September 13, 2010; Source: Huffington Post | This blog posting on Huffington Post by Gordon Campbell, president and CEO of United Way of New York City, takes a closer look at the new movie “Waiting for Superman,” a new film by the director of Al Gore’s, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
This film tackles the issues of education reform by following five families across the country as they seek an educational path for their children. Though more high profile, the film seems to be akin to “The Lottery,” released this June and also written about here in the Nonprofit Newswire. Both films tackle the issue of a failing public school system and the potential for charter schools to help change the course. Both films hold up charter schools as beacons of hope for the families in the films.
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In his blog post, Campbell says, “Daily newspaper articles on conflicts regarding charter schools, testing standards, teacher evaluations, and budget problems are signs that the country is ready to confront the crucial issue of the quality of public education in the United States.”
As a parent of public school kindergartner (whose first day of school was yesterday!), this topic is always very much on the forefront of my mind. But education, like many other public goods, is now becoming part of the private, nonprofit sector. So we all must pay attention.—Kristin Barrali