The Hartford Board of Education meeting in session. (Photographed by Victoria Smith Ellison)
On Tuesday March 5th, the Hartford Board of Education held a workshop during their meeting to present survey findings that were included in the draft of the “School Climate and Student Connectedness in the Hartford Public Schools” 2013 Report. The survey was designed to gather perceptions of school climate and measure the sense of connectedness that students feel within their schools. It was adapted from the American Research Institute and was administered this past December and January to students in grades three through twelve, parents, and school staff. The survey was made available in eight different languages, online and in print versions.
Hartford Public Schools teamed up with Achieve Hartford!, a third party education reform non-profit organization that focuses on bringing awareness to education issues, increasing parent engagement, and school accountability efforts. Last year’s data results were not sufficient enough to provide adequate feedback due to lack of participation from students, parents, and staff. However, due to the lessons learned from last year’s efforts, the preliminary results from this year’s improved survey and administration provides a substantial amount of data for the board. This information will allow the board to continue making efforts to improve school conditions and enhance students’, parents’, and teachers’ experiences.
This year’s data shows significant improvement in participation among all participant groups across the board. Matthew K. Poland, Chairman of the Hartford Board of Education, was critical of the results stating, “the data and increase in participation provides great information, but there is a need for deeper analysis of why the numbers are so low”. This year’s participation goal was set at 90 percent. Only one of the four groups of survey participants actually met the goal. In fact, survey participation for students in grades three and four increased from 58 percent to 95 percent, which exceeded the goal. Students in grades five through twelve saw an increase from 63 percent to 85 percent participation, and school staff saw an increase from 52 percent to 87 percent.
There was a huge focus on increasing participation this year, but the board was also very interested in the actual responses to the survey questions. Although there was an increase from 29 percent to 50 percent parent participation, they have the lowest participation for the second year in a row. Parent responses were discussed the most because of the low participation and the actual responses were surprising to the board. Parents were asked a series of fourteen questions that were not detailed in the report. The data shows parents who completed the survey felt positive about the schools that their children attend. On a scale from zero to five, zero being disappointed and upset and five being completely satisfied, parents rated an average of four point three towards their children’s school. The most surprising finding was the average satisfaction rating for parents whose children attend the district’s three lowest performing schools- Milner, Burns and America’s Choice at SAND was above four. This made some of the board members skeptical of the data and sparked questions for further analysis on parent’s perceptions of Hartford schools.
Moving forward, the board wants to explore what drives parent satisfaction, and if there is a correlation between school performance and parent satisfaction. In response to these questions, the superintendent of Hartford Public Schools, Christina M. Kishimoto stated, “We did talk about two components. One is that we have targeted focus group sessions to see how parents themselves are describing the quality of the school and see what indicators they are using. The other is looking at which time of the year the school is discussing with the parents the school’s performance and what level of detail in order to look at theses two items.” These findings were very surprising because the data shows a disconnect between student and parent responses on similar topics.
In considering the data collected in the draft of the 2013 Report on “School Climate and Student Connectedness in the Hartford Public Schools”, the Hartford Board of Education was pleased with the results of participation and the improved administration efforts from individual schools. In the future, the board suggested that Achieve Hartford! considers more ways to increase participation to meet the goal. The board also wants them to carefully evaluate the data because of the prevalence of inaccurate data and missing information in this year’s report. The final report is not available yet, but be sure to check Achieve Hartford!’s website when it is officially published to read it. The next Hartford Board of Education meeting will be held at 5:30 pm on March 19, 2013 at America’s Choice at SAND (Address: 1750 Main Street, CT 06120).
Governor’s Scholarship will direct funds to the neediest students first as it shifts state-funded financial aid from being institution centered to student centered. Armed with a 21 page Briefing Book, the Office of Higher Education (OHE), led by their Executive Director Jane Ciarleglio, broke down Governor Malloy’s proposed policy shift on financial aid into a palatable, comprehensive plan before the Higher Education subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee on March 5th.
Under Governor Malloy’s proposed scholarship program, the three programs currently in existence: Capitol Scholarship Program, Connecticut Independent College Student Grant Program (CICSG), and Connecticut Aid for Public College Students Program (CAPCS) will be streamlined into one program that has one single set of goals. Ciarleglio stressed that “at this point we are trying to make one single program with the same goals. One single way that people will be assessed on what your need is. This will direct funds to the neediest students first.” The goal is to have all students treated the same regardless of what institution they are attending.
As the state-aid program currently exists students were never assured the same award from differing institutions as aid was determined by the delta between Cost of Attendance (COA) and Expected Family Contribution (EFC) as explained by Mark French, from the Financial Aid department of the OHE. Under this arrangement, cost of attendance will not be factored in meaning that the Governor’s program is just based on need.
The committee interrupted with questions constantly during the presentation as the “lingo” of financial aid and all the acronyms involved are dizzying. Representative Walker asked for clarification on what “COA stands for?” indicating that she was unclear on some of the language used. Ironically, this is one of the points the OHE was attempting to get across- that financial aid as it exists on the state level and federal level is confusing, convoluted and lacking in transparency to students.
While they can only deal with state aid, their hope is that by creating this uniform system it will give students a base to work off of. Students will be flat funded under this program, meaning regardless of where they choose to go they will receive the same amount from the state.
Representative Fleischmann raised concerns that this flat funding may not incentivize students to move up and asked “are we creating an impediment to this ladder?”. The ladder he was referring to is the process of transitioning from either high school to higher education or from community college to a 4-year school. Ciarleglio emphatically stated “NO, this is not an impediment as students will actually know their award and this policy change directs the limited state funds to be used for direct educational costs”. Direct educational costs are tuition and fees, which these awards are limited to being used for.
She continued on to say that “the current programs were designed to encourage access to higher education and are funded and awarded based on institutional needs and goals. Because they are based on institutional priorities, they pit institutions against each other for state funds and their use of state funds cannot be measured in any consistent manner to meet state-wide results requirements such as the RBA. The policy change moves the programs to a single set of goals for access, retention and completion that are student centered.” The proposed program seeks to achieve retention and completion by providing “incentive awards” to students who are on timeline to graduate in two or four years (from community colleges and four year schools respectively) and who exceed the minimum satisfactory academic performance. This plan also includes a time limitation on how long you can receive the funds- 3 years for a 2 year degree and 6 years for a 4 year degree, which hopes to increase completion as this cap previously did not exist.
State aid only represents 9% of the available financial funding for students, this plan hopes to “make best use of that small money for the most needy kids” and in turn alleviate the debt burden for these students. Most of the committee was shocked that state aid represents such a small portion of funding available to students. In 2011-2012 47% of aid came from institutions themselves, 39% was federal aid and the remaining 5% from private funders.
Although initially it was indicated that awards will go to full-time, degree-seeking undergraduates at Connecticut non-profit colleges and universities. Representative Willis indicated that the Governor had indicated that part-time students will be included in these programs also during the course of the meeting. This alleviates one of the many critiques of the plan, as funding only full-time students was strongly opposed when the proposal was first introduced.
While the proposal seemed to make sense at the end of the hour long presentation State Representative Roberta Willis, State Representative Victor Cuevas and State Representative Toni Walker still expressed having concerns about how these changes will play out in students receiving the funding they need to attend college. More explanatory sessions like these will occur in the future as more questions will arise regarding the state of financial aid in our state.
State Senator Beth Bye and myself
Rachael is a Trinity College IDP student. She is majoring in Educational Studies with a concentration in civic engagement in community colleges and how policy must change to reflect the shifting roles of community colleges in our new economy. She is a proud graduate of Norwalk Community College.
HARTFORD, CT – On Monday, March 4 members of the Connecticut legislative body and local citizens alike met at the Legislative Office Building for a public hearing hosted by the Education Committee to discuss Senate Bill 1002 (SB 1002), a piece of legislation that the Committee introduced on February 27, 2013 that will establish community schools throughout Connecticut. The Coalition for Community Schools defines community schools as “both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources.” The community school model emphasizes a ‘bottom-up’ approach, relying on the participation and contribution of stakeholders – parents, educators, and local citizens – to create the best possible school for a given geographical area. These schools will aim to better the educational experience of students through a variety of comprehensive services that extend beyond classroom instruction. The strategy behind these schools involves a focus on not only academics but also students’ safe passage to and from school, students’ health and their home environments.
Public Hearing for SB 1002
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Chairperson Dr. Benjamin Foster took the floor as an expert in public education to provide his opinion on the benefits of community schools. He argued that these schools reaffirm minority students’ long-term goals and provide a well-rounded education that is not directed solely at the passage of state tests. “Tests alone, I repeat, tests alone will not gauge the psyche of our students and their aims and aspirations” he explains in support of SB 1002. At this time there are many different facets of education that are currently widening the achievement gap between students. Foster cites the “digital divide, healthcare, prenatal care, parental employment” as examples of issues that, on their faces, seem unrelated to education but are crucial.
There is a strong need for what Dr. Foster calls “cultural competency, the comprehension of others’ values” in order to establish a more harmonious learning environment and more effective discussions and lessons in the classroom. Dr. Foster explains that these community schools ought to adopt African American history “as a regular part of the curriculum” to be taught throughout the entire school year, not just with special emphasis during the month of February. He also called for the adoption of Latin American history into the regular curriculum. These measures, according to Foster, will increase cultural competency and enhance the learning experience for minority students at the new community schools.
Toward the end of his presentation, Dr. Foster provided recommendations for the Education Committee and the teachers’ union. He calls for more options for parents and students by way of improved schools, parent universities, and “mandatory economic literacy ensuring that our students understand how our economic system works.” Dr. Foster believes that the creation of community schools in Connecticut school districts will provide these advantages to local citizens.
The major benefit stemming from the creation of community schools, Dr. Foster explains, is that they will “provide our parents and students with more options.” Dr. Foster illuminates the fact that “there may be a musician, there may be a scientist, there may be a carpenter, or whatever, with that same student that scores low on the tests.” He states very firmly, “all of our kids have intelligence.” Unfortunately, at present, not all of our kids have equal opportunities and for that reason Dr. Foster is in favor of SB 1002.
Werner Oyanadal joined the discussion, representing the Latino & Puerto Rican Affairs Committee (LPRAC) as their Acting Executive Director. He also came to the hearing to voice his support for the community school model and SB 1002. Oyanadal calls not only for full-service community schools to be opened, but also for early learning programs that will prepare students from an early age. He referenced the massive achievement gaps among students of different racial groups; the achievement gaps in Connecticut are some of the highest in the nation. He expressed his hope that community schools would begin to close those substantial gaps.
According to Oyanadal, minority students experience major problems outside the classroom that prevent effective education, one of the most powerful being hunger. Community schools would provide all students with a wide range of services including longer school days and the offering of meals to students, which wouldl have a very positive effect on the students and their neighborhoods. He calls for schools to ask how they can get involved with the local community on a deeper level. Oyanadal states that after an evaluation of the surrounding neighborhood that a community school “becomes a beacon in the community” because it will provide the specific services that a given local population needs.
Senate Bill 1002 has been introduced with the hopes that the community school model will be established in the State of Connecticut. Proponents of the bill suggest that this new model of education will provide students with innumerable benefits and invaluable support that will take them straight through to college graduation and a successful future.
When the Hartford Board of Education sat down this Tuesday, March 5th, to conduct a special meeting they planned on spending most of their time discussing the contract approval of Parent Academy, an initiative committed to improving Hartford’s communities. The meeting was considered special because it was held in addition to the Board’s monthly meetings, primarily to discuss Parent Academy. However, roughly fifteen minutes after the event commenced at Hartford’s Public High School, it was clear that the Board had additional serious issues to address.
Board members discuss Achieve Hartford! while the audience follows along.
According to a new survey developed by the American Institute of Research and administered in HPS by “Achieve Hartford!”, the social climate amongst Hartford Schools was something that deserved attention. The study, in it’s second year, was reporting annual findings. While parents and school administrators believe that school climate has improved over the last year, the Board found the students perception of school climate to be unsettling. In comparison to the 2012 survey, peer climate Board member Richard Wareing, who was visibly upset over the reports findings, immediately asked the Achieve Hartford! team, “Why do so many youngsters feel that school is not a good place to be?” No one in the school’s packed library had an answer.
Although many questions over school safety remained unanswered during the meeting, one thing that all the board members could agree on was the obvious disconnect between student and adults’ perceptions on school safety. There were two categories designed to measure the social climate, peer climate and respectful climate. Peer climate referred to the students’ perception of their day-to-day interactions amongst each other, while respectful climate was through the eyes of the adults (staff and parents). One specific example came from surveys covering grades 3-5. It was found that 43% of students saw an improvement in peer climate, a 4% increase since 2012. At the same time 82% of adults saw interactions amongst students to have improved, a 6% increase since last year. A 2% difference may not initially seem significant, but if that trend increases for a period as short as 5 years, a 10% disparity between the actual social climate and perceived social climate will have emerged.
In discussing possible explanations for the differing views of students and adults, Board member Richard Wareing offered, “In terms of school safety, the data suggests that the further you get away from the hallways, the better it looks. I’m curious to see what the adults are basing their perception on.” But that wasn’t the only thing the board was curious about; they also wanted an explanation for inflated percentages of survey participation in several public schools throughout the state.
While no one completely undermined the contributions of Achieve Hartford! in their quest to restore the Hartford Public system to health, several questions were raised over the validity of the surveys they conducted. Several Board members agreed to one glaring weakness of the surveys: inaccurate participation rates. For example, Achieve Hartford! reported that Hooker Environmental Sciences Magnet school’s 3-4 grade participation percentage was raised ten points, from 96 to 106 percent. But how is that possible? Chairman of the Board, Matthew Poland, wanted to know how 106 percent of the student body could have participated in the survey? In their response to the Chairmen’s concern over the legitimacy of the study, the Achieve Hartford! team suggested that the inflated participation rates were due in part to both unfinished and retaken surveys, a flaw resulting from keeping the surveys so anonymous.
Many students, parents, and media members appeared engaged by the presentation. This second adaption of the American Institute of Research’s study, despite some flaws, was one that under correct guidance, had potential to become a powerful tool in the belt of Hartford educational reformers. Board Chairman Matthew Poland described the study as, “a very telling one, and it tells that work has to be done to understand what is happening within our hallways and why it isn’t a good place to be with your peers.” Members of Achieve Hartford! demonstrated how it can be used by a high school senate to dig deeper into the climate of a given school by placing reason to the alleged findings. The team continued to say that the ultimate mission of the survey would be to illustrate how parent involvement has increased as a means of engagement rather than through their perceptions. “Almost in the sense of customer satisfaction,” added one member. Although the findings of the survey produced many different reactions amongst the board members and the community, all the participants of the meeting walked away with the shared enthusiasm that through the involvement of Achieve Hartford!, the Hartford Public School system can and will develop better relations amongst the networks of students, parents, and teachers- it’s just a matter of time.
Stephen Goniprow ’14 and Robert Ugolik ’15 are full-time students at Trinity College in Hartford, CT that have taken an interest in the local movement for educational reformation.
On Wednesday, February 28, the Christian Activities Council in conjunction with Hartford Public Schools hosted a community forum “… about the important role the faith community can play in education”. Unconventional times call for unconventional measures. Despite the traditionally perceived threat of a merger between church and state, Dr. Christina Kishimoto calls upon faith based organizations to promote Hartford Public School initiatives to improve student achievement. An event room at the Hartford Seminary on Lorraine Street was two thirds full with community organizers, parents, and educators. Reverend Edwin Ayala, Executive Director of the Christian Activities Council and Dr. Christina Kishimoto, Superintendent of Hartford Public Schools worked together to facilitate the discussion and respond to audience commentary.
When Dr. Kishimoto took the floor, she gave a touching account of her childhood experiences in church. She grew up in a South Bronx housing project to immigrant parents, neither of whom had a high school diploma. Dr. Kishimoto recalls, “For my family, church played an important role in navigating schools.” For her family, religion was a catalyst for academic success. She says that ultimately she, her mother, father, and brother attended college at the same time. She attributes her family’s scholastic achievement to their strong ties to each other and to their church congregation.
“I’m putting the Superintendent hat aside”, she says. “I am now speaking as a resident about how my faith shaped the way I see the world.” She speaks passionately about the importance of prayer in her household. She confesses that what keeps her up at night is knowing that there are children growing up without strong values or family ties. Dr. Kishimoto asserts that those ties and values can be found in religious organizations. She asks the question of the evening, “How do we come together in an organized way to bring what faith based community can bring?”.
Reverend Ayala exclaims, “As people of faith, we are stories people. We need to share stories of success in Hartford Public Schools. We could preach and share signs of hope with our congregations”.
The room buzzes with excitement. Reverend Ayala suggests that church leaders can promote academic success within their congregation by asking to see student report cards after church services. Dr. Kishimoto chimes in and volunteers to visit churches and speak with church members in middle and end of student grading periods.
Captain Brian Thomas from the Hartford North End Salvation Army makes a plea for more volunteers to help with homework during their after school program. He has only 3 or 4 volunteers for the 20 grade school children currently enrolled. A gentleman in the audience asks if churches would be willing to recruit congregation members to join Big Brothers Big Sisters. An idea is born and all seemed to be in favor. Dr. Kishimoto informs the audience that Hartford Public Schools is already in contact with Andy Fleishmann, President and CEO of Nutmeg Big Brothers Big Sisters, and she welcomes the churches’ help in supporting their mission to provide Hartford Public School students with strong mentors.
