This Season HBO's 'The Wire' Tells the Cold Facts of 'Dysfunctional' Education

Oct. 24, 2006 — -- For David Simon and Ed Burns, writers and producers of the HBO series "The Wire," set in Baltimore, the dramas they craft have less to do with fiction than cold, hard facts.

Simon spent 13 years as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun; Burns was a Baltimore homicide detective, then became a teacher. They write about what they know: the gritty reality of the crumbling city they live in and love.

In its last three seasons, "The Wire" has examined the drug war, disappearing jobs and urban politics. This year the show tackles a complicated subject seldom touched by television drama: the dysfunction of big-city education.

In this season's episodes, Simon and Burns focus on the middle school years in which children so often get caught between the classroom and the streets. "Middle is the place where all the rubber hits the road," says Simon, the show's creator and executive producer. "By high school, a good percentage of kids are missing, particularly the at-risk kids. They're no longer in the high schools."

"The Wire" tries to depict the powerful magnets that pull at middle-school kids, says Burns. "Unfortunately, the major pull is the drug dealer. He's the man in the neighborhood that has what nobody else has, which is standing, money and power. And the kids naturally want to go in that direction."

The middle schools must compete with the drug dealer, along with pervasive poverty, street violence and abusive family settings, all of which pull at children just entering their teen years.

Throughout its 13 episodes, "The Wire" raises a fundamental question: Which education is most relevant to the lives of middle school kids? That received in the schools or on the streets?

Burns says neither his experiences as a cop or in the infantry during Vietnam prepared him for teaching in Baltimore's city schools.