“Backpack Full of Cash” Offers a Partial Critique of Charter Schools

CORRECTIONS: An earlier version of this article identified a featured school in the film as “Unity Charter School,” which is inaccurate. The Union City, NJ school is named “Union,” not “Unity,” and is a public, not a charter, school. The article also originally stated that The Roosevelt Institute sponsored the screening along with the Education Department, which is false; the Education Department was the event’s primary sponsor, and co-sponsorship was provided by the Cities and Schools Pathway, the New London NAACP Youth Council, Re:Public Ed, and the Connecticut Education Association.

With an hour and a half of interviews, heartbreaking testimony, and brief animation, “Backpack Full of Cash” will leave the viewer sufficiently disheartened about the education system in the United States. This past Tuesday, The Education Department screened the film with co-sponsorship from the Cities and Schools Pathway, the New London NAACP Youth Council, Re:Public Ed, and the Connecticut Education Association to raise awareness among the Connecticut College and greater Southeastern Connecticut communities on the dangers of defunding public schools. The film’s message hit close to home, eliciting audience members to chuckle, cry, and even offer sarcastic responses to on-screen interviewees. Blank stares and exasperated sighs from the film’s speakers sometimes left the audience with no choice but to laugh at the almost comical absurdity of the miniscule funding public schools receive. Repeated sound clips of businessmen and public servants arguing for schools to be run as businesses drew out bitter laughter followed by under-the-breath criticisms from the audience. And, protests, testimonials, and the death of multiple children from preventable asthma attacks at one public school where funds were too insufficient to even pay a full-time nurse, evoked tears.

The event was well-attended with over fifty students, professors of the college, k-12 teachers, members from the New London NAACP Youth Council, and a representative from Re:publicEd (a coalition formed to better Connecticut’s public schools) all crowded into the cramped lecture hall. The event coordinators jumped at the opportunity to further discuss public education by promoting a follow-up event to be held on March 6 in New London, as well as to advertise available teaching positions at tables outside the screening.

“Backpack Full of Cash” avoided leaving interpretation to the audience and instead aimed to deliver a simple and straightforward message: the defunding of public schools is a danger to democracy and the future of American society. It centered with laser focus on the nation-wide school closures and teacher layoffs which are a direct result of the proliferation of private schools that attract students and funding at the expense of public education. The documentary missed the opportunity, however, to highlight the underrepresentation of people of color in teaching and administrative positions, and seems not to recognize, that the intersectionality of race and class are not independent of the continued defunding of public education. Low-income students and students of color are disproportionately affected by public school closures and while other children are increasingly educated in private, online, and charter schools, these students often are prevented from accessing these better-funded schooling alternatives. Private and charter schools both receive public funding and are only held accountable to deliver on national education standards when contracts are due for renewal.

The content of the film consisted largely of interviews with parents and former-teacher activists, reels of protests and town hall meetings, and the principal of South Philadelphia High School. Intermittent between these are animated frames designed to illustrate the effects that alternative options to public schools have on funding. The animations also introduce key terms, which make the content easier to understand while giving the film a quirky grade-school flavor.

If a reader is looking for an intersectional exploration of the current state of education they will be disappointed, as that simply is not the goal of this piece. Instead, the documentary seeks to spark a discussion about issues with the education system specifically in regards to funding and privatization, and perhaps to demonstrate the dos and don’ts of reform. One peculiar aspect of the piece is its disjointed tone. Matt Damon narrates the piece in an attempt to offer publicity to an important social problem, but his deflated reading seems to lacks intensity and urgency.

With footage that takes viewers inside public, religious private, online charter, and physical charter classrooms, the documentary can dash hopes of the most optimistic viewer with regards to the next few generations. Public schools, operating under insufficient budgets, have classes with more than sixty students to a teacher, forcing half the class to stand and making it difficult to focus. Public schools also struggle to hire enough guidance counselors, thus putting low-income and minority students disproportionately at risk of not receiving the advice and help they may need to overcome obstacles. Online charter schools remove students from the social aspect of learning that is so important, and instead turn their education, and yes, even Physical Education, into a series of buttons and on-screen videos. Meanwhile, physical charter schools spend millions of dollars marketing their educational product and lobbying to receive public funding, while delivering an education that often proves to be worse than public school education. These are scary problems that affect, and have been affecting for many years, thousands of students in the United States.

There is one ray of hope, however, and it is found in New Jersey’s public education system. The story starts in the 1970s with New Jersey’s atrocious gap between the quality of public schools in wealthy suburbs and those in low-income areas. The state proposed an ultimatum that the various regional public education systems must determine how to level the playing field or else find themselves placed under state control. The film highlights the public school system in Union City, NJ as a positive example of this transformation. Located in a low-income area, but among the best-performing schools in the country, many of Union’s graduates later attend Ivy League schools.

The piece ends with the graduation of students from South Philadelphia High, where one of the last things the principal says to the camera is that it was a “pretty good year…considering the resources we had.” With that, he effectively sums up the state of public education today.

I recommend attending the follow-up community conversation on Tuesday, March 6 about the future of public education. The event is free, open to the public, and will be held at 6:00 pm in the All-Souls UU Congregation, Unity Hall at 19 Jay Street in New London. For more information email info@republiced.org.