Hacker Cinema
Lean On Me
1989 · Film · 108 min
Directed by John G. Avildsen
When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels suspected drug dealers, padlocks doors and demands effort and results from students, staff and parents. Autocratic to a fault, this real-life educator put it all on the line.
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I gave links to the funding situation for charter schools in two different states. I can give more if you want. I don't think you can claim that I have not spent some time reading up on where charter schools get funding.
You consistently respond by pointing to a single charter school. No one has ever claimed that there aren't some excellent charter schools. But why should I believe that Success Academy Charter Schools is characteristic of charter schools as a whole?
Of course a school's method's can make a difference on the students. There's a entire genre of movies on the topic. I mentioned "Blackboard Jungle". Another example is the turn-around at George Washington Preparatory High School, which was portrayed in the movie 'Hard Lessons'. There's "Dead Poets Society" based in part on the teaching impact of Samuel Pickering, and "Lean on Me" is based on principal Joe Clark and Eastside High School. As a New Yorker, you should well know of NYC's history with alternative schools, which includes public alternative high schools like 'The High School of Performing Arts', which was the basis for the movie 'Fame'.
But the choice of pedagogy has very little to do with the the complaints about 1) extra opportunity for graft in charter schools, 2) a general funding preference for charter schools over public schools, and 3) charter schools which are held to lower minimum standards than public schools.