Over the course of the two and a half hour long forum concerns were voiced, ideas were spun, connections were made, and hope was sparked. Within the city of Hartford, religious organizations abound. Dr. Kishimoto is working with them to include Hartford students in their outreach efforts by providing support to neighborhood parents and services to their children.
If Dr. Kishimoto and Reverend Ayala are able to garner the active support of Hartford’s churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues, students will stand to gain tremendously. Religion may be a key to redemption for Hartford Public Schools, after all.
The 2010 release of the film The Lottery, directed by Madeleine Sackler, documents the lives of four families living in New York City who hope to get the winning ticket to educational success for their children via the Harlem Success Academy. The filmmaker started documenting the families’ lives two months prior to the lottery leading up to the draw, which determined the fate of their futures.
Screenshot from The Lottery 08:54
The quality of education is a hot topic for parents, teachers, and politicians alike because the existing system is said to not provide students with the necessary tools to succeed. The widening achievement gap between African American and Latino students and their white counterparts is gaining more attention. There is a lot of pressure on people in the education sector to find the most effective solutions to stop the growing problem once and for all. Sackler highlights the growing interest in parent choice as the education reform effort to close the achievement gap and provide better educational opportunities for students overall.
Although there are a number of different school lotteries (example magnet school lotteries) Sackler focuses on a charter school. Charter schools are receiving a lot of attention; there are a great number of advocates such as President Obama and non-supporters of the movement. Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of the Harlem Success Academy, explains that charter schools are similar to traditional public schools because they receive public dollars. However, they are different because they are not burdened by the constraints brought on by teachers’ union in traditional public schools. The number one priority is in the interest of the children being served and not of the teachers (The Lottery 08:09- 08:49). Without the constraints of attendance boundaries and its perceived success, the Harlem Success Academy is becoming the most sought after school in New York City for people looking for the best education that money does not have to buy. In addition to the lack of teachers unions, charter schools provide longer school days and school years for students to receive the appropriate amount of instruction to ensure success.
Screenshot from The Lottery 1:14:23
The filmmakers took an interesting approach by focusing the story of the lottery process around four African American families with students entering the kindergarten who believed that compared to their zoned school, the Harlem Success Academy would provide the necessary resources for their children to succeed. The families prided themselves in being active in their children’s education but also knew that their efforts alone would not be enough.
The decision to include families in the film whose students were entering kindergarten subtly imply that the fate of students’ success in school and beyond is determined in his or her early years of education. Many critics, including William Tate from Washington University, feel that film does not provide solid statistics on the performance of the students who attend Harlem Success Academy, but instead just highlight parents who feel like it is their child’s only hope to a bright future (Review of “The Lottery”). Is the Harlem Success Academy truly successful? How are the successes calculated? The filmmaker should have explored these questions more to give viewers a more holistic view of the project.
Despite the Harlem Success Academy’s advocates declarations of success in their schools, not everyone favors them. One of the most crucial scenes in the movie highlights parents and community members voicing the opinions about not allowing the Harlem Success Academy to take over the building of a zone school that was being closed due to poor performance.
Screenshot from The Lottery 0:31:55
This is one of the few moments in the film where viewers are not solely listening to people who are in favor of charter schools. Viewers can see the raw emotions felt by the parents and community members involved as they rallied against the expansion of Harlem Success Academy. The charter school advocates feel that their opposition has misconceptions about their efforts. Throughout the public forum, Harlem Success’s advocates tried to stress their successes without fully backing up their statements with hard data. After the forum, the Department of Education’s decided not to allow Harlem Success Academy to move into the new school building.
Another crucial scene is lottery day where the fates of the four children were revealed. Two of the four children enrolled in their zone schools while the other two were lucky enough to receive spots at Harlem Success Academy while the other two children had to enroll in their zone schools because they did not have any other options.
Screenshot from The Lottery :09:30
Although the lottery process is not full proof as seen in the film, the filmmaker’s ultimate goal was to drive the parent choice initiative as the next best solution to the education crisis. Charter school advocates will see this film as a great way to support their efforts in the charter movement while others who are have not bought into to the charter school movement will continue to question their effectiveness due to lack of data. All in all this film made a bold statement and should be seen by anyone who is interested in education reform efforts alike.
Works Cited:
Sackler, Madeleine. The Lottery. Video documentary, 2010.
Tate, William. Review of “The Lottery.” Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2013 from http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-lottery.
For most driven students, achieving straight As on their report cards is simply not good enough. In this day and age, the pressure for kids to perform well in every aspect of their lives is massive. Students are expected to get amazing grades, be the star of a sports team, have the lead role of the play, and still find time for other hobbies that make them “unique” and set them apart from their peers. Vicki Abeles, a mother with children in elementary and middle school, saw the negative effects that this country’s flawed education system has had on her children and decided to do something about it. Her documentary, “Race to Nowhere”, shows the unbearable stress that takes over the lives of the youth as a result of unrealistic expectations coming from every direction.
“Race to Nowhere” shows the negative consequences of the flaws in schooling and pressure from parents. Hours upon hours of homework cause sleep deprivation, severe stress, and mental and emotional problems. The pressure from parents to achieve perfection leads kids to resort to cheating and cramming for tests. In schools that only value the grades on tests, students merely spit out memorized information and forget it all the second the test is over. One teacher, Darrick Smith, points out that the pressure for students to produce leaves out the processing of the information (Race to Nowhere, 41:10). Students are not truly learning, and teachers are not helping students harness their ability to critically think and be creative. Vicki Abeles addresses all these problems in her documentary by following the experiences of her own children as well as interviewing students, teachers, parents, employers, and psychologists. She features students of all ages, backgrounds, and socioeconomic statuses and focuses on the stories of several students that were held back by some of these problems. Her own children have so much homework that they get headaches, lack sleep, and have no free time to play outside or hangout with friends. Other students in the film suffered from eating disorders and emotional breakdowns, had to quit playing sports, and one young girl even went as far as committing suicide. Abele stresses the need for significant change within schools as well as a change in the way parents approach their children.
“Race to Nowhere” is Abele’s attempt at starting an educational revolution. She sends the message that this country needs to wake up and realize that their children are being emotionally and mentally damaged by this faulty school system, and more focus must be put on fostering happiness, creativity, and critical thinking skills within each individual. Some of the most crucial scenes in the film really emphasize this emotional damage. For instance, a 13-year-old girl named Devon commit suicide because of the intolerable internal pressure she placed on herself to excel in her life. Abele interviews Devon’s mother, who chokes up as she blames the suicide on “a stupid math test” that Devon had recently failed. Abele fills the screen with pictures of this vibrant, young girl while a mournful piano is playing the background.
Race to Nowhere (1:10:50)
A similar scene occurs when a psychologist gives a testimony about a girl who came into her office wearing a long sleeved shirt and pulls up one of the sleeves to show that she had carved the word “empty” in her arm with a razor (16:10). The psychologist describes how so many adolescents appear happy and put together but they are metaphorically, and sometimes literally, bleeding underneath it all. These scenes shows the vital need to keep children emotionally stable by lightening their load and taking off pressure to perform, because it can have extreme consequences if something doesn’t change. One teacher, Darrick Smith, memorably notes that parents are always confused as to why their child is experiencing emotional problems because he or she is a “good kid”, but he remarks “No, they’re a good performer. You never knew if they were a good kid. You never found out if they were a good solid kid. You knew they were a good student” (Race to Nowhere, 59:30).
At the end of the documentary, Abele lists way for students, parents, and teachers to improve the educational experiences of students. She notes that parents should not add pressure to their children and focus more on their happiness by creating family time and reiterating the importance of play. Instead of piling on hours of homework each night, Abele suggests that teachers should assign less homework to leave room for students’ family time and play, which would significantly improve children’s emotional wellbeing. She also suggests that teachers find alternative methods of evaluating students besides tests and to encourage students to have more of a voice within the classroom (Race to Nowhere, 1:22:50). More schools should be modeled after the Blue School, which institutes those methods of learning and allows children to be creative and think freely without tests and hours of homework. However, Abele does not really offer many more solutions or alternatives to testing. She states that there should be alternatives, but does not pinpoint any strategies. She also does not mention any specific policy actions for viewers to participate in, besides simply attending school board or policy meetings.
According to an interview with Abele conducted by John Merrow, the documentary was intended to be viewed by all parents, students, and educators in order to spread the word and create a new atmosphere of learning. This film has been widely recognized by its targeted audience, and these viewers have made the film popular by word of mouth, as the film has no commercial distributor. Abele claims that “this isn’t just a film; it’s a grassroots phenomenon” (Merrow).
Merrow, John. “‘Race to Nowhere:’ It’s No ‘Waiting for ‘Superman’, ‘ but It’s Honest.”The Huffington Post. N.p., 10 June 2010. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
Race to Nowhere. Dir. Vicki Abeles. Reel Link Films, 2010. Web.
A cartel is an explicit agreement in which competing firms work in collusion to increase their own profits while eliminating the competition. This is accomplished as “producers and manufacturers agree to fix prices, marketing, and production”. [1] Typically, that word brings to mind visions of drug cartels or organized crime. Prior to watching The Cartel by Bob Bowdon, a documentary film that claims to be making a statement on the state of education in America, while narrowly focusing in on New Jersey, cartel and public schools would not be two words which I would have thought people felt were synonymous. Bowdon, a reporter and news anchor, comes out swinging against teachers unions, the ring-leaders of the cartel, and cites “administrative bloat and lack of oversight” [2] being behind the failure of New Jersey public schools.
The film begins by stating that New Jersey spends more money than any other state on public education yet, students continue to receive poor test scores, no matter how much money they throw at the problem. Bowdon questions what do you get with all this spending and where is all the money going? Through the use of substandard graphics Bowdon presidents the superintendents of the New Jersey schools as a figure reminiscent of the Monopoly Man.
At one point he even goes so far as to count the amount of luxury cars in the parking lot of the Jersey City Board of Education.
Bowdon calls New Jersey the “soprano state” and discusses how administrators receive incredulous salaries, bad teachers can’t be fired and this whole process is protected as the New Jersey Educational Association (NJEA), the main teachers’ union, “exert a disproportionate influence on the public policies that most affect their members.” [3] This influence of the union, on politicians, school board members and even on election dates prevents administrators and policy makers from achieving educational equity and block policies that would allow for school choice.
The control exerted by the teachers’ union creates “the multi-billion dollar cartel” also known as the American educational system and Bowdon’s solution to the terrorism being committed by the cartel is to implement a corporate reform strategy resting on school choice and accountability. School vouchers are introduced forty six minutes and nineteen seconds into this documentary. Forty six minutes were spent narrating the problems: corruption, teachers’ unions, wasteful spending as the underlying problems in education. Forty six minutes were spent narrating a story with statistics on how American and New Jersey students in particular are as a majority not proficient in reading and math on standardized tests. Bowdon’s theory of school reform is that providing access to voucher and charter schools which are not run by the “cartel” will give them access “to the skills and behaviors necessary for access to economic opportunity.” [4]
The film captures pieces of a NAACP debate between Reverend Reginald Jackson, Orange Board of Education and Walter Farrell, Professor of Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill. In trying to diminish the argument of the CON speaker on voucher programs, Farrell, Bowdon criticizes the way Farrell uses the luxury cars owned by voucher supports as a statement that voucher supporters too are driven by profit and far removed from the inequality they claim they are trying to solve. Ironically, didn’t Bowdon count the cars in a parking lot earlier?
In his conclusion Bowdon says what we have learned is that:
“people think we should spend more on education, but they have no idea what we are spending now. When they find out they are amazed. People support higher education budgets because they think teachers should make more, but only a fraction of school spending goes to the teachers…. Schools that have to attract kids to exist are run better. Schools that are guaranteed a supply of kids, no matter how well they do , are usually run worse. Teacher’s unions are designed to protect the jobs of adults, not help kids. Teacher tenure helps protect bad teachers, the good teachers are often just as frustrated with the system as anyone. Teacher unions are not like other unions because they have a huge hand in selecting the superintendents with whom they’ll later negotiate. School vouchers would give poor parents an alternative to terrible schools. Defenders of the status-quo say poor parents should not have the option of a private school even if it’s better or cheaper.”[5]
What we do not seem to have learned though is how this corruption will be avoided in privately-run schools, how this competition is playing out in different states, how curriculum and teaching will be improved, if there are different ways to assess learning besides standard tests, how much of the money given to these school districts with a majority of minority students is spent on things considered obstacles to learning (such as malnutrition) and in providing those resources to students and when students stopped being students and became customers.
[1] Sullivan, Arthur; Steven M. Sheffrin (2003). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 171.
[3] Adrianson, Alex. “The Cartel: How Special Interests Block Real Education Reform.” The Foundry Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation. N.p., 30 July 2009. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
“One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist. I was like what do you mean he’s not real. And she thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real and I was crying because there was no one coming with enough power to save us.”
-American social activist and educator, Geoffrey Canada
In Waiting For Superman (2010), director Davis Guggenheim explores the problems that exist within our educational system. Through a series of interviews with educational reformers such as Geoffrey Canada, and Michelle Rhee, and various families that portray the different faces of educational struggles, Guggenheim exposes the struggles many children face. Guggenheim centralizes the theme of “the lottery” in his film to describe what many families fear as their only and last chance. He focuses on charter schools and the promises that these schools have on their children, and how hopefully all of the children he interviewed receive the chance they deserve.
Waiting For Superman sheds light on the variety of problem parents, educators, administrators, and children face with education today. About four minutes into the film, the director Davis Guggenheim explains that the problem with the American Educational system is that we have a variety of schools that are considered as “bad,” and very few that are considered “good” or even “great” schools. Those great schools in turn, are extremely selective and most times, families earn a seat in the school by what Guggenheim describes as luck. He mentions that great schools are now offering seats to inner-city students through what he describes as a lottery. A lottery involves parents filling out an application and being given a number that would either be handpicked, computer generated, or chosen by a plastic ball. Guggenheim follows the stories of three families, the Esparza family, the Hill family, and the Jones family. All of the children’s parents show discontent in some form or shape towards the situation their children face, and test their luck within the lottery system.
Geoffrey Davis on What Makes a Good School , Waiting For Superman (10:53)
Guggenheim introduces this perpetuating problem with our educational system by describing what “good schools” are. At 10:53, American social activist and educator, Geoffrey Canada notes that he would not had been as successful as he is if he attended his zone high school- Morris High School, in the South Bronx, NY. He questions what was the driving force behind the deterioration of our educational system. Through his interview with Guggenheim, Canada implies that the reasoning behind our failure lies in the fact that no one wants to take responsibility for our failing system, including all of our Presidents who were the first ones to promise change.
Maria Esparza, Waiting For Superman 13:26
Guggenheim accentuates the problems that exist in our educational system through a series of interviews he holds with the families he followed throughout Waiting for Superman. In an interview with Francisco Esparza’s mother, he asks her to describe the school that her son attends (13:26) and she tells him that she does not know, because the moment one walks into the building, one is confronted by a security guard who will not let anyone in. Mrs. Maria Esparza is seen throughout the entire film trying to get into contact with her son’s teacher through various phone calls and letters in order to track her son’s progress, and receives no responses. In fact, her son’s teacher tells him that she does not need her sons work. That one scene explains one of the main reasons why our educational system is considered one of the worst. Within inner-city schools there is very little parent-teacher interaction. During her interview, Maria goes on and explains that her son is enrolled in one of the third largest school that is overcrowded in the Bronx. For most of the families interviewed public education was the only option that they had.
Visual Map provided by Guggenheim on Failure by State, Waiting for Superman (16:30)
One particular scene that stands out in the entire documentary film, is at 16:30, where Guggenheim explains what some thought to be the savior of Education reform- the No Child Left Behind Act. Guggenheim strategically chose one of former President’s George W. Bushes’ speeches on the No Child Left Behind Act. In one scene, G.W.B states “I understand that taking tests aren’t fun…too bad.” Guggenheim had introduced NCLB as the remedy to our educational system, but portrayed George W. Bush as cold, and ultimately uncaring through his words. Through the NCLB act, the United States is to meet 100% proficiency in mathematics and reading by 2014. Guggenheim stated that in many states, eighth graders were below 20% in mathematics proficiency, and that in most states, when tested for reading proficiency, eighth graders scored between 20% and 35% of reading on grade level. Through these numbers, Guggenheim is portraying how much of a failure the No Child Left Behind Act was. Although most of the children, under this law are required to be tested on their proficiency, many are not passing or even reading and writing at grade level.
Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, Waiting for Superman (21:03)
Guggenheim introduces Daisy, a young girl from Los Angeles who aspires to be a veterinarian and a surgeon, because she feels the need to help those in need. Guggenheim follows her path to Medical School by bringing forth Daisy’s chances of getting into Medical School based on the education she would be receiving in her zone-schools. At 21:03, the director introduces Roosevelt High School, one of Los Angeles’ zone-schools and an institution that is considered a “drop-out factory.” He notes the fact that only 3 out of every 100 students at Roosevelt graduate with the classes necessary in order to be considered for a four-year institution. He also mentions the fact that only 57% of its’ students graduate.
Davis Guggenheim explores what exactly drives the problem to increase within the schools that are considered as “bad” schools. He mentions the fact that certain teachers are given tenure, and that because of tenure; they are protected by contracts and allowed to have their job, regardless of their performance. Many educational reformers, teachers, principals, parents, and even the media recognize this, yet many schools fail to fight the system and fire teachers for their poor work.
