“Won’t Back Down” Hits Theaters This Friday

This weekend, a feature film highlighting struggling schools and parent and teacher empowerment will be released to theaters everywhere. "Won't Back Down," opening this Friday, September 28, gives moviegoers the opportunity to watch a film that pairs Hollywood entertainment with a message about American education reform.

"Won't Back Down" is the story of a single mother who refuses to accept that her daughter must attend a chronically failing school. Upon learning of a new "Parent Trigger" law that allows her to take back the school, she, along with a courageous teacher, fight to engage the community and turn the school around. The filmmakers have done their homework as the story is based on actual events in inner-city Los Angeles, California.

At times, the movie — starring award-winning actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, and Holly Hunter — is heartbreaking. However, it is also an optimistic story about what dedicated parents and teachers can do to ensure that students succeed, regardless of environment.

Like the characters in the movie, Americans everywhere want their children to go to schools that best suit their needs. "Won't Back Down" highlights an emerging trend among education stakeholders who are fed up with the status quo. Parents, taxpayers, and teachers are no longer willing to tolerate special interests and bureaucrats standing in the way of choice and successful schools. This film illustrates just one example of a community coming together to work toward meaningful education reform.

AAE encourages teachers and stakeholders everywhere to watch the film. "Won't Back Down" is an excellent portrayal of real-life education reform and the role that teachers can play in turning struggling schools around.

I’m surprised Maggie Gyllenhaal is in this movie. She’s a big-time leftie.

What can be said. Most actors are whores for roles and money. Hollywood lefties really don't have any principals. They go with the flow of their fellow sheep. I would go see this movie from the previews I've seen and the background info. If it hits big it will be interesting to see the stars being interviewed about the concept of parents taking back the education system from the teachers union and the NEA.

I’m having trouble digesting the possibility that yet another film (2016) is coming out that actually portrays the truth and could be a good film for conservatives. The word “community” is used and it makes me leary.

When you hear a liberal say “society,” your correct instinct is to check your wallet. But that is because when a “liberal” uses the word, s/he means nothing other than government:
Common Sense
By Thomas Paine
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

Society - thus, community - is something for a conservative to be enthusiastic about. Government, OTOH, not so much.

I watched the trailer... and have one question, and yes it’s rather cynical.

Given that the mother seems to be quite sucessful in her endeavour to turn this school around... why couldn’t she teach her own daughter to read? It looks like the child is 8 or 9 years old... and this is the first she’s realizing her child is having issues reading?

Sorry... but I’ve always had to supplement the teaching my kids received in school, both private and public education... as well as having to “correct” misinformation they were being taught.

And while I think it’s fabulous and noble that this mother took on the system... it’s very hard for me to comprehend the idea that parents should be able to rely solely on a school to educate their child.

You would be surprised at how many kids (and teachers) fool parents into thinking their kids can read when they can not read. I know an upper class family in Mass. who had three kids. The two in junior high could not read. First, the teen girl told her mother she fakes reading and can not read and needs help. Then they get their son tested (he’s a year older) and discover he can not read either.

At the time I was home schooling my second grade son who was not learning to read in the same upper middle class pubilc school system. I taught their youngest son to read because he asked me to teach him when he came to play after herd school.

That poor mom was so freaked out. She was a big wheel in a Boston financial corporation. She was wracked with shame and guilt but I could kind of understand what happened. The teachers kept assuring me that my son was “just fine” and progressing, but my husband told me it was not just fine and we needed to get him out of there.

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