Lottery for a Better Future
There’s a lot of well-deserved buzz about Madeleine Sackler’s new documentary, The Lottery. The film follows four families who have entered the lottery for admission to kindergarten in the hugely-successful Harlem Success Academy, a charter school in New York.
It’s hard to argue that parents of poor kids don’t care about their kids’ education– or don’t know that many of their neighborhood schools are failing– when there are thousands of parents who have their kids in lotteries for charter schools– and vouchers– all over the country.
It’s hard to argue with the need for reform when, on average, black and Latino 12th-graders read at the level of white 8th-graders.
The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Sackler here. (It starts about 40 seconds into the clip.)
Liberal black columnist Errol Lewis at the NY Daily News says:
“The Lottery” will create and energize charter supporters by the thousands. It conveys the desperation and urgency of urban public education better than the anti-charter forces can defend a status quo that is shockingly unfair and wholly unacceptable.
Lewis admits that not all charter schools are good and not all charter schools are better than all regular public schools, but adds:
Beyond scores, there’s the look and feel of learning. You know it when you see it…The fact that charters, on average, don’t significantly outperform other public schools doesn’t invalidate the individual achievement of particular schools like Harlem Success. They are pointing the way to a future where good schooling will be more than just a matter of chance.
There’s more on the film and the audience reaction at the Tribeca Film Festival here.
Be sure to take the quiz on The Lottery‘s website. What you find there might surprise you.
[...] mentioned Madeleine Sackler’s documentary here [...]