The Making of Them
1994 · 40m · Documentary
Filmed in September 1993, this documentary is about young boys starting boarding prep school. It features Nick Duffell of Boarding School Survivors talking about surviving boarding school and his work with former boarders. It is the earliest example of a TV documentary about “modern” boarding, and was for many the first impetus to recognise and seek help to overcome the legacies of the boarding experience.
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Bulletproof
2020 · ★ 8
Bulletproof explores the complexities of violence in schools by looking at the strategies employed to prevent it. The film observes the longstanding rituals that take place in and around American schools: homecoming parades, basketball practice, morning announcements, and math class. Unfolding alongside these scenes are a collection of newer traditions: lockdown drills, teacher firearms training, metal detector screenings, and school safety trade shows. Bulletproof asks what these rituals reflect back at us, looking beyond immediate causes and responses to mass shootings in a cinematic meditation on the array of forces that shape the culture of violence in the United States.
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Backpack Full of Cash
2016
Documentary warning about the decline of American public schools as they become more and more privatized.
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NOVA: Judgement Day - Intelligent Design on Trial
2007 · ★ 9.3
In this two-hour special, NOVA captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials, "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.
More info →Rise Above the Mark
2012 · ★ 9
The purpose of Rise Above the Mark, narrated by Peter Coyote, is to educate the general public about the “corporate takeover” of Indiana public schools and what parents, community members and educators can do to protect their local public schools. Legislators are calling the shots and putting public schools in an ever-shrinking box. WLCSC Board of School Trustees and Superintendent of Schools, Rocky Killion, want to secure resources and legislative relief necessary to achieve the school district’s mission of creating a world-class educational system for all children. The school district’s strategic plan will introduce a model of education that puts decision making back into the hands of local communities and public school teachers, rather than leaving it in the hands of legislators and ultimately lining the pockets of corporations.
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Memória, identidades e ancestralidade como possibilidade do estudo de história em sala de aula
2022
No synopsis available.
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15 Days: The Real Story of America's Pandemic School Closures
2025 · ★ 10
A documentary revealing why America's school closures lasted longer than almost any other nation. Framed as a forensic analysis of what happened to children during school closures, it blends director Natalya Murakhver's perspective as a Soviet immigrant with voices of children and families nationwide, exposing devastating learning loss, mental health crises, and inequality.
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Cafeteria Man
2011 · ★ 8
Cafeteria Man is the true story of rebel chef Tony Geraci and his mission to radically reform Baltimore's public school food system with a recipe for change.
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The Lottery
2010 · ★ 5.8
Four children enter a high-stakes lottery. If they win, they can attend one of the best schools in New York. A look at the crisis in public education, The Lottery makes the case than any child can succeed.
More info →Walkout: The School Funding Rebellion
2018
The lowest paid teachers in the nation are in the middle of a statewide walkout in Oklahoma. From start to finish, Walkout follows the teachers as they get organized and demand raises from their state legislature. From crowded classrooms to a packed state capitol, Walkout offers an in-depth, personal look at the latest strike at the heart of a nationwide movement for education funding.
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Brooklyn Castle
2012 · ★ 6.8
Brooklyn Castle is a documentary about I.S. 318 – an inner-city school where more than 65 percent of students are from homes with incomes below the federal poverty level – that also happens to have the best, most winning junior high school chess team in the country. (If Albert Einstein, who was rated 1800, were to join the team, he’d only rank fifth best.) Chess has transformed the school from one cited in 2003 as a “school in need of improvement” to one of New York City’s best. But a series of recession-driven public school budget cuts now threaten to undermine those hard-won successes.
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Through These Eyes
2004
An American elementary school program from the 1970s, Man: A Course of Study (MACOS), looked to the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic to help students see their own society in a new way. At its core was The Netsilik Film Series, an acclaimed benchmark of visual anthropology from the National Film Board that captured a year in the life of an Inuit family, reconstructing an ancient culture on the cusp of contact with the outside world. But the graphic images of the Netsilik people created a clash of values that tore rifts in communities across the U.S. and revealed a fragile relationship between politics and education. A fiery national debate ensued between academic and conservative forces. hrough These Eyes looks back at the high stakes of this controversial curriculum. Decades later, as American influence continues to affect cultures worldwide, the story of MACOS resonates strongly.
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Left Behind
2025 · ★ 2.5
A group of determined moms band together to create the first public dyslexic school in the largest school district in America, New York City.
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