A Peabody Award-winning series from Nashville Public Radio about inequality and the people trying to rise above it, with host and reporter Meribah Knight. In Season 1 of The Promise, we told the story of Nashville's largest public housing complex, smack in the middle of a city on the rise. In Season 2, we explore how that divide reveals itself in the classroom. One neighborhood, two schools — one black and poor, the other white and well-off, and the kids stuck in the middle.
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A Peabody Award-winning series from Nashville Public Radio about inequality and the people trying to rise above it, with host and reporter Meribah Knight. In Season 1 of The Promise, we told the story of Nashville's largest public housing complex, smack in the middle of a city on the rise. In Season 2, we explore how that divide reveals itself in the classroom. One neighborhood, two schools — one black and poor, the other white and well-off, and the kids stuck in the middle.
It’s February 2020, and Warner Elementary’s star is rising. It’s showing so much progress this year that it might be able to go from one of the lowest performing schools in Tennessee to one of the best. Now it’s just time to hunker down and work until the big state test at the end of the year.
But we all know what happens next. First, a natural disaster in Nashville. Then, a global pandemic. And at a school with low-income students, these challenges hit especially hard.
“I'm tired of fighting for kids. One person can’t consistently carry that burden,” Warner principal Ricki Gibbs said. “I was at a point where I was going to say, ‘You can have Warner. This is too much.’”
In this dramatic final episode of Season 2, crisis brings Warner’s challenges to a breaking point.
The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
The Promise
A Peabody Award-winning series from Nashville Public Radio about inequality and the people trying to rise above it, with host and reporter Meribah Knight. In Season 1 of The Promise, we told the story of Nashville's largest public housing complex, smack in the middle of a city on the rise. In Season 2, we explore how that divide reveals itself in the classroom. One neighborhood, two schools — one black and poor, the other white and well-off, and the kids stuck in the middle.
