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September 9, 2013
Review: We the Parents

wetheparents3Battles around education can be many things, crushing, monumental, confounding, and impassioned among them. But rarely are they simplistic. That's where "We the Parents" is a bit of a let down. The documentary forgoes a political intimacy with its contents in favor of maintaining a sense of emotional uplift. That kind of approach doesn't hold up very well under issues as heavy as improving schools in the United States, which is a big reason why by its last panel, "We the Parents" is as underwhelming and vague as its title.

Directed by James Takata, the documentary advocates for "The Parent Trigger," a Californian state law passed in January 2010 that has since been implemented by other state legislatures across the country. If they gain enough support via petitions, the law allows parents of a failing school to take control of that school's educational system and its staff.

"The Parent Trigger" is exactly what the non-profit, community organization "Parent Revolution" and a handful of Compton parents aim to fire with McKinley Elementary. The school has been scoring well below California's Academic Performance Index for years. Marlene, a single mother and Compton native, is one of many parents gravely concerned that if their education doesn't change, her children will end up, like her, dropping out of school and earning minimum wage. The staggering fact that kids who aren't proficient in basic subjects areas by third grade---which most of McKinley's students aren't----are very likely to fall into such a trap, drives Marlene's fear home.

Takata does a fine job of capturing the genuine ache behind these parents' struggle with the unreceptive Compton Unified School Board as they team up with "Parent Revolution" to take control of McKinley. If he had done the same in capturing more of what happened behind the scenes, like what was said when parents went into strangers' homes and got them to join their cause, then "We the Parents" would feel less broadly drawn. Aside from a few illuminating sequences, the film glides over a lot of what could be interesting territory, including the circumstances and stories of the participants it follows most closely. Nearly all of the people impacted by Compton's failing school system appear to be either African-American, Latino, single mothers, or families harshly hit by the economic crisis, yet "We the Parents" offers no explicit discussion of race or socioeconomic status. Suggesting their importance isn't enough here. There's always the sense that Takata, much like the documentary's artwork, is playing it safe and straightforward.

Perhaps these shortcomings have something to do with "Parent Trigger's" fledgling-like state as well as Takata's somewhat flavorless directorial style. Either way, a more judicious look at the machinations of the movement and a stronger sense of the participants' anger would give the "We the Parents" a needed might. Where the documentary summarizes, you want it to elaborate. Where it's pleasantly defiant, you want it to growl. All of that lies in the details of facts and feelings. Some might argue that to troll out the details, to explicate issues of race and class, for example, is to belabor them. But they're wrong. It's precisely these weedy dilemmas that need to be belabored if any arguments surrounding significant social change are to be taken seriously.

At the end of the screening I attended, there was a panel discussion with some of the documentary's participants and Takata. The moderator remarked that Takata had "been in the trenches" of Compton and this movement. Apparently, those trenches weren't very deep.

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Written by: John Runde
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