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Director's Statement A film by Madeleine Sackler Produced by Blake Ashman-Kipervaser James Lawler Madeleine Sackler Press Contacts Scott Feinstein, 42West 212.277.7555 [email protected] Nancy Willen, Acme PR 310.963.3433 [email protected] Producers Contact [email protected] Visit www.thelotteryfilm.com Copyright © 2010 The Lottery, LLC. All rights reserved. SYNOPSIS In a country where 58 percent of African American 4th graders are functionally illiterate, The Lottery uncovers the failures of the traditional public school system and reveals that hundreds of thousands of parents attempt to flee the system every year. The Lottery follows four of these families from Harlem and the Bronx who have entered their children in a charter school lottery. Out of thousands of hopefuls, only a small minority will win the chance of a better future. Directed by Madeleine Sackler and shot by award-winning cinematographer Wolfgang Held (Brüno, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Children Underground), The Lottery uncovers a ferocious debate surrounding the education reform movement. Interviews with politicians and educators explain not only the crisis in public education, but also why it is fixable. A call to action to avert a catastrophe in the education of American children, The Lottery makes the case that any child can succeed. Copyright © 2010 The Lottery, LLC. All rights reserved. PARTICIPANTS Geoffrey Canada is the President and Jim Manly is the principal of Harlem CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone, which Success Academy 2. The New York Times Magazine called “one of the most ambitious social Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO experiments of our time.” In 2005, he of Success Charter Network, which was named one of “America’s Best runs the Harlem Success Academies. Leaders” by U.S. News and World She served as the Chair of the Report. Education Committee for New York’s City Council from 2002 to 2005. Cory Booker is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He is a member of Jessica Reid is a teacher at Harlem numerous boards and advisory Success Academy 2. committees that are committed to education including: Democrats for Susan Taylor was editor-in-chief of Education Reform, Columbia University Essence Magazine from 1981 to 2000. Teachers’ College Board of Trustees, Ms. Taylor was called “the most and the Black Alliance for Educational infuential black woman in journalism Options. today” by American Libraries in 1994. She founded the National CARES Candice Fryer is a teacher at Harlem Mentoring Movement, whose goal is to Success Academy 2. recruit one million adult mentors. Betsy Gotbaum was New York City’s Dacia Toll is the President and co-CEO Public Advocate from 2001 to 2009. of Achievement First, which runs seventeen charter schools in Meredith Gotlin is the principal of Connecticut and New York. PS29 in the Bronx. Paul Tough is an editor at the New York Joel Klein has been the Chancellor of Times Magazine. He has written the New York City Department of extensively on poverty, education, and Education since 2002. As Chancellor, the achievement gap. He is the author he oversees 1.1 million students, the of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s largest public school system in the Quest to Change Harlem and America. country. One question that has been raised about the film is why the teachers union perspective was not included. The answer is that they declined to participate. Throughout the making of the film, producers of The Lottery made 15 written requests and follow-ups to representatives of the teachers union to interview both Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew or a representative of the union's choosing. Producers also followed up each request with phone calls to union representatives. Despite these repeated requests, the union declined to participate in the film. Producers from The Lottery have continued to engage the union as the film has been released, most recently inviting them to participate in a panel discussion on education reform at the Apollo Theater following the screening of the film. The union declined to participate in that forum as well. Copyright © 2010 The Lottery, LLC. All rights reserved. PRESS TV AND RADIO Paul Gigot interviews Madeleine Sackler NBC New York interviews Director and for the Journal Editorial Report families at Tribeca Film Festival http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx_CWGFgkEM http://www.nbcnewyork.com/station/as-seen- on/_The_Lottery__Shows_The_Competition_of_Behind_Charter_Schools_ New_York.html Campbell Brown interviews Madeleine Sackler for CNN.com Good Day New York interviews Madeleine http://campbellbrown.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/08/the-lottery/? utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: Sackler and Eva Moskowitz +rss/cnn_campbellbrown+(Blog:+Campbell+Brown) http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/entertainment/movies/the-lottery- documentary-20100429 Review of The Lottery on NPR's Fresh Air Q&A With Madeleine Sackler on C-SPAN http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/226886 storyId=128085170&ft=1&f=13 SELECT ARTICLES “A new documentary by a 27-year-old “In the same way that An Inconvenient Truth filmmaker could change the national debate mobilized a vast constituency to take action about public education.” on climate change, The Lottery will create -The Wall Street Journal and energize charter supporters by the http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487046352045752421 23324855474.