There's money to be made in education, argues Bob Bowdon, therefore simply when you snip out the unprofitable bits, like good quality teachers. In his education documentary "The Cartel," Bowdon, a TV news reporter in New Jersey, paints a grand ugly picture of the institutional corruption that has resulted in virtually incredible wastes of taxpayer money. It's not toilsome for Bowdon to illustrate that something's atrociously 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 another question altogether.
Here are two major factions in Bowdon's movie -- the villains are pretty clearly the Jersey teachers union and school board who funnel 90 cents of every dollar away from teachers' salaries and toward incidentals, including six-figure salaries for school administrators. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools that can work beyond the authority of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. Bowdon makes much of the fact that it's pretty much impossible for an instructor to be fired, a safety net that does little to encourage hard work in those teachers who understand they have a vocation regardless of how many of the three Rs they instruct -- if any.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of out of the ordinary aspects of public teaching, tenure, funding, patronage drops, corruption --meaning larceny -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it kind of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the heavy topics amongst the education-reform movement."
"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."
The left-brained tactic means arguments that follow the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. Although he calls it left-brained, still "The Cartel" reaches some disheartening moments of emotion. A girl's tears upon hearing that she wasn't selected to attend a charter school, that she's stuck in her public school, illustrate the failure of a system as well as Bowdon's charts and interviews.
And although there's a satire in this variety of public depravity happening in a state famed for its organized crime, it's unambiguous that this is not an isolated collapse. Bowdon's film illustrates a local predicament, but any watcher will acknowledge the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. 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. Nevertheless he also knows it'll be an uphill battle to recover control from those who've worked so intense to make education very profitable for the very few. - 40725
Here are two major factions in Bowdon's movie -- the villains are pretty clearly the Jersey teachers union and school board who funnel 90 cents of every dollar away from teachers' salaries and toward incidentals, including six-figure salaries for school administrators. On the other side are the supporters of charter schools -- private schools that can work beyond the authority of what Bowdon calls The Cartel. Bowdon makes much of the fact that it's pretty much impossible for an instructor to be fired, a safety net that does little to encourage hard work in those teachers who understand they have a vocation regardless of how many of the three Rs they instruct -- if any.
"'The Cartel' examines lots of out of the ordinary aspects of public teaching, tenure, funding, patronage drops, corruption --meaning larceny -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "And as such it kind of serves as a swift-moving primer on all of the heavy topics amongst the education-reform movement."
"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."
The left-brained tactic means arguments that follow the economics -- money misspent, opportunities wasted. Although he calls it left-brained, still "The Cartel" reaches some disheartening moments of emotion. A girl's tears upon hearing that she wasn't selected to attend a charter school, that she's stuck in her public school, illustrate the failure of a system as well as Bowdon's charts and interviews.
And although there's a satire in this variety of public depravity happening in a state famed for its organized crime, it's unambiguous that this is not an isolated collapse. Bowdon's film illustrates a local predicament, but any watcher will acknowledge the systems of system failure in their own state's schools. 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. Nevertheless he also knows it'll be an uphill battle to recover control from those who've worked so intense to make education very profitable for the very few. - 40725
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