The education mode in America is working swell, says Bob Bowdon, however simply for some -- and those few surely aren't the students. In his docudrama "The Cartel," New Jersey television news reporter Bowdon shines a light on the putrefaction and greed that has resulted in the disappearing of so much taxpayer money in that state. When $400,000 is exhausted per classroom, but reading proficiency is only 39% (and math at 40%), the crisis is unmistakable, which doesn't mean it's not controversial.
There are two major factions in Bowdon's movie -- the villains are reasonably clearly the Jersey teachers union and school board who funnel 90 cents of every dollar away from teachers' salaries and toward incidentals, including six-figure salaries for school administrators. The other faction are the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can get away from the authority of the public school system and would aid inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more sensibly used. One of Bowdon's primary criticisms is that a teacher, even a bad one, fundamentally can't be fired -- which provides zero ambition to do much actual instruction.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of different aspects of public education, tenure, funding, patronage drops, corruption --meaning larceny -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it sort of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the red-hot topics inside the education-reform drive."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters countrywide a year later. It consequently proceeds the more-recently released, while higher profile, education docudrama "Waiting for Superman," directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"). Bowdon sees the two documentaries as taking different approaches to the identical dilemma, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" centering on the human-interest aspects. "The two films reach equivalent conclusions," Bowdon says.
And Bowdon's film is relentlessly acute, making a intense case for the belief that the amount of money spent is nowhere near as pertinent as how it is spent. But that isn't to say the film is without heart. Bowdon makes sure his eye is perpetually on the people affected, especially the inner-city students trapped in a broken system. The weeping face of an adolescent girl who learns she was not selected for a spot at a charter school makes its own strong controversy for the dissatisfactory failure of a state's education system.
And though there's an irony in this form of public depravity happening in a state famed for its organized crime, it's obvious that this is not an isolated collapse. Any watcher will realize the failings of their own state's education system and the battle for control. Bowdon comes out in favor of the charter school plan, of taxpayers being able to select their own schools, to get out from under the state's control. But "The Cartel" also shows us how laborious it's going to be to get that control back from those who've found it so profitable. - 40731
There are two major factions in Bowdon's movie -- the villains are reasonably clearly the Jersey teachers union and school board who funnel 90 cents of every dollar away from teachers' salaries and toward incidentals, including six-figure salaries for school administrators. The other faction are the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can get away from the authority of the public school system and would aid inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more sensibly used. One of Bowdon's primary criticisms is that a teacher, even a bad one, fundamentally can't be fired -- which provides zero ambition to do much actual instruction.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of different aspects of public education, tenure, funding, patronage drops, corruption --meaning larceny -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it sort of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the red-hot topics inside the education-reform drive."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters countrywide a year later. It consequently proceeds the more-recently released, while higher profile, education docudrama "Waiting for Superman," directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"). Bowdon sees the two documentaries as taking different approaches to the identical dilemma, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" centering on the human-interest aspects. "The two films reach equivalent conclusions," Bowdon says.
And Bowdon's film is relentlessly acute, making a intense case for the belief that the amount of money spent is nowhere near as pertinent as how it is spent. But that isn't to say the film is without heart. Bowdon makes sure his eye is perpetually on the people affected, especially the inner-city students trapped in a broken system. The weeping face of an adolescent girl who learns she was not selected for a spot at a charter school makes its own strong controversy for the dissatisfactory failure of a state's education system.
And though there's an irony in this form of public depravity happening in a state famed for its organized crime, it's obvious that this is not an isolated collapse. Any watcher will realize the failings of their own state's education system and the battle for control. Bowdon comes out in favor of the charter school plan, of taxpayers being able to select their own schools, to get out from under the state's control. But "The Cartel" also shows us how laborious it's going to be to get that control back from those who've found it so profitable. - 40731
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