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_emailed thousands.” -New York Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/04/29/2010-04- “This heartbreaking documentary offers an 29_the_lottery_documentary_shows_education_is_a_sure_bet.html opinionated, powerful, and potentially controversial take on the crisis of public “This wrenching charter-school education in the U.S.” documentary is a must for parents -- -New York Magazine Critic's Pick wherever you stand on the issue.” http://nymag.com/listings/movie/the-lottery/ -Film Salon, Best of Tribeca http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/05/03/t “As Madeleine Sackler's absorbing, often ff_lottery tender documentary The Lottery shows, “A precise, impassioned look at the battle when it comes to the world of charter between zone and charter schools in education, no seemingly good deed may go Harlem.” unpunished — or at least undercut.” -The Village Voice -Los Angeles Times http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-06-08/film/many-children-left- http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-capsules- behind-in-the-lottery/ 20100618,0,1210817.story “The troubling documentary The Lottery “As filmmaker Madeleine Sackler makes shows just how many sides to a one-sided clear, this is a matter of life and death to issue there can be.” the parents.” -IFC.com -San Francisco Chronicle http://www.ifc.com/blogs/indie-eye/2010/04/the-lottery.php http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa %2F2010%2F07%2F22%2FMV171EH2SV.DTL Copyright © 2010 The Lottery, LLC. All rights reserved. DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT In the spring of 2008, I saw news footage of Harlem Success Academy’s lottery: 5,000 parents and children packed in the Harlem Armory hoping to win a spot at an elementary school. The parents who won were ecstatic, hugging each other and clapping as though they had won the jackpot in a cash lottery. The losers looked despondent. Unfortunately there were many more losers than winners; six out of seven children did not win a spot at Harlem Success that day. After a little research, I learned why so many parents were at the Armory. Harlem Success and many other over-enrolled public charter schools in New York City were producing dramatically better academic results than the traditional public schools operating in the same districts. Many of these new charter schools were bringing 70% to 90% of their students to grade level achievement or above. In comparison, many of their district counterparts had fewer than 50%, even 20% of students at grade level. The winners at the Armory that night had hugely improved their chances of succeeding academically, attending college, and broadening their career opportunities. And thousands of parents, packed into the Harlem Armory on a cold spring night, knew it. The Lottery follows four families in the three months leading up to the lottery. The four families in The Lottery reflect a range of circumstances: a two-parent family, a single mother and daughter, a father and son separated from the mother and brother by an immigration issue, and a mother and son separated from a father by a prison sentence. Two of the families support themselves, and two are supported by public assistance. Most of the parents did not graduate from college, and some did not complete high school. But they all love their children, place great importance on education, and are frightened by the knowledge that no matter how hard they try, bad schools threaten their children’s futures. Fortunately, high-performing schools like Harlem Success are being opened all over the country; unfortunately, this is very controversial. But despite the political controversy, whenever parents are given a choice of where to send their children to school, they flock to the higher performing choices. This demand for choice and for performance is taking hold in our national conversation, and one-by-one, politicians are revisiting their old positions. President Obama’s outspoken support for public charter schools has accelerated this process, but there is still a long way to go before every child has access to a great school. The four families in The Lottery are unique in the personal journeys that brought them to lottery day, but they all have the same goal for their children: a high-quality education that will provide them with the opportunity for a better future. This is the American Dream, and in this way, these four families represent every family. If we continue to be complacent about schools that are failing, and if we don’t make it possible for excellent schools to expand and flourish, we are not only sentencing the most disadvantaged in our communities to devastating consequences, we are putting the future of the country at risk.
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