The Wire

by Rafael Alvarez

  For some of these kids, school is not the No. 1 priority. Survival is the No. 1 priority.”

  His students had often already failed a grade and were too old to be in middle school. Social promotion was inevitable and the kids knew it.

  “They didn’t want to do anything. They knew they were going to pass because they were too old. It was a very tough situation. What could you do? The kids were right.”

  •

  The Baltimore schools, like those in many other large American cities, have been buffeted by profound racial change in the last half-century.

  Through the 1950s and into the 1960s, the system was predominantly white and generally well-regarded. As the Baltimore schools integrated to comply with court rulings, a wave of white families left the city for the suburbs. Between 1950 and 1990, the white population of Baltimore declined by 430,000.

  In the mid-1970s, the city became officially majority-black; among the white families remaining, fewer and fewer chose to enroll their children in the schools.

  More affluent families, in particular, sent their kids to private schools while the middle class often chose parochial education. Many middle-class black families also fled the city for the promise of suburbia.

  The school system increasingly became home to lower-income, African-American students – in other words, the students with the greatest needs. Perversely, while the needs of the school system were mounting, resources were declining, and, not surprisingly, educational results fell.

  The mayor at the time was an old-line white pol named William Donald Schaefer, a product of Baltimore public schools. Mayor from 1971 to 1987, Schaefer had a devotion to neighborhoods while apparently recognizing that the floundering system was a lost cause.

  Schaefer focused on high-profile downtown developments, including the touristy Inner Harbor, a convention center, and, eventually, a light rail project and new professional sports stadiums. Progress on these bricks-and-mortar projects was easy to observe and each was opened with high-profile festivities as the schools continued to decline.

  The public grew accustomed to bad news – boxes of unopened books found in school warehouses as students went without; astonishingly poor scores on standardized tests; bureaucrats stubbornly refusing to try new approaches or innovative curriculums.

  One memorable day at a North Baltimore high school, the beleaguered principal suspended 1,200 of the school’s 1,800 students when they refused to obey a directive to return to their homerooms. The stories mounted and support for the system fell.

  African-American educators cemented control of the system and black patronage replaced white patronage. Membership in the right African-American sororities or churches was helpful in boosting careers.

  By the 1990s, the system was reaching rock bottom, hampered by inadequate funding and a series of leaders unable to blow up the status quo.

  A turning point came in 1997, when the city’s first elected black mayor, Kurt L. Schmoke, agreed to share control of its schools with the state of Maryland in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding. Some black legislators from Baltimore decried the move to cede some control to the state as “racist paternalism.”

  Perhaps, but more than anything, the move was a profound admission of failure.

  •

  Over the years, I’ve tutored a couple of third-grade boys from a struggling West Baltimore school.

  One boy – call him Isaac – was wiry and moved with tenacious energy. On tutoring days, we’d sit in our little cubby, with a map of the world pinned to the bulletin board, and I’d coax him to read passages aloud.

  Sometime Isaac managed to get through them, sometimes he would get distracted and fixate on something else – the chalk at the chalkboard, the map on the wall, the snacks.

  A few weeks into our sessions, I pressed him one morning to focus and do the reading. He burst into tears. I watched dumbfounded as he crawled under the table and curled up. He stayed there for a while.

  Over time, I pieced together details of his life: a mother on drugs, a father in a wheelchair – no doubt a victim of the city’s violent crime – and out of Isaac’s life. The tears came a few more times during our weekly lessons. I didn’t help his reading all that much, but I gave him a safe place to let out some emotion.

  Isaac today is likely in the kind of West Baltimore middle school portrayed on The Wire. I’m sure it is not the kind of place where boys are allowed to cry.

  •

  Season Four of The Wire focused on one extremely troubled middle school. It is far from atypical; many real-life Baltimore schools are failing.

  But the show provides an incomplete picture. Thanks in part to state funding that increased in the 2000s and attention from local and national foundations, the system has made progress.

