One of the biggest problems in discussing the need for systemic reform of American public education is that so much of the underlying problems can sometimes be hard to see. The impact of state laws and collective bargaining agreements on classroom teaching is tremendous, yet it is easy for those who defend the status quo to declare that the problems lie with poverty, with students or with school reformers supposedly making more of issues than they really are.
But in the past few years, directors such as Davis Guggenheim and Madeleine Sackler have produced films that dramatize why reform is needed more than ever. Defenders of traditional public education may decry the films as propaganda (as if their own polemics couldn’t be declared the same), and some school reformers may bemoan the flicks as over-simplistic (while forgetting that the average person will never read research reports). Yet the capacity of these films to bring new voices into school reform cannot be underestimated; reformers such as Hess should welcome them with open arms. We need more films, more declarations from artists such as John Legend and Will.I.Am, and more people demanding a revolution, not an evolution, in American public education.
One of the films that captured the need for reform is The Cartel, Bob Bowden’s documentary on how the players in traditional public education — including teachers unions and school boards — have poorly served the kids in their care. Watch this trailer, consider what needs to be done to overhaul our schools, and take action.