Backpack Full of Cash Film Screening and panel Q&A discussion on Nov. 28
Join School and Society instructors and Dean Kathy Schultz for a film screening of the documentary, Backpack Full of Cash, on Tuesday, Nov. 28 at 6:30 p.m. in Eaton Humanities, HUMN 1B50.
Narrated by Matt Damon, Backpack Full of Cash is a feature-length documentary that explores the growing privatization of public schools and the resulting impact on America’s most vulnerable children. Filmed in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Nashville and other cities, the film takes viewers through the tumultuous 2013-14 school year, exposing the world of corporate-driven education “reform” where public education — starved of resources — hangs in the balance.
Free and open to the public, the film screening will be followed by a panel and Q&A dicussion with attendees and four education faculty members, including:
- Michele Moses, professor of educational foundations, policy and practice
- Michelle Renée Valladares, associate director of the National Education Policy Center
- Kevin Welner, professor of educational foundations, policy and practice
- Terri Wilson, assistant professor of educational foundations, policy and practice
RSVPs are not necessary but encouraged at www.colorado.edu/education/BackpackFullofCashFilmScreening.
Update! Follow-up Resources
Local groups/organizations:
Research-based education policy organizations:
- The National Education Policy Center (based at CU Boulder School of Education)
- The Learning Policy Institute
- NYU Metro Center
- Research for Action
- Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education SCOPE
- UCLA IDEA
Select groups and organizations promoted on the Backpack Full of Cash website:
- Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) An alliance of parent, youth, community, and labor organizations that represent more than 7 million people. Organizes nationwide days of action to reclaim the promise of public education as our nation’s gateway to a strong democracy and racial and economic justice.
- Badass Teachers Association (BATs) A network of over 80,000 teachers and education activists throughout the United States who fight for communities to have strong, sustainable, and well-funded public schools.
- Black Lives Matter’s Statement on “An End to the Privatization of Education and Real Community Control.”
- Center for Popular Democracy Works with high-impact base-building organizations, organizing alliances, and progressive unions to envision and win an innovative proworker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice agenda.
- Economic Policy Institute A nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank created to include the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions. See their “Exploring the Consequences of Charter School Expansion.”
- Education Law Center of NJ Education Law Center (ELC) serves as a leading voice for New Jersey’s public school children and is one of the most effective advocates for equal educational opportunity and equitable school funding in the United States. See Is School Funding Fair?
- Journey for Justice (J4J) An alliance of grassroots community, youth, and parent-led organizations in 21 cities across the country pushing back and demanding community-driven alternatives to the privatization of public schools systems. See Death by a Thousand Cuts: Racism, School Closures, and Public School Sabotage.
- The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP, the oldest civil rights organization in the United States. The fundamental goal of the NAACP’s education advocacy agenda is to provide all students access to quality education. NAACP Resolution and statement on charter schools.
- Education Law Center of Pennsylvania The ELC-PA’s mission is to ensure access to a quality public education for all children in Pennsylvania.
- Youth United for Change A youth-led, democratic organization made up of youth of color and working-class communities, with the “people” and political power to hold school officials and government accountable to meeting the educational needs of Philadelphia public school students.
- The Philadelphia Student Union Runs city-wide campaigns that bring together students from all of their chapters and additional schools to improve school district policies and practices.
