The education method in America is working aptly, says Bob Bowdon, but only for some -- and those few surely aren't the students. In his education docudrama "The Cartel," Bowdon, a TV news reporter in New Jersey, paints a terrific ugly scene of the institutional degeneracy that has resulted in pretty much incredible wastes of taxpayer money. It's not operose for Bowdon to illustrate that something's terribly awry with a state that pays $17,000 per pupil but can only manage a 39% reading proficiency rate -- that there's a crisis is undeniable, how to deal with it is another question altogether.
On the one side is the monumental Jersey teachers union and shadowy school officials, who guarantee that, as Bowdon points out in his movie, 90 cents of every tax dollar go for other expenses, including six figure incomes for school administrators and, in a upsetting example, a school board secretary who makes $180,000. The other cabal is the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can shake off the authority of the public school system and would aid inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more cautiously used. In those broken public schools, Bowdon points out, it's almost unacceptable to fire a teacher -- so even a meager one has a trade for life.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of distinctive aspects of public education, tenure, backing, support drops, corruption --meaning theft -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The idiom education documentary can sound to some like dull squared, but in fact the film itself betrays an fervid passion for the predicament of particularly inner-city children."
Bowdon's documentary started touring the festival circuit in summer of 2009 and made its theatrical debut in April 2010. It therefore proceeds the more-recently released, while higher profile, education docudrama "Waiting for Superman," directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"). Bowdon sees the films as complementary, and hopes that "Superman," with its human-interest ideology, draws more interest to his own, which focuses on public policy. "My film is the left-brained variant, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
The left-brained tactic means arguments that observe the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. Though he calls it left-brained, still "The Cartel" reaches some heartbreaking moments of emotion. The weeping face of a youthful girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own strong controversy for the unsatisfactory failure of a state's education system.
And whilst it may be straightforward to acknowledge the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the subject is that this is an extremely familiar condition. Any watcher will discern the failings of their own state's education system and the struggle for control. Bowdon puts his faith in the charter schools, where the taxpayer has influence over the kind and quality of instruction. But he also makes it comprehensible that those in power are going to be unwilling to give it up without a fight.
On the one side is the monumental Jersey teachers union and shadowy school officials, who guarantee that, as Bowdon points out in his movie, 90 cents of every tax dollar go for other expenses, including six figure incomes for school administrators and, in a upsetting example, a school board secretary who makes $180,000. The other cabal is the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can shake off the authority of the public school system and would aid inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more cautiously used. In those broken public schools, Bowdon points out, it's almost unacceptable to fire a teacher -- so even a meager one has a trade for life.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of distinctive aspects of public education, tenure, backing, support drops, corruption --meaning theft -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The idiom education documentary can sound to some like dull squared, but in fact the film itself betrays an fervid passion for the predicament of particularly inner-city children."
Bowdon's documentary started touring the festival circuit in summer of 2009 and made its theatrical debut in April 2010. It therefore proceeds the more-recently released, while higher profile, education docudrama "Waiting for Superman," directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"). Bowdon sees the films as complementary, and hopes that "Superman," with its human-interest ideology, draws more interest to his own, which focuses on public policy. "My film is the left-brained variant, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
The left-brained tactic means arguments that observe the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. Though he calls it left-brained, still "The Cartel" reaches some heartbreaking moments of emotion. The weeping face of a youthful girl who learns she was not selected for a place at a charter school makes its own strong controversy for the unsatisfactory failure of a state's education system.
And whilst it may be straightforward to acknowledge the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the subject is that this is an extremely familiar condition. Any watcher will discern the failings of their own state's education system and the struggle for control. Bowdon puts his faith in the charter schools, where the taxpayer has influence over the kind and quality of instruction. But he also makes it comprehensible that those in power are going to be unwilling to give it up without a fight.
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Philadelphia City Paper: The Cartel, what is the nation's report card? A film by Bob Bowdon.
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