  Test scores, particularly at the elementary level, have gone up significantly. School enrollment has actually crept up – a possible sign that the public is embracing the progress.

  Meanwhile at a number of top schools, including the ones both of my sons attended, virtually every student graduates and students regularly earn places at some of the nation’s most selective colleges.

  By 2009, the Baltimore schools were under the leadership of an unlikely outsider, Andres Alonso, a soft-spoken, Cuban-born immigrant who once taught special education in the troubled schools of Newark, New Jersey.

  Alonso has purged hundreds of bureaucrats from the central administrative office, known as “North Avenue,” and reallocated spending to the schools.

  Publicly, he insists that the system must expect all students to do well in school. It is an admirably idealistic goal, maybe even the right one for a public system determined to foster equal opportunity.

  Be sure, however, that not all of Baltimore’s young people will conquer basic reading, writing and math skills or, perhaps, learn a trade; much less master algebra or interpret Shakespeare.

  The reality is that the hardships that cripple so many of the city’s families, particularly drug abuse and poverty, and the lure of the streets, are far too powerful for many young people to overcome.

  Many thousands of Baltimore children will continue to fail to graduate or, if they do, be inadequately prepared for a productive working career – except, perhaps, a quick and likely fatal run at Baltimore’s drug trade.

  Things will change only if the people, and then the politicians, decide that things must change.

  The only question is just how many young people we will lose while the public settles for a failed system. The Wire’s dark portrayal of Baltimore suggests that it will be a long wait.

  I’m afraid they’re right.

  Tom Waldron

  episode forty-six

  “KNOW YOUR PLACE”

  “Might as well dump ’em, get another.”

  – PROPOSITION JOE

  Directed by Alex Zakrzewski

  Story by Ed Burns & Kia Corthron; teleplay by Kia Corthron

  Poot is back after serving 15 months of his four-year sentence, back with Bodie and joined by Little Kevin when Herc and Dozerman hit their corner. The cops leave with nothing.

  “These police out here knew how to flip it even just a little, my shit’d be in handcuffs,” says Kevin.

  When Namond shows up, Bodie and Poot tell him where to station his lookouts and, to his shame, not to send his mother to the corner anymore.

  Omar, released from a county detention center on Greggs’s old-fashioned police work, is immediately met by Bunk, who barks: “No more fuckin’ bodies from you. No comebacks or get-evens on this. No more killing.”

  The killer agrees but cannot leave a town where he grew up, a town where real-life cops have found suspects in heinous crimes hiding under their mothers’ bed.

  “Baltimore all I know,” says Omar. “Man gotta live what he know.”

  New City Council President Nerese Campbell, chief Carcetti strategist Norm Wilson, newly elected State’s Attorney Rupert Bond and other city of
ficials meet with Carcetti about his plans.

  It is soon apparent that the maverick’s desire to fight crime with a new police commissioner will face major hurdles.

  Later, when Campbell opposes him on the idea of a waterfront casino, it comes out that Royce had promised she’d be next in line for mayor.

  Carcetti tells her she still can be – “without so much as a campaign speech” – for he already has eyes on the governor’s mansion. But now, he needs her support in City Hall.

  The days of good ’ole Erv Burrell, as political a police commissioner as there is, would seem to be numbered.

  “If you want me to go,” he will later tell Carcetti. “You gonna have to shitcan me.”

  Prop Joe tells Marlo and Chris that the cop on their business card – Herc – was part of the detail that managed to tap Stringer Bell’s phone, even though the dead and legendary gangster changed his cell every day. Marlo gets the message.

  While Greggs drives Bubbles through the ’hood in search of the guy who’s been fucking with him, Partlow tells Marlo that Old Face Andre has not been seen and may be singing for the cops.

  Marlo tells him to hold off on killing the carpetbagging boys from Gotham, that “this shit with Andre? Job one.”

  It’s also at the top of Omar’s to-do list, as he and Renaldo stake out the store. “That man got some explainin’ to do,” says Omar, reprising one of Ricky Ricardo’s favorite lines for a new day in the ’hood.

