Parents and educators share a "sense of urgency" when it comes to improving schools and providing the best education possible for children, says AFT President Randi Weingarten. But teachers and their unions are part of the solution, not the problem, despite what the soon-to-be-released film, “Won’t Back Down,” says.

Weingarten rebutted the portrayal of teachers and teachers’ unions in “Won’t Back Down.” She writes:

Many people who see this film will be moved by the story and will feel this same sense of urgency. But the film uses blatant stereotypes and caricatures to blame teachers and their unions for all of the problems facing our schools. These stereotypes and caricatures are even worse than those in “Waiting for ‘Superman.’”

The film—being screened this week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa—is from Walden Media, which is owned by oil billionaire Philip Anschutz, who helps fund the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is behind many of the “education reform” proposals presented in the movie. Read Weingarten’s full analysis on The Washington Post’s education blog, The Answer Sheet. 

Weingarten writes:

One can’t help but be moved by the characters and story portrayed in Walden Media’s film “Won’t Back Down.” The film is successful in driving home the sense of urgency parents and educators feel to do everything they can to provide the best possible education for their children. That is abundantly evident in this film—it’s what I hear as I visit schools across the country, and it’s what I heard when I sat down with parent and community groups from across the country last week.

We share that pain and frustration. And we firmly believe that every public school should be a school where every parent would want to send his or her child and where every teacher would want to teach. Unfortunately, using the most blatant stereotypes and caricatures I have ever seen—even worse than those in “Waiting for ‘Superman’”—the film affixes blame on the wrong culprit: America’s teachers unions.

As a former public school teacher and president of the American Federation of Teachers, I have spent my entire adult life working on behalf of children and teachers. After viewing this film, I can tell you that if I had taught at that school, and if I were a member of that union, I would have joined the characters played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis. I would have led the effort to mobilize parents and teachers to turn around that school myself.

I don’t recognize the teachers portrayed in this movie, and I don’t recognize that union. The teachers I know are women and men who have devoted their lives to helping children learn and grow and reach their full potential. These women and men come in early, stay late to mentor and tutor students, coach sports teams, advise the student council, work through lunch breaks, purchase school supplies using money from their own pockets, and spend their evenings planning lessons, grading papers and talking to parents. Yet their efforts, and the care with which they approach their work, are nowhere to be seen in this film.

This movie could have been a great opportunity to bring parents and teachers together to launch a national movement focused on real teacher and parent collaboration to help all children. Instead, this fictional portrayal, which makes the unions the culprit for all of the problems facing our schools, is divisive and demoralizes millions of great teachers. America’s teachers are already being asked to do more with less—budgets have been slashed, 300,000 teachers have been laid off since the start of the recession, class sizes have spiked, and more and more children are falling into poverty. And teachers are being demonized, marginalized and shamed by politicians and elites who want to undermine and dismiss their reform efforts.

Read Weingarten’s full analysis on The Washington Post’s education blog, The Answer Sheet.