I look forward to hear a comment from Jerry McCann regarding this documentary..............McCann will always be considered to be a crook and an ass-wipe in my book with an interest in screwing the community and self serving righteousness

Just now added The Cartel to my instant queue. In light of the upcoming BOE election, and the outrageous public statements that Dr. Epps made disparaging young women, it's time to reevaluate the Jersey City Public School Admin. We need to stop failing our students by providing them with a terrible education and then blaming and demeaning them publicly.

"The Cartel" is now available on Netflix "Play Now" ...

Following N.J.'s ill-spent school funds

By Steven Rea
Inquirer Movie Columnist and Critic
Posted on Fri, Apr. 30, 2010

If Bob Bowdon's documentary The Cartel is to be believed - and the news anchor-turned-Internet marketeer makes a strong case - New Jersey's public school system is, indeed, about learning your ABCs.

Except that the A stands for avarice, B for bureaucracy, C for corruption.

An alarming portrait of a state that pours more money per pupil into its public school system than any of the other 49 and yet continues to turn out underperforming students with substandard educations, The Cartel does what good reporters are supposed to do: follow the money. It also tallies up the fleet of Mercedeses, Infinitis, and other luxury vehicles parked outside the Jersey City Board of Education. There are plenty.

What the film reveals is that New Jersey's 611 (yes, 611!) school districts are larded with highly paid administrators and support personnel. Literally billions of dollars have gone missing - in construction funds, and in payouts to ghost organizations and phantom employees. And thanks to a teachers' union that seems more interested in protecting its members' jobs than in raising the level of work they do, it's virtually impossible for a teacher in a New Jersey public school to be fired, no matter how egregiously bad, or even abusive, he or she might be.

Bowdon interviews administrators and union officials to get their responses, but the responses seem pretty weak.

The Cartel (a title that doesn't serve the film well) lays out its facts clearly, and Bowdon - while no Michael Moore (and maybe that's a good thing) - asks the right questions. New Jersey taxpayers, and the state's political leaders, need to see this documentary. And then they need to do something besides throw more money at an embarrassing, and startling, problem.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/weeken ... l-spent_school_funds.html

Friday, April 16 - The Cartel will premiere in New York at the Quad Cinema, and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Sunset 5! Each theater will be showing the film for a week (Friday, April 16 through Thursday, April 22). New York premiere: Showtimes are at 1:10pm, 3:10pm, 5:10pm, 7:10pm, and 9:30pm. At the 7:10 showing on April 16 there will be an Education Reform Panel Discussion and Q&A with Director Bob Bowdon; Derrell Bradford, Executive Director of Excellent Education for Everyone; Carlos Lejnieks, President of the NJ Charter Schools Association; and Marcus Winters, Education Scholar at the Manhattan Institute. Get your tickets now at www.movietickets.com. Hoboken: April 21 Hoboken, NJ Clearview Cinema, 409 14th Street 7pm, 9pm

The Cartel begins a one week engagement at the Quad Cinema (34 West 13th Street,New York, New York 10011,
p: 212-255-2243) on Friday , April 16, 2010. (http://www.quadcinema.com/coming-soon/)

The movie site (http://www.thecartelmovie.com/cgi-local/content.cgi?g=22) says Director Bob Bowdon will be doing Q&A on opening night at the New York location. The movie will play there until Thursday. Call for the screening times,

After that, April 21,it will be in Hoboken at the Clearview Cinema, 409 14th Street 7pm, 9pm.

Reminder- A free screening of The Cartel is tomorrow at 4pm in the community room of OLC- 118 Sussex Street.

DOCUMENTARY ON CORRUPTION IN NEW JERSEY SCHOOL SYSTEM ?THE CARTEL? TO SCREEN ON OCTOBER 25TH IN JERSEY CITY

watch the trailer: http://www.vimeo.com/5596036

WHEN: Sunday, October 25th, 2009 - 4:00 P.M.

WHERE: OLC Community Room - Our Lady of Czestochowa
118 Sussex St. Jersey City, NJ 07302


WHY: A community screening of ?The Cartel?, a documentary that focuses on the education crisis in New Jersey,with highlights on what is happening in Jersey City, including the year-long struggle faced by The Ethical Community Charter School to have its charter approved .

