International Cinema Festival of India

In his documentary “The Cartel,” New Jersey television news reporter Bowden shines a light on the corruption and greed that has resulted in the disappearance of so much taxpayer money in that state. The numbers tell the tale: $17,000 spent per student, and there’s only a 39% reading proficiency rate; it’s hard to argue that there’s a crisis afoot, but harder to agree on a solution.

On the one side is the monumental Jersey teachers union and umbrageous school officials, who see to it that that, as Bowdon points out in his film, 90 cents of every tax dollar go for other expenses, including six figure incomes for school administrators and, in a atrocious example, a school board secretary who makes $180,000. On the other slope are the supporters of a charter education system, private schools in which parents can use tax vouchers to pay tuition and escape the public nightmare. Bowdon makes much of the fact that it’s virtually unimaginable for an instructor to be fired, a safety net that does little to encourage hard work in those teachers who recognize they have a vocation irrespective of how many of the three Rs they instruct — if any.

“‘The Cartel’ examines lots of distinct aspects of public teaching, tenure, funding, support drops, corruption –meaning thievery — vouchers and charter schools,” says Bowdon. “And as such it kind of serves as a rapid-moving primer on all of the red-hot topics amongst the education-reform campaign.”

Bowdon’s documentary started touring the festival circuit in summer of 2009 and made its theatrical debut in April 2010. Hopefully it will get a rise, and not be overshadowed, by the more recently released docudrama “Waiting for Superman,” by “An Inconvenient Truth” director Davis Guggenheim. Bowdon says the documentaries can be seen as companion pieces: his focusing on public policy and Guggenheim’s taking the human-interest slant. “My film is the left-brained variant, more analytical,” Bowdon says, “‘Waiting for Superman’ is more the right-brained treatment.”

The left-brained approach means arguments that follow the economics — money misspent, opportunities wasted. But that isn’t to say the film is without heart. Bowden makes sure his eye is always on the people affected, particularly the inner-city students trapped in a broken system. One girl, crying after learning she wasn’t selected in a lottery for a charter school, tells the story of What Went Wrong as well as Bowden’s arguments.

And although there’s an irony in this form of public depravation happening in a state renowned for its organized crime, it’s clear that this is not an isolated collapse. A watcher anyplace in the country will spot similar failings in their own school system, and may share Bowdon’s frustration and avidness for a resolution. Bowdon comes out in favor of the charter school plan, of taxpayers being able to select their own schools, to get out from under the state’s control. But he also makes it apparent that those in power are going to be unwilling to give it up without a fight.

The Cartel, a documentary by Bob Bowdon.