I recommend glowingly the documentary Waiting for Superman, a film released this past October.
Directed by Davis Guggenheim, who also directed the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman describes the larger failure of American education through the stories of five young students — Anthony, Bianca, Daisy, Emily and Francisco. The children are each promising; the likelihood of their getting a good education not so promising. While much is simplified to make a complex subject digestible, the movie will still leave you angry, frustrated, saddened and charmed.
Waiting for Superman won the Audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. We watched on Netflix Blu-Ray.
This film will be shown for free in Albuquerque on Monday May 9. It is part of the People Before Profit film series at UNM. The films are shown in the theater in the basement of the Student Union Building (SUB) at 7 pm, with discussion afterward.
This series used to be at the Albuq. Center for Peace & Justice on Thursday nights. You can see the whole schedule at UNM Today: http://news.unm.edu/2011/02/peace-studies-soap-present-people-before-profit-film-series/
The one scheduled for the coming week (Mon. Mar. 14) won’t be shown because of Spring Break.