The buzz is building about the number of education reform documentaries that are currently under development this year.
While An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for Superman is garnering a good chunk of the attention (go see the trailer and read our previous blog post), there are other films worth watching for when they are in theaters later this year:
First Generation is a film in development about the affordability of and access to higher education. They haven’t made their trailer available to share on our site, but you can view it on the First Generation website. Here’s the synopsis:
A feature-length documentary, First Generation delves into the lives of four of these high-achieving low-income students trying to be first in their families to go to college. Over the course of their junior and senior years of high school, their stories unfold as they navigate the process of applying to college amidst the challenges of poverty. Interwoven with these dramatic stories of survival and triumph, we interview our nation’s top educational experts who share their perspective on the problems of access facing first generation and low-income students and how their success has major implications for the future of our nation.
Teached deals with teacher tenure and bureaucracy and “examines the failure of the American education system to provide all students with a decent education, exposing the vast disparities in quality between schools serving low-income and minority students and those serving white and wealthier students.” Visit the Teached website for more information.
TEACHED 3-min trailer May 2010 from Loudspeaker Films on Vimeo.
The Lottery “follows four families from Harlem and the Bronx who have entered their children in a charter school lottery. Out of thousands of hopefuls, only a small minority will win the chance of a better future.” View The Lottery’s trailer and other information on the film’s website.
The Cartel examines the failure of New Jersey’s public schools and “shows us our educational system like we’ve never seen it before. Behind every dropout factory, we discover, lurks a powerful, entrenched, and self-serving cartel.” Visit The Cartel’s website.
And of course, don’t forget the documentary about Washington state schools. You can watch Paramount Duty right here on our website!
