"The Lottery" directed by Madeleine Slacker mainly explores the problems children face with getting adequate first rate education, and the struggle of this because of several political and personal problems that exist because of mainly where are they are being raised and unfortunately the color of their skin. This inequality is backed up in the film with staggering stats stating; black 12th graders perform at the same quality as white 8th graders, and 58% of black 4th graders are functionally illiterate. In neighborhoods like Harlem shown in this documentary, it's shown how a lottery is held for students to gain enrollment at charter schools where the quality of the education far exceeds what is offered in public (zoned) school. The film highlights four families with four children vying for one of the 475 seats available. These are four of more than three thousand children in New York trying to escape their predestined reputations and hoping on having a better charter school education pave their future. The notion that a student has to be lucky and win a lottery to receive an education is as disturbing as the entire educational problem explored in this film.
All these families want for their children is the best education possible for them. Some of these children's families even moved out of the country, in the documentary one family moved from Africa, they moved to give their children every opportunity for a bright future. However, the future these children might have is not so bright due to the situation they have to deal with. This is in large part due to the racial inequality that exists in New York City and most cities in America. This segregation keeps the black and Latino families at a struggle to compete with white families because of the qualities of the schools that are offered. Teachers don't want to teach in the bad areas and the city doesn't want to throw money to try to fix these bad areas. These "bad" areas are socially constructed and keep the educational system from bettering itself and keeps discrimination flourishing.
To touch on this issue of race you have to look at the demographics of New York City and the wealth distribution. Harlem, which is portrayed in the movie, is predominantly African American and is lower in income than white neighborhoods in other parts of the city. The wealth associated with the neighborhoods is directly correlated to the schools and education that are offered. These low income neighborhoods feed off the public school that is not up to par with the desired education of America. The charter schools serve as relief, but as shown in the title of the documentary, this relief comes as small as the off chance of winning a lottery for these families.
For many of the children their failure is inevitable and many of the problems causing this are never addressed. This in part due to schools accepting the title of failing and the tenure these teachers keep in the midst of this failure. This is because the cost of firing a tenured teacher in New York City cost over 250,000 dollars of tax payer money and the city is frankly not willing to give that up. So instead of firing teachers that are feeding failure to child after child the state for its own selfish benefit to not lose money keeps the mediocre teachers teaching. The irony of this on a broader view not only hurts the educational system but many of the vital pillars of all urban cities.
To further elaborate on this point, the zoned schools operate as a union and that why it's so hard for schools to make drastic changes as far as faculty. The charter schools on the other hand are built on results, this enables the charter schools to fire teachers when necessary giving the children the best or at least better quality of teacher available, this is why the lottery is so appealing to families. Charter schools are also publicly funded; this enables them to be freed from many of the obligations schools of the state are bounded with. From the National Education Associations website it's shown that a charter school can only be granted if the school offers an experience that is qualitatively different from that of the zoned schools. So basically the school must have better academics which mean better teachers. This is also why charter schools are often in urban cities because of the high density of children getting into schools, and the abundance of bad areas and bad schools. And the results these schools offer on a national show why so many parents are willing to sacrifice for their child to get to enroll in one. Charter schools have significantly higher test scores, and all teachers are certified.
This is all made very apparent by the film. The film seems to be unbalanced and tends to make the unions and zoned schools look substantially worse than they really are. The charter schools are displayed as obedient, intelligent and accommodating while the zoned schools seem quite the opposite and are portrayed as unorganized, undisciplined and unaccommodating. This seems to be more of Madeleine Slacker trying to prove a point from an extreme point of view rather than her showing both sides of the story. However the film does document the existing problem and at least shows a possible solution in the utilization of more charter schools and hopefully in my mind at least the elimination of the need for a lottery. At the core of this urban problem is the underdevelopment of areas of cities, such as Harlem, that display discrimination and unfair distribution of wealth which in turn leads to unsatisfactory education and a need for a lottery in the first place.
All these families want for their children is the best education possible for them. Some of these children's families even moved out of the country, in the documentary one family moved from Africa, they moved to give their children every opportunity for a bright future. However, the future these children might have is not so bright due to the situation they have to deal with. This is in large part due to the racial inequality that exists in New York City and most cities in America. This segregation keeps the black and Latino families at a struggle to compete with white families because of the qualities of the schools that are offered. Teachers don't want to teach in the bad areas and the city doesn't want to throw money to try to fix these bad areas. These "bad" areas are socially constructed and keep the educational system from bettering itself and keeps discrimination flourishing.
To touch on this issue of race you have to look at the demographics of New York City and the wealth distribution. Harlem, which is portrayed in the movie, is predominantly African American and is lower in income than white neighborhoods in other parts of the city. The wealth associated with the neighborhoods is directly correlated to the schools and education that are offered. These low income neighborhoods feed off the public school that is not up to par with the desired education of America. The charter schools serve as relief, but as shown in the title of the documentary, this relief comes as small as the off chance of winning a lottery for these families.
For many of the children their failure is inevitable and many of the problems causing this are never addressed. This in part due to schools accepting the title of failing and the tenure these teachers keep in the midst of this failure. This is because the cost of firing a tenured teacher in New York City cost over 250,000 dollars of tax payer money and the city is frankly not willing to give that up. So instead of firing teachers that are feeding failure to child after child the state for its own selfish benefit to not lose money keeps the mediocre teachers teaching. The irony of this on a broader view not only hurts the educational system but many of the vital pillars of all urban cities.
To further elaborate on this point, the zoned schools operate as a union and that why it's so hard for schools to make drastic changes as far as faculty. The charter schools on the other hand are built on results, this enables the charter schools to fire teachers when necessary giving the children the best or at least better quality of teacher available, this is why the lottery is so appealing to families. Charter schools are also publicly funded; this enables them to be freed from many of the obligations schools of the state are bounded with. From the National Education Associations website it's shown that a charter school can only be granted if the school offers an experience that is qualitatively different from that of the zoned schools. So basically the school must have better academics which mean better teachers. This is also why charter schools are often in urban cities because of the high density of children getting into schools, and the abundance of bad areas and bad schools. And the results these schools offer on a national show why so many parents are willing to sacrifice for their child to get to enroll in one. Charter schools have significantly higher test scores, and all teachers are certified.
This is all made very apparent by the film. The film seems to be unbalanced and tends to make the unions and zoned schools look substantially worse than they really are. The charter schools are displayed as obedient, intelligent and accommodating while the zoned schools seem quite the opposite and are portrayed as unorganized, undisciplined and unaccommodating. This seems to be more of Madeleine Slacker trying to prove a point from an extreme point of view rather than her showing both sides of the story. However the film does document the existing problem and at least shows a possible solution in the utilization of more charter schools and hopefully in my mind at least the elimination of the need for a lottery. At the core of this urban problem is the underdevelopment of areas of cities, such as Harlem, that display discrimination and unfair distribution of wealth which in turn leads to unsatisfactory education and a need for a lottery in the first place.