Hedrick Smith Productions.

Hope is not what most Americans associate with the nation’s inner cities, but this program, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith, offers a rare series of powerful and encouraging portraits of urban heroes who are reviving once-dying neighborhoods. Filmed in Washington, D.C., the program offers an almost unknown face of the inner city—one that contrasts sharply with the typical images of crime, drugs, and violence seen on the nightly...

This program explores the central values of Japan, Germany, and the U.S. and focuses on what drives each of these societies. America's hallmark is individualism, Japan's the preeminence of the group; in America, freedom and diversity are primary values; in Japan, conformity and a powerful sense of nationalism prevail. Germany stands between the two, asserting individualism but striving, more than the U.S., for social harmony and consensus. The program...

In part one of this program, Hedrick Smith explores how the Uptown area of Chicago has dramatically lowered the rate of violent crime despite the ethnic diversity that normally spells turf wars, trouble, conflict, and violence. The critical ingredient is what Harvard social scientist Felton Earls calls social cohesion: a close-knit neighborhood and a strong community spirit developed through one of the highest concentrations of active, mutually supportive...

Amidst a gloomy climate of failing schools and the stringent No Child Left Behind legislation, some communities have created a small revolution, achieving gains with children others had given up on - with implications for schools nationwide. In this penetrating documentary, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith travels from inner city to rural town to observe how some districts and reform models are making a difference: the Success for All...

This program includes conversations with airline machinist Marv Sandrin, and Northwest Vice President, Richard Anderson. Sandrin is former president of District Lodge 143 of the Machinists' Union. He was employed at Northwest Airlines before the ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) gave him and his union an ownership stake in the company. Under that ESOP, unions gave up $900 million in wage and work rule concessions, and the owners gave labor three...

In an era where dual-career couples and single parents have become the norm, mothers and fathers are getting caught in a work-family conflict that pits the "ideal worker" against the "ideal parent." In this timely documentary, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith examines the impact and implications of a massive shift in our workforce that has buried the traditional father-breadwinner/mother-housewife family model. Incisive case studies,...

KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, is a network of free open-enrollment college-preparatory public schools in under-resourced communities throughout the United States. In this interview, KIPP co-developer Michael Feinberg joins Hedrick Smith to discuss the program-a reform initiative created as a model for middle school reform, starting in fifth grade. The purpose of KIPP? "To provide kids with the academic, intellectual, and character skills they...

In this interview, Robert Slavin, Ph.D., talks with Hedrick Smith about Success for All, a comprehensive, research-based reading and math program for elementary and middle schools. The most important objective, says Dr. Slavin, "is to get every single child to be successful, every single child to master the basic curriculum, to achieve the higher-order objectives that every parent would want for their child and that our society demands." The genesis,...

Part one of this program shows how the New South has found some answers to an old problem: racial violence-in this case church burnings in the rural flatlands of South Carolina. Law enforcement officials arrest and jail members of the Ku Klux Klan for the church burnings, and one black church files a lawsuit against the KKK and manages to win a remarkable

Eight year ago, many schools in Texas like this one were plagued by gangs, truancy, and poor academic results. Teachers were ready to try something new. Enter Ernie Cortes - a community organizer who was also disturbed by seeing kids turned off at school. To tap that student potential, Cortes formed an Alliance Schools Initiative to shake up public schools in working-class districts. The Cortes strategy is to work with churches and community activists...