There's money to be made in education, argues Bob Bowdon, although merely if you cut away the unprofitable bits, like good quality teachers. In his documentary "The Cartel," Bowdon, a New Jersey TV news newsman, turns the camera upon the monumental degeneracy and misdirection that has led his state to squander more than any other on its students just with shoddy results. The numbers tell the tale: $17,000 spent per student, and at hand's but a 39% reading proficiency rate, it's distressing to contend that there's a crisis underway, but harder to agree on a solution.
On the one side is the massive Jersey teachers union and umbrageous school officials, who see to it that 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 astonishing example, a school board secretary who makes $180,000. The other faction are the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can evade the authority of the public school system and would aid inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more carefully used. One of Bowdon's principal criticisms is that a teacher, even a shoddy one, basically can't be fired -- which provides zero effort to do much genuine instruction.
"The movie examines lots of unique aspects of public education, tenure, backing, patronage drops, corruption --meaning thievery -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The label education documentary possibly could sound to some like ho-hum squared, but in fact the film itself betrays an fiery passion for the quandary of particularly inner-city children."
Bowdon's docudrama started touring the festival circuit in summer of 2009 and made its theatrical debut in April 2010. Hopefully it will get a rise, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released documentary "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 interest to his own, which focuses on public policy. "The two films make exchangeable 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.
It's hard to view a movie about corruption in Jersey and not think of the mob, but it's also unmistakable that this is a national difficulty seen through a tight lens. Any watcher will realize the failings of their own state's education system and the struggle for control. 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 uphill battle to regain control from those who've worked so intense to make education very profitable for the very few.
On the one side is the massive Jersey teachers union and umbrageous school officials, who see to it that 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 astonishing example, a school board secretary who makes $180,000. The other faction are the supporters of charter schools, the private schools that can evade the authority of the public school system and would aid inner-city kids if their taxpayer money could be more carefully used. One of Bowdon's principal criticisms is that a teacher, even a shoddy one, basically can't be fired -- which provides zero effort to do much genuine instruction.
"The movie examines lots of unique aspects of public education, tenure, backing, patronage drops, corruption --meaning thievery -- vouchers and charter schools," says Bowdon. "The label education documentary possibly could sound to some like ho-hum squared, but in fact the film itself betrays an fiery passion for the quandary of particularly inner-city children."
Bowdon's docudrama started touring the festival circuit in summer of 2009 and made its theatrical debut in April 2010. Hopefully it will get a rise, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released documentary "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 interest to his own, which focuses on public policy. "The two films make exchangeable 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.
It's hard to view a movie about corruption in Jersey and not think of the mob, but it's also unmistakable that this is a national difficulty seen through a tight lens. Any watcher will realize the failings of their own state's education system and the struggle for control. 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 uphill battle to regain control from those who've worked so intense to make education very profitable for the very few.
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