'American Teacher' Explores Public Education and How To Fix It

How do teachers do it? How do they continue to teach children while earning less than almost anyone else in a position of such responsibility?

A new documentary explores that question and the many different answers. “American Teacher” examines the lives and careers of four young teachers who are in rural and urban parts of the country,  and chronicles their experiences as they pass career milestones.

The film will be shown Saturday at noon in  the Tate Center Theatre on the UGA campus. Admission is free. A discussion will follow the film.

In the next ten years, more than half of the country’s 3.2 million teachers will be eligible to retire. We then must choose: do we continue trying to attract talented college graduates to the teaching profession by offering little compensation or do we change the system.

The movie is based on the book Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers (The New Press, 2005). It was done by the Teacher Salary Project, a nonprofit organization.

The film was produced and directed by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth; produced by Nínive Calegari, co-founder of the literacy nonprofit 826 National, and bestselling author Dave Eggers; and narrated by Academy Award-winner Matt Damon.