More on “The Lottery”
We’ve mentioned Madeleine Sackler’s documentary here before.
Read the great interview Bari Weiss did with Sackler at the Wall Street Journal.
One nugget among many:
“We drove by that protest,” Ms. Sackler recalls. “We were on our way to another interview and we jumped out of the van and started filming.” There she discovered that the majority of those protesting the proliferation of charter schools were not even from the neighborhood. They’d come from the Bronx and Queens.
“They all said ‘We’re not allowed to talk to you. We’re just here to support the parents.’” But there were only two parents there, says Ms. Sackler, and both were members of Acorn. And so, “after not a lot of digging,” she discovered that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) had paid Acorn, the controversial community organizing group, “half a million dollars for the year.” (It cost less to make the film.)
And one more:
In the film, Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker says he can’t go to lotteries anymore because they break his heart. “A child’s destiny should not be determined on the pull of a draw.” Nothing drives home this point more than seeing the parents and kids, perched at the edge of their chairs, hoping their names flash on the big screen.
