The school system might be made to be really profitable, says Bob Bowdon, however merely at the expense of things equal to teachers and students. In his documentary "The Cartel," New Jersey TV news reporter Bowdon shines a light on the corruption and rapacity that has resulted in the disappearance of so much taxpayer money in that state. It's not operose for Bowdon to illustrate that something's frightfully awry with a state that pays $17,000 per student but can only wield a 39% reading proficiency rate -- that there's a crisis is undeniable, how to deal with it is different question entirely.
The two sides of this struggle meet head-on in interviews throughout Bowdon's film: there are the teachers union and school board members who have managed to allocate 90 cents of every taxpayer buck into everything but teachers' salaries -- although a selection of school administrators make upwards of $100,000. On the other slope are the supporters of a charter school system, private schools in which parents can use tax vouchers to pay tuition and shake off the public nightmare. In those disordered public schools, Bowdon points out, it's practically unimaginable to fire an instructor -- so even a shoddy one has a trade for life.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of uncommon aspects of public teaching, tenure, backing, patronage drops, subversion --meaning larceny -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it sort of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the raging topics amongst the education-reform cause."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters nationally a year later. Hopefully it will get a boost, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released docudrama "Waiting for Superman," by "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim. Bowdon sees the two documentaries as taking alternative approaches to the identical predicament, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" focusing on the human-interest aspects. "My film is the left-brained variant, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
And Bowdon's film is relentlessly critical, making a intense case for the concept that the amount of money spent is nowhere near as relevant as how it is spent. He follows the money to describe conclusions around how shameless the Jersey school system is, but his picture features moments of soaring emotion and heartbreak. The weeping face of a youthful girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own powerful debate for the unsatisfying failure of a state's education system.
And although it may be easy to assume the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the matter is that this is an exceedingly familiar situation. Bowdon's film illustrates a local dilemma, but any viewer will realize the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon comes out in favor of the charter school plan, of taxpayers being able to choose their own schools, to get out from under the state's control. Nevertheless he also knows it'll be an upward conflict to retrieve control from those who've worked so hard to make education very profitable for the very few. - 40729
The two sides of this struggle meet head-on in interviews throughout Bowdon's film: there are the teachers union and school board members who have managed to allocate 90 cents of every taxpayer buck into everything but teachers' salaries -- although a selection of school administrators make upwards of $100,000. On the other slope are the supporters of a charter school system, private schools in which parents can use tax vouchers to pay tuition and shake off the public nightmare. In those disordered public schools, Bowdon points out, it's practically unimaginable to fire an instructor -- so even a shoddy one has a trade for life.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of uncommon aspects of public teaching, tenure, backing, patronage drops, subversion --meaning larceny -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it sort of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the raging topics amongst the education-reform cause."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters nationally a year later. Hopefully it will get a boost, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released docudrama "Waiting for Superman," by "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim. Bowdon sees the two documentaries as taking alternative approaches to the identical predicament, "The Cartel" by examining public policy and "Superman" focusing on the human-interest aspects. "My film is the left-brained variant, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
And Bowdon's film is relentlessly critical, making a intense case for the concept that the amount of money spent is nowhere near as relevant as how it is spent. He follows the money to describe conclusions around how shameless the Jersey school system is, but his picture features moments of soaring emotion and heartbreak. The weeping face of a youthful girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own powerful debate for the unsatisfying failure of a state's education system.
And although it may be easy to assume the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the matter is that this is an exceedingly familiar situation. Bowdon's film illustrates a local dilemma, but any viewer will realize the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon comes out in favor of the charter school plan, of taxpayers being able to choose their own schools, to get out from under the state's control. Nevertheless he also knows it'll be an upward conflict to retrieve control from those who've worked so hard to make education very profitable for the very few. - 40729
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