Summary Of I Am A Promise

Walking down cracked cement streets strewn with used syringes, students, ages four to ten, are captured by the surprising 1993 documentary I am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School. Taking place in a troubled inner-city neighborhood of northern Philadelphia, the Academy Award winning film explores the dynamics and challenges of a Chapter One School, which is a federally funded school to help disadvantaged poor children who test below the national norms. Stanton is composed of all African- American boys and girls, and over ninety percent of them come from single parent homes and live under the poverty line. In this paper, I will record my reactions toward the film, compare the differences of Stanton and of the schools I attended, and attempt to better understand the achievement gap.
One of the most intriguing stories for me was about a second grader named Cornelius. Though intelligent, Cornelius has trouble in controlling his behavior, so he is placed in the special education class. Noted in the documentary, four million children are placed in the special education classes and three million are minority males. This is further emphasized by a study conducted by sociologist Johnathan Kozol. He found that in one school in New York City, black students are “disproportionately sorted in special education classes.” The statistics intrigued me in a sense that it numerically shows the achievement gap between races. Additionally, Cornelius’s mother is single mother of three children and works two jobs. His father, on the other hand, does not play a supportive role in Cornelius’s life after getting shot in the back and has become paralyzed from the waist down. Like Cornelius, many children from Stanton Elementary School come from poor family