Tonight's dinner was meatless and delish. I never think I'm that reliant on meat eating...until Friday's in Lent roll around, and I feel like there is nothing to eat! I know it's just all in my head, but I definitely miss my meat on Fridays.
Tonight I made some Baked Ziti and Spinach.
While preparing dinner and eating, Joey and I had a little movie night. We had both been doing work all day, and we took a little break. We decided to roll with our movie night after The American President (Classic.) was over, and we put on a movie that we had been dying to see, Waiting for Superman.
If you haven't heard about Waiting for Superman, it is a documentary about problems with America's public school systems. They follow three students through the education system as they hope to be selected through a lottery into a charter school.
I was very blessed to have a great education (an education I am still working on), but this movie was really eye opening about some of the failures that are occuring in our education system. The things that stuck with me most about the movie were the alarming statistics of what the percentages of 8th graders that were proficient in math and reading.
The other thing that really stuck with me was the lottery meeting. They literally have a bingo cage and each student is assigned a number that can change their lives. If your number is chosen, you know that you will be able to get an education good enough to get you into college. The lottery drawings themselves looked like a fun pizza bingo night with balloons and decorations. It was just simply eye opening that these kids were sitting there holding a slip with their number on it praying to get called. One of the school's followed (in Washington D.C.) produced 3% of students that would have grades high enough to attend a college. Only 3%.
Another interesting statistic was that 68% of inmates in Pennsylvania are high school drop outs. At an estimated $33,000 per year cost of housing an inmate, with the average length of a prison term, you would be able to send that inmate to private school from kindergarten through 12th grade with roughly $24,000 left over to go towards college. Definitely food for thought, right?
Overall, this movie covered everything. Good teachers, bad teachers, tenure, the cost of an education, tracking, alarming statistics that kids are dropping out, falling incredible behind, and the cycle that needs to be stopped.
I think this movie was really interesting. It's definitely worth watching, and you should check it out on your next movie night.
Have any of you seen the movie? What do you guys think?
