A Documentary Called Flunked

By Lauren Zammit
Published on Sunday, June 01, 2008
ARTICLES

For years we've read the stories: Results of national and international educational-aptitude tests show that the average American student is unable to compete academically. In short, public education is failing.

However, as Steven Maggi and Corey Burres of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation researched for Flunked, travelling to schools across the country, they found numerous success stories of individuals who are helping to reverse the downward trend. These academic All Stars are breaking the mediocre mould and their students are succeeding despite all odds. This film became their banner of triumph: a formula for success rising from the ashes of failure.

Narrated by stage and screen actor Joe Mantegna, Flunked highlights the common threads of successful education: strong leadership, high standards, excellent teachers and solid curricula. By localizing these areas of accomplishment, we hope to encourage parents, students, principals and teachers who watch the film to no longer settle for mediocrity in their own schools.

The film raises questions that need to be asked and delivers a powerful message, but the hammer is left in the shed and the dusty cut-and-dry-docu-manual-for-reform remains on the shelf. With the assistance of Victory Studios, a top-quality post-production workshop in Seattle, and the addition of classic television clips and modern pop tunes, Flunked is both enjoyable and informative.

Entertainment is a powerful medium, one that advocates of liberty can better employ. Once you engage an audience in your subject, you may proceed to tell your story. Engaging the audience was a fundamental point for this film; as Flunked executive producer Steven Maggi says, "The message of our children's well-being is too crucial to be lost."

This past March 18 in Seattle, EFF premiered Flunked for the first time to a live audience. The response was everything the Foundation would have hoped for and more as the film was well-received by the 650 people in attendance. Nationally syndicated talk-radio host and film critic Michael Medved has called it, "A fine film. It's very informative. Very challenging."

In the next few months, Flunked will be shown around the country at events co-hosted by SPN members the Independence Institute in Denver, Cascade Policy Institute in Portland, Oregon, and Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. The film will be shown in California, as well as June 19-20 in Orlando, Florida as part of the Excellence in Action: National Summit on Education Reform, organized by the Foundation for Excellence in Education and James Madison Institute. Interested in seeing Flunked in your area? That can be arranged.

It has been a great encouragement for all of us - and another milestone for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation - to see the success this project is already producing. The best part: This is still just the beginning for a little film called Flunked

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