Friday, October 10, 2008

"Flunked"

Two months ago Alan and I attended a screening of "Flunked," a well done, informative, and uplifting documentary focusing on the crisis we are facing in education today.

"Most people are well aware of the declining test scores and competitiveness of the average American student, as well as myriad other problems facing education today. Complaining about the problem, while easy to do, produces little productive results." Instead, this film focuses on many of "today's schools nationwide that are 'getting it right'---attaining great results in terms of college preparation, high test scores, and graduating competent workers for tomorrow's economy."


"FLUNKED---A story of failure. A formula for hope."


"Something is definitely wrong in American education. That's why
"Flunked"
went out and found educators who are doing something about it."

website: http://flunkedthemovie.com/new/index.php

7 comments:

Linda Austin Hart said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Education isn't an entitlement or right. It's not in the constitution.It is some misguided politicians idea, and Horace Mann was a communist, not to mention a molester. Our kids have been dumbed down by public education for the past 75years. Parents don't care. they just want babysitters for the indulged brats.

Salt H2O said...

Reaffirming my belief in private schools.

Anonymous said...

I am glad you liked the movie. I was really honored to have them include my school.

--Angie Dorman
angiedorman@gmail.com

Linda Austin Hart said...

anon: are you a parent? I cannot imagine that you are. The parents I know are very concerned ab out their kids' education and are not just looking for an escape from them!

salt: there are some excellent public charter schools. I hope you have an opportunity to watch the film.

Angie: which school was yours?

davers said...

I want to see this movie.

What we find, and I think it's typical in the public school system, is a resistance by teachers to involve and really use parents as anything more than baby-sitters when the kids go on mostly wasteful and expensive field trips.

Parent involvement in the classroom seems to be extremely useful, but most teachers don't know how to enable that and feel threatened by the presence of parents in the classroom.

The system needs to be designed so there is an incentive (perhaps financial) to have parents in the classroom. Both parents and teachers need that incentive. Prize oriented incentives seem very effective and they're generally cheap.

Linda Austin Hart said...

ddavers- I hope you have an opportunity to see it. I've been unsuccesful at getting a current schedule or subscribing to their RSS feed. Maybe you will have more luck on their homepage http://flunkedthemovie.com/new/index.php