The school system may be made to be exceedingly profitable, says Bob Bowdon, although just at the expense of things resembling teachers and students. In his education documentary "The Cartel," Bowdon, a TV news reporter in New Jersey, paints a gravid ugly impression of the institutional putridness that has resulted in pretty much unbelievable wastes of taxpayer money. It's not arduous for Bowdon to exemplify that something's appallingly haywire 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 entirely.
The two sides of this fight meet head-on in interviews throughout Bowdon's picture: 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 receive upwards of $100,000. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools that can work beyond the influence of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. Bowdon makes much of the fact that it's almost impossible for a teacher to be fired, a safety net that does little to incite hard work in those teachers who acknowledge they hold a career irrespective of how many of the three Rs they instruct -- if any.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of distinctive aspects of public education, tenure, funding, patronage drops, subversion --meaning theft -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it kind of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the raging topics between the education-reform front."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters countrywide a year later. Hopefully it will get a rise, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released docudrama "Waiting for Superman," by "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim. Bowdon sees the films as complementary, and hopes that "Superman," with its human-interest position, draws more notice to his own, which focuses on public policy. "My film is the left-brained edition, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
The left-brained approach means arguments that observe the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. Although he calls it left-brained, still "The Cartel" reaches some disheartening moments of emotion. One girl, crying after discovering she wasn't selected in a lottery for a charter school, tells the story of What Went Wrong as well as Bowdon's arguments.
And although there's an irony in this kind of public depravity happening in a state renowned for its organized crime, it's evident that this is not an isolated collapse. Bowdon's film illustrates a local problem, but any viewer will spot the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon puts his faith in the charter schools, where the taxpayer has influence over the kind and quality of education. But he also makes it reliable that those in power are going to be unwilling to give it up without a struggle. - 40732
The two sides of this fight meet head-on in interviews throughout Bowdon's picture: 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 receive upwards of $100,000. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools that can work beyond the influence of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. Bowdon makes much of the fact that it's almost impossible for a teacher to be fired, a safety net that does little to incite hard work in those teachers who acknowledge they hold a career irrespective of how many of the three Rs they instruct -- if any.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of distinctive aspects of public education, tenure, funding, patronage drops, subversion --meaning theft -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it kind of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the raging topics between the education-reform front."
"The Cartel" first appeared on the festival circuit in summer 2009, appearing in theaters countrywide a year later. Hopefully it will get a rise, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released docudrama "Waiting for Superman," by "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim. Bowdon sees the films as complementary, and hopes that "Superman," with its human-interest position, draws more notice to his own, which focuses on public policy. "My film is the left-brained edition, more analytical," Bowdon says, "'Waiting for Superman' is more the right-brained treatment."
The left-brained approach means arguments that observe the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. Although he calls it left-brained, still "The Cartel" reaches some disheartening moments of emotion. One girl, crying after discovering she wasn't selected in a lottery for a charter school, tells the story of What Went Wrong as well as Bowdon's arguments.
And although there's an irony in this kind of public depravity happening in a state renowned for its organized crime, it's evident that this is not an isolated collapse. Bowdon's film illustrates a local problem, but any viewer will spot the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. Bowdon puts his faith in the charter schools, where the taxpayer has influence over the kind and quality of education. But he also makes it reliable that those in power are going to be unwilling to give it up without a struggle. - 40732
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