American public schools have been growing progressively worse. According to the U.S. Department of Education national testing, only 35% of American high school seniors are proficient in reading, based on 2006 data. And fewer than one-in-four, 23%, are proficient in math. On the global stage, America ranks last in educational effectiveness among large industrialized countries despite the highest spending per student in the world. It presents a conundrum: How has the richest and most innovative society on earth suddenly lost the ability to teach its children at a level that other modern countries consider �basic�? If the problem is that we�re not spending enough on schools, which many people believe, it�s instructive to study the U.S. state that spends more than any other per student: New Jersey With spending as high as $483,000 per classroom (confirmed by NJ Education Department records for 2005-06), New Jersey students fare only slightly better than the national average in reading and math, and rank 37th in average SAT scores. And not even half of NJ�s high school freshmen, despite the state�s enormous �investment,� are academically ready for college four years later. The fact is much of the public considers teacher salaries and overall education budgets to be the same thing � if you�re for raising one, you must be for raising the other. But as the film shows, in many cases 80-90% of the spending goes somewhere besides teacher salaries. In fact billions of dollars, as confirmed by independent audits, are wasted. �� investigates what is causing this vast underachievement and what can be done to turn things around.

Starring:

Rick Berman, Michael Bloomberg, Bob Bowdon, Bill Baroni

Genre:

Documentary