  When Marlo later shows up at the store, they recognize him as one of the guys Omar robbed at the poker game.

  “No wonder he don’t like me,” chuckles Omar.

  Randy, with Dukie along for the ride, buys his way into a dice game and leaves with a nice payday. When one of the losers asks where he learned his game, Randy proudly replies: “Edward Tilghman Middle.”

  Greggs turns Bubbles and his hard-on for the Fiend over to Herc and Dozerman, who tell him they’ll take care of his nemesis if he can identify Little Kevin with the red hat trick, Bubbles’s vaudeville version of the Judas kiss.

  Michael’s stepfather demands the Social Services ATM card, but the boy refuses, saying the money for the month is gone.

  In Colvin’s project class, the kids have to build a scale model using an erector set, the winners to go downtown for a meal in a nice restaurant. One catch: no instructions; pull it off on your wits.

  Quips Namond: “It ain’t like we follow the instructions anywhere else, right?” And then proceeds to lead his team in building something that looks enough like the Eiffel Tower to be recognizable.

  With his girlfriend visited by Snoop and Partlow and a warning bullet, a scared-to-death Andre turns to Prop Joe for help, offering the deed to his store in exchange for cash to skip town. He reluctantly accepts $2,000 for the real estate and heads north.

  Or so he thinks. Double-crossed by Prop Joe, he winds up in the company of Partlow and Snoop, who march him to his death.

  In a pow-wow with Rawls, Carcetti says he wants Burrell to run the big-picture initiatives while the colonel handles the day-to-day. And then says that Valchek becomes deputy commissioner of administration as a political payback. He also wants to bump Daniels to colonel and give him “carte blanche to fix the investigative units.”

  Rawls agrees to all of it, while noting, with some resistance, Daniels’s “independent streak.”

  When Michael asks Randy and Dukie whom he should talk to about getting his junkie mother some help, the boys suggest Cutty.

  “He’s too friendly,” objects Michael. “Like he some type of faggot or something. Everybody just too motherfuckin’ friendly.”

  And then takes his problem to someone not renowned for his friendliness: Marlo.

  Colvin treats Namond’s winning engineering team to a meal at Ruth’s Chris, perhaps the finest steakhouse at the Inner Harbor. They are fish out of water – reminiscent of D’Angelo’s date at a similarly swank joint in Season One – and the trip falls apart.

  Later, Colvin will tell Parenti: “How do you get them to believe in themselves when they can’t admit their feelings about who they are and what they’re doing in this world?”

  A nervous Bubbles holds the Fiend at bay for as long as he can while waiting for Herc to come to the rescue as promised. But Herc is busy listening to a raft of horseshit from Little Kevin, a fat man in a red hat. Defenseless, Bubbles is beaten by the Fiend with a metal pipe.

  The night before his promotion to colonel, Daniels and Pearlman enjoy a quiet evening together and toast their good fortune over leftovers.

  “Funny,” says Daniels, noting all the years he tried to get ahead by “kissing ass, covering ass and doing what I’m told.” And when he finally says what he really thinks, he gets promoted.

  “Maybe,” he says, “it’s not going to be so unbelievably fucked-up anymore.”

  Carver shows up at Cutty’s gym to lay down the law about the corner to Namond and his buddies Kenard and Donut: “I see you out there a second time and everyone takes a beating,” and goes to juvenile lock-up.

  When Cutty tells Carver who Namond’s father is, he adds: “Same blood, but not the same heart.”

  episode forty-seven

  “MISGIVINGS”

  “The world goin’ one way, people another.”

  – POOT

  Directed by Ernest Dickerson

  Story by Ed Burns & Eric Overmyer; teleplay by Eric Overmyer

  Thomas J. Carcetti is mayor-elect of the City of Baltimore, having won the general election by 82 percent in the heavily Democratic city.

