There's money to be made in education, argues Bob Bowdon, however exclusively when you snip out the unprofitable bits, like respectable teachers. In his documentary "The Cartel," Bowdon, a New Jersey TV news reporter, turns the camera on the massive degeneracy and misdirection that has led his state to expend more than any other on its students nevertheless with abysmal results. The numbers express the tale: $17,000 spent per student, and at hand's but a 39% reading proficiency rate, it's difficult to contend that there's a crisis underway, but harder to concur on a solution.
The two sides of this battle meet head-on in interviews throughout Bowdon's film: there are the teachers union and school board members who have managed to apportion 90 cents of every taxpayer buck into everything but teachers' salaries -- whilst a selection of school administrators earn upwards of $100,000. The other cabal is the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can leave behind the clout of the public school system and would serve inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more cautiously used. One of Bowdon's principal criticisms is that a teacher, even a deficient one, fundamentally can't be fired -- which provides zero ambition to do much literal teaching.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of distinctive aspects of public education, tenure, backing, support drops, corruption --meaning thievery -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The phrase education documentary can sound to some like dry squared, but in fact the movie itself betrays an fervid passion for the plight 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 rise, 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 similar problem, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" centering on the human-interest aspects. "The two films make parallel conclusions," Bowdon says.
The left-brained method means arguments that follow the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. He follows the money to extract conclusions about how crooked the Jersey school system is, but his picture features moments of high emotion and broken heartedness. The weeping face of an adolescent girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own deep controversy for the dissatisfactory failure of a state's education system.
And although there's a satire in this sort of public depravity happening in a state renowned for its organized crime, it's unambiguous that this is not an isolated collapse. Bowdon's film illustrates a local predicament, but any watcher will recognize the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon puts his faith in the charter schools, where the taxpayer has influence over the kind and quality of instruction. But he also makes it accurate that those in power are going to be unwilling to give it up without a fight. - 40731
The two sides of this battle meet head-on in interviews throughout Bowdon's film: there are the teachers union and school board members who have managed to apportion 90 cents of every taxpayer buck into everything but teachers' salaries -- whilst a selection of school administrators earn upwards of $100,000. The other cabal is the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can leave behind the clout of the public school system and would serve inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more cautiously used. One of Bowdon's principal criticisms is that a teacher, even a deficient one, fundamentally can't be fired -- which provides zero ambition to do much literal teaching.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of distinctive aspects of public education, tenure, backing, support drops, corruption --meaning thievery -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The phrase education documentary can sound to some like dry squared, but in fact the movie itself betrays an fervid passion for the plight 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 rise, 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 similar problem, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" centering on the human-interest aspects. "The two films make parallel conclusions," Bowdon says.
The left-brained method means arguments that follow the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. He follows the money to extract conclusions about how crooked the Jersey school system is, but his picture features moments of high emotion and broken heartedness. The weeping face of an adolescent girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own deep controversy for the dissatisfactory failure of a state's education system.
And although there's a satire in this sort of public depravity happening in a state renowned for its organized crime, it's unambiguous that this is not an isolated collapse. Bowdon's film illustrates a local predicament, but any watcher will recognize the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon puts his faith in the charter schools, where the taxpayer has influence over the kind and quality of instruction. But he also makes it accurate that those in power are going to be unwilling to give it up without a fight. - 40731
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