Any of you curious as to what a guy who writes at least 5 posts a week for www.perdaily.com does during his weekend? Saturday night, I went to the Laemmle Sunset 5 to see
The Cartel, a film about the corruption of public education in New Jersey, a state that has the distinction of
spending more money per pupil than any forty-seven other states in the union, while having little or nothing to show for it. There is a definite East coast flavor -- cue
The Godfather theme music -- to this story of premeditated public education failure that the producer, writer, director Bob Bowdon masterfully brings to his telling of the pervasive and astronomically expensive corruption that hold public school children and their parents hostage, while ultimately releasing them into society as illiterate and unable to do simple math. Anyone familiar with LAUSD will recognize all the cast of platitude quoting educriminal characters who continue to run public education and the future of this country into the ground.
At times,
The Cartel takes on the tone of a black comedy when it talks about people like John Cockran who taught English for 17 years although he ultimately admitted that he was a functional illiterate. Or the interview with the head of New Jersey's teachers' union who doesn't blink while mouthing nonsensical justifications in support of teachers no matter how damning the facts. Even though stories like these clearly go a long way in explaining an overall 37%
