The new film Won’t Back Down
A parent horrified by her daughter’s awful education joins with a once-jaded school teacher to take over their local public elementary school and rescue kids from union-imposed mediocrity.
The film is based on real events surrounding efforts by frustrated parents and teachers across the country to use “parent trigger” laws to transform failing schools. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the poorly educated Pittsburgh mom who wants a better future for her dyslexic third-grade daughter. She sees a teacher from her daughter’s school (Viola Davis) at a lottery for the handful of slots in a high-performing charter school and believes she can be an ally for reform.
We beat the teachers union! DeVos is Education Secretary!
The rotten status quo is the only explanation for the bid to block DeVos. The teachers unions pulled the strings, and the political puppets danced to their masters’ tune.
DeVos survived because President Trump is determined to deliver a government that shatters the insiders’ perks and privilege and opens the door to new ways of doing things. In education, that means giving more parents the power of school choice and taking power away from the union establishment.
Millions of children, most poor and many black and Latino, are forced to attend failure factories that rob them of America’s promise. While family breakdown is a prime culprit, the social contract requires society to do its best to compensate.
http://nypost.com/20...d-and-its-soul/