Excerpt
SUMMARY: In 1870, on the heels of civil war and the end of slavery, the nation's first African-American public high school opened just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Today Dunbar High School is honoring its past while hoping to recapture what once made it great. Jeffrey Brown talks to Alison Stewart about her new book, "First Class."
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): It's a school aiming for the future.
STEPHEN JACKSON, Principal, Dunbar High School: Good morning.
JEFFREY BROWN: When principal Stephen Jackson greeted students to Dunbar High in Washington, D.C., on a recent morning, it was to a brand-new $122 million dollar state-of-the-art building that boasts the latest in classroom and energy-saving technology.
It's one part of the city's effort to turn around a deeply troubled school system. Just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, Dunbar, on its former site next door, was known for low graduation rates, low test scores, and an often dangerous environment.
But the school, named for poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, is also one with a glorious, historic past. That's now captured in a small museum in the new building and eagerly touted by principal Jackson to the outside world and to his students.
PBS Newshour American Graduate
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