Filmmaker Bob Bowdon opens up about Christie-endorsed public school documentary ‘The Cartel’

Bowdon exposed it all. “I knew when I did this that I would have people shooting at my head, basically gunning for me,” he told the DC. “I knew they were going to claim I was the worst devil in the world. But I don’t think they can claim I invented the Tom Brokaw clip, or what Mayor Bloomberg said, or what was on CNN that day,” Bowdon said.

The clip of an exasperated Mayor Bloomberg railing about failing schools is indeed one of the most memorable of the many memorable clips used in the film. “The teacher tells the parent, ‘Oh this is a good school.’ Then I say ‘Lady, your kid can’t read or add two and two. What do you mean it’s a good school?’” Bloomberg is shown saying.

But while the mayor of New York City may have caught on to the problem, some haven’t, including NJEA President Joyce Powell, whom Bowdon interviewed for the film.

“The beauty of it is they can never claim I took her comments out of context,” said Bowdon. “I let her express her answers to questions about things like tenure and charter school lotteries. You don’t have to manipulate the words of these people – they’re actual beliefs.”

“It’s not like I could have said to her, ‘Are you kidding? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!’ I had to sit there and just nod.”

The one thing “The Cartel” noticeably does not mention is President Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiative, which some say has been an enormous hamper to serious school reform. Though according to Bowdon, for the purposes of “The Cartel,” NCLB would have been too much of a distraction.

“Schools were absolutely, chronically failing before NCLB and are chronically failing after NCLB,” said Bowdon. “American education is mostly a local and state rather than a federal issue…That’s where the money is spent.”

But as far as Bowdon is concerned, he’s quite happy with the success of his first foray into documentary filmmaking, calling the reaction to “The Cartel” “much larger” than he could have imagined.

“The fact is we played our part in what seems like a tipping point between where education reform becomes a mainstream issue,” said Bowdon. He pointed to other school reform ventures, like the documentary “Waiting for Superman” that also brought national attention to failing schools, and that Bowdon called “more human-interest, but complimentary” to his film.

He also included former Washington D.C. school Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “A lot of people know who she is, for example. But there was no Michelle Rhee five years ago. And if there were, nobody would have known her name.”

So what’s in store for Bowdon in the future? Although he admitted he doesn’t “actually have another idea yet” for a documentary, his next project is sure to be just as entertaining: hosting a show on The Onion news network.