Education Meltdown: Why Won’t Back Down Could Be This Generation’s China Syndrome
Reforming education is a cause that should unite all Americans. Who does not want to see every child equipped with the tools needed to be a self-sufficient, productive member of society? Who doesn’t want kids given skills that enable them to provide for a family someday? There is general agreement that the system is broken. Politics will always play a role as positions such as school board chairman are voted on.
Yet there are key steps that must be taken prior to those auxiliary decisions made at the ballot box. Between here and there a complete overhaul of the way we do public education is needed at the local, state, and federal level. This type of monumental change requires some consensus-building. 
Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the D.C. public schools and founder/CEO of Students First, was, for all intents and purposes, the star of Waiting for Superman, and according to Barnz, one of the key inspirations for him as he wrote and directed Won’t Back Down. She is also a committed liberal Democrat. She has taken flack from her “side” because she has dared to challenge one of the most sacred of cows of the American Left: public-sector unions. Yet she’s also received considerable support from her “side” because millions of Americans across the political spectrum have grown fed up with the status quo.
There seems to be a window of opportunity opening to really shake things up in the way we do education in this country. With events like the Chicago teachers’ union strike and the showdown between Governor Scott Walker and the public-sector unions of Wisconsin, we need to look for catalysts that will awaken the electorate to the sense of urgency warranted by the problem at hand.
Won’t Back Down works as a movie and touches a national nerve – as such it has the potential to be a cultural catalyst. It is a fine film; the fact it has the potential to change some hearts and minds along the way only adds to its appeal.
You might even say it’s educational.
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The problem with this movie is that it doesn’t address the biggest problem with education; government control. Until this premise is questioned all the window dressing is for naught because the root cause of the problem is being avoided.
Government control is the issue, indeed. Education should be controlled at the local level by the parents and local taxpayers involved. In addition to questioning the preliminary issue of competency of the federal government to address education matters directly, parents and local taxpayers would do well to self-educate about this issue so that they are not snookered or intimidated by the ed school know-it-alls administering the schools and influencing the school board members. This mandarin class, in an effort to justify its own existence, tries to give the impression that teaching kids is hard. Just ask any homeschooler, most of whom lack education credentials, how their kids are performing. It’s stratospheric in comparison. The fact that these uncredentialed parents succeed wildly at teaching their own belies the need to have the public fisc pay for some unwarrantedly complicated system, which seems to cost more every year with worse results. There are more than two million kids being homeschooled in America, and more every year as this public education disaster continues.
Whoa, Nellie! I am not going to defend the brahmins, per se, but the fact that a parent can successfully teach a few kids, whose destinies and to some degree, values, they control, and in whom they are completely PERSONALLY invested, hardly is comparable to a teacher, whose JOB is to teach 100-150 students from all different sorts of backgrounds.
No, because this movie is apparently one of the biggest box office bombs ever.
Jeremy, Please pull the blankee back over your head and go back to bed. You haven’t seen the movie nor will you. You have no concern therefore your comment is a aste of digital space. Come back when you learn something.
The biggest issue are brainwashed and lazy teachers produced by liberal colleges. They teach that whatever is going bad in the world is caused by the greedy American imperialism. How are gonna change that? To reeducate university professors?
If you want a Three-Mile Island event, take a look at the story out of Ohio this week. The state auditor has discovered massive fraud in the state’s testing and assessment system. School districts have been caught disenrolling students who weren’t passing the state achievement tests to prop up their numbers. MASSIVE NUMBERS of students.
“Cleveland schools omitted almost 20,000 students — more than a third of the district’s total enrollment — from its test results during the 2010-11 school year, including more than 12,000 who took state achievement tests.”
Of course, they will spin this to make the case that voters should pass the levy they’re asking for in November. This was merely an administrative oversight caused by a lack of staff and computers. They’ll get right on it if they can get an infusion of cash.
I really don’t know what it will take to convince people this system needs a complete overhaul and the federal government is not the answer. NCLB (and it’s companion RttT) are not recipes for success.
What are “NCLB” and “RttT”? I’m not familiar with those acronyms….
NCLB stands for No Child Left Behind.
That’s the monstrosity GWB allowed Ted Kennedy to write and then he signed it into law.
Personally, I would like to see the DoE eliminated, and most, if not all schools, privatized.
NCLB: G.W. Bush “Education” program acronym for No Child Left Behind
RttT: OBama’s “Education” program aptly named Race to the Top.
Sadly, both of the above have been abject failures in increasing academic performance of the poor and working class mostly due to states rights’ patchwork
of political agendas.
Hey, wait a minute!
Wasn’t that Georgia last year?
Haven’t heard much about that scandal recently.
‘The China Syndrome’ was indeed an excellent message film.
Unfortunately, the message was a lie which supported the
demonization of nuclear power, kept the electrical grid
dependent on fossil fuels, and will shortly have children
walking to school in the dark because rationing will not
allow fuel for the school buses or electricity for the
street lights. Another goal met by our Progressive
federal government, by design and right on schedule.
If global warming is true, then Jane Fonda will be the one to have destroyed the world.
Ahhh, but are the unions complaining about or trying to refute this movie?
When I saw the trailers, I automatically assumed that it would be about parents and union teachers standing up to the EVIL SCHOOL BOARD that was trying to cut all of the funding for everything. It came out of Hollywood, so I think that was a reasonable expectation. I’ve been trying to talk myself into seeing it since I realized that MAYBE it was actually about parents fighting the unions, not allying with them, but I just didn’t trust Hollywood enough. Based on what you’re saying, I supose I could give it a chance, but I wonder if the unions actually see it as a threat. I mean, they attacked Waiting for Superman, so we KNOW it did some damage. Is Won’t Back Down getting the same treatment?