Throughout the entire film, Guggenheim suggests that Private Schools may be one of the solutions for parents who seek to give their children a better education. Through Nakia and Bianca Jones’ interviews, Guggenheim portrays the struggles and successes of a family whose child is enrolled in a private parochial institution. Bianca Jones’ mother- Nakia, a single parent has her child enrolled in a parochial school, and struggles every month to make payments for her daughter’s tuition. Nakia chooses to keep her child enrolled despite the monetary problems. He suggests that private schools are a better solution during the beginning of the film, when he himself mentions that he drives past public schools on a daily basis to drive his own children to private schools.
Guggenheim explicitly states that “our schools haven’t changed, but the world around them has” (01:07:22), and because of this in order for our school systems to better, they have to be reformed to fit every child’s standards. Guggenheim models Summit High School, in Redwood, CA- a high school in where it’s students are not tracked as a model school. The director mentions how a middle class suburban family chose to send their child there because they had that option. The director also pays much attention to many charter schools throughout the country, that are much smaller in size and that have focuses, such as the arts. The only problem that exists with these particular schools is the fact that many of them are very small in size and run through the unfair lottery system. Guggenheim repeatedly states towards the end of the movie that the only thing that works in education reform is “applying the right accountability standards.” Although Guggenheim does not interview all different kinds of families, including those success stories- he does an excellent job at giving face to those families who are left behind because of the lottery system and a run down educational system.
On the Waiting For Superman website, Director Davis Guggenheim suggests the viewer take action by signing a petition that advocates for World-Class educational standards for all U.S. students.
Waiting for Superman. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Paramount Vantage, 2010. Web.
“American Teacher” is a documentary funded by The Teacher Salary Project, a non-profit organization committed to the investment of the teacher profession (The Teacher Salary Project). The 2011 documentary emphasizes the importance of great teachers by following the careers of four educators as well as interviews with education policy specialists. Narrated by renowned actor Matt Damon the film is enhanced by statistics in support of the power of a strong educator. The Teacher Salary Project through “American Teacher” strongly advocates that the underlying problem in America’s educational system is how little we respect truly effective teachers and hence how that affects our students. The film is produced by Ninive Calegari and Dave Eggers and produced and directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth. As seen on The Teacher Salary Project website the organization urges people to set up screenings of the film to spread awareness. Through the interviews with experts, teachers, students, facts presented and family the struggles of the difficult yet rewarding teacher occupation is portrayed in the heart-wrenching documentary.
“American Teacher” supports their claim by explaining how after Bill and Melinda Gates have spent tens of millions of dollars on educational research while pondering how we can make education better he concludes, “ …the more we realized that having great teachers was the very key thing” (“American Teacher” 00:1:23). Although having a great teacher is essential in attaining an effective education there are many other factors that contribute to the success. The film continues on with the claim that teachers deserve to be more valued for their work and in return be awarded with a higher salary, an indication of prominence in America’s work force.
One of the teaching careers followed was of Erik Benner, a Texas history teacher. His success is shown through interviews with co-workers and students as well as his failures with his family. Erik not only produces high-test scores but his students claim he makes history fun and a class they look forward to attending (“American Teacher” 00:13:31). The success of both is extraordinary. But how can a great teacher be determined? Education leaders contribute low performance of students to the lack of “effective” teachers. Yet “effective” teachers are measured by the production of high-test scores. The film fails to mention the other factors in a student’s ability to receive a successful education. An “effective” teacher should not be determined solely by the production of high test scores but instead Diane Ravitch indicates in The Death and Life of the Great American School System, “A good accountability system must include professional judgment, not simply a test score, and other measures of students’ achievement, such as grades, teachers’ evaluations, student work, attendance, and graduation rates” (Ravitch 163). Although Erik Benner appears competent under these guidelines not all teachers who do produce high-test scores are and similarly there are great teachers who will not produce high-test scores for a variety of reasons. For instance Ravitch gives the example of her extremely influential English teacher Mrs. Ratliff. Ravitch recalls her teacher challenged her and her classmates while also teaching them about character and personal responsibility (Ravitch 169). Although extremely influential to Ravitch what she taught would not be the type of things that would appear on a standardized test (Ravitch 170).
The most important factor in academic success for American students “American Teacher” believes is the effectiveness of a teacher. But unfortunately the teacher occupation receives little respect and in fact is harshly put down by films such as “Waiting for Superman” as well as criticism from Fox news anchors. The documentary also states that the job is so strenuous with a less then ideal salary that 46 percent of public school teachers within the first five years. For most teachers to be able to afford to teach 62 percent of teachers take on a second job. Because of the low salary, weak educational support system, and long hours with little praise, attaining “effective” teachers for the schools is not an easy task. Because of this many top college graduates are drawn away from pursing a career in teaching. The film talks about the success of Zeek Vanderhoek when in 2009 he started the Equity Project Charter School (TEP) in New York. Zeek explains how a more generous salary has a catalytic effect on a lot of things by changing the perception of what it means to be a teacher (1:30:19). Statistics are then shown in support of TEP and other schools that there is an increase in teacher compensation, a decrease in teacher attrition, and an increase in student graduation (1:04:00). Zeek also explains how all the teachers at his school will start a base salary of 125,000 dollars that will be funded from the public funds. Yet finding the funds to give every public educator that substantial base salary is an unrealistic task. But the incentive is with a higher salary and therefore the title of a more prominent job many more great teachers would come forth. This analysis many business leaders and economists greatly support because it identifies with the way the free market works (Ravitch 171).
One of the four teachers followed in the film, Rhena Jasey, holds degrees from both Harvard University and Columbia University (“American Teacher” 00:18:00). She is just as much professional as her classmates who went on to become doctors and lawyers yet society does not view her occupation as important. Therefore she had to work to make ends meet in lieu of doing what she loves. She eventually went on to work at TEP taking away some of the strenuous attributes that go along with being a teacher (“American Teacher” 1:02:28). Most teachers aren’t so fortunate though to be given such a high salary. For instance Erik Benner spent such long hours teaching and working side jobs he unfortunately ended up causing strains at home to stay true to his passion of teaching (“American Teacher” 00:51:44). One scene I found most crucial was when Rhea recalls telling her peers she wanted to become a teacher and the reaction given. They told her anyone could teach and she should use her Harvard degree to be a doctor or lawyer (“American Teacher” 00:17:55). Rhea’s story is disappointing in exemplifying the fact that few people realize the professional level a teacher really holds. Without educators there wouldn’t be doctors, politicians, lawyers to get them where they are, in a sense educators really could be viewed as the most important profession.
Film critics generally seemed to have appreciated the different perspective and theory that came with “American Teacher” especially right after “Waiting for Superman”. For instance Chandler an education reporter at the Washington Post reports “At a moment when bad teachers have been targeted as the biggest problem in public education and lawmakers are scrambling to find different ways to evaluate and fire them, a new movie now being shown in previews and premiering later this year takes a less punishing view of our 3.2 million public school teachers, focusing instead on the need to support and pay them better” (Chandler). The film definitely opened up the eyes to viewers about the arduous job of teaching. Similarly Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times agrees with the theories presented in the film and finds the stories presented saddening for teachers and the culture we live in (Turan).
Works Cited
“About the Project.” The Teacher Salary Project. http://www.theteachersalaryproject.org/about.php
American Teacher. Dir. Vanessa Roth. Prod. Ninive Calegari and Dave Eggers. 2011.
Chandler, Michael. Washington Post. The Washington Post, 01 June 2011.
Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. First Trade Paper Edition, Revised and Expanded. Basic Books, 2011.
The 2009 documentary, A Race to Nowhere, was the brainchild of movie director/protective parent/concerned citizen, Vicki Abeles. The film contains a powerful combination of “expert” interviews and emotional vignettes to convince viewers of the dangers of putting students under too much scholastic pressure. We meet a high school girl who starves herself to stay up and do homework, ultimately resulting in her admittance to a psychiatric hospital for anorexia. Depression, stomach pains, and headaches are the tip of the iceberg for the students depicted in Race to Nowhere. In the beginning of the film, the director discusses her own children’s struggle with anxiety induced illness. According to the film’s website, “[Race to Nowhere] reveals an education system in which cheating has become commonplace; students have become disengaged; stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant; and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired”[1]. Throughout the film, the audience is shown one tragic case after another to expose the harmful side effects of America’s obsession with achievement and performance.
The film makers of Race to Nowhere pulled out all the stops to ensure that this documentary tugged at the heart strings. Anxious about their future’s dependence upon their academic performance, the desperate students in the film took prescription drugs, starved themselves, and stayed up all night to make the grade. The film portrayed students as victims of the system and framed parents as helpless bystanders. The selected interviews and imagery in the film were incredibly emotional. There were several scenes that showed the poor overworked students in emotional distress.
Stressed over homework, 10 year old Zachary is consoled by his mother.
Ten year old Zachary and his mother were the most difficult for me to watch. In one scene, Zach is sitting at the kitchen table slaving away and obviously stressed. He twirls the pencil through his red curly hair as he tells his mother about the consequences of giving an incorrect response to his homework [00:38:23]. Zachary fearfully warns his mother, “If we forget this mom or if I do a different one, then we are going to get in trouble. Then we lose five minutes of recess.”[2] The way this scene is structured makes taking recess away from a child facing adult-like pressure to perform seem like a crime. The film paints a clear picture of victims and villains.
Zachary stresses over the consequences of an incorrect response on his homework.
To go a step farther in the fight against homework, Race to Nowhere had several experts whom stated that homework is detrimental to the long term mental, social, and intellectual success of students. An AP science teacher says that when he cut student’s homework load in half they scored better on the AP test. If that doesn’t move you to ban homework everywhere, watch as an incredibly passionate English teacher cries on camera as she talks about how the pressure of performance is making it impossible for her to teach her students valuable critical thinking skills [00:34:19].
This teacher ultimately resigned, because she wasn't willing to teach to the test.
The most critical point of the film was the final scene. In the closing frames, viewers learn that the film is dedicated to young Devon Martin who took her own life, because of a poor math grade. The film closes with her picture and several frames containing advice for everyone from parents to students to teacher to school administrators. This is definitely a call to community action on behalf of children who the films claims are being robbed of their childhoods.
13 year old Devon took her own life, because of a poor math score.
One thing that troubled me was the omission of the driving force behind the culture of competition and achievement. Teachers are not giving ridiculous amounts of homework, because they love grading papers. They are facing the same pressure to perform that their students are facing. A variety of teacher interviews would have made the arguments presented in the film more credible.
If ending homework is the way to improve student’s experiences in education, it would have been nice to hear from the principal in Wyoming that chose to do away with homework altogether. Education reformers are constantly discussing a lack of challenging curriculum for students. In this documentary, we did not hear any thoughts from those responsible for creating school curriculum. No current school administrators were consulted to shed some light on why they feel homework is an important part of school education. I also find it odd that of all the families featured in the film, there was not one that was grateful for the extra time, effort, and attention teachers were putting into creating such challenging coursework. There is obviously some benefit to a rigorous academic curriculum. This documentary only presents information that will garner support for the filmmakers’ mission to change the way student success in education is evaluated.
Works Cited
[1] “About the Film.” Race to Nowhere:Leveraging the Power of Community to Transform Education. Reel Link Films, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
[2] Race to Nowhere. Dir. Vicki Abeles. Reel Link Films, 2010. Web.
American Teacher is a documentary that chronicles the trials and tribulations of different teachers in different schools in America. The documentary covers topics such as race and teaching, gender and teaching, teaching wages and teacher turnover. I think that the filmmakers wished to show that teaching in American elementary and middle schools is much harder than some policy makers and journalists give them credit for. The emphasis of the documentary’s focus on the long hours of teaching really shows the filmmaker’s stance on the importance of dedicated teachers. The documentary urges that teachers need to receive higher salaries in order to keep good, hardworking teachers in schools and not in other jobs.
This film tackles the problems associated with school budgeting. In the early portion of the film we are shown a young New York teacher Jamie Fidler. She describes her normal day which lasts for over 10 hours. She is a pregnant woman who is still working in the schools during her pregnancy. Jamie recalls her first year of teaching and some of the poor conditions, “I had no idea how much I was going to have to spend of my own pocket because I really didn’t get anything” (5:57). The lack of good budgeting becomes a focal point of the movie. The film follows this quote with a still shot that says “In her first year of teaching, Jamie spent over $3,000 on essential supplies for her classroom” (6:07). If teachers are expected to do such a great amount of work on such little salaries than they shouldn’t be expected to pay for the necessary tools to educate.
The documentary continues and shifts its focus onto a Middle School History teacher named Erik Benner. This teacher talks about his desire to inspire kids but how it’s also so hard to balance this with his family and financial obligations. He talks about how when he first got into the profession he was really ecstatic because it was his first real job and he thought that the $27,000 that he was earning yearly was going to really be a boost. Overtime he found out that with a family and a child and student loans that it was going to be a lot harder than he expected to survive. With his story the documentary goes on to introduce statistics about the decline of male teachers in the teaching profession from 1970 to today. In 1970 there were 34% male teachers, in 2002 there were 22% male teachers and now there are only 16% of male teachers (13:45). The film cites reasons such as very low pay as a reason why more men aren’t getting involved. Male teachers are very important in schools because they make the schools more diverse and provide positive role models for male and female students who might not necessarily relate to female teachers.
American Teacher 4:35
I think one of the most important scenes in this film is when a young law school student stresses the importance of his former high school teacher. This young student stresses the importance of his teacher who had to leave teaching for financial reasons. “He was like a pillar of leadership at the high school. (45:35).” Another student follows this with some of the same sentiments for this teacher.
This film asks its viewers to support American teachers in a better way than they have been. The film calls to action for higher wages and more respect for the teaching profession. In its conclusion we see some of the most inspiring teachers having to leave the profession in order to get more money. Testimonies from the students draw on the viewers heart strings and really causes an emotional reaction for the viewers. I think that the film also is geared towards women’s rights as well. One of the saddest factors is when the pregnant teacher, Jamie Fidler was forced to come back to work after only 6 weeks after having her child.
I think that this movie makes a great case that teachers should be given higher salaries. At 1:04 an important graph shows that some states with higher wages for teachers also see positive effects in areas of achievement. For example teacher compensation and higher accountability leads to higher test scores and lower dropout rates. Towards the movies conclusion we are provided a testimonial from a man who describes the lack of respect for the teaching profession. He starts, “My son just graduated from college this year and he’s making way more selling cellphones for Verizon than he ever could as a teacher” (1:12:09). The documentary makes a clear effort in trying to convince people that teachers should be paid a lot more money.
Waiting for “Superman” is a documentary which investigates the different ways in which education is failing students and the development of the American public education system throughout the years. Moreover, the documentary goes in depth on the role of charter schools and different educational reforms, and how these factors are producing results that may change the future of education. Through the eyes of five children(Bianca, Emily, Anthony, Daisy, and Francisco) who go through regular public education and everyday pressures, Guggenheim presents the different and difficult options that have hope to change the American education system and the repercussions of it.
In a review by the Washington Post, Waiting for “Superman” does not tell of any downfalls to charter schools and test scores of charter schools as compared to public schools. According to the review, evidence from a recent national study done by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University states that “only 17% of charter schools have better test scores than traditional public schools, 46% had gains that were no different than their district counterparts, and 37% were significantly worse” [1]. Furthermore, the review claims that the documentary does not focus at all on the effects of poverty for families in the education system. The film does not take into account the different backgrounds that each student is coming from and the special precautions needed to improve their way of learning effectively in any kind of school.
Waiting for "Superman" 00:18:26
The film initially starts with the repercussions of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) act and goes in depth with the percentage of children proficient in reading and mathematics in each state, and how those test scores consequently take a toll on how children progress through the years once the test is done [2]. Although the film does bring into perspective the progress being achieved so far by district schools, the film fails to put forth evidence of how proficient students in charter schools are in the same subjects. There are achievements with entering college and graduation rates; however, there is never data demonstrating how well students are doing according to the NCLB act. The film continues to push on with the idea of standardized testing and does not take a definite opposition towards testing except for criticizing how there are different standards set in each state for proficiency.
Although the film fails to bring into perspective poverty, the filmmaker includes the background stories of the parents of the five children being filmed and their experience with education [3]. Moreover, the different places which are producing school called “dropout factories” in which determines the future of children in them, such as the parents of the children in the film. According to education reformer Bill Strickland, many of the children who go through these “dropout factories” are more likely to drop out and head to a prison than graduate form high school. The filmmaker uses his Bill’s own personal experience with a “dropout factory” to demonstrate the severe consequences of attending certain public schools now and the function they continuously serve since before the 1970s [4].
Waiting for "Superman" 00:23:42
The filmmaker uses personal stories such as Bills’ and also the five children who have hopes of being accepted into a charter school which as seen as their only option to improve the conditions they are in now because of the American public education system. Many of these stories “tug at the heart strings” for viewers and really demonstrate the pressure of being able to have a child attend a school that will change their future as opposed to having the child’s future predetermined by a district school. A lot of the pressure finally settles in for both the viewer and the children towards the end of the film with the lotteries.
Waiting for "Superman" 01:35;16
In the final scene of the film, the effect of incorporating the results of each lottery and the ultimate fate of each child really puts into perspective the harsh reality of charter schools. With each lottery, viewers are placed in the same shoes as those children and the same disappointment that fills both parents and students [5]. The disappointment of the inability to give the proper education that can change their child’s life for the better. Each lottery and counting down the slots just places that pressure and that hope, and it shows the difficult decisions needed to give everything for the students of tomorrow.
Throughout the film, it is obvious that the the way to “fix” what is going on in the American public education system is to reform to a setting smaller and more directly focused on student achievement: a charter school. The film does fail to tell of the achievements presented by charter schools on the same tests that prove public schools to be failing. However, the film does demonstrated very accurately how public schools are holding students back, and are destroying instead of creating futures for students.
