in North Philadelphia, an inner-city neighborhood where 90% of the students live below the poverty line. Seen through the viewpoint of devoted principal Deanna Burney, the film shows Stanton as grossly underfunded, understaffed, and filled with children struggling to overcome their difficulties. But for these at-risk kids, however, the hope for their future survives only in the success of their education. A captivating series of vignettes concerning children growing up outside the American dream, echoing current “hot-button” issues in our country’s ongoing political discussion.