Webinar; Rita Solnet Speaks to Parents Who "Won't Back Down" :: Save Our SchoolsSave Our Schools

Webinar; Rita Solnet Speaks to Parents Who "Won't Back Down" :: Save Our SchoolsSave Our Schools:

Webinar; Rita Solnet Speaks to Parents Who “Won’t Back Down”

Save Our Schools Webinar
Rita Solnet Speaks to Parents Who “Won’t Back Down”
Friday, September 7, 2012
8:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time [EDT}
Please Join Us!

Co-Founder of Parents Across America, Rita Solnet speaks to moms and dads, students, teachers, and any of us who “Won’t Back Down.” Rita understands the intensity of their feelings. As a mother herself, Ms Solnet would do anything within her power to ensure that child receives the best education possible. She relates to the pain of seeing her child ill-served in a classroom.

She understands the struggle when a school does not meet a son or daughter’s needs. Rita’s own distress with what seemed a broken school system led to her current career as an education activist. This is the reason that Rita Solnet might be the best to speak to what is glorified today in the recently released film, “Won’t Back Down” In it ‘parents convert their school.’ The Moms and Dads ‘force the district to remove staff…teachers and even a principal.’

You might think Rita would applaud a movie where parents ‘help fix their children’s failing school.” Then, again you might be surprised.

Please join Rita Solnet’s Webinar this Friday, September 7th. The Film “Won’t Back Down” will be among the topics discussed. Rita will also talk about the Parent Trigger Law, an issue loosely addressed in the movie, and actions you might take in your local community. You may have seen Rita’s recent article….

‘WON’T BACK DOWN’: REALITIES THE MOVIE IGNORES

Originally Published on August 20, 2012 at 2:53 PM ET in The Answer Sheet. Washington Post.
By Rita Solnet

“Change a school, change the neighborhood.”

That’s a line from the controversial, star-studded movie, “Won’t Back Down,” scheduled to be released on September 28th.

I attended a Washington D.C. screening of this compelling movie over the weekend. I carried a small notebook and a long list of preconceived notions about what I expected to see in this film. I walked out with a long list of questions as to what I didn’t see portrayed in the film.

The synopsis describes this movie as: “Two determined mothers, one a teacher, who look to transform their children’s failing inner city school. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy, they risk everything to make a difference in the education of their children.”

However, the messages in this feel-good, underdog-winning movie go far beyond what this summary depicts.

Within the first few minutes, projected on the screen in large letters are the words,“Inspired By True Events.” That conveys the message that parents and teachers took over and ran a school somewhere in our nation. That never happened. I suppose that sells better than opening the film with, “This is Fictitious.”

Outstanding performances by star-studded and new young actors will put this movie on the Academy Award nomination list, I’m sure. The actors did a superb job of drawing you into the movie.

I cried several times despite knowing that this movie was funded by charter school privatizers seeking fistfuls of dwindling education dollars.

I cried despite knowing that the story behind the “failing” school was not told.

I knew that the divisive and unsuccessful “parent trigger” laws that have been passed in California and a few other states — and are being considered in about 20 others — was intentionally disguised in this movie as a fictitious law cleverly named “Fail-Safe,” yet I still wept.

I wanted to jump into the movie and help these moms win. The audience audibly cheered for the underdogs every step of the way. Who wouldn’t? Moms in the face of adversity knocking down barriers to help their kids chances for a better future. Of course, I’m on their side.

Unfortunately, this film depicts a story that is more about good vs. evil than about the truth behind public schools today and the movement to privatize them. Portraying a complex public education system as irretrievably broken — and blaming abusive, older teachers and their rabidly protective unions is much easier than illustrating the complicated truth, I suppose.

Realities that make true school reform so hard were left out of the film. To Read the rest of this article..‘Won’t Back Down’: Realities the movie ignores