Boy on Fire

The body of a charter school student from a bad neighborhood is found to have been beaten and then set on fire. When the detectives are led to a video of the event, they discover that four people in the video may be in league with a surprising collaborator. This later leads to evidence of corruption by the school's principal. Debra Winger guest stars.

"Boy on Fire" was written by Douglas Shaluas, Ed Zuckerman, and Matthew McGough, and directed by Rose Troche.

This episode was partially inspired by the events surrounding the murder of Derrion Albert and the attack on Michael Brewer. Further, this episode references the Houston Independent School District, where the district's schools were widely praised for lowering dropout rates and improving test scores; this achievement was used to promote President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. It turned out that schools in this district had inflated their test scores by preventing low-achieving students from taking the tests. The schools also falsely reported that students who dropped out had transferred to other schools or received a GED in order to prevent them from being classified as dropouts.

In its original American broadcast on March 1, 2010, "Boy on Fire" was watched by 7.86 million average households over the hour, and received 2.1/6 in the 18-49 demographic according to the Nielsen ratings. The episode had fewer viewers than CSI: Miami on CBS, which drew 12.05 million households and came third in its timeslot.[1]

• Law & Order: Boy on Fire at IMDb