khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
If you imagine how the kids of the US National high-school chess championship team look like, they probably wouldn't resemble the children from the third season ofThe Wire. In fact you probably wouldn't think that amiddle-schoolteam could win thehigh-schoolchess national championship. But that's exactly how it is.
The filmmakers went to meet the girl who was posed to become the first black female American chess master. When they arrived at her school, they discovered an underfunded ghetto shithole without a name. Seriously, the school is just a number. That's probably got something to do with the fact that 70% of the kids live under the poverty level. The movie then shows how the school's weird nerdy culture makes it competitive with the most exclusive and expensive private schools in the nation even as the financial crisis threatens to eliminate its unbeatable chess program---although the schoolboard increased funding for the football and basketball programs in the city.
Without dwelling on it, or barely even mentioning it, this movie exposes the worst aspects of our public school system and simultaneously shows a simple and demonstrably successful remedy.
The filmmakers went to meet the girl who was posed to become the first black female American chess master. When they arrived at her school, they discovered an underfunded ghetto shithole without a name. Seriously, the school is just a number. That's probably got something to do with the fact that 70% of the kids live under the poverty level. The movie then shows how the school's weird nerdy culture makes it competitive with the most exclusive and expensive private schools in the nation even as the financial crisis threatens to eliminate its unbeatable chess program---although the schoolboard increased funding for the football and basketball programs in the city.
Without dwelling on it, or barely even mentioning it, this movie exposes the worst aspects of our public school system and simultaneously shows a simple and demonstrably successful remedy.