Are the teachers and their union exposed as incompetent, self-serving and politically motivated? Or are they the heroes? Is waste and corruption on the part of teachers and administrators a sub-text?
I suppose I’ll have to see the movie. The trailer does NOT make me want to see it.
Teachers sold their profession, deciding to serve an indoctrination process rather than actually teaching. Their reward was tenure and politicized unions.
My kin taught starting at the turn of the last century and would and have found the current crop of teachers manque nauseating.
I’m afraid I will always remember Viola Davis as the criminally neglegent parent of the sole black student in the bleak movie DOUBT. As ugly and dishonest a film as I have ever seen. As for WON’T BACK DOWN… I have to wonder if Hollywood and the Left in general are not truly worried that they are losing one of their prime indoctrination forums — the government school. I’m deeply suspicious that any film coming out of Hollywood will be honest about the indoctrination, the ideological bullying by teachers, the politicization of every human endeavor including Religion and Art and Literature and Science. Nevermind the growing concern about the sexualiztion and exploitation of children. And isn’t it ironic that bullying is the cause of the moment given that most bullying comes from the head of the classroom. No, no movie matters here. Private schools, religious schools, homeschooling — these are the alternatives to government-mandated education. We spend half a trillion dollars on k-12 education in this country. And for what? Mr. Moeller, ask yourself why schools make sure there are no smarts phones in the classroom.
Seems to me that the people who actually have the power to “fix” public education do not have any “skin” in the game. The politicians, civic leaders, and many that work in education have “opted out” and send their children to private schools. If those folks had to send their little darlings to public schools I think there would be some major changes in a very short time. Maybe we should require those in “public service” to send their children to “public schools”. If they are going to be controlling the school systems, money, etc. they should be involved – actually have kids in public school.
cOULD I SAY THAT ANY WOMAN WEIGHING OVER 350 POUNDS SHUD NOT BE ALLOWED IN A CLASSROOM, ALREADY…..AND THE PROPROTION OF AFRICAN AMER. teachers to the population shud be preportionate That is where the system is failing…..Unions and quarter tonne teachers….with a nasty loud mouth…..can i say this already
Mr. Josie Wales, let me answer your question, perhaps on behalf of a number of other folks here.
No. You’re an effing troll.
We like to address behaviors, not appearances.
Ok, chief?
I agree with “Roark” in that Government control (and endless bureaucratic paperwork) are a major impediment to better education for our children. I suggest that a remedy would be to concentrate on teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, and later real mathematics to those who can learn it. I spoke briefly with a teacher about her advanced Math class; she said some of the students were attentive and interested, on the the other end of the curve, some were bored, taking the course because they had to. But few courses can effectively be taught if the student can’t read or do arithmetic.
Michelle Rhee is the one involved in one of the the biggest high stakes testing cheating scandals and it happened in her own backyard..It occurred in Wash DC while she was chancellor..that’s why Ms Hypocrite had to leave and go down to Florida to start another scam…Students First with her good Republican buddy Jeb Bush. She is not a Democrat..She is a Republican disguised as a Democrat…
Look who supports her and who her so called acquaintances are…They are all billionaires who want a piece of the charter school programs.
the purpose charters serve is for the corporate, the politicians, and the frauds like Michelle Rhee (not even a real teacher-taught for TFA a couple of years only) to make a profit for themselves and for their investors. not for children. Charter schools segregate populations. There are no set limits on executive compensation, there is no ban for-profits, they don’t require enrollment of high-needs students, thus, the sector becomes manageable. There is no fair playing field fair in terms of funding, evaluation, and accountability.
The Christian Daily Monitor and other sites will tell you this:
More evidence is in that charter schools do no better than regular public schools.
This movement for free enterprise education is the biggest scam since the civil rights 1960s educational crisis….She is a fraud. Rhee knows that billionaires want to make money…that’s what capitalists do…and so Gates, Bush, Klein, Chris Christie, Bloomberg Eli Broad./..they all are in for it ..not to help children but to make money for their own portfolios and that of their investors. Let’s call a spade , a spade. Ms Rhee…You are riling things up for the sole purpose of eliminating unions and making money….By getting rid of unions, the money is there for you and your billionaire friends to create charters for profit..That’s what capitalism is….and that’s why charters are gaining in popularity.
Hunh?????
What in the Sam Hill are you talking about?
The folks in New Orleans, post-Katrina, couldn’t be happier with the charter schools that have sprung up in the area. The public school systems had been abysmal prior to 2005 and parents were looking for a change. They got an unexpected windfall when the storm ravaged the area.
Given, charter schools are not a panacea, but they are certainly better than the product that is foisted on parents, students, and taxpayers in this day and age.
Obama’s Chicago pal U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proclaimed Katrina “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.” Cha-ching baby!
On September 22, 2011, the Census Bureau released information from their 2010 annual American Community Survey based on a poll of 2,500 people in New Orleans. Not surprisingly, the report was ignored by the local mainstream media since it speaks volumes about the inequality of the Katrina recovery. Despite the billions in post-Katrina federal dollars for building schools, streets and bridges, and homes, the New Orleans poverty rate has actually increased back to the highest level since 1999. The survey revealed that 27% of New Orleans adults now live in poverty and 42% of children.
This recent development reverses the temporary decline in poverty rates reported in 2007 and 2008 surveys when the poverty rate was nearly cut in half compared to pre-Katrina numbers. Those early declines in poverty were probably the result of large numbers of low-income African Americans who could not afford to return or lacked housing and employment. The new spike in poverty, despite the increase in overall education levels in the city, signals that blacks are not sharing equally in the employment benefits of recovery dollars. Indeed, the city may be creating a new generation of chronically unemployed poor who were previously part of the low-wage working poor