[1]. Ayers, Rick. “What ‘Superman’ Got Wrong, Point by Point.” What “Superman” Got Wrong, Point by Point. The Washington Post, 27 Sept. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/what-superman-got-wrong-point.html>.
“The Lottery” is a documentary released in 2010, directed by the young Madeleine Slacker, which reveals both the emotional and political strain of the turf war between Charter and Zoned schools in Harlem, New York City. The film follows four families who have young, African American children vying for spots at “The Harlem Success Academy,” one of the few charter schools in the area. These charter schools hold annual lotteries giving nearly 400 students a chance, completely by luck, to choose between the charter school and the zoned school assigned by the city. This documentary portrays the vast difference in the education a student can obtain at a charter school compared to an assigned a zone school. Furthermore, this film, though presenting both sides to the charter v. zone school debate, seems to advocates for parental choice and the best interest of children.
(Image screen-shot from The Lottery purchased on iTunes)
Before introducing these families, the documentary explicates just how dire the situation is for many students, for the zoned education system does not present a positive outlook for children. Gripping, terrifying statistics are presented, such as the incredibly low success rates of zoned schools; such figures are, for example, the literacy rate of students who attend Harlem schools. Furthermore, the documentary looks into race, and presents the statistic that “the average black 12th grader performs as well as the average white 8th grader.[1]”
(Image screen-shot from The Lottery purchased on iTunes)
The stories of the families that this film follows are heart wrenching, as each family desperately wants the best education for their children. One father in particular, whose wife and first son live in Africa, have only come to America in hopes that their youngest son can attend a great school and get an education. This father talks about the incredible opportunities America can offer his son, and even states, “The American Dream is so wonderful.[2]” Yet the film presents this dream like a scam, as if the American Dream is a lottery just as is the chance of getting into a great school.
The opposition to charter schools comes mostly from parents, teachers, and public officials who support teacher unions. Unions allow teachers to have tenure, and assured benefits within the school system. However, the film reveals that there is practically no procedure put in place for monitoring teachers in schools that are considered “failing,” or that have high-dropout and low success rates. In fact, the film reveals the staggering statistic that, “According to the Department of Education, of 55,000 tenured teachers, 10 were fired in 2008. In New York City, the cost to fire one incompetent tenured teacher is about $250,000 of taxpayer money.[3]” It appears that in New York City, it is more cost efficient for the city to keep “incompetent” teachers, rather than find staff who will increase the success rates of children. Charter schools, which are financed by taxpayer dollars under a five-year, renewable charter for experimental learning, do not hire unionized teachers. Teachers who work at charter schools are hand selected, and are willing to work longer hours, follow a particular teaching method and more intense curriculum, and work without tenure[4]. Those in favor of unions, such as Betsy Gotbaum, an elected public advocate whose husband conveniently once ran the greatest teaching union in New York City, believes that Charter Schools should not be in existence, for they demoralize the unions.
(Image screen-shot from The Lottery purchased on iTunes)
(Image screen-shot from The Lottery purchased on iTunes)
In an interview published by the Wall Street Journal right after the film’s release in 2010, director Madeleine Sackler states that, “Going into the film I was excited just to tell a story,”…but instead, she “stumbled on this political mayhem—really like a turf war about the future of public education.[5]” Just at Sackler states, this film is split between the stories of four families and the politics behind the great education war in Harlem. The opinions of those who advocate for zoned schools are expressed at a hearing, and are shown in the documentary. However, the film seems to advocate for charter schools and the higher success rates that they are offering through the statistics presented. This position is also backed by a scene in this film that highlights the documentary’s perceived favor, wherein CEO Eva Moskowitz of the Harlem Success Academy (a charter school in Harlem), is addressing a council in hopes of obtaining the space occupied by P.S. 148, and turning it into Harlem Success Academy #2. At 51:24 into the film, Moskowitz is viciously attacked by counsel member Carmen Arroyo, whom questions both the integrity, motives, and conduct of the woman who is trying to bring about a greater success rate for students.
(Image screen-shot from The Lottery purchased on iTunes)
(Image screen-shot from The Lottery purchased on iTunes)
In sum, this film reveals much about the struggle to bring about a great education to students of all races and incomes. Though some officials believe that economic class is the problem, some believe that racial discrimination is the issue, this film presents something that is unbeatable: there needs to be a change. So the question remains: How is such a change made, and who is going to make it?
[1]The Lottery. Dir. Madeleine Sackler. Variance Films, 2010. Online Viewing.
[2]The Lottery. Dir. Madeleine Sackler. Variance Films, 2010. Online Viewing.
[3]The Lottery. Dir. Madeleine Sackler. Variance Films, 2010. Online Viewing.
[4]The Lottery. Dir. Madeleine Sackler. Variance Films, 2010. Online Viewing.
[5] Weiss, Bari. “Storming the School Barricades.” The Wall Street Journal [New York City] 5 June 2010: n. pag. The Wall Street Journal Online. Web. 24 Feb. 2010. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575242123324855474.html>.
As Nelson Mendella once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” An excellent educational system has always been regarded as a fundamental component for a strong democracy. Today, however, America’s public school system is rapidly deteriorating, with those attending schools in urban districts suffering the greatest of the repercussions (Carey). That said the debate concerning what can be done to improve the educational system has been prominent in the United States for decades. In spite of the amount of attention and money invested into the issue, little progress and improvement is evident. One conclusion that has arisen from the debate however is that there is a need for better teachers. Although research has proven that a great teacher is an imperative factor in a child’s future success, America’s teachers are incredibly underpaid and often unappreciated–receiving criticisms left and right for why America’s public schools are in the condition that they are (Carey). Vanessa Roth’s “American Teacher” portrays the disturbing truths of today’s teachers, the trouble of attracting qualified educators, and why the majority of America’s greatest and most qualified teachers are abandoning the classrooms and turning to alternate professions. Is there hope for American education? The filmmakers of “American Teacher” believe that there is, but only if Americans are able to disregard this misconceived notion that teachers are the number one public enemy of the education system. Instead, teachers must be considered dutiful “public servants” who are there to cater to the children and transform them into good and able citizens well adjusted for this democratic society (Turan).
The renowned documentary “American Teacher” was created by the Teacher Salary Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness on the working conditions of public schools throughout the country. The project began with the publication of Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers, a hard-hitting exposé on the struggles educators endure, retaliating against Fox News commentators who claim that the country’s public schoolteachers are merely “public servants who are only serving themselves” (Harvey). Since the project’s creation, supporters–ranging from concerned parents and teachers to large foundations, such as the Isabelle Allende Foundation–of education reform have contributed greatly to the movement in hopes to see positive change made in the public school system. The film addresses the hot-button problems in education reform: how to not only find, but maintain capable teachers as well. Experts in the field have argued that it is an absolutely imperative thing a school must do to sustain and improve student achievement levels (Turan). The staggering statistics presented in the film concerning our serious deficit of qualified teachers and our inability to keep those that are qualified in the field exemplified this problem further. For example, approximately 1.8 million teachers will be eligible for retirement in the next ten years (Turan). Moreover, an astounding 20% of teachers in urban districts quit every year, while reportedly 46% of new teachers leave before their fifth year—a turnover that costs an estimated $7.34 billion each year for school districts (Turan). The question has evolved from “Where are all the good teachers?” into “Where are all the good teachers going?” Perhaps most importantly, the filmmakers question, is “Why are all the good teachers going?”
Real wages for teachers have been in a thirty-year decline, the filmmakers argue, which has led to a weakening in teacher effectiveness. According to Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, the low teacher salaries are accredited to the recruitment and prevalence of female teachers in the profession. The common belief during the early to mid twentieth century was that women are to be supported by their husbands. Thus the belief was that their teaching wages would be a mere supplementary income that did not need be very high. This has had terrible repercussions in that by decreasing teacher salaries, fewer qualified candidates seek out careers in education (Roth). By the 1970s and 1980s, the reduced quality of teachers was exemplified through the low academic performances of students in the United States (Carey). Increased salaries, the filmmaker’s maintain, would alleviate the damage done. To depict this, the film introduces you to four principal characters—Erik Benner, Jonathan Dearman, Jamie Fidler, and Rhena Jasey—whose lives and careers are closely portrayed over the course of several years. These characters, through their personal stories and recollections of teaching, have inadvertently provided great insight into the lives of the 3.2 million teachers in the country (Turan).
In spite of the vast differences in backgrounds, sexes, races, geographical locations, and departments in which they teach, there is one underlying similarity between all of the teachers—the insufficient salaries involved in the teaching profession. Erik Benner is a middle-school history teacher and coach at Trinity Springs Middle School in Keller, Texas. He is also one of the few men remaining in the profession, where the decline of male teachers has allegedly been dropping steadily from 34% in 1970 to a staggering low of 16% in 2011 (Turan). Erik confesses to viewers his love for teaching and coaching, however that his $54,000 annual salary is not sufficient enough to support the needs of his family. Subsequently, Erik was forced to take an additional job. Erik comes to symbolize the two-thirds of teachers in America who are also forced to take up second and third jobs.
American Teacher (50:48)
Erik discusses the time demand of teaching and coaching at length, which contradicts what many people presume are the regular work hours of teachers. The filmmakers weave in an animation that involves the actual number of hours teachers work per week, which often exceeds sixty-five hours (Turan).
American Teacher (29:46)
Furthermore, the documentary introduces you to a character by the name of Jonathan Dearman. Mr. Dearman reminisces on his time teaching at Leadership High School in San Francisco, California. As an African American male (only 35% of teachers are African American) he finds the issues surrounding the urban schools—which are primarily minority—particularly disturbing (Harvey). The producers included interviews with former students and peers of Mr. Dearman who speak of this beloved teacher with utmost respect and admiration. Unsurprisingly, the two students chosen to provide commentaries were incredibly successful academically: a law student and a graduate of UC Berkley. The producers deliberately chose these two student success stories to further persuade the viewers of the importance of a good teacher, such as Mr. Dearman. Loran Simon, one of the former students of Dearman and a current law student at the University of San Francisco considered Mr. Dearman “a pillar of Leadership High school.” Mr. Dearman ultimately left behind his life at Leadership and took over the family business in real estate sales where the filmmakers shot him in his new office showing around a client. They contrasted this image with a rather sad looking school that seems void of life and deplete of happiness. He is one of the many teachers who, despite being good at his job, has to make a sacrifice to support himself financially. This only contributes to the already bleak status of inner-city schools.
American Teacher (45:29)
The viewers are also introduced to Jamie Fidler, a first-grade teacher at Philip Livingston School in Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Fidler reports how she annually spends approximately $3,000 of her own money on classroom supplies that should be supplemented by the school. Jamie Fidler is incredibly concerned with this, as she not only serves as the primary source of income for her family, however has a newborn child. The filmmakers deliberately chose a scene of Jamie Fidler frantically trying to find a place that she can pump her breast milk. It truly tugged at the hearts of the film’s viewers as this woman had just given birth six weeks ago and cannot be with her baby. Instead of taking care of her newborn, she is taking care of twenty children that are not her own. The strain of work is indirectly affecting the lives of teachers’ families, to the point that teachers need to essentially choose between their professions and their respective families.
Lastly, there is Rhena Jasey. Ms. Jasey earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and two master’s degrees. She recalls her friends’ and colleagues’ reactions when she told them of her decision to enter the teaching profession. She got responses that usually entailed, “You went to Harvard!” and “You should be a doctor or a lawyer.” In spite of her desire to make a difference by educating the youth, Rhena found that the lack of salary made it incredibly difficult to stay at Seth Boyden Elementary School in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although she loves her students and “thinks about them everyday” she found the offer from TEP Charter School in Washington Heights, New York City far too compelling with a starting salary of $125,000 per year. Teachers cannot afford to take low-paying public school jobs, robbing children in those schools of effective, well-educated teachers. Overall, the combined testimonies of these four teachers offers a very grim outlook for the future of our public education system and our children.
Ninive Calegari, one of the co-producers of the film, said in an interview that she wanted to create a film that exposed not only the troubles, but also the ludicrousness teachers face on a day-to-day basis. Absurdities that include (but are not limited to) buying their own supplies for the classroom or having to hold down second jobs to support themselves, all the while trying to disprove the old saying: for those who can’t do, teach (Harvey). I would have to commend her on this, because the film painted a vivid portrait of the poor conditions and obstacles teachers in America must endure. While I do agree that teachers do face a great deal of criticism and are in many respects underpaid, I do not believe that increasing teaching wages, or rather, improving the working conditions for teachers is the sole solution to school reform. Critics of the film have argued that the film primarily focuses on pay as if it is the only factor plaguing educational dysfunction, yet very little is said about student absences, disengaged parents, among other pressing issues (Willmore). Even if it were, with consideration to the current political debate over teacher salary reform, the film never specifically addresses how to finance these increased salaries. The film has also been criticized for presuming that teaching is the most vital of the undercompensated jobs, while farmers, social workers, and others might disagree (Willmore).
Moreover, as made evident by the teachers featured in the film, they all shared similar sentiments about “knowing” they were meant to be teachers. Teaching is a challenging and demanding profession that attracts a very particular type of person. This “type” of person is generally characterized by his or her ability to be patient, compassionate, and must have some sort of liking of children. Unfortunately, not everyone in this world fits this particular “type” and consequently the selection pool of teachers (let alone qualified) is already a relatively small proportion of the population. Additionally, I was fairly confused in respect to the ambiguity of what the filmmakers defined as a “good teacher.” Is it one who forms strong bonds with his students like Mr. Dearman? Or is it someone who is an incredibly intelligent Ivy School graduate, such as Ms. Jasey? They also fail, critics argue, to mention how one should properly assess a teacher and what distinguishes a teacher from being either “good” or “bad.” They failed to mention that the current method of assessing the success of a teacher has created a climate of fear within the schools (Ravitch). In fact, the method of assessment has actually given way to school scandals and reported incidents involving school officials changing incorrect answers on tests to raise their students’ scores (Ravitch).
WORKS CITED
Carey, Kevin. “An Admirable Move From the Country’s Biggest Teachers’ Union (Yes, You Read That Correctly).” The New Republic, July 11, 2011. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/91632/teachers-education-nea-obama-convention.
Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. First Trade Paper Edition, Revised and Expanded. Basic Books, 2011.
Roth, Vanessa, and Brian McGinn. American Teacher. Documentary, Biography, History, News, 2011.
Turan, Kenneth. “What the ‘American Teacher’ Has to Teach Us.” Los Angeles Times, September 30, 2011. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/30/entertainment/la-et-american-teacher-20110930.
Willmore, Alison. “American Teacher.” AV Club, n.d. http://www.avclub.com/articles/american-teacher,62512/.
The documentary, The Cartel, by director Bob Bowdon covers the quality of American education, primary focusing on the public schooling in New Jersey. One of the main arguments that Bowdon brings up is how can New Jersey have the highest spending level per-student in the country, yet its students fail to perform well in school. On average 37% of high school students can’t read at the 8th grade level and 90% of those with a high school diploma failed an 8thgrade math test.
The Cartel, 0:04:38
The problem is that the state is putting money into the schools, but where is it all going? Throughout the film parents as well as teachers are interviewed and all can agree that the school system is corrupt, where the staff on the school board are much more satisfied with their own salaries rather than student performance.
According to former teacher Beverly Jones, “The children are not the focus. Money is the focus and what happened to the money, no one knows because the money does not reach the classroom”[1]. At JKF high school in Patterson, per classroom, it costs roughly $313,000. Minus the teacher salary is nearly $55,000 there is about $250,000 that goes elsewhere[2].
The Cartel, 0:07:13
Bowdon points out that in this corrupt system, the administration in Newark doesn’t deserve such a high pay because the schools aren’t reaching the level where students can actually learn. It’s ridiculous that in a high school classroom of about 20 people, half of them cannot read or cannot do simple elementary school math. For the parents, whom do they blame for their children not getting the proper education that they need to be successful? Is it the teachers? Or the state? In my opinion it is both. In 2007 Shabazz High School spent $30million on a new athletic complex, but 1 out of every 7 seniors at the school tested lower than proficient in math. In the Abbot school district ¼ of the budgets were wasted, leaving schools with little money for reconstruction sites. In one case $1billion just disappeared and no one had an answer to why. The teachers union is also a problem. Bowdon brought up the point that bad teachers rarely get fired. In an example that probably shocked many viewers was the teacher who actually hit students. One would think that he would get fired immediately, but it took 2 years to get him out. Also, there was teacher in California who taught 17 years while being unable to read and write. According to Hector Bonilla, a principal who was fired for reporting a teacher watching inappropriate videos says,“[these teachers unions] play dirty because it is so much money involved”[3]. Another parent claims that the system, “has been pimping their children for a very long time”[4]. Still the New Jersey Schools Development Authoritycredits its schools for having the highest graduation rate, yet the drop out rate increases each year.
The Cartel, 0:22:07
A solution for these problems are to get students into schools where the teachers are willing to explain work, rather than just handing it to the children carelessly – if they do it fine, if they don’t, fine. In magnet and charter schools students are performing much better than they did in previous schools and are actually enjoying what they are learning. One student mentioned that in his old school, there were fights everyday. Since he had transferred schools he is learning in an environment where the teachers care and he has gained a feeling of safety.
The motive of this film is to ultimately open the eyes of the taxpayers, policy makers, and reformers to show that not just schools in New Jersey, but also schools around the country are ruining the lives of children. Because of money, children’s dreams of having that great job in future are getting cut shorter each day. The viewers are able to see the joyous expressions on those who get accepted into better schools, whereas those who don’t get their lottery number called are left to suffer in failing schools.
