West Lafayette school officials hope to open eyes with documentary on education reform

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - What if the U.S. had a top education system? What if we could remove politics from our children's education?

These are some of the messages in an upcoming documentary about the United States' education system.

The West Lafayette Community School Corporation spearheaded the documentary.

Superintendent Rocky Killion said the ideas in the film come from a five year study on America's education system through a book written by the National Center on Education and the Economy titled: Tough Choices or Tough Times.

"As long as the current governance is in effect for public schools, public schools will never succeed at being on top of the world," said Killion.

Killion said the corporation wants America's education system to be the best of the best. He said right now, countries like Finland and South Korea are on top.

Killion said the documentary will look at how these other nations rose to the top and how the United States can learn from them. He said putting more focus into early childhood education is a good way to start.

"According to Tough Choices, Tough Times, we will save the American economy about $61 billion in education on the back half of education because we'll have to do less remediation," said Killion.
       
The documentary features people like Diane Ravitch, who was Assistant Secretary of Education under President George Bush, and a representative of Finland's Ministry of Education.

Killion said the documentary was funded entirely by donations through the West Lafayette Schools Education Foundation.

"We've raised right at $40,000 to help fund this so no tax dollars are being used for this project," said Killion.

Dr. Killion said the full documentary will be released sometime this fall. In a couple of weeks, the corporation will release the name of an international celebrity appearing in the documentary.

To watch the trailer, click here.