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PBS SERIES ON EDUCATIONAL CRISIS WINS A PEABODY
National Black Programming Consortium’s 180 Days: A Year
Inside An American High School addresses the nation’s
high school dropout problem
The National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC)
documentary series, 180 Days: A Year Inside An American
High School, which shines the spotlight on the nation’s
educational crisis, has won a Peabody Award, the Pulitzer
Prize of electronic media. Jacquie Jones, the executive
director of NBPC, will be presented the award on May 19 at
the Peabody Awards ceremony at New York City’s
Waldorf-Astoria.
“We are very pleased to be acknowledged for a series we know
has helped inspire much-needed dialogue around the many
factors impacting vulnerable students in our public schools,
including standardized testing and its effects on our
students and educational institutions,” said Jones.
Over the course of a full school year, 180 Days
follows a high school at the epicenter of the nation’s
school reform movement. The two-part series offers a window
into the struggles of five students at Washington
Metropolitan High School—AKA DC Met—as they battle life’s
challenges to graduate and succeed. The series also shows
how the push for success in standardized testing is often at
odds with the realities facing young people and the lengths
to which the faculty must go to ensure their students are
able to have their day in the light, in full cap and gown.
180 Days
was produced and directed by Jones and Garland McLaurin and
edited by Adam Lingo and Carol Slatkin. Christopher Paultre
composed the music. The series, part of
American
Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen,
a public media initiative supported by the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting (CPB) that helps communities nationwide
understand and implement solutions to address the high
school dropout crisis, aired on PBS in March 2013. The film
can be seen at http://video.pbs.org/program/180-days/.
About the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC)
The
National
Black Programming Consortium
develops, produces and funds content about the Black
experience for public media outlets, including PBS and
PBS.org, BlackPublicMedia.org and other public media
outlets. Founded in 1979, NBPC produces AfroPoP: The
Ultimate Cultural Exchange documentary series and
manages the community engagement project Public Media Corps
(PMC).
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