The Cartel, 01:18:07
Still there are critics who just don’t buy in to Bob Bowdon’s reasoning. Children Left Behind, a New York Times article by Jeannette Catsoulis, bashes the film stating, “[Bowdon] employs an exposé-style narration lousy with ad hominems and emotional coercion. Visually horrid and intellectually unsatisfying, “The Cartel” demonstrates only that its maker has even more to learn about assembling a film than about constructing an argument”[5].
Although the director does not do such a good job on the editing process, he excels in conveying the message that our schools are corrupt. Reviewers call the film a revelation as it portrays drastic numbers like only 35% percent of American seniors being proficient in reading and 25% in math. Bowdon points out that the most money is going to the worst schools that are considered “dropout factories”.
The Cartel, 01:00:46
With overpaid administrators and bad teachers the nation’s school board has to do a better job in finding a way where students can enjoy, learn, and feel safe a school all the time regardless he geographic location.
[1]The Cartel, directed by Bob Bowdon, (2009; Moving Picture Institute), 0:24:40.
The Lottery takes an interesting approach to looking at education. The opening scene starts at a public lottery, the system through which students are selected for charter schools. Eva Moskowitz, founder of Harlem Success Academy, states the thesis of the film in the first 3 minutes of the film, “The notion that one has to get lucky to get a first-rate free public education; it shouldn’t be that way” (The Lottery, 2:22). The film takes a wide span approach to looking at the charter school process. The director touches the unionization of teachers, parental opposition in communities with failing schools, and the public costs of prisons and schools. Charters can provide an exemplary education at or below per pupil expenditure, but the public school system cannot (The Lottery, 18:19). Using this contrast, the film blames the bureaucracy of the educational system for holding back those schools.
The first major point of criticism is the teacher union for holding back educational change and improvement. One principal in the Bronx, Gotlin, discusses the difficulty of firing underperforming teachers in comparison to employees of a business (The Lottery, 18:46). In an interview by Charlie Rose, Weingarten, president of the largest teachers’ union, she avoids the question, “Should teachers be fired if they are not doing a good job?” and argues with a statistic given by the Department of Education (The Lottery, 19:40).
The statistic is then displayed across the screen as if to invalidate Weingarten, “According to the Department of Education, of 55, 000 tenured teachers, 10 were fired in 2008” (The Lottery, 20:40). Moskowitz, founder of Harlem Success Academy, discusses the teachers’ union contract as “the government structure for schools.” The prescribed length of teacher prep periods and the barring of supervision in the classrooms by administrators without notification are holding back schooling (The Lottery, 21:24). These examples of restrictions on teachers at public zoned schools are compared to structures at successful charter schools. This moment serves to provide evidence against teacher unions and advocate for a change in that aspect.
Another statistic that may serve to surprise audiences touches briefly on the costs and expansion of prisons. Looking at failing rates of fourth and fifth grade black males, prison cells begin to be built for the future; the cost of prisons per year more that doubles that of a school: $13,000 per year go to a school versus $37,000 per year that go into a prison (The Lottery, 40:47). This discrepancy pushed the point of tax dollars and spending on pupils. Though only briefly discussed in this way, the use of one of the fathers of a prospective lottery student and his testimony from prison pushes not only this point, but also the need for change. His emotional testimony broken into multiple scenes illustrates a devastating potential outcome for these and all charter waitlisted students.; “365,000 children are on waitlist for charters” (The Lottery, 35:30).
This is a particularly useful tactic for advocating change. Through the use of testimony and statistics, the film serves to question the standing governmental structure of public education.
One particularly moving scene of the film is the city council hearing on charter school expansion, beginning at 48:54 in the film (The Lottery). One council member accuses Moskowitz of not living in Harlem (The Lottery, 53:40). This accusation is bold and unrelated to the course of the action. Moskowitz shares her personal experience of zoning of her children into failing schools (The Lottery, 55:16). This excerpt shows the accusation of Moskowitz for demonizing teacher unions, but proceeds to demonize the council member. While I found this excerpt moving in terms of supporting the charter school movement, I felt the emotional pull here after a range of statistics throughout the film leaves the opposing views unheard.
Earlier in the film, a scene from a public space hearing shows aggressive parents defending their public zoned school. When trying to host Harlem Success Academy 2 in a building of a failing public school, a protest of community leaders breaks out before a public space hearing (29:45). Democratic leaders, parents, and children claim to “fight for justice.”At the hearing, PTA President and parents accuses the Harlem Success Academy 2 of separating neighbors (30:37). The parents of students at the public school become aggressively defensive of the school being taken over by charters. They do not feel the charter school will help the community. Parents of the charter discuss the improvement of education through charters. While showing the opposing views of the parents, the film shows calm parents of Harlem Success students in contrast to yelling parents of the students at the public school. Charter advocates and leaders in the educational movement explain how and why parents do not understand the charter system.
This film tells the story of a flawed system of public zoned schools while praising the charter school movement, pushing for change towards better opportunities. The closing scene of the public lottery in Harlem pulls at the heartstrings of audiences by illustrating both the excitement of one family and child but also the disappointment and loss of hope for those families not being placed in these schools. While the message of the film may be hard to tease out, it is not only for change for more charters. In looking into the website of the film, thelotteryfilm.com, audiences are asked to sign a petition for more choices, more funding, and better standards for education.
Criticism of the film typically highlights the lack of tangible evidence of improvements made by charter schools and lack to recognize downfalls of the system, other than the lack of space and funding. Tate accuses The Lottery of lacking “social science researchers with expertise on charter schools” (Tate, 2). This scholarly review goes on to point out the lack of empirical research and the lack of “any balanced presentation of evidence” (Tate, 3). Chaney writes in the Washington Post, “”The Lottery” could have done a more thorough job of telling the other side of the story” (Chaney, 1). Both critics bring up valid points. I found the movie to demonize the opposing view without allowing viewers to get the full facts and make their own decision about advocacy. It did not take into account reasons for support of teacher unions or the harsh reality of those students left behind by the lottery system. Their claim that more charter schools for more student opportunities to “win” the lottery is bold, but are they proposing a charter school only system? While their petition is not, it is hard to extract this sentiment from the film itself.
The film The Cartel is a critical review of the questionable administrative practices in American education using New Jersey public and charter schools as a case study. Reporter Bob Bowdon discusses largely the ineffective tendency in American education to perpetually throw more and more money at a problem without any real progress or change. From an administrative standpoint, Bowdon points out the negative effects of tenure for teachers and how it makes removing ineffective or even dangerous teachers from the classroom. Throughout the movie, there are many interviews with the leader of the New Jersey Educational Association (NJEA), which is the major teachers union in New Jersey. The movie adopts the approach that the union is less concerned with the adequacy of the teachers and more just protecting their jobs, sometimes at the expense of the student. In addition to the harmful effects of the union, the documentary exposes the unfair practices associated with charter school application as well as the district avoidance of approving charters because of the goal of keeping money within the district. Bowdon also highlights the controversial voucher program however they receive so much opposition yet they tend to yield very good results in allowing children to go to schools they otherwise wouldn’t be able to go to. The movie is summed up in a simple statement made as one of the last lines of the movie, “this is a crime, it’s not terrorists that are going to destroy America, it’s urban public education” (The Cartel 1:30:30).
The overarching message of The Cartel is that education operates under a corrupt system. Bowdon points out a few major points as to why this is but clearly rests on the contrast between district public schools and sources of alternative schooling. Under this corrupt system, as much as billions of dollars can go missing and without any sort of accountability it seems that there is no change. The theme of corruption remains throughout the entire movie and doesn’t solely point to monetary examples. Examples such as the district officials denying charters without any official reason or for something as small as a minor typo in the application highlight Bowdon’s critique of the system. With corruption at the root of the issue, he shows how the political structure of the education system is more concerned with the bureaucracy of teaching and not the actual learning of students.
The greatest example of the corruption of schooling Bowdon points out in The Cartel is the level of spending per student in America without and results. Specifically Bowdon points the Paterson JFK High School. After asking people in the community how much they think is spent per class, the consensus is around $90,000. The people are shocked to find out that it is over $300,000(The Cartel 0:06:55). With this kind of spending within the classroom, one has to question why teachers still make around $55,000 a year. This is by far the most compelling evidence for corruption in the schools. It is absurd that as a nation we can spend that much and still be ranked 24th for world math scores as far as the PISA showed (The Cartel 0:02:34). Bowdon’s unique perspective as someone not operating within the educational system allows him to see these gross expenditures for what they really are: an exploitation of practices with no accountability.
(The Cartel 0:06:55)
Bowdon goes on to look at the School Construction Corporation, which is responsible for allowing a billion dollars to disappear. While other programs in the district would have budgets that they went over or needed to supplement, Mary Jane Cooper, the New Jersey Inspector General, points out that for the SCC, “there was no budget”(The Cartel 0:18:47). This kind of oversight to not set limits on large-scale district run programs is exactly what Bowdon is trying to highline throughout the movie
(The Cartel 0:18:57).
What Bowdon takes so much care to point out about the practices in New Jersey he then uses as a model of corruption to apply to the entire country. This is the area of the movie that seems to lack the same level of attention that he uses when looking at New Jersey alone. Amy Biancolli of the SF Gate writes that “From New Jersey, he extrapolates sweeping generalizations about school districts across the country” (Biancolli). While Bowdon’s documentary was received quite well as a message clearly conveying the crisis that our nation is experiencing, it does seem like the only crisis conveyed is the one found in New Jersey. There is definite merit to the question of whether of not this can really be applied to the national education system. While yes many of the points made are problems that are possible in every state that operates with school boards, but is it really a crisis found to this degree across the nation. Amy Biancolli shows how with huge generalizations, Bowdon loses elements of his credibility.
Works Cited:
Biancolli, Amy. “Review: ‘The Cartel’ Rates a failing Grade.” SF Gate. N.p., 30 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Review-The-Cartel-rates-a-failing-grade-3190988.php>.
The Cartel. Dir. Bob Bowdon. Bowdon Media, 2009. DVD.
In the year 2010, there were 365,000 children on waitlists to attend charter schools across the United States. A poignant documentary that provides a look at the education system in Harlem, New York, The Lottery places a special emphasis on charter schools in New York City School District 5, namely the Harlem Success Academy. We watch as Eric Roachford, Jr., Gregory Goodwine, Jr., Nadiyah Horne, and Christian Yoanson, five-year-old charter school hopefuls, and their parents wait the agonizing two months before “the lottery,” the random drawing of applicants that decides who will attend the Harlem Success Academy and who will attend one of the public schools in District 5. The documentary includes testimonials from a handful of educators and political figures that are prominent individuals in the education system, including Harlem Success Academy founder Eva Moskowitz.
All children are capable of success. Moskowitz and other proponents of charter school education argue that the current system employed in the United States does not provide students with fair and equal learning opportunities. The Lottery illuminates the achievement gap between students of different racial groups, citing the four-year disparity between white and black students: “The average black 12th grader performs as well as the average white 8th grader” (The Lottery 0:02:49) and “58% of black 4th graders are functionally illiterate” (The Lottery 0:03:06). Nevertheless, Moskowitz suggests that students of every race, background, and circumstance can, as her school’s motto suggests, become college graduates. The message is clear: the system is flawed the children are not. Every student deserves a phenomenal education, and if they are allowed one, they can achieve great success.
The overarching debate concerns the benefits and disadvantages of the choice movement and charter schools versus the public school system. The theory depicted in The Lottery on school reform is that public education is subpar and the problems lie with teachers’ inadequacies rather than the shortcomings of students or unsupportive, disinterested parents. Short-lived school reform programs have been implemented in public schools time and time again with unsatisfying results. There is a need to shut down failing public schools, according to filmmakers, and the presence of charter schools in districts with floundering public schools is a way to increase parental choice and student achievement.
Public Hearing. The Lottery (0:30:27)
The film includes shots of every day life in Harlem, endearing clips of teachers engaging their young students, and most powerfully, a public hearing in Harlem full of passionate parents and educators debating what is right for District 5. These scenes are so crucial because they demonstrate the reality of the situation and remind viewers that this is fact not fiction.
ACORN Protesters. The Lottery (0:26:34)
There is a point of view notably absent from this documentary. The only perspective viewers get on those who disagree with the establishment of charter schools is that of an aggressive, hostile opposition. The documentary paints those who combat the charter school movement as uninformed and irrational. The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), for example, vehemently oppose the charter school movement. Although ACORN is now defunct, at the time of filming, protesters gathered in the streets of Harlem vilifying the charter school movement and those who encourage it. The Teachers’ Union in New York City is also portrayed in a very negative light. Moskowitz accuses the UFT of utilizing “Godfather tactics” to bully anyone who opposes their views. Due to the size of the union, democratic politicians cannot possibly win elections without its support, making the Union a force to be reckoned with. The Lottery does not adequately provide the audience with an objective look at this side of the debate. The film is borderline propagandistic in favor of charter schools due to its one-sided nature.
Nevertheless, the film is moving. As viewers get to see the personal lives of four Harlem families, emotional attachment to these smiling five-year-olds becomes impossible to avoid. The filmmakers do a wonderful job at showing viewers that, contrary to public belief; parents in failing school districts are not always the problem. In fact, many of these parents are driven to help their children succeed. In an interview with film critic Thelma Adams, director Madeleine Sackler explains, “What gives me the most hope is the reason I made the movie: there are so many parents that are eager for something better” (Adams 1). At the very end of the documentary, viewers are called to action; called to“Mentor Teach Donate Vote” (The Lottery1:16:53), and in that moment you will never have wanted to do that quite so badly.
The Lottery (1:16:53)
Works Cited
Adams, Thelma. “Charter School Controversy: A Q&A With The Lottery Director Madeleine Sackler.” The Huffington Post. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
“FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions About Charter Schools.” California Charter Schools Association. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.
“An education was something that would help you go very far in life, and something that wouldn’t be taken away from you.”
– Vicki Abeles, director of Race to Nowhere (2010)
Director Vicki Abeles working with son (Race to Nowhere 4:40).
“Race to Nowhere” is a full-length documentary dedicated to education today. The film took shape when the director Vicki Abeles had learned of her daughters stomach pains being caused by stress. The mother in Abeles took the foreground, and never looked back, as she spoke with students, teachers, and parents coast to coast to try and determine what is to blame for the increase in stress amongst students today, and how our education system could be reconstructed to eliminate such pressures. Through the investigative work of Abeles, it is clear that the outrageous pressures of school, sports, and parents are piling up and invading the childhoods of today’s students, to the point where action is necessary.
In recent years, tests have been the primary measure of educational achievement. Tests are constructed long before lessons are taught, and lessons are therefore often overstuffed with content. This is where teachers feel the need to assign homework, to make up for the content that they are unable to cover in class. Sara Bennett, founder of Stop Homework, believes that the practice of homework can be traced back to the implementation of testing as a measure of success (and the aforementioned cycle) that came as a result of the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk (Race to Nowhere 27:48). Similar to Bennett, author Diane Ravitch seems to trace the derailment of educational reformation to the same instance. Ravitch writes in The Death and Life of the Great American School System, “Where did education reform go wrong? …But all roads eventually lead back to a major report released in 1983 called A Nation at Risk” (Ravitch 22). Combined with The No Child Left Behind Act, never before have two documents placed such importance on “proficiency”. This can be seen in its mission, as described by President George W. Bush, “The principle behind the No Child Left Behind act is to set high standards, believe every child could learn, and measure to see if were getting results” (Race to Nowhere 28:10). Abeles believes that the words “high standards” and “measure” are where our country went wrong. That is when the whole “Race to Nowhere” went in motion, and the average student lost their place in society.
School as an institution is depicted within the film as a training facility rather than the learning facility that it is supposed to be. One of the film’s main themes is homework, and its effects, or lack thereof. The filmmaker attempts to get the viewer to truly question the purpose of homework with data as well as the use of her own feelings. It is meant to be shocking when Denise Pope of Stanford University gives evidence that suggests there is no correlation between homework and academic success at the elementary school level. When students do become old enough for a correlation to exist, homework eventually loses its effectiveness after about an hour (24:23). The film also made claims that homework times have doubled and tripled over the years. This may be true, but some critics argue that it is misleading. Some say that the numbers Ableles chose to use were too low (8 minutes a night in 1981 as compared to 22 in 2003, though the number is tripled, 16 minutes is not as provoking as the term tripled), therefore deeming the fact insignificant. Abeles described her own daughter as “a duck trying to paddle as quickly as she could to keep her head above water” as she continues her educational journey (24:10). Either way, that is not how I would like my child to appear to me at any time, ever. An AP Biology teacher tells of his recent decision to modify his students workload, “When you cut homework in half and AP scores improve, then what’s the value of the homework” (26:20). It seems that Abeles holds homework partly accountable for the fullness of her daughter’s daily schedule, and homework isn’t nearly as important as it was believed to be.
Another aspect that the filmmaker examines is how sports have grew less innocent. One story told is that of Sam, a high school wrestler. He describes how pressure can come from competition between the sport and the school. “The school is like you’re dedicating your whole life to your grades, and then the sport is like no you’re dedicating you’re whole life to me” (22:30). This is becoming common throughout the country, with athletics and academics fighting for the top spot in teenagers’ lives. For some, athletics have helped obtain an education. It also can be dangerous however, as in Sam’s case, where the pressures eventually grew too large and caused him to drop out. Balance is what our generation is missing, and Abeles makes that clear by including that pressure also comes from things that are thought to relieve it, such as sports.
