{"id":3866,"date":"2013-02-25T00:36:11","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T05:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/?p=3866"},"modified":"2013-02-25T00:36:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T05:36:11","slug":"the-lottery-video-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/2013\/02\/the-lottery-video-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lottery Video Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2010 release of the film The Lottery<\/em>, 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. \u00a0The filmmaker started documenting the families\u2019 lives two months prior to the lottery leading up to the draw, which determined the fate of their futures.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot from The Lottery 08:54<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot from The Lottery 1:14:23<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2019s education but also knew that their efforts alone would not be enough.<\/p>\n

The decision to include families in the film whose students were entering kindergarten subtly imply that the fate of students\u2019 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\u2019s only hope to a bright future (Review of “The Lottery”<\/em>). Is the Harlem Success Academy truly successful? How are the successes calculated?\u00a0 The filmmaker should have explored these questions more to give viewers a more holistic view of the project.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot from The Lottery 0:31:55<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2019s advocates tried to stress their successes without fully backing up their statements with hard data. After the forum, the Department of Education\u2019s decided not to allow Harlem Success Academy to move into the new school building.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot from The Lottery :09:30<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Although the lottery process is not full proof as seen in the film, the filmmaker\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Sackler, Madeleine.\u00a0The Lottery<\/em>. Video documentary, 2010.<\/p>\n

Tate, William. Review of \u201cThe Lottery.<\/em>\u201d Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2013 from http:\/\/nepc.colorado.edu\/thinktank\/review-lottery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. \u00a0The filmmaker started documenting the families\u2019 lives two months prior to the lottery leading … Continue reading The Lottery Video Analysis<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/350"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3866"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3890,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866\/revisions\/3890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}