Matt Damon Public Narrated School Documentary Slammed By Woman In The Film
"Backpack Full of Cash", a documentary narrated by Matt Damon based on the public school systems in America which is a market-based education these days, is being criticized by Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform who was apparently misled by the producers of the film.
In the trailer of the film, Allen is seen using as a metaphor with an animated image of a student and dollar bills flying from his backpack. Allen is afraid that she will be portrayed as a villain in the film. According to her Turnstone Productions, Stone Lantern Films and producers Vera Aronow and Sarah Mondale totally misled her regarding the nature of the documentary and they had interviewed her for something. Although now they have turned her into a negative character while making Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers president into one of the heroes, reported The Hollywood Reporter.
As per reports, Allen has now demanded the raw footage of her interview in which she asks to see the film. However, she thinks that the filmmakers are busy in negotiating distribution and broadcasting rights at the moment, so that will only offer her a screening after few weeks.
The filmmakers have written to her saying that the use of her interview in the film was within their rights of editorial discretion as filmmakers. They mentioned that they came up with the catchy phrase backpack full of cash over the course of making the film several times so the use of the phrase happened by chance without any particular intention.
Actor Matt Damon who is known as an advocate for public schools was welcomed heroically during the screening of the film and it was attended by public school teachers and students.
"This movie is all about smearing us as anti-public education," Allen says.
"It's a backpack full of hypocrisy. Matt Damon's kids go to a private school, and the people praised in the film get paid from taxpayer dollars. The teachers' unions spend $300 million a year on political races. We don't have that kind of money. Why won't they let people decide for themselves whether they want to go to the schools that these people run?", she further added.
The focus of the film is the growing demand of private school options in America supported by a powerful and wealthy movement of country's top billionaires. Free market coalition urges that every child should take their "backpack full of cash" to school they want to go to, that could be of their charter, religious, online, or public.
"Stone Lantern never told me they were making a documentary that is anti-education reform; will feature Randi Weingarten, my chief nemesis; and, by the way, will be named after my quote," Allen says.
"Weingarten accuses supporters of school choice of being 'polite cousins to segregation.' Meanwhile, look out your back window and you'll see 90 percent of the kids in La La Land who are going to schools of choice are black and Hispanic because L.A. Unified School District couldn't figure out how to educate them."
Read more: Matt Damon goes minuscule with 'Downsizing'