The same can be said for the role of parents. Traditionally parents are viewed as a source of comfort, care and protection. But today, those qualities seem buried under a long list of achievements that a parent has for their child. Within the film is a clip from a forum on stress in a high school in Concord, CA. A young lady tells how the worst question parents are asking is “And?” The “and”, literally meaning “what else” or “that’s it”, sends a message to the child that what they’re doing isn’t enough in terms of AP Classes, sports teams, clubs and community service. Coming from the mouth of a young student, Abeles wants viewers to become aware of the fact that our generation has set such a high standard for everything, to the point in which everything is a competition. Our lives might as well be a race to nowhere. Darrick Smith, an Oakland teacher, claims that the process is actually “dehumanizing” (7:08). It is sickening to hear of the students who associate the feelings of rejection or failure with death. Furthermore, it is literally deadly, as evident in the disturbing examples of students who chose to escape all of the tumultuous pressures via suicide. Abeles actually dedicated the film to Devon Marvin, a friend of her daughter’s who tragically took her own life. There is no reason a child should ever have to live under such stress, yet it seems to becoming more common.
Race To Nowhere is a film that focuses on the student of today, and how he/she is pressured for success inside the classroom, as well as outside of it. It has captivated many Americans, and Abeles continues show the film off as well as host discussions afterwards for those interested (I found this pretty cool, that she comes to most of the screenings for discussion). It examines how the education policy of meeting proficiencies has actually had a negative affect, how students feel pressured to cheat just in order to pass, and how teachers fix scores in order to secure their job. Abeles tells of places that are trying to find that balance, like her son’s school that encourages days of no homework, and the success that has come of it. But she is careful to remind us, “There is no best anything, it is a match between children” (55:20). A film worth watching, it attempts to bring attention to the issue of stress among students in a numbers driven society, what the filmmakers believe to be primarily responsible for said stress, and how to combat the stress for many reasons, most importantly the health and futures of today’s students. Director Vicki Abeles seems to be urging parents to become involved before its too late.
Works Cited
Race to Nowhere. Dir. Vicki Abeles. Reel Link Films, 2010. Web.
Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing
and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York: Basic, 2010. Print.
The film, Race to Nowhere, directed by Vicki Abeles, presented a take on education and the role of the family in schools that I had never been exposed to. Abeles uses her film to highlight the extensive pressures and demands that students are facing in America’s schools. She sets the tone for the film in the opening scene where we see students sharing the troubles they experience in schooling; this culminates with Abeles asking the question, “How come no one is insisting that it change?” This question is imperative to the main premise of this film. Abeles wanted to use this film to challenge the traditional notion of how schools function, the role of the family in education and to show how the emphasis on creating perfect students detracts from creating well-rounded citizens, and strays away from socializing the “whole” child. Abeles, who was formerly a Wall Street Lawyer, became a filmmaker after she noticed that her own children “began complaining of homework-induced headaches and test anxiety…” [The scenes I felt were the most critical to the film will be discussed in no particular order, but will include time stamps and screenshots.]
Understanding the pressures that students face are important in shaping the pedagogical processes that schools undertake to create good students. When students are constantly being pushed to not only do well in school, but to get straight A’s, look good for college and meet the high expectations set by their families, they are becoming what was described in the film as “little professionals,” that is, children who are performing to meet the high standards of the school but are taking on more than they can necessarily handle. One child described these pressures as the “and” factor. She articulates the idea that students are faced with having to do homework AND do well on that homework AND attend sports practice before doing homework AND volunteer in their community AND pay attention in school AND get good grades. The idea of the “and” factor is startling because of the problems that it presents. Students may constantly feel that they aren’t meeting someone’s standards, whether it is a parent, a coach, or a teacher, etc., because they are so preoccupied.
[Race to Nowhere]00:15:04
The scene that occurs at [00:15:04] when a young woman is describing her experience as a high-performing student while she was on the private school track was interesting to consider. The young woman, throughout her school career had to try to appease her teachers, parents and others who would constantly reinforce to her that they were placing such pressures on her in her best interest, when in fact, it was not. The young woman experienced bouts of depression, emotional breakdowns and a stint with anorexia that led her to be hospitalized. The pressures of schooling were so great on her that she left the private school track to pursue a GED and a High School equivalency certification. This scene was important to this narrative because of the tremendous pressures that so many students face. They find taking stimulants such as Adderall to be acceptable because it will help them stay awake to finish more work and “keep up with everyone else…” According to Darrick Smith, a teacher in Oakland, for those students who experience the tremendous pressures inside and out of the classroom, the schooling experience is “no longer about learning” and more so about trying to stay afloat.
After reading Diane Ravitch and analyzing her critique on the 1983 Nation at Risk report and NCLB legislation, I was fascinated when the film mentioned these important policies. In a scene where experts were analyzing the effects of homework, and how countries that outperform the U.S. in education give less homework, it was interesting to see where Nation at Risk and NCLB fit in. The filmmakers highlighted that increase in homework in schools began in 1983 and shot up again in 2002. The critique that the film presented was that of the ineffectiveness of said policies, which leads me to believe that Abeles may agree in some ways with Ravitch’s stance. A focus on measures that did not work, less funding for schools and teachers receiving bonuses for higher test scores vilified these policies as a rough time in American Education. The case against homework that the film presented was that homework was often ineffectual as a gauge of students’ understanding. If parents edit or do their child’s homework for them because a child is constantly frustrated by their own misunderstandings or feel that they just can’t do it, then homework is not doing what it is intended to do: reinforce what is learned in the classroom outside of the classroom for a more comprehensive understanding of the material. (Interestingly, the AP teacher who cut his Biology class’s homework in half and saw a rise in AP scores gives credence to the idea of less homework and more intensive and meaningful in-class interactions as an alternative and successful model.)
[Race to Nowhere]00:30:11In what I believe to be one of the most important scenes of the film, which starts at [00:30:11] we are introduced to Emma Batten-Bowman, a former English teacher at Mandela High School in Oakland, California. Ms. Batten-Bowman describes her desire to inspire her students in the classroom. She believed in the idea of meritocracy and that by teaching her students to work hard she could use education as a method to move students out of the socio-economic strata which they occupy. Her educational philosophy of “changing kids’ lives” and “learning as power” was combated by competing educational philosophies – the pressures and expectations set by the local school district. She said that the educational philosophy that she was trying to instill into her students was “not what the district wants you to do…” and she resigned. In this scene, and many others, the filmmakers educe a deeply emotional response from the viewers because of the deeply personal and emotional display that the teachers, parents and others display throughout the film. The appeal to emotion is used a method to gain support for the film.
In a similar type of scene in the film, when the parents of Devon, a bright young woman who took her own life because of the tremendous pressures she felt, viewers are forced to sympathize with the loss of the parents and to reflect on whether the models of education that are currently in place are actually worth the pressures that they inflict on children. [00:71:00]
[Race to Nowhere]00:71:00Devon’s parents described her as a bright young girl who was facing great internal pressure from an algebra class that she was enrolled in. She went from having a 100% average to failing a math test and could not cope with the consequences of performing below what she considered for her entire life to be “normal.” Parents who are watching the film will begin to seriously question their own children’s academic success and the pressures they are under. They may side with the filmmaker’s views about these pressures, and believe that the schools are “robbing children of their childhood…” because of the deep personal and emotional response that the film evokes from its viewers. I began to wonder about how families who have viewed the film reflected on the pressures that they impose on their children.
Another important scene in this film was at [00:42:00] when the shift focused from pressures of schooling to implications of those pressures – specifically, cheating in school. Danielle, a twelfth grader at Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California describes her experience, “Cheating has become another course. You learn how to do it from 9th-12thgrade and you just get better at it…” The film goes on to describe cheating as a result of too much work, greater pressures and/or teachers who do not care. Another student described her own cheating as a result of having “no room to make mistakes” in the classroom.
[Race to Nowhere]00:42:00The film’s focus on the pressures experienced by high performing students and the problems they face provides an inherent critique of the traditional school model. The idea of students spending more time on homework is not held in high regard, albeit levels of homework increase, should they move along in their educational careers. Furthermore, the emphasis on play and “kids not being allowed to find what they love to do” seems to be exaggerated. It is unlikely that children in public schools and elsewhere have absolutely no downtime and are constantly engaged in some sort of academic endeavor; school districts in the country are constantly trying to implement new and non-traditional methods in schools that create an experience that children find exciting, new and interesting. The pressures that students face are real, but it seems that the sample that Abeles surveys for the film is smaller and not representative of the problems and successes of many communities of educators and students across the nation. The film vilifies teachers and school administrators as not being able to relate to the families that they service. The film provides important insight into the changing role of the family but does not touch on the impact that the families have on schools. If parents see that a child is having a problem with homework for example and would rather blame the school or teachers (and advocate for less homework) than work in collaboration with the school to find a solution (such as supplementary or enrichment activities or special help), then the model of families as integral to the school community is null.
The companion website for Race to Nowhere encourages supporters to speak up and share opinions about policy decisions and to write to policy makers about them. Below is a sample template for a letter that parents can send to the superintendent of their district (that I downloaded directly from the companion website under the tab: advocacy tools) about their concerns:
Dear Superintendent:
I want to thank the district for making a showing of the movie “Race to Nowhere” available to our community. This is an important reflection of our education system and one worth considering in our school district. While our school district has many innovative education practices that represent best practices in the field of education, the movie made quite obvious one way we fall short is in our homework policies.
It is so frustrating for me as a parent of a [fourth] grader to realize that, according to most available research, all the time my child has spent doing homework has most likely not benefited her. This seems like a tragic waste of her time, her teacher’s time and our family time. After seeing the film, I looked at some of the research available about the value of homework. Harris Cooper, the researcher who suggested the 10 min. per grade policy, actually found that homework is of no benefit to grade schooler’s learning but, in fact, recommends this policy with no data to back it up. He simply states this policy in his conclusion as an opinion and adds that it might help children’s independent study habits. It doesn’t. No available research has found this. In fact, the only kind of learning that homework seems to be good for is short-term fact-cramming like spelling tests. This benefit is lost over time though, because after a few weeks children test at the same level as before studying. There does, however, seem to be a benefit to children reading at home. Tragically, this is the one thing children do not get to do because the homework takes up too much of their time.
All of my daughter’s teachers took and take great pains to make sure the homework they assign is for the most part relevant and of high quality. The sad truth is that their time and attention are wasted. Quality in elementary school has nothing to do with it. Elementary school children simply do not benefit from homework.
I was particularly disheartened to see how the middle school is assessing its homework load by asking parents’ opinions. Why can’t we look at what is actually beneficial for students? Research suggests it’s about 1 hour a night. Beyond that, the benefit falls off rapidly and we run the risk of sleep deprivation, burnout and lack of engagement for our students.
Children spend a long time in school every day and they need their time outside of school to benefit from the opportunities that unstructured time allows their development. This cannot be overstated. Earlier this year, I attended a PTSA meeting at _______________________________________ where students spoke about the academic climate in response to a speaker.
The speaker’s message was not popular among the students present at the meeting and one student stated that she didn’t want or need any free time. If she wasn’t doing homework, she said, she would just waste her time or get into trouble. Is this really what we want? Children who don’t know what to do with themselves with free time? Children who claim they are not feeling the stress but when asked about their friends, described depression, anxiety, stimulant use and coming to school sick having gotten no sleep?
Achievement takes tenacity and sometimes sacrifice but in the case of our elementary school’s and our middle school’s homework policies, we are asking for the sacrifice of children’s, teacher’s, and families’ time for no benefit. And, I would suggest, to the great harm of children. We as a district must take this research seriously and create expectations for our children’s education that are results-oriented, not opinion-oriented, and homework is not part of that picture in elementary school.
Please do the right thing by the children of our community.
Sincerely,
[your name]
* Contributed by a San Francisco Bay Area parent following a screening of the film, “Race to Nowhere
This letter was fascinating because it implies that policymakers in school districts are simply wrong and that they do not know what they are doing. From an administrative perspective, it would be of greater concern to me that parents are trying to influence policy instead of working with the district to achieve the set of goals of the school that they have decided to enroll their children in.
It shows a lack of faith in the district and suggests that parents know more about what works in education policy than those running the school district, which sets a dangerous precedent for parents who watch this film – the filmmakers are suggesting for parents to go against the grain and challenge the schools rather than cooperate with them to find a solution to the problems they are faced with. The filmmakers seem to stress the “I know what’s best for my child” model of education reform which does not take into account the continuous research that districts undertake as they try to make their schools better for students; rather, it places an emphasis on schools as the problem and encourages parents to go above the heads of the schools administration and teachers by advocating for policy changes – which seems to be a grandiose solution to a local problem. The schools are thus put on the backburner and disregarded as sites of reform. The emphasis is placed on administrative control rather than local control and makes schools out to be incapable of handling student issues and parent concerns.
The Lottery is a compelling and thought-provoking documentary directed by Madeleine Sackler. It came out in 2010 and since then has generated a large amount of controversy and debate. The film follows four families from the Harlem and Bronx who have entered their child in the charter school lottery. The charter school that is highlighted is the Harlem Success Academy, which has gained recognition in the New York City area due to its impressive results. Charter schools must be tuition-free and accept children based on a lottery system to ensure that everyone has an equal chance of being admitted. Harlem Success Academy has two schools (named one and two, respectively), but because of a limited number of seats many more children miss out on receiving this unique charter-school experience. The Lottery begins by introducing these four children and their families, and then segues into the work of Eva Moskowitz, the founder of the Harlem Success Academy, as she attempts to expand the Academy into more low-income communities and the challenges she faces while doing so. The film also goes into detail about the strained relationship between teacher unions and charter schools, as well as those who are against allowing charter-schools to be a publicly funded alternative to traditional district public schools. There are many interesting interviews with charter-school advocates and employees of district schools.
The overarching theme of The Lottery is the importance of equal education for all children, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. The film highlights the substantial achievement gap between African American children and white, upper to middle class, children. It is clear that Sackler created this documentary to expose the problems that exist within public schools systems and the strict regulations that they are force to follow. It is fervently against teachers’ unions, and portrays them as one of the major obstacles holding back student achievement on all levels. One particularly compelling moment in the film begins at 20.15, when then union president Randi Weingarten is interviewed on Charlie Rose. When asked if the statistic that out of 55,000 teachers working in the education sector, only 10 were fired, is true, she denied it on all accounts. There was a clear disconnect between the interviewer and Weingarten, which was highlighted by Sackler’s directive touch. After the short segment, the screen shifted to black and was filled by the words, “According to the Department of Education, of 55,000 tenured teachers, 10 were fired in 2008” (The Lottery 20.33), which directly contradicted what Weingarten said moments earlier. This was a powerful part of the film, and cemented it in a clearly anti-union light.
Randi Weingarten, President of the teachers' union, is interviewed (The Lottery 20.15).
Moskowitz is portrayed as the clear protagonist amongst many other people that come in and out of the film advocating for charter schools. The obstacles she faces as the leader of the charter school movement are carefully depicted throughout the film. At 29.44, a segment begins with Moskowitz speaking at a public hearing in order to try and move Harlem Success Academy 2 into the space of PS 194, which had recently shutdown and labeled due to its failing status. She is attacked by several community members who do not want a charter school to move into the neighborhood, as well as local politicians who question whether she is actually a resident of Harlem. Sackler carefully constructs this segment to portray Moskowitz as the victim who is confronted by challenge after challenge, all because she wants to implement a school that educates students no matter what the circumstances are.
There is no doubt that The Lottery is extremely one-sided in its take on the hype surrounding charter schools. It is opinionated and conveys the message that the underlying solution to the problems facing education is charter school implementation. The film’s final plea to its audience is to support great schools in the community, and to Sackler great schools come in the form of charter schools. One of the most profound quotes within the film that illuminates the importance of charter schools comes at 46.37 when Cory Booker, elected mayor of Newark, New Jersey, states that we should “make time the variable and achievement the constant,” (The Lottery) as charter schools do with their lengthened school day and year. The Lottery is uplifting in the sense that it provides a promising solution to public school education and establishes a clear villain—teachers’ unions. However, this biased approach naturally leaves several holes in the documentary and omits other possible solutions or problems that contribute to the large achievement gap and low graduation rates within inner-city schools.
The film fails to mention the negative results of charter schools, or what the possible effects of planting a charter school in the middle of a traditional neighborhood could be on the surrounding community. The problems that having a lottery system that admits students and essentially determines their academic success is problematic as well, and a theme the film only briefly mentions. The portrayal of the union as the enemy is also complex. Though the limited evidence the film brings up is interesting and undeniably supports charter school implementation, there are other issues that contribute to failing public schools. Insufficient funds, unsatisfactory teachers, and larger policy-related issues are not addressed, as William Tate addresses in his review of the film. He states that, “While no studies are presented in the documentary, there are plenty of descriptive statistics tossed about” (Tate 2). There is a lack of research and studies that support Sackler’s claims, and while testimonies are incredibly moving, it is easy to see how The Lottery generated so much debate when it was first shown. The depiction of the Harlem Success Academy is unbalanced, and we are shown very little of the success or results of these charter schools compared to their district counterparts.
Works Cited:
Tate, William. Rev. of The Lottery, directed by Madeleine Sackler. Web. 2 Feb. 2013
The Lottery. Dir. Madeleine Sackler. Great Curve Films, 2010. Online.
