Someone just passed it along to me. The documentary just opened in NYC. I will review this after my torrent downloads (maybe). Meantime, a press release and a repost of the NYT review follow. If you'd like to have the film, you can buy a copy from www.thewaronkids.com.
Press Release:
The award-winning feature documentary, THE WAR ON KIDS, launches a nationwide grassroots screening tour that will bring the debate about public education to dozens of campuses and communities nationwide.
In 95 minutes, THE WAR ON KIDS exposes the many ways the public school system has failed children and our future by robbing students of all freedoms due largely to irrational fears. Children are subjected to endure prison-like security, arbitrary punishments, and pharmacological abuse through the forced prescription of dangerous drugs. Even with these measures, schools not only fail to educate students, but the drive to teach has become secondary to the need to control children. Not only do school fall short of their mission to educate, but they erode the country’s democratic foundation and often resemble prisons.
School children are interviewed as are high school teachers and administrators, and prison security guards, plus renowned educators and authors including:
Henry Giroux: Author of Stealing Innocence Corporate Culture's War on Children Mike A. Males: Sociologist, author of Scapegoat Generation John Gatto: New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year Judith Browne: Associate Director of the Advancement Project Dan Losen: The Civil Liberties Project, Harvard University ============================================================================== The New York Times review:
The War on Kids November 18, 2009 What Ails Public Schools? Better Ask, What Doesn’t? By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS Published: November 18, 2009
A shocking chronicle of institutional dysfunction, “The War on Kids” likens our public school system to prison and its disciplinary methods to fascism. At least now you know why little Johnny won’t get out of bed in the morning.
Arranged in sections that range from merely interesting to downright horrifying, this provocative documentary suggests a system regulated by fear and motivated by the desire to control. Tracing the evolution and application of zero-tolerance policies on drugs and violence, the director, Cevin Soling, amasses overwhelming evidence of institutional overreaction. When an 8-year-old can be suspended for pointing a chicken finger and saying “Pow,” we know that common sense has officially left the building.
Impassioned interviews with educators, authors and medical professionals — and some very perceptive students — warn of the consequences of surrounding children daily with armed security guards and surveillance cameras.
“They don’t really prevent anything; they just take pictures of it,” says Jessica Botcher, a student at Columbine High School. Those pictures, however, are electrifying: an armed SWAT team terrorizing high school students in South Carolina; a tiny, terrified girl being handcuffed by burly police officers. Offering neither balance nor solutions (a segment on the overuse of medications like Ritalin is especially powerful, but especially in need of counterargument), “The War on Kids” questions what kind of citizens we are producing. Parent or child-free, we all have a dog in that particular fight.
"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world -- a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you." --Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear (2003)
"I am an anarchist, like any other sensible person." ~ Merlyn
To quote Bertrand Russell:
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate. --jamesmcm
"...the basics of anarchist theory -- cooperation stimulates (species) change..." --Mark Eden
"All polite appeals to the formal systems of power will not end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must physically obstruct the war machine or accept a role as its accomplice." -- Chris Hedges
"Gays, Straights and Celibates Out of the U.S. Killitary! No sexual orientation qualifies somebody to be a hired thug for the United Snakes Empire." -- Aaron Aarons
"Nothing shows any better than pornography what you get from capitalism."-- Richard Wolff
"When we see that government is imaginary, then it quickly becomes clear that government is not the problem — it doesn’t exist! Authoritarianism is the problem. Obedience is the problem. These are all psychological problems, and the only way that society is going to change is for people to free themselves." -- Disobey today! --Mike Gogulski (quotingLife After Authority)
"What is up with evolution putting all the Loser-Brain people in control?" --heywho
“He was nine years old and quite a child, but he knew his soul, it was dear to him, and he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and never let anyone enter his heart without the key of love.”