Review: Reform school (is to school reform what "Reefer Madness" is to drug policy)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/movies/171556971.html?refer=y

Article by: COLIN COVERT , Star Tribune
Updated: September 27, 2012 - 1:55 PM

REVIEW: Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis lend star power to a politically charged movie about corrupt union schoolteachers.

"Won't Back Down" is to school reform what "Reefer Madness" is to drug policy. The difference is that it features the best acting talent money can buy, with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as a fed-up parent and an idealistic educator who take control of their failing Pittsburgh grade school and transform it.

They play the heartstrings like Yo-Yo Ma in service of a story that is emotionally manipulative, dramatically crude, factually challenged hero/villain hokum. That describes about 81 percent of all movies, but when a film's goal is to move public policy, it's worth commenting on.

Adams Elementary is a dreadful inner-city school. The problem isn't staff and program cuts, lack of air conditioning, kids who come to school tired and hungry, or speaking English as a second language. The problem is Bad Union Teachers.

With some exceptions, the teachers in "Won't Back Down" are sullen, browbeating ogres. The principal insists that they fake attendance reports so their illiterate students can be pushed like cattle into the next grade. This misbehavior occurs with the connivance of haughty, charmless teachers' union representatives.

FULL story at link.