“The Lottery”is a documentary that follows four different families with the focus on four children, Eric Jr., Greg Jr., Christian, and Ameenah. Through the lens of these children, the film tracks their hopes of being admitted into a local charter school Harlem Success Academy through luck of the lottery. The film presents the knowledge of these individual children as well as the parents desires to send their children to an excellent school, which they believe is Harlem Success. It intertwines these personal stories with interviews that demonstrate the benefits of charter schools as well as the debate and controversy surrounding charter schools.
A movie review by the New York Times, highly criticizes the film “The Lottery”. In fact, the review critiques, “With a little tweaking “The Lottery” would fit nicely into the marketing materials for the Harlem Success Academy”.[1] The review continues to group this documentary with others such as “Cartel” for advocating for charter schools. However, unlike some other documentaries like “Cartel”, “The Lottery” pulls at the heartstrings of the viewer, hoping to convince people that more charter schools are needed.
In concordance with the New York Times review of the movie, the filmmaker makes very little effort to hide the support of charter schools. The movie comments on the ever-pressing achievement gap between white students and black students as well as the achievement of white students and Hispanic students. Without blatantly or directly stating that charter schools will fix this issue, the film actually comments on the importance of a good school, the value of motivated teachers, and the influence of parenting and the family life on a student’s performance. The filmmaker obviously believes that a good school consists of engaged teachers who can stimulate their students, while also having a strong support system of the family. In fact, the movie even states that it is not the children who fail the system, but rather it is the system that fails the children because all children are capable of learning.
The film also addresses some of the problems that public schools face. Through an interview of a principal at a local public school in Harlem, the bureaucracy that “saddles” the public school system, as Eva Moskowitz calls it, is presented. However, the film is making an attempt to not be completely biased by getting her opinion. Furthermore, Ms. Moskowitz comments on the issue with teachers unions and tenure. She argues that public schools have difficulty firing teachers that are not qualified or good teachers while at the same time insinuates that Harlem Success Academy is so successful because they can fire poor teachers without the bureaucratic process.
"The Lottery" - 0:20:49
The filmmaker uses a taped interview with Charlie Rose and the speaker for the Teachers Union as well as statistics to drive this point home.[2]
A direct consequence of the Teachers Union that Ms. Moskowitz argues against is that it prevents the collaboration of teachers, principals, and other people of authority such as herself to improve their teaching skills. In order to be able to participate in this engagement of collaboration though, Ms. Moskowitz feels it is necessary to be able to observe the teachers in their classroom, especially unannounced. However, public schools do not have that privilege because the Teachers Union prevents unannounced observations of teachers.
Continuing with the theme of playing on the emotions of the viewers, the principal of the Harlem Success Academy speaks of the public school where he formerly worked. To add to the dramatics, the principal tears up while he speaks of the poor conditions of the school and as a result the system failing the children he taught.
"The Lottery" - 0:26:28
To contrast all the promotion for charter schools, the film interviews the members of ACORN who were outsourced by the Teachers Union to help rally against Harlem Success Academy 2 take over the building of a current public school in Harlem.[3]
"The Lottery" - 0:32:58
Furthermore, the film shows part of a “space hearing” that was held in regards to Harlem Success Academy 2 replacing the local public school. Some of the mothers and families of the children who attend the local neighborhood public school feel very passionately against shutting down the public school and replacing it with a charter school. [4] The argument against the Harlem Success Academy 2 is not necessarily an argument about public school v. charter school but rather it is not necessary to close the neighborhood pubic school in order to create a new charter school.
However, it quickly moves back to appealing to people’s hearts with the scene of Greg Jr. going to visit his dad at the correctional facility.
"The Lottery" 0:42:09
Through segments of an interview with Greg Sr., the father of Greg Jr., he comments on the importance of education and how it may have prevented him from being where he is today. [5] He also reflects on the motto of the Harlem Success Academy of telling the children that their goal is to be a college graduate and says, that in his entire life he has never been told that, which is a powerful thing.
The interview with Greg Sr. is paired with an interview of a Harlem Success parent, Karl Willingham, who speaks of the greatness of the charter school. He says, “Do you remember when you were a child and you wanted to be an astronaut or a scientist or president of the United States and you couldn’t because no one taught you which direction to go to get there. So wanting to be an astronaut seemed as far away as the moon which, um, its really no that far but no one told you that and you just don’t want to see anyone else miss out because no one told them they could have it”.[6] This scene is very powerful because its asking a parent if they want to take away the dreams of their children, while also insinuating that charter schools are the way to put them on the path to the dreams because the public schools will fail them.
"The Lottery" 1:11:44
The last scene of the movie before recapping what the future holds for each child that they followed it the actual lottery. It is not possible to not tear up during this scene unless you are heartless and do not want any child to have a future. [7] That’s the power of the film, it convinces the audience that these kids will not have a future by going through the local public school system, they need to attend a charter school in order to achieve success in their life. The excitement expressed by the mother of Ameenah is relief and hope and confidence all raveled into one that her daughter will now have the best life possible for her because she will be attending Harlem Success Academy.
The film obviously advocates for the education reform movement of choice through the creation of charter schools. Besides addressing the flaw of charter schools taking the place of neighborhood public schools, the film fails to address any other flaws of the charter schools. For instance, it never addresses any of the statistics that state charter schools are not always more successful than the local public school. However, the film does do a rather impressive job of addressing the perspective of the children, the parents, the teachers, the members of the Teachers Union, and the principals. On the other hand, most of these people are advocates for charter schools.
Prompt: How do you find reviews and essays about video documentaries? Describe your search strategy and cite the 5 most thoughtful reviews or background essays on a designated video documentary. Your search results may include scholarly and/or popular press, but do your best not to include those featured on the film’s companion site. (Hint: the goal of this question is to help your classmates identify thoughtful sources that do not necessarily agree with the policy stance taken by the film.) Add a brief explanation for why you recommended each of the five sources you selected.
When starting my source detective question the first thing I did was go to the Google search bar and typed in what I was trying to find; in that case the film Waiting for Superman. Initially the first thing that popped up was the movie’s website. Before watching a movie I’d like to do some prior reading so the Wikipedia link is my first instinct to click on. The reason why Wikipedia is actually a useful source is because it can be edited, therefor is always relevant, and anyone can contribute whether biased or unbiased. The Wikipedia source helped me have a brief understanding of what the film is about.
But then, I wanted to see some actual clips of the movie, maybe the trailer. YouTube gave a quick 2 minute trailer showing the emotion and almost the drama that a Wikipedia article cannot show. Although it is biased in the film’s favor, it gives the future viewers what to expect when watching. However the trailer only gives a single perspective. Rotten Tomatoes gives the perspective of nearly 17,000 raters and 114 critics. Seeing that the average rate was a 4/5 stars I figured that the audiences felt touch in what they were watching. The comments ranged from those who had similar experiences while in school to actual teachers totally agreeing with the message of the film.
However out of the 114 critics, there were 12 who considered the movie to be “rotten” and they expressed how some of these teaching strategies don’t work or how the director did a poor job not portraying the obstacles students faced outside of school that led to failing performances in school. Overall Rotten Tomatoes was a great source for me because it shows the good and the bad. Not to mention it being number 5 out of 3,540,000 search results on Google.
After unsuccessful attempts on JStor and the Trinity library data base searching for essays, I went back to Google. I spotted a Time Magazine link and knew Time likes to write up these “heroic” articles in order to give a normal person praise. In this example it was Geoffrey Canada and Michelle Rhee, two ordinary teachers who cared about the lives of children rather than their own salary. According to Time, these are the types of people that we need in the education system to “save our schools”. I feel that the purpose of a Time article is to help turn regular people into heroes, unlike the simple essay done by a college professor. In my opinion they do a good job because they depict these people as “tough sheriffs brought in to clean up a bad town”.
Scrolling down allowed me to find an article called NOT Waiting for Superman so I clicked on it in a heartbeat. This article is basically stating that the film is like a fairy tale, misleading everyone who is watching. I found it to be comical because it’s saying the steps that are being made to improve public schools: getting rid of “bad teachers”, firing principals, and bringing in new charter school teachers will not work and will end up hurting public schools. This alternative article attracts a bunch of commenters, most who are teachers who agree that the teachers cannot control a situation outside of school that is causing their students to fail and the “charter school solution” is not the way. This source helped me see the negative side of the film.
I was finished with Google and I wanted to check out what the Hartford Courant had to say. One of the first articles that popped up was one by Diane Ravitch. Since I had been reading her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System I was fascinated to see what she had to say. I liked this article because she gave a lot of statistics about state test scores which the other sources don’t give. Rather than being so much of a critic about the film, Ravitch gives out useful facts that can help an audience understand how students are actually performing in the schools that are failing and charter schools will help pan out the future of failing students.
Corliss, Richard. “Waiting for ‘Superman’: Are Teachers the Problem?” Time Magazine. N.p., 29 Sept. 2010. Web. 22 Feb. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2021951,00.html
Karp, Stan. “We’re NOT “Waiting for Superman” .” famfamfam, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 22 Feb. http://www.notwaitingforsuperman.org/Articles/20100920-RSEditorsNotWaiting
Ravitch, Diane. “The Myth of Charter Schools.” New York Review of Books, 10 Nov. 2010. Web. 22 Feb. http://lea-in.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/The-Myth-of-Charter-Schools-by-Diane-Ravitch.pdf
For my source detective posting, I was posed with the question of finding reviews of the educational documentary “Race to Nowhere”. Initially, I read the ones found on the official “Race to Nowhere” site and found that they were all in praise of the documentary. While personally I found the movie incredibly movie, this seemed too one-sided. Upon further research, I found that many of the other reviews found the movie overly dramatic and meant to incite panic about the national education problems.
Trip Gabriel’s review of the documentary focuses on the positive effects the documentary may have yet does so without attempting to “sell” the movie out to the public. Coming from The New York times, I initially felt it would be a very objective and credible review. With further reading, I found that the greatest element of credible research he comes away with is the fact that the documentary achieved national recognition without a major ad campaign or large-scale distribution. The fact that the movie didn’t need to self-sell itself and still was adopted as credible on a national scale demonstrates it’s incredible impact.
Another positive review I found was Cynthia Joyce’s review from NBC news. The reason I chose this one was because rather than focusing on the recognition the documentary gained in the country, she focused on the message. She does mention the enthusiasm students and others had for seeing and taking about the documentary. However while doing so, she created a clear picture of the goal of the documentary: to raise awareness about the race toward “over-credentialism” and the effects of the pressure it creates.
After finding two very positive review of the documentary, I searched for a contrasting view. Jay Mathews of The Washington Post provides a very overt critique of the inaccuracies of the documentary. The focus of his critique is on the fact that the documentary doesn’t focus enough on the actual facts of the issue and rather the places a focus on the emotional problems that take place. While this may be true, the view may be short sighted because the issue of schooling can’t be analyzed purely by facts. The product that is researched when concerned with education is a child so the emotional problems that are being caused are as much a “fact” as any other statistic.
As another negative review, John Merrow highlights the narrow scope of the documentary. His critique is mainly focused on the fact that the movie demonstrates many aspects of schooling that are detrimental to the child yet it waits until the very end of the movie to show any sort of alternative schooling which, as we know, is a major portion of the national education spectrum. This review is the only negative one that I feel has merit. While I found the movie compelling and incredibly moving, I did get the feeling that it was attempting to be a scare tactic. This review shows the method in which it did so. He does spend a large portion of the article comparing “Race to Nowhere” to “Waiting for Superman” which isn’t as helpful when looking solely at this documentary. However, his critique remains accurate and thoughtful.
One thing I found when looking for reviews that weren’t listed on the official “Race to Nowhere” site is that many people adopted overly positive reviews. While the basis for the source detective post is to only post reviews that are helpful in finding objective and accurate reviews of the source, I feel that the number of dramatized and “over-kill” style review were overwhelming. For this reason I included the last of these five reviews. Ella Taylor’s review of “Race to Nowhere” is an example of the tendency to get swept up in the emotional component of the documentary and not fully analyze it. This review merely summarizes and even at times embellished the message of the movie rather than effectively convey the message to the audience.
Reviews:
Gabriel, Trip. “Parents Embrace Documentary on Pressures of School.” The New York Times. N.p., 8 Dec. 2010. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
Joyce, Cynthia. “‘Race to Nowhere’ Targets Academic Pressures.” NBC News. N.p., 3 Aug. 2011. Web. 20 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41744061/ns/nightly_news/#.USgFO1qY584>.
Mathews, Jay. “Why ‘Race to Nowhere’ Documentary Is Wrong.” The Washington Post. N.p., 4 Mar. 2011. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
Merrow, John. “‘Race to Nowhere:’ It’s No ‘Waiting for ‘Superman’, ‘ but It’s Honest.”The Huffington Post. N.p., 10 June 2010. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
Taylor, Ella. “Mom’s Mad as Hell and Not Gonna Take It Anymore in Education Doc Race to Nowhere.” The Village Voice. N.p., 8 Sept. 2010. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
How do you find reviews and essays about video documentaries? Describe your search strategy and cite the 5 most thoughtful reviews or background essays on a designated video documentary. Your search results may include scholarly and/or popular press, but do your best not to include those featured on the film’s companion site. (Hint: the goal of this question is to help your classmates identify thoughtful sources that do not necessarily agree with the policy stance taken by the film.) Add a brief explanation for why you recommended each of the five sources you selected
I have been anxiously awaiting being assigned my Source Detective[1] question. The format of this assignment has had me imagining myself as a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Harriet the Spy scouring various resources, following the clues and sharpening my “information literacy skills”.
I was assigned question #10 with my designated video documentary being, The Lottery (2010) by Madeleine Sackler. With that said I put on my best deerstalker hat[2] and began my search. I started at the International Movie Data Base website (IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/[3]. I started here because this is not the movie which I will be watching for class and I wanted to have an idea of the storyline, cast, previous work by the director, etc… IMDB is probably one of the main apps I rely on in life. I’m not quite sure what I did before it.
**At this juncture I would like to insert a little helpful tip borne out of personal experience. When undertaking any kind of search it is imperative to make sure your results are for the correct item! In my initial IMDB search I came across two other movies named The Lottery. One stars Keri Russell and debuted in 1996 and the other is a short horror film made in 1969.
This is a good general rule to follow, and while it seems like common sense it’s worth repeating. In all subsequent searches I made sure to include the director, Madeleine Sackler’s name when possible. Moment of truth, in the world we live in it’s easy to assume to the first result you get is the best result. Last semester when ordering books on-line at Amazon I only entered the titles of books- needless to say, there were two books called “Freedom Summer”; one of which I needed for my class, and the other was a children’s book. I ordered the children’s book. Paying attention to the result is important! **
Now back to the task at hand. So at this stage of my search I know I need to be very specific when searching for reviews and thoughtful background on my film as there are other films with the same name. I also know an overview of what my film is about which can help me discern which reviews are touting this documentary and which are taking an oppositional stance. I also have the link to the website for the film, as this was posted on the assignment page.
I proceeded to check out the official website for the documentary, http://thelotteryfilm.com/[4]. I did this so I could compile a quick list of the 23 sources cited on the film’s companion site as part of the assignment urged us to find something not featured there.
Armed with all this information I made my way over to LexisNexis and searched for The Lottery by Madeleine Sackler in all Major World Publications. This search retrieved 25 results. With two windows open, my results page on the left and the list from the companion site on the right I began to go through the results avoiding those on the companion site.
What I started to notice as I went through the articles on LexisNexis is that many of them were articles jointly reviewing my assigned documentary, The Cartel (2009) and Waiting for Superman (2010). These three films came out in a relatively short span of time, share a similar subject matter and therefore seem to be spoken of together often.
Result 14 was the first article that was neither on the companion site and was exclusively dedicated to The Lottery. From the Washington Post on June 25, 2010 Jen Chaney’s Article, Competing for a chance to succeed, provides a succinct summary of what differentiates this film from the rest in its genre. Chaney criticizes Sackler’s limited inclusion of opposing viewpoints in her film stating this” would have made for a stronger movie”. Here is the link to this review which gives the film 2/4 stars: http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/the-lottery,1164454/critic-review.html[5]
Result 16 which is from the Daily Variety is a scathing review of the film accusing it of being “advocacy to the point of propaganda”. I found this review by John Anderson to be incredibly thoughtful: http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117942939/[6]
Result 24 is a New York Times review published on June 11, 2010 by Jeannette Catsoulis that concisely questions if the heart-wrenching tactic of this film is “ the best foundation on which to build successful education reform.” http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/movies/11lottery.html[7]
I then made my way over to Google Scholar and came up with these two reviews:
http://www.greenwichmag.com/g/March-2011/School-of-Thought/[8]I chose this one because it gives a lot of background information on Madeleine Stackler. Apparently, she was a resident of Greenwich, CT!! This article is less about the movie itself, but rather Madeleine’s educational experiences and her process of coming to making this documentary. I found this an interesting way to understand Stackler’s motives, biases and as a former Greenwich resident myself, I felt this piece was relevant.
My final and in my humble opinion, best review is http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/TTR-Lottery-Tate_0.pdf[9]. This piece, published by the National Education Policy Center, was written by William Tate from the Washington University in St. Louis. Tate is the Chair of the Department of Education. This article is a scholarly review and thus is able to provide the most thoughtful and thorough review of all the sources I found.
So there it is, and I saved the best for last. At points during this assignment I had more windows open than screen space available, but I appreciated the opportunity to be exhaustive and take you all through my process.
*Citation list added on Wednesday February 27,2013*
[1] Dougherty, Jack. “Source Detective Questions | Educ 300: Education Reform, Past and Present.” Educ 300: Education Reform, Past and Present. Accessed February 27, 2013. http://commons.trincoll.edu/edreform/assignments/source-detective/.
