Storming the School Barricades

STOP THE PRESSES! Yesterday’s WSJ had an AMAZING interview with Madeleine Sackler, the producer of The Lottery, under the title: Storming the School Barricades: A new documentary by a 27-year-old filmmaker could change the national debate about public education. Indeed! Here’s an excerpt from the interview:




In a particularly cringe-inducing exchange captured on film, Councilwoman Maria Del Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx accuses Ms. Moskowitz of lying when the charter school leader talks about being a parent in Harlem (the neighborhood where she grew up, where she attended public school, and where she is raising her children, who attend the charter). The subtext, of course, is that Ms. Moskowitz is white and well-off.



This is par for the course, Ms. Sackler tells me. Harlem Success Academy is "protested more than any other charter school in this city—and there are some bad charter schools. So you would wonder why that would be."



Those wondering why need look no further than 2002, the year that Ms. Moskowitz, then a Democratic City Council member, became chair of the city's education committee. "She held a lot of hearings on the union contract—and the custodian contract, and the principal contract," says Ms. Sackler. New Yorkers learned that the teachers' contract is hundreds of pages long and littered with rules mandating every detail of how teachers will spend their workday.



The union was not pleased. So when Evil Moskowitz, as she was dubbed, ran for Manhattan borough president in 2005, the UFT campaigned hard for her opponent, Scott Stringer, who won.



Ms. Moskowitz, who confirmed in an interview that she has mayoral aspirations, was surely disappointed by the defeat. But her loss was Harlemites' gain. As one mother says of Ms. Moskowitz at a town hall meeting in Harlem, "She's our Obama. She brought change to our kids, okay?"



Some parents in the film do not know what exactly a charter school is. And the truth, as the film implicitly points out, is that such technical designations don't much matter. What these parents know is that they desperately want their children to have the best possible education, and to have opportunities that they themselves could only imagine. Winning a spot in Harlem Success Academy—or another high-performing school—is critical to reaching that goal.



"Going into it one of the goals was to expose one myth . . . which is that some parents don't care," says Ms. Sackler. "The reason for telling the parents' stories is that I never thought that was true."



Here’s the email from proud papa (and education reform warrior in his own right), Jon Sackler:



Last night “The Lottery” had its Grand Opening to a full house at the beautiful Apollo Theater in Harlem. The panel after the film, with five parents, Madeleine, Eva Moskowitz and Chancellor Joel Klein, was a celebration of progress and a call to action – inner city parents are getting a taste of life-changing high-performing public schools, and they want more!


So today’s excitement was the publication of a huge article in the Wall Street Journal, “Storming the School Barricades: A new documentary by a 27-year-old filmmaker could change the national debate about public education”.


I asked Madeleine, “Are you OK with your career peaking early?” She said it’s not a problem.


So if you haven’t seen “The Lottery” yet, c’mon out on June 8. The film is now booked in 54 theaters around the country. Go to http://www.screenvision.com/s/showing/TheLottery/ to order tickets.



At the end of this email is a list of theaters in 24 states (!) where The Lottery is debuting this coming week.
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OPINION: THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW

JUNE 5, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575242123324855474.html

Storming the School Barricades

A new documentary by a 27-year-old filmmaker could change the national debate about public education.

By BARI WEISS