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My primary major is Critical Communication and Media Studies, so I do a lot of film/TV analysis. I'd heard good things about the show before and thought it would be a great opportunity to bring my own discipline into analyzing education.

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A naively optimistic new second grade teacher determined to make the school a better place for the kids.

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The completely incompetent principal of the school. She constantly dodges responsibilities while bullying her employees.

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An old school veteran teacher of Abbot Elementary. She serves as an at times reluctant mentor to Janine.

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Another veteran teacher from South Philly. She has shady connections through the city, which she often uses to help out the school, albeit unethically at times.

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One of the remaining hires from the group of 20 that Janine also came in with. He teaches the older children, and is awkward or even insensitive at times, despite his best efforts to appear socially progressive.

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The new substitute teacher brought in after another teacher was fired for kicking a student. He was originally hired to be the principal before Ava blackmailed the superintendent into giving her the job instead. He has a burgeoning love interest with Janine.

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This is a progressive show promoting teacher-centric models of education

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This is a progressive show promoting teacher-centric models of education

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Abbott Elementary is an extremely political show that deals with principles of education. It uses comedy, through parodic advocacy of the real conditions of underfunded schools, to raise awareness and promote sympathy for educators and 'failing' schools. It's funny, but has a really sad, cutting edge to it. As a media studies student, this kind of progressive commentary is extremely unique and isn't something that I see often.

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Entertainment media is a site of struggle over education

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Entertainment media is a site of struggle over education

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Shows like these bring issues of education to the public view. The concepts we have discussed aren't just academic or purely political, but rather are something that everyone can relate to, or even laugh at while learning more about real issues. In contrast to a progressive show like Abbott Elementary, other depictions of schooling in entertainment media further normalize the essentialist mode of education that seeks to pump out patriotic, disciplined, and effective workers.

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Essentialist measures such as the reading tablets attempt to measure and categorize students. When a student has behavioral issues in episode 5, Janine attempts to instill discipline and get the student to do more work instead, before later realizing that the material just isn't challenging enough for her. Despite humanizing measures by teachers, the very structure of the school and bureaucratic action is meant to instill discipline and create good future workers.

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Ghosts in the Schoolyard- 'Failing' Schools

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Ghosts in the Schoolyard- 'Failing' Schools

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As an underfunded school, many of the commentary the show makes about Abbott elementary itself mirrors what Ewing has to say about Dyett. Ultimately, the teachers are just trying to do what's best for the community, but are held back by educational structures and management, all while they and their students are judged by essentialist measures. Their failings are ultimately caused in the first place by the structures that judge them.

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The school has outdated textbooks, with the problem being no money. The city says there isn’t any, but they’re doing a multimillion-dollar renovation to the eagles stadium down the street.

The year before, the school hired 20 teachers, but now 3 are left. Characters discuss "trauma bonding” between teachers.

School management issues are highlighted--the principal is completely incompetent.

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New technology in episode 4 is designed to measure student progress and report results in order to determine teacher pay. Turns out, this tech was actually designed for use on prisoners in order to make prison labor more efficient and had to be removed due to ethics issues. Teachers are highly pressured to display results, getting in the way of their actual teaching goals. Students are pressured to perform to measurable standards, such as grade reading level.

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The principal, Ava, is incompetent, unqualified, and selfish. She actually blackmailed the superintendent to get the job in the first place. Ava spends much needed school funding that teachers fought for on a sign with her face in episode 1, and in episode 3, she abuses teachers' requests for school supplies online to receive luxury products for herself. When Janine tries to report her to the superintendent for abuse of power and incompetence, the email instead bounces back to Ava, completely blocking any opportunity for Janine to connect to higher management. It is very clear that the teachers know far more about education than Ava and other management.

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The show sets out to make viewers empathize with teachers' struggles. Due to underfunding, the ineffectiveness of the standard (white perspective) curriculum, and unreasonable work demands, 17 out of 20 teachers hired quit within a year. The end of episode 1 shows a passionate side of even the grizzled veteran teachers when they reveal they deal with the school's issues, the low pay, and the demands of the job because they care for the children that much. Janine is clearly passionate, but youthfully in a way that is naive. She is unable to make any sort of necessary changes, such as getting new rugs, without either using her own money, going without eating, or straight up stealing or using dishonest practices. Teachers (and students) are held back by the lack of control they have over their own jobs.

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Abbott Elementary is a majority-black urban school. It is severely underfunded, as many are. The government claims to have no money to fund the school, but is spending millions of dollars on a stadium renovation. The show explicitly deals with racial differences between Jacob, a white teacher, and his black colleague Gregory, who he attempts to befriend using microaggressions. It also comments on the disconnect between non-majority culture and education through Janine using slang words to teach grammar, which an older teacher disapproves of. Over and over, the educational apparatus is shown to fail the needs of the students and to ignore their culture.

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In episode one, the school's textbooks are shown to be over a decade out of date, as teachers are unable to fix a broken toilet, replace soiled rugs, or buy other necessary supplies. In episode three, the entire school's power goes out because they are unable to bring in an electrician to fix the lights. The administration consistently squanders much needed funds.

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Struggles of teachers who are trying to improve underfunded conditions versus jaded old teachers— Janine isn’t able to eat all day trying to get the failing lights in the school back on but keeps making things worse. Shows how the horrible conditions necessitate complacency from educators in order to survive in their jobs.

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Demonstrates the humanizing effect of teaching and the passion of teachers to support kids, but also how the schooling system makes carrying out that passion difficult. Teachers are forced to go to unreasonable or uncomfortable measures to have materials for the kids.

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Students are made to say the pledge of allegiance. One student is shown actually refusing for social justice causes. Jacob teaches inaccurate history about the progress of labor unions to attempt to portray the necessity of peaceful protest, all while the protests weren't entirely peaceful. Melissa, who experienced the moment in history firsthand, calls him out for it. The school is meant to put out politically normative subjects, but teachers and students resist.

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Shows the alienation teachers and students face by government education initiatives attempting to essentialize education; discusses the sanitization of history.

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Social pressures for teachers to be ‘efficient workers’--the education system measures effectiveness of teachers just like students. Students’ personalities and humanity is minimized by disciplinary measures in education because the system is more likely to punish than do root cause analysis.