There's money to be made in education, argues Bob Bowdon, henceforth merely if you cut away the unprofitable bits, like practiced teachers. In his documentary "The Cartel," Bowdon, a New Jersey TV news reporter, turns the camera on the monumental corruption and mismanagement that has led his state to spend more than any other on its students but with shoddy results. As $400,000 is spent per classroom, but reading proficiency is just 39% (and math at 40%), the crisis is clear, which doesn't mean it's not controversial.
Here are two major factions in Bowdon's movie -- the villains are pretty 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. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools that can work beyond the authority of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. Bowdon makes much of the fact that it's pretty much impossible for an instructor to be fired, a safety net that does little to encourage hard work in those teachers who understand they have a vocation regardless of how many of the three Rs they instruct -- if any.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of individual aspects of public teaching, tenure, financing, patronage drops, subversion --meaning thieving -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The idiom education documentary might sound to some like dull squared, but in fact the movie itself betrays an ardent passion for the predicament of particularly inner-city children."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters nationally a year later. Hopefully it will get a boost, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released docudrama "Waiting for Superman," by "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim. Bowdon sees the two documentaries as taking alternative approaches to the identical predicament, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" focusing on the human-interest aspects. "My film is the left-brained variant, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
It is undoubtedly analytical, couching its arguments in an appraisal of how the money is being spent, or misspent. But that isn't to say the picture is without heart. Bowdon makes sure his eye is continually on the people affected, chiefly the inner-city students trapped in a shattered system. The tearful face of a youthful girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own intense argument for the disappointing failure of a state's education system.
And although it may be easy to assume the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the matter is that this is an exceedingly familiar situation. Bowdon's film illustrates a local dilemma, but any viewer will realize the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon comes out in favor of the charter school plan, of taxpayers being able to choose their own schools, to get out from under the state's control. Nevertheless he also knows it'll be an upward conflict to retrieve control from those who've worked so hard to make education very profitable for the very few. - 40731
Here are two major factions in Bowdon's movie -- the villains are pretty 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. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools that can work beyond the authority of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. Bowdon makes much of the fact that it's pretty much impossible for an instructor to be fired, a safety net that does little to encourage hard work in those teachers who understand they have a vocation regardless of how many of the three Rs they instruct -- if any.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of individual aspects of public teaching, tenure, financing, patronage drops, subversion --meaning thieving -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The idiom education documentary might sound to some like dull squared, but in fact the movie itself betrays an ardent passion for the predicament of particularly inner-city children."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters nationally a year later. Hopefully it will get a boost, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released docudrama "Waiting for Superman," by "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim. Bowdon sees the two documentaries as taking alternative approaches to the identical predicament, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" focusing on the human-interest aspects. "My film is the left-brained variant, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
It is undoubtedly analytical, couching its arguments in an appraisal of how the money is being spent, or misspent. But that isn't to say the picture is without heart. Bowdon makes sure his eye is continually on the people affected, chiefly the inner-city students trapped in a shattered system. The tearful face of a youthful girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own intense argument for the disappointing failure of a state's education system.
And although it may be easy to assume the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the matter is that this is an exceedingly familiar situation. Bowdon's film illustrates a local dilemma, but any viewer will realize the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon comes out in favor of the charter school plan, of taxpayers being able to choose their own schools, to get out from under the state's control. Nevertheless he also knows it'll be an upward conflict to retrieve control from those who've worked so hard to make education very profitable for the very few. - 40731
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