C-Span to Repeat Q&A on "The Lottery" at 11:00 EDT Tonight

C-Span will repeat today's Q&A on the new documentary "The Lottery", with Brian interviewing Medeleine Sackler, the producer-director, starting at 11:00 EDT. Sackler set out to follow the attempts of four youngsters in Harlem to gain admission to charter schools, where their parents believed they would receive better education than in the regular public school system. Charter schools are partially supported by public funds, but also by private money, and accordingly are not forced to operate under many of the restrictions facing the public system, including especially unionized teachers. Thus the charters face considerable resistance from the community, fostered by the unions, even though they have demonstrated that they do provide superior educational experiences. Sackler became involved with exposing the political machinations of the whole educational system in New York as part of filming her documentary, coming to the eventual conclusion that "unions don't always have the best interest of their students at heart". An interesting and enlightening hour.

Most intriguing segment was a section showing a school board meeting when a new charter school was applying to take over the building of a public school which was scheduled to close because it habitually produced students scoring well below average. The union had so inflamed the parents against the new school that they shouted down the new application, claiming that they were being "disrespected" and their commuity being destroyed. Eventually the charter school dropped its application, the federal Education Department sued to keep the old school open, and the parents managed to lose a new, promising educational experience for their kids, dooming them to a continuation of the grossly inadequate schooling they had been receiving.

Read the book “Crazy Like A Fox” by Ben Chavis and Carey Blakely. Chavis is an Indian who become an educator and takes over a charter school in Oakland that had been created for their American Indian community. When Chavis gets there, the kids are drinking 40’s, smoking pot and having sex on a mattress behind a tool shed - and it is a middle school, in disrepair no less. There is an absentee rate of 35%, the kids cannot read nor write and they are blanking on the state tests. The liberal intelligentsia of Oakland, fools that they are, are teaching the kids bead making and banging on drums to keep them in touch with their Indian “heritage”. You will be cheering as Chavis throws the bead bums out, fires the idiots and spits the Oakland establishment in the face. He attacks the Democrats, even though he is one, for trashing the education of minority children. They have run it for decades and produced nothing but union contracts, while the kids cannot even read. He yells at them for always throwing too much money at the problem and having no accountability. He spends less money but gets great results.

This man does a job and he takes a school of illiterates, writes new rules, drops the truancy to almost zero, rips off the makeup, pulls up their pants, shaves the heads of disobedient students, stops rotating kids in different classes by anchoring them with one teacher and makes the school reach the top 5 schools in California based on standardized tests. He beats the rich white schools in the suburbs. Well, then the Governor, the press and even Laura Ingraham shows up. This guy Chavis has answers and I think he could make big things happen in inner city schools if he was given the helm. He gets results where the Democratic led education establishment has failed for decades.

Chavis loves No Child Left Behind because it makes schools accountable - and that is why the teachers unions hate it.

Oh and guess what - the education establishment hates him - what else is new.

First heard about the film several weeks ago when Sackler was interviewed on the Saturday afternoon “Wall Street Journal Editorial Board” on Fox News. Yes, I noticed that - she knows Obama mouths support for educational reform, but hasn’t quite put that info together with the fact that he’s in the pocket of every union in the land, and that he shut down that DC voucher program when he first took office putting something like 1400 students back into the hands of the Washington public schools - she does show intellectual honesty and an ability to put aside preconceptions, so she might catch on to Obama’s scam yet....

Sounds like a good book - same results, opposite coast - I think one of the strongest points Sackler makes is that so many students who are otherwise thought to be lost causes can do very well if they have the right learning opportunities, which includes especially getting rid of incapable and uncaring teachers and giving the good ones who are left the chance to exercise their abilities in a flexible and supportive setting....

I saw their children on BART on their way to a field trip to San Francisco. Quiet, well-behaved kids in white polo shirts sitting and standing on the train. There were public school kids in the next car yelling, playing music and being jackasses, these kids were oblivious and spoke quietly to each other and to their teacher.

I complemented the teacher on his class and he said he really appreciated it, that his kids were “good kids who worked hard.”

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