Born to immigrant parents in a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mike Rose was not expected to make it in school. He did—and went on to become a teacher, working with people on the edges of society: inner-city children, Vietnam veterans, adults trying to overcome a lifetime of disadvantage. Now, as associate director of the writing program at UCLA, he continues to teach under-prepared students how to enter and succeed in the academic world. He writes about his students, many of them poor, all of them labeled failures, as he once was. In this program with Bill Moyers, Rose discusses his ideas on education in general and educating the disadvantaged. "The presence of such a huge number of people who are so disenfranchised," he says, "runs counter to the best story that this country tells itself about itself." (30 minutes)