No other state besides New York spends as much per pupil, but the Garden State has little to show for its investment. Spending can exceed $400,000 per classroom, and yet only 39 percent of the state?s eighth-graders are proficient or advanced readers, and only 40 percent are proficient or advanced in math. This costly, unconscionable failure forms the subject of ?The Cartel.?

?The Cartel? shows the educational system like it has never been seen before. Behind every dropout factory lurks a powerful, entrenched, and self-serving cartel, but the film doesn't just describe the problem. By balancing local storylines against interviews with education experts such as Clint Bolick (former president of Alliance for School Choice), Gerard Robinson (president of Black Alliance for Educational Options), and Chester Finn (president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute), ?The Cartel? explores what dedicated parents, committed teachers, clear-eyed officials, and tireless reformers are doing to make our schools better for our kids.

This movie is powerful stuff.

The film maker does a great job laying out the unbelievable corruption in the New Jersey public school system and how it is the poor and minority students who are left to languish in failing and dangerous schools.

If you care at all about the sorry state of urban public education in NJ, you should make a point to see this film. It does a great job of looking at all the causes of our fetid schools in detail. Two thumbs up!

http://www.vimeo.com/5596036

Sunday, October 25

4pm

OLC Community Room, 118 Sussex Street

And I am sure the fact that we pay teachers on average $25,000 less than corrections officers doesn't help.

Quote:

Sorry to flog this all the time, but McNair's placement on those lists mean NADA!! See the methodology, they should have been disqualified like Stuyvesant for being a "test in" selective school, but were given a bye because the students SAT scores were so low relative to other similar schools. Is THAT something to be proud of and crow about? It certainly isn't a proof of academic excellence.

That said, we should have elected Tom Wilen & co to the school board to track down those hundreds of millions that no one knows where they go. He said an audit discovered 9 corpses on the BOE payroll. There is simply no accountability, and I suspect that's a major part of what the filmmaker is trying to show.

Not only are the administrators making a s*&%load of money but in abbott districts for some reason we need a lot of "head" people. For example in my district we have a superintendent, an executive superintendent, a assistant superintendent, and executive assistant superintendent, three people in charge of "operations," and the list goes on. It's no wonder there is never enough money for supplies and materials.

I don't think following the money leads to the teachers. But to admins, and other higher ups. And where did all the SCC money go? I'm going to try to see this movie this week.

AMC Loews Jersey Gardens 20
651 Kapkowski Road, Elizabeth, NJ
12:45 3:00 5:15 7:30 9:45pm

AMC Loews Menlo Park 12
390 Menlo Park, Edison, NJ
11:00am 1:10 3:20 5:30 7:40 9:50pm

How many Mercedes and Infinities would they find in the Jersey City teacher parking lots? Not many. Our teachers are currently working without a contract. As a parent, I want teachers receiving the best pay possible in order to attract the most qualified educators. The fact that Jersey City has one of the top 100 high schools in America, speaks volumes to the quality of education available in this city to those who WANT it and are willing to WORK for it. Yes, the Board of Education is a parasite - sucking dollars from our schools and creativity from the classroom teachers. If this film has any impact, hopefully it will shine a light on the ineptness of the BOE and give our neighborhood schools the autonomy they need to succeed.

