Wretchard #7

The question becomes how do you transfer those values back into a culture which has in many ways is in danger of losing its drive to excellence. Culture is a powerful factor in determining achievement.

Sonny Bunch has an interesting review of three new documentaries on the role of teachers’ unions in the deplorable state of American public education. “For the first time in living memory, poor-performing teachers and the unions that protect them are under real scrutiny. So much so that even documentarians—the most liberal enclave of the most liberal institution (the entertainment-industrial complex) in American society—are now taking aim at union excesses. Theaters across the country have seen an explosion of films that cast a critical eye on public schools and the reasons for their failures.”

The three films are The Cartel, The Lottery, and Waiting for “Superman”:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/bright-lights-bad-schoolhouses