TV Reviews : PBS Series Examines Illiteracy in America

When are Americans going to demand real change in a failing educational system that dates back to the 1920s? Is our “rooted nostalgia” for the way things have always been making us drag our feet? If we keep graduating illiterates, how smart are our generals, presidents, doctors and engineers going to be?

Those are questions posed by an earnest new four-part PBS series, “Crisis: Urban Education,” presented in half-hour segments, running tonight through Thursday at 11 p.m. on Channel 28.

The focus is on troubled Northeastern schools, but the problems are nationwide--illiteracy, a high school drop-out rate of 60% in some areas, teacher frustration over bureaucratic red tape and unending, paralyzing quarrels over how to make things better.

It’s not just a list of woes, however. The last half of the series profiles radical and common sense attempts to make things better.

A high school in East Harlem gave its policy-making and curricular authority to teachers, parents and students. It threw away the assembly-line, eight-class-a-day system. Students have two teachers; class size is limited to 15.

The emphasis is on knowing students as individuals and on “mutual respect.” Parents and students are eloquent on its behalf.

In Rochester, N.Y., the entire school system is a test case. It has undergone two years of major reforms, from the upping of teacher salaries to $28,000 ($10,000 over the national average), to giving teachers a voice in running the schools and responsibility for students outside the classroom.

It’s too early to tell if the changes have benefited students, and administrators fear “the public won’t give us time” to show a pay-off. “We are a nation at risk,” we’re told. “Americans need to be horrified by what they see.”