'The Cartel' movie review: Documentary on Jersey schools fails debate class By Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger October 08, 2009, 5:15PM "The Cartel" Movie Review -- Reviewing documentaries used to be so much easier. Back in the old days ? say, pre-Michael-Moore ? a critic went to a film, looked at the photography and editing, made a considered judgment and wrote it up. Now you almost have to re-report the thing yourself. Who didn?t the filmmakers interview? What?s the background of the three ?experts? with whom they did speak? Who gave them funding? Which facts were left out? The Cartel (Unrated) Bowdon Media (90 min.) Directed by Bob Bowdon. Now playing in New Jersey. STEPHEN WHITTY?S RATING: ONE AND A HALF STARS Rating note: The film contains nothing to offend. It?s exhausting and, practically speaking, nearly impossible. So let me state my own biases before I review ?The Cartel,? a biased new film about New Jersey public education and some parents? push for charter-school alternatives. Years ago, my father attended Jersey City schools, then Rutgers, and got a good education. My two children are in suburban public schools now and get a great education. I know some schoolteachers who are doing terrific jobs. This may be similar to your experience. It is not, however, a scenario Bob Bowdon would recognize. In his eyes, the state education system is inherently, irredeemably corrupt. The teachers? union caters to its dues-paying members (as if any union doesn?t) and is riddled with slackers. Our public schools are a mess and a drain on our strapped economy. You might agree. But if you think there may be anything more to the story, don?t expect to find it here. Like the worst ?documentaries? ? and, like Moore?s work, Bowdon?s film earns the ironic quotes ? there?s no attempt to hear both sides, no purpose except to hammer home some talking points and, maybe, influence legislation. Unlike Moore, Bowdon isn?t a natural filmmaker; his sarcasm is heavy-handed, and the film?s style (which relies on some crude animation and lots of old TV clips) is flat. But he does share that more famous rabble-rouser?s dislike for balance. In the twisted view of ?The Cartel,? every New Jersey school is in a slum ? yet also full of eager, well-parented students who arrive ready to learn, only to run headlong into incompetent teachers and corrupt fat-cat principals. That?s his reality. Is it yours? Sure, plenty of our public schools aren?t turning out ready-for-success graduates. But might not the first school reform begin at home, by raising respectful children who value education? And might it continue by allowing our schools to expel the ones who won?t? That, I think, would be the sensible, social-conservative point of view. But Bowdon (who got post-production support from a couple of partisan groups, including a pro-voucher organization) takes a more political approach, blaming it all on unions and Democrats. ?School choice,? he insists, would solve everything, but that involves more than just charter schools. What if the vouchers didn?t cover the tuition at the prep you wanted, or the school didn?t want your child? Oh, and how about that whole pesky church-state thing ? do you want your tax dollars going to help fund madrassas? These are questions Bowdon doesn?t really explore. Nor does he address whether charter schools are truly any better. He suggests that, even if they aren?t, it doesn?t matter, because they?re safer. But doesn?t their self-selecting nature ? only truly involved parents are going to jump through those enrollment hoops ? guarantee that? Logic doesn?t really matter because movies like ?The Cartel,? which trumpets its slant, from its title to its ?Godfather?-inspired typography, aren?t interested in exploring questions. They just want to trot out the conclusions they?ve already drawn. As long and as loud as they shout, only the already converted ever listen.

Mercedeses? Benzes, okay, maybe, but Mercedeses? That just can't possibly be right, could it?

A failing grade for N.J. schools

Fri, Oct. 9, 2009

By Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer
Movie Columnist and Critic

If Bob Bowdon's documentary The Cartel is to be believed - and the news anchor-turned-Internet marketeer makes a strong case - New Jersey's public school system is, indeed, about learning your ABCs. Except that the A stands for avarice, B for bureaucracy, C for corruption.

An alarming portrait of a state that pours more money into its public schools than any of the other 49 and yet continues to turn out underperforming students with substandard educations, The Cartel does what good reporters are supposed to do: follow the money.

It also counts up the fleet of Mercedeses and Infinitis parked outside the Jersey City Board of Education - there are a lot.

What the film reveals is that New Jersey's 611 (yes, 611) school districts are larded with highly paid administrators and support personnel. Literally billions of dollars have gone missing - in school construction funds, in payouts to ghost organizations and phantom employees. And thanks to a teachers' union that seems more interested in protecting its members' jobs than raising the level of work they do, it's virtually impossible for a teacher in a New Jersey public school to be fired. No matter how egregiously bad, or even abusive, he or she might be.

The Cartel (a title that doesn't serve the film well) lays out its facts clearly, and Bowdon - while no Michael Moore (and maybe that's a good thing) - asks the right questions. New Jersey taxpayers, and the state's political leaders, need to see this documentary. And then they need to do something besides throw more money at a terrifying problem.

The Cartel *** (Out of four stars)

Directed by Bob Bowdon. With Bob Bowdon and others. Distributed by Moving Picture Institute.

Running time: 1 hour, 29 mins.

Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (adult themes).

Playing at: AMC Loews Cherry Hill

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/weeken ... ade_for_N_J__schools.html