  Immediately, a new dance of political jockeying commences. First comes Clay Davis, who intimates that he and Carcetti may be working together in the state capital before long; while behind the scenes Rawls and Burrell wrangle, interpreting policy and stats as best suits their desire to run the show.

  Donut crashes a stolen SUV and when Officer Eddie Walker catches up with him, the cop breaks several of the boy’s fingers in anger over the paperwork he now has to do.

  At Tilghman Middle, Grace Sampson tells Prez the school keeps the heat on high so pupils are too drowsy to act up during the teaching of the mandatory state exam.

  “From now ’til they’re done,” she says, “everything’s about the tests.” To Colvin’s disgust, this philosophy extends to the project class he is running with Professor Parenti.

  Omar and Renaldo stay vigilant on their surveillance of Marlo and his crew. When Renaldo asks his mentor if he’d have robbed Marlo if he’d known who he was, Omar replies: “Woulda enjoyed it that much more.”

  To make up for the “communication problem,” that led to Bubbles getting worked over with a metal pipe, Herc brings a peace offering of chicken wings, a cell phone and news that the reward for the camera is $500.

  Angry, the junkie replies: “Five hunnert for a camera and a chicken box for Bubs, huh?” and then explains he doesn’t want money, he wants the peace of mind to go about his livelihood without being terrorized.

  When Little Kevin goes to Marlo to explain why the cops have been talking to him, the fat man in the red hat is pushed into the back of an SUV and the word goes out that Randy Wagstaff is a snitch. It isn’t long before it comes back on the boy.

  What most intrigues Omar, however, is that a Barksdale lieutenant – Slim Charles – was present when the Stanfield crew drove Kevin away.

  On Namond’s corner, Carver finds drugs sloppily dropped to the ground and cuffs the boy. Back at the Western, the troops are told to focus on minor, quality-of-life violations to double the amount of arrests in the next month.

  When Michael points out his stepfather to Chris Partlow and Snoop, he says: “I just want him gone.”

  Snoop asks: “What the fuck he do to you?” and when Michael can’t bring himself to answer, a sympathetic Chris promises that they’ll take care of it.

  Herc and the spy camera remain worlds apart and the lovable knucklehead decides to come clean with Lieutenant Marimow about what happened. As he
does – blaming sloppy paperwork – a call comes in from Bubbles.

  Marimow forces Herc to ignore the call, reprimands him for the fuckup at the train station involving Marlo and the “skinny girl,” and in the midst of this, Herc changes his mind about telling the truth about the camera.

  And again, Bubbles languishes, deciding to get even by telling Herc that a Westside preacher has dope on him from Marlo. When nothing turns up but a Bible, the minister gets Herc’s name and badge number.

  Bunny agrees to take his errant student home with him and when his wife remarks how well-behaved Namond is, the ex-cop smiles and says: “Don’t be fooled. This is his Eddie Haskell act.”

  Later, when Colvin takes Namond back to his house, his mother De’Londa shouts at him to “leave my son the fuck alone.”

  Bodie and Poot get a visit from Slim Charles, who reports on the fate of Little Kevin, saying that Chris Partlow and Snoop “walked him down an alley. He in a vacant now.”

  While the area superintendent of schools shadows his class, Prez focuses on the sample exam questions. The moment the bureaucrat leaves, its back to West Baltimore Monte Carlo games for his students.

  When another superintendent meets with Colvin and Professor Parenti – questioning the lack of prep for the state test – Colvin says: “They’re not fools, these kids … Jesus, they see right through us.”

  The school system professionals aren’t impressed, saying what they saw “wasn’t education as I understand the term.”

  Discussing the fate of Little Kevin – who was not a snitch – Bodie tells Poot that Marlo is just a “cold motherfucker.”

  “It’s a cold world, Bodie,” says Poot. “The world goin’ one way, people another.”

  And getting colder by the moment for Michael’s stepfather, whom Partlow, while marching him to his death, keeps asking if he likes “fucking little boys.”