Fighting the Cartel
There is one particular scene on one particular movie that I would like anyone who has ever voted Democratic to watch. The movie is a documentary about the cartel that runs the education system, specifically in New Jersey. The scene is about a lottery drawing for slots in a charter school showing the faces of children whose names have been drawn, and those who were not so lucky. Both are in tears, but are crying for different reasons. The scene focuses on a child weeping for her loss.
Jeannette Catsoulis, a movie critic for the New York Times, describes the scene as a result of the movie director’s “emotional coercion,” and goes on to saying that the weeping child as “another tiny victim of public school hell,” as if not being chosen to get a good education is something trivial.
I think that it would be impossible for anyone who does not get any personal or political gain from the cartel’s control over New Jersey’s education system to watch the scene and not be moved by it. It is not something new that students and teachers both fall victim to a system that is indifferent to the fact that teaching and learning do not take place in many schools. It is not something new that there is an increasing number of these students that leave schools unprepared to work and function in the real world. But you cannot blame the director for presenting facts concerning the issue as if it is new, as if nobody has done anything to alleviate it yet.
It is encouraging to note that since the movie came out, people have started taking steps in keeping themselves informed about how more and more of the taxpayers’ money and government funds are being allotted and spent by the cartel on education. On a recent school-budget election in New Jersey, residents rejected over half of the budgets on the ballot.
It seems that education budgets are no longer held as something inviolable in the state of New Jersey. Motivated by that fact, New Jersey Governor Christopher J. Christie took on the education cartel like no previous holder of his office has done before. Although it would facilitate the resolution of this issue if he were to tackle it with the same gusto and assertiveness he shows on the other issues he is undertaking.
One other thing worth noting is how the movie establishes the director’s credentials in undertaking such an issue as the cartel at the beginning of the film. It is introduced in the film that the director is a local TV reporter in New Jersey. Belonging to the media profession, his reliability stems from the fact that he sees things as they are.
The director also does a good job of presenting statistics comprehensively without compromising the facts. The film presents statistics on tax revenues, government spending on education, New Jersey educational outcomes as compared to educational outcomes of other states, etc.
The New Jersey teachers are in a panic now, as evidenced by this movie and the countless reports about how they are berating Governor Christie. Hopefully, the movie does not inspire only the cartel on education to act, but also those who have yet to do something about alleviating it. We owe the countless children who feel exactly the same as the weeping child in the movie that much.
Youtube story of The Cartel, a film by Bob Bowdon.
categories: documentaries,film,productions,movies,entertainment
Processing your request, Please wait....
