Won't Back Down(2012)- User Reviews

Food or thought:

This film is little more than a big-business hit piece intended to further the fiction of "America's Failing Schools." Yet again we are treated to the big, bad teacher's unions, the small-minded teachers, yadda yadda yadda. Please. The film was bankrolled by right-wing businessmen whose biggest concern is the bottom line, NOT the education of your kids.

FACT: The film glorifies the idea of a 'parent trigger' to make over what they perceive to be a failing school. This 'trigger' idea was created by the Heatland Institute (a right-wing think tank) and the American Legislative Exchange Councl (ALEC, a billionaire-backed entity which writes radical legislation sometimes submitted to state houses by republican congressmen, often with little or no change in wording....meaning, big business is literally writing state and local law for you.)

FACT: For-profit charter schools skim the best students from a community's school system, leave the 'troubled' or 'problem' kids behind for the public schools to deal with, and even then only 17% of charters score better on standardized tests than public schools....public schools, more often than not, score BETTER than charters do.

FACT: For-profit charter schools and now 'virtual' schools are big money ventures....and already we're seeing corruption tied to these businesses. Research charters near you and you're bound to find abuses....K12, the largest virtual school, is already being investigated for assigning 250 students to 1 teacher, and having teachers sign off on grades for students they never even had in class. When it comes to businesses running schools: where there's big money, there will always be big corruption.

FACT: For-profit charters pay teachers and staff less than public schools do. What does this mean? Well, it means WAGE SUPPRESSION. If a charter opens in your community, it means that your tax dollars now go to paying staffers less; what's left now goes to a CORPORATION as profit. Public school teachers SPEND their earnings in their towns, at local businesses owned by the people they serve....but not if they are taking a 30% pay cut to work for a for-proft charter. Charter schools are yet ANOTHER scheme to funnel money out of the middle class into the hands of multinational coporations.

FACT: Broward County FL: A measure was brought before local lawmakers that if for-profit charter schools had to be considered, they should at least be required to be run/owned by an American corporation. This measure was voted DOWN by republican lawmakers. Some for-profit charter companies are international corporations, and funnel YOUR TAX MONEY directly out of the country.

FACT: The production company responsible for this movie is owned by Phiip Anschutz, a right-wing billionaire who bankrolls ALEC and who supports both the Koch brothers and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting politics. THE FILM IS MERELY MORE PROPOGANDA.

FACT: Most Americans have an idea that "Our schools are failing, and the performance of sudents and teachers is shameful." YET, in poll after poll, when asked about their own experiences with their local schools and their staffers, the marks given by citizens for their local schools and teachers are EXCELLENT. Sounds like there's a misinformation scheme against public schooling afoot.

FACT: The film is being marketed/distributed by FOX -- owned by Rupert Murdoch. (who publicly called public education a "500 billion dollar industry waiting to be transformed.")

FACT: Teacher 'accountability' measures that tie student scores to pay/retention are DESIGNED for teachers and schools to fail (in addition to being the subject of ridicule by education 'meccas' like Finland and Japan)....that way, charters can step in and say, "See? We are the only solution."

FACT: Even if a charter opens up and calls itself nonprofit, more often than not, it receives tax money originally slated for area public schools, and is itself run by a for-profit 'educational management company,' thus, collecting a profit while skirting the issue with sematics.

Yes, folks, there will always be work to be done. Our public schools aren't perfect. But the vast majority of them do well, considering the enormous coporate forces against them. Urban schools do need help, but not in the form of charter schools. Intead, let's combat poverty, the ONLY factor that predicts student success across EVERY DEMOGRAPHIC.

Charter schools and the people who own them are coming, and they will LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH to get you to think that it's a good idea.....including making a feel-good movie that suggests that they are the ony option to save America's kids.....when in reality, they just want to make money off of them.

"Won't Back Down" ? That's right. We won't, because we're on to their big-money PROPAGANDA and instead we will support America's institution of free, quality public schooling for all!!!