[2] “Deerstalker Hat – Google Search.” Accessed February 27, 2013. https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=4&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=ifR48xB6L7kJ_CykzEBLfQ&pq=what%20kind%20of%20hat%20does%20sherlock%20holmes%20wear&cp=15&gs_id=ao&xhr=t&q=deerstalker+hat&es_nrs=true&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=deerstalker+hat&gs_l=&pbx=1&fp=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&cad=b.
[3] “IMDb – Movies, TV and Celebrities.” Accessed February 27, 2013. http://www.imdb.com/.
[4] “The Lottery.” The Lottery Film, 2013. http://thelotteryfilm.com/.
[5]Chaney, Jen. “Critic Review for The Lottery on Washingtonpost.com.” The Washington Post, June 10, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/the-lottery,1164454/critic-review.html.
[6] Anderson, John. “The Lottery | Variety.” Variety, June 8, 2010. http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117942939/.
[7] Catsoulis, Jeannett. “Movie Review – ‘The Lottery’ – Documentary About the Harlem Success Academy – NYTimes.com.” The New York Times, June 11, 2010. http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/movies/11lottery.html?_r=1&.
[8] Sawicki, Stephen. “School of Thought – Greenwich Magazine – March 2011 – Greenwich, Connecticut.” Greenwich by Moffly Media. Accessed February 27, 2013. http://www.greenwichmag.com/g/March-2011/School-of-Thought/.
[9] William Tate, “Review of The Lottery”, National Education Policy Center (January 2011). Accessed February 27, 2013. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-lottery.
Question: How do you find reviews and essays about video documentaries? Describe your search strategy and cite the 5 most thoughtful reviews or background essays on a designated video documentary. Your search results may include scholarly and/or popular press, but do your best not to include those featured on the film’s companion site. (Hint: the goal of this question is to help your classmates identify thoughtful sources that do not necessarily agree with the policy stance taken by the film.) Add a brief explanation for why you recommended each of the five sources you selected.
When looking for reliable material, everyone’s initial response to figure out something they don’t know is to Google the material. So, that’s what I did. Using Google Scholar, I entered all the information needed to link The American Teacher and any reviews that would need to go with it.
When visiting the first visiting the website, it appears as if you’re googling a normally on the primary website. Click on the small arrow next to the search button, and an advanced option to search articles appears.
Originally, it took me a while to find many reviews pertaining specifically to the actual documentary because just typing in “American Teacher” into the search bar brings up any article using both words. Specific words like American Teacher, documentary, 2011, reviews, education, and the teacher salary project narrows down the search to find articles more specific to the movie. Being as specific as possible with the search is crucial to finding a specific review for the American Teacher documentary.
Many of the articles will vary from the topics they talk about; therefore, skim each preview of the article you wish before actually including the article because although the search made the scope a lot smaller, many of the results may very well still be talking about a different topic than reviewing the film.
When I read the previews, I would make sure that the title of the movie was somewhere present along with an overview of the film to make sure the film was being reviewed.
Citations:
1. Yamada, Teri. “RESTRUCTURING Public Hi Ed.” RESTRUCTURING Public Hi Ed. www.wordpress.com, 2 Oct. 2011. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.<http://teriyamada.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/blood-money-pearsons-profit/>
In this blog post, Yamada takes an overview of American Teacher, and uses it as a positive aspect to support his claim over the growing amount of public relations campaigning.
2. Harris, K. “Amazon Official Comment.” Amazon.com: K. Harris “Film Aficionado”‘s Review of American Teacher. Amazon, 9 Feb. 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.amazon.com/review/R3RD0JMER4ASQG/ref=cm_aya_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B006>
The reviewer goes in depth and analyzes both the pitfalls and successes of the film and bases his review on both perspectives. Moreover, the reviewer goes in depth about what improvements can be made to the documentary.
3. Willmore, Alison. “American Teacher.” AV Club Live. The Onion, 9 Sept. 2011. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.avclub.com/articles/american-teacher,62512/>.
In this review, the author refers back to key scenes in the movie and describes in depth how American teacher is a positive impact and acknowledges the counter arguements within the film and also about the film.
The review is very down to earth and makes the reader associate better with the reviewer and how his review may be misconstrued. Also, the review provides some outside knowledge and takes a definite position on the problem proposed by the documentary.
5. Walker-Bickett, Jeri. “JeriWB: What Do I Know?” JeriWB What Do I Know. WordPress, 16 May 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://jeriwb.com/education-criticism-reacting-to-american-teacher-2234/>.
The review really puts into perspective all of the statistics presented by the movie and gives a great overall view of the movie as well as present the hopefulness of creating change for teachers.
Prompt: How do you find reviews and essays about video documentaries? Describe your search strategy and cite the 5 most thoughtful reviews or background essays on a designated video documentary. Your search results may include scholarly and/or popular press, but do your best not to include those featured on the film’s companion site. (Hint: the goal of this question is to help your classmates identify thoughtful sources that do not necessarily agree with the policy stance taken by the film.) Add a brief explanation for why you recommended each of the five sources you selected.
For this assignment I met with a Trinity librarian, Erin Valentine, who significantly helped me in answering how to find thoughtful reviews and essays about video documentaries, in particular “The Cartel” by Bob Bowdon. We began the search on the Trinity College Library homepage, and since I was looking for reviews, Erin told me to search under “Articles”. From there, we searched by database title and chose “Education Full Text” and then hit “Go”.
On the next page, I was told to select “Choose Database” and chose a few other relevant databases such as Social Sciences full text, Humanities full text, and Readers’ Guide full text.
I then searched under “The Cartel”, but the results pertained to mainly drug and oil cartels and had nothing to do with the video documentary. I then went back to the previous page and added the writer/director’s name, Bowdon, to the search.
Since this only provided three reviews of the film, I added the database “Film and Television Literature Index” to my search. This also only offered five reviews, which Erin suggested was probably the result of how recent the film was made.
A few of the reviews found from that particular search proved thoughtful and informative, but not all five. After my next search in JSTOR was unhelpful, I then targeted Google as my next method of researching. Google News and Google Scholar both left me empty-handed, and simply searching “The Cartel Bob Bowdon” under Google mainly produced biased positive reviews from companion sites. However, this same search led me to the Wikipedia site for the film, whose “References” section surprisingly produced the two most thoughtful and insightful reviews I found.
Interestingly enough, many of the reviews I came across found that Bowdon had the right idea in mind and agreed with his general stance, but they do not write favorably about the film. Most reviews were harsh critiques and portrayed the film in a negative light. This is the advantage of using reviews from databases other than the companion site because they are not biased and give both negative and positive feedback. Below I have listed and explained the five most relevant reviews of Bob Bowdon’s “The Cartel”.
“A Digestible Lesson in Public-School Failures” by Wesley Morris
Morris takes an unbiased stance on the film, praising the message that Bowdon is trying to get across that current public school systems are corrupt and dysfunctional, but he also critiques the quality of the film itself and the righteous and condescending way Bowdon portrays himself.
“‘The Cartel’ Sees Teacher Unions’ Grip as Crippling” by Brian MacQuarrie
MacQuarrie gives less of an opinionated account of the film and more so sheds additional light on the problems and absurdities within the public school system in New Jersey. He seems to reiterate and agree with many of the film’s points, showing Bowdon and his film in a positive light.
“Children Left Behind” by Jeannette Catsoulis
From the New York Times, Catsoulis provides a rather negative portrayal of the film, pointing out that Bowdon merely focuses on the single state of New Jersey even though the film is supposed to be targeting the public school system on a national level. She calls the film “a bludgeoning rant against a single state” and finishes her review by stating that the film is “visually horrid and intellectually unsatisfying…demonstrates only that its maker has even more to learn about assembling a film than about constructing an argument”.
“The Cartel” by John Anderson
Taken from an entertainment magazine as opposed to a major newspaper, this review presents the film as ubiquitous oxymoron. Anderson argues that its central message of the dire need to change dysfunctional public school systems is undeniably correct, but Bowdon makes several crucial mistakes such as ignoring the ramifications of the No Child Left Behind act, limiting the film to New Jersey public schools when the film is supposedly of national scope, and presenting a one-sided and voiced-over interview with Joyce Powell, the president of the New Jersey Educational Association.
“Editor’s Review” by Gretchen Brion-Meisels
Brion-Meisels, an editor from the Harvard Educational Review, shines light on the tone of the movie, which she suggests points towards the idea that the culture of charter schools is more valuable than the cultures from which underprivileged and low-income students come from. She notes that the film seemed more like a negatively charged method of propaganda towards teacher unions by simply showing failing statistics and not detailing the stories behind them.
Catsoulis, Jeannette. “Children Left Behind.” The New York Times. N.p., 15 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/movies/16cartel.html?_r=2&>.
MacQuarrie, Brian. “‘The Cartel’ Sees Teacher Unions’ Grip as Crippling.” The Boston Globe. Boston.com, 25 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2010/04/25/the_cartel_focuses_on_the_stultifying_effect_teacher_unions_are_having_on_the_public_school_system/>.
Morris, Wesley. “A Digestible Lesson in Public-School Failures.” The Boston Globe 30 Apr. 2010: n. pag. Boston.com. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2010/04/30/in_the_cartel_a_condescending_lesson_in_public_school_failures/>.
A special thanks to the librarian, Erin Valentine, for helping me through my research.
HARTFORD, CT- On Saturday, February 16, representatives from the Sheff Movement: Quality Integrated Education for All Children, held a monthly meeting at Capital Prep High School in Hartford. Gathering in the library, the guest list included several citizens from surrounding Hartford towns such as Avon and West Hartford, administrators from local magnet schools, and even two students from a local magnet school along with their parents doing a history project on the Sheff v. O’Neill court case.
Ambar Paulino and Alex Conaway At the Sheff Meeting (Photographed by Jack Dougherty)
Starting off the meeting at 9am, Elizabeth Sheff, a parent who was principally involved in the 1989 case, began to speak on the agenda of planning a legislative forum in April hosted by the black and Hispanic caucus to highlight the academic achievement for those students who attend “Sheff schools”. Currently, the issue is that there aren’t enough schools in the Greater-Hartford area that please the motives of the Sheff movement; which are to be high-performing and support school integration. Staff coordinator and attorney Phil Tegler, mentioned that a bill signed last May agreed that the failing schools are to be provided with special funding and support, as well as advisory groups made up of the parents to help guide to a turnaround process. With $25 million for capital investments in high quality school models and $16 million aimed for low-performing schools, still there is little support for required diversity.
Sheff raised the question, “Why open new schools? Just build upon those who are already successful.” To answer this, statistics were brought into the picture: many of the magnet schools get nearly 2,000 applicants a year, and out of that vast number only a mere 20 students get accepted. These parents of Hartford and surrounding suburbs are interested in their kids going to a school with a diverse education, however there is not enough space, therefore opportunities are limited.
This past year the Breakthrough II School located in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Hartford was asked to be a magnet school, in which a lottery was supposed to be held for May but was switched to September. Out of 800 applicants there were only 85 spots to be filled. Principal Tammy Cassile mentioned that a lot of frustration was shown from the parents because many applications were rejected, and due to the changing of the lottery some kids had to remain at their district schools.
As the Hartford area anticipates the possibility of opening new magnets schools for the 2014-2015 school year, the winter edition of the Integrated Voice Newsletter informs the readers that just, “a simple beam of sunlight through huge classroom windows can shed light on the possibilities of the students and the town”.
Robert Cotto of the Sheff Movement, began to discuss the possibility of the implementation of a dual-language immersion program. Cotto, a representative of the Hartford Board of Education began to explain that there were many different types of Dual-language immersion programs, but that they would want to replicate the 2-way language programs which were offered in some states like Utah and North Carolina. He mentioned that the program would host native English speaking children and native Spanish speaking children in the same school, learning from a curriculum that would be taught half a week in Spanish and the other half in English. He stated, “Best research suggests that a two-way language immersion program benefit kids in all subjects, including African Americans.”
Susan Eaton, author of The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial, also noted that this program has been sold successfully as an economic development model. She went on and suggested that the Hartford Board of Education does not need to look at other state models to start a dual-language program. The crowd at the meeting agreed, and Cotto backed up Eaton’s claim by stating that there are successful schools within the reach of our very own state.
Sheff suggested that the focus of the two-way language immersion program be on the state in comparison to just the Hartford School district.
“People need to learn a different language, it calls for success,” Sheff said. Many members agreed to the fact that learning a second or even third language would be a successful tool, especially one that can and should be used in the workforce.
Jack Dougherty, Associate Professor of Educational Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, CT proposed an event at Trinity, which would aim to bring awareness about this dual-language immersion program. He stated that by hosting this event at Trinity, the Sheff Movement would ultimately increase awareness on and off campus.
Sheff happily agreed and suggested that by inviting professors, other interested advocators and even people from the legislative branch of Education, the Sheff Movement would be bringing this idea to the surface, and ultimately starting a revolution. She concluded the meeting by mentioning that engaging the youth in such events would also be beneficial because the Sheff Movement wants to create leaders and advocates for educational equality.
On Friday, February 15, the Education Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly held its first public hearing of the new year in the Legislative Office Building, room IE. The room was packed with various members of the media and concerned citizens, and the agenda was full; Representative Andrew Fleischmann and Senator Andrea L. Stillman ruled over the hearing and were responsible for the proceedings. It began a few minutes after 11 am with the promise that it would be an important day for the future of Connecticut’s children. The first bill up for review on the agenda was H.B. No. 6357, entitled, “An Act Implementing the Budget Recommendations of the Governor Concerning Education,” which was presented on behalf of Governor Daniel P. Malloy by Ben Barnes, Secretary of the Office of Policy Management.
Members of the Education Committee listen to the governor's recommendations.
The bill includes 28 different sections, all of which are the Governor’s budget recommendations to be implemented by July 1, 2013. Myra Jones Taylor, Director of Early Childhood Planning, and Stephen Pryor, the Commissioner of the State Department of Education accompanied Secretary Barnes on the stand. Taylor declared the Governor’s proposal to be one of the boldest and most comprehensive plans attempted by any state. Each speaker was only allowed three minutes to make their case, a task that proved difficult due to the complexity of their proposals.
Barnes spoke first about Bill No. 6357 and provided the committee and audience with a brief summary of the more important components of the governor’s education funding initiative. He began by discussing the governor’s education mission that focuses on looking towards new ways of cutting costs while simultaneously raising the quality of Connecticut schools.
One of the implementations the governor is seeking to execute, which sparked a large amount of controversy amongst the committee, is the radical re-shifting of transportation funds in various school districts across the state. Section 13 of the bill states that, “The Commissioner of Education shall, within available appropriations, establish a regional transportation grant program that awards grants to local and regional boards of education that coordinate and share the provision of public school transportation services.” For complete access to the governor’s budget recommendations, visit this link: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/TOB/H/2013HB-06357-R00-HB.htm.
Barnes’s proposition prompted the committee to ask him several questions because of the sensitive nature of transportation amongst Connecticut public schools. Some sort of system is required, by law, to get children to and from school everyday, though it has always consumed a large amount of the education budget. Representative Fleischmann commenced the series of questions directed at Barnes, Taylor, and Pryor. His biggest concern with the changes to school transportation was based on how this government decision would affect the various towns and school districts.
He raised the question of effectiveness and efficiency, voicing the possibility that this cut in transportation might not be seen as a cost-effective way to approach issues concerning government spending and budgeting within the education sector. Barnes was quick to defend Fleischmann’s point by stating that it is more of a transitional measure meant to ensure that money allocated to classrooms and improvements in curriculum would continue to be accessible to schools.
When it comes to improving education at a state-wide level, there has been an ongoing discussion over where money should be going, and who needs it more. The governor’s proposal is meant to radically shift the dispersal of money within the education sector in the hopes that the quality of instruction within Connecticut schools improves in a significant and noticeable way.
Other committee members who appeared weary of this radical change soon echoed the concerns posed by Fleischmann. Senator Stillman directly followed her co-chairman and urged Barnes to expand on his proposition. She stated that she was most concerned that this would be viewed as a one size fits all approach to this sensitive and controversial topic. She further emphasized her point by highlighting the troubles that have recently existed in Montville, Connecticut, a small town located in New London County. It is currently losing transportation and has been struggling with how to adjust to budget cuts while still ensuring that all students are able to get to and from school.
This example was used to demonstrate the variability that inevitably exists in a state such as Connecticut, where each region encounters its own challenges within its public school system. As Stillman stated, the issue of transportation costs has always been a very big issue, and clearly needs to be addressed by the committee.
It was clear that the initiatives posed by Barnes were unprecedented due to the copious amount of questions directed specifically to him regarding transportation cuts. Senator Toni Boucher, representing Connecticut’s 26th district, asked him to clarify, once again, what exactly the governor’s budget recommendations were attempting to do. She then followed up this question by inquiring as to whether there were currently any two districts who already had a shared transportation contract in an attempt to cut back their costs.
This was one of the few moments Barnes appeared uneasy; he quickly shuffled through his notes and then responded in a quiet, muffled voice that he was not aware of any such thing. After pausing for a few seconds, he was able to recover and again emphasized the two most important components of these changes: various private school students could still have access to transportation if they needed it, and though costs would be significantly cut, all towns would still have access to aid from the state. This system, as Barnes continuously reinforced throughout the hearing, would just be a “new way of doing transportation.”
The committee’s decision remains unknown as of now, but will no doubt be revealed to the public soon. Despite the ample amount of debate and discussion the governor’s recommendations caused, it is reassuring to know that the fate of Connecticut’s children is taken seriously by state-elected officials.
