The school system may be made to be a great deal profitable, says Bob Bowdon, however entirely at the expense of things comparable to teachers and students. In his documentary "The Cartel," Bowdon, a New Jersey television news newsperson, turns the camera on the massive degeneracy and misdirection that has led his state to squander more than any other on its students just with substandard results. The numbers express the tale: $17,000 exhausted per student, and there's simply a 39% reading proficiency rate, it's tough to argue that there's a crisis afoot, but harder to concur on a solution.
On the one side is the monolithic Jersey teachers union and shady school officials, who guarantee that, as Bowdon points out in his picture, 90 cents of every tax dollar go for other expenses, including six figure incomes for school administrators and, in a shocking example, a school board secretary who makes $180,000. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools which can function beyond the power of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. In those disordered public schools, Bowdon points out, it's very nearly impossible to fire an instructor -- so even a dreadful one has a job for life.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of out of the ordinary aspects of public education, tenure, backing, support drops, corruption --meaning theft -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it kind of serves as a rapid-moving primer on all of the raging topics between the education-reform crusade."
"The Cartel" started making the round of the festivals in summer 2009, and made its theatrical debut just about a year later, in spring 2010. The movie has started a lot of talk, which ought no doubt carry on with the more-recent release of "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim's own education expose, "Waiting for Superman." Bowdon says the documentaries can be seen as companion pieces: his focusing on public policy and Guggenheim's taking the human-interest slant. "The two films attain common conclusions," Bowdon says.
The left-brained approach means arguments that watch the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. He follows the money to extract conclusions about how shameless the Jersey school system is, but his picture features moments of elevated emotion and grief. A girl's weeping upon hearing that she wasn't selected to attend a charter school, that she's stuck in her public school, exemplify the failure of a system as well as Bowdon's charts and interviews.
And though it may be simple to accept the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the subject is that this is a very familiar situation. Any watcher will acknowledge the failings of their own state's education system and the struggle for control. The one he seems to be most behind is the charter schools, which take the reins from the unions and give them back to the taxpayer. But "The Cartel" also shows us how laborious it's going to be to get that control back from those who've found it so profitable. - 40727
On the one side is the monolithic Jersey teachers union and shady school officials, who guarantee that, as Bowdon points out in his picture, 90 cents of every tax dollar go for other expenses, including six figure incomes for school administrators and, in a shocking example, a school board secretary who makes $180,000. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools which can function beyond the power of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. In those disordered public schools, Bowdon points out, it's very nearly impossible to fire an instructor -- so even a dreadful one has a job for life.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of out of the ordinary aspects of public education, tenure, backing, support drops, corruption --meaning theft -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it kind of serves as a rapid-moving primer on all of the raging topics between the education-reform crusade."
"The Cartel" started making the round of the festivals in summer 2009, and made its theatrical debut just about a year later, in spring 2010. The movie has started a lot of talk, which ought no doubt carry on with the more-recent release of "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim's own education expose, "Waiting for Superman." Bowdon says the documentaries can be seen as companion pieces: his focusing on public policy and Guggenheim's taking the human-interest slant. "The two films attain common conclusions," Bowdon says.
The left-brained approach means arguments that watch the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. He follows the money to extract conclusions about how shameless the Jersey school system is, but his picture features moments of elevated emotion and grief. A girl's weeping upon hearing that she wasn't selected to attend a charter school, that she's stuck in her public school, exemplify the failure of a system as well as Bowdon's charts and interviews.
And though it may be simple to accept the presence of corruption in a state so associated with organized crime, the uncomfortable fact of the subject is that this is a very familiar situation. Any watcher will acknowledge the failings of their own state's education system and the struggle for control. The one he seems to be most behind is the charter schools, which take the reins from the unions and give them back to the taxpayer. But "The Cartel" also shows us how laborious it's going to be to get that control back from those who've found it so profitable. - 40727
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