Mitch Leff, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, (404) 861-4769
Sarah Douglas, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, (678) 521-5289
Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Participant Media Seek Solutions to Education Crisis at WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” Town Hall Meeting: “Partnering for Change - The Role of Community in Improving Education for All Children”
National Leaders in Education, Business and Government to Screen Film Excerpts and Offer Ideas for America’s Ailing Education System
When: Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010, 10 a.m. - Noon
Where: Hill Auditorium, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree Street, NE, Atlanta, GA 30309
Visuals/Interviews
Educators, Parents, Teens, Elected Officials, Non-Profit Leaders
What: On Thursday, December 2, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) and Participant Media will host a Town Hall meeting featuring clips from the film WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” which explores the current state of education in the U.S. and follows five children whose dreams, hopes and untapped potential reveal all that is at stake at this critical moment.
The Town Hall Meeting, “Partnering for Change: The Role of the Community in Improving Education for All Children,” will bring parents and teens together with top local and national education, business and government leaders, to discuss solutions to the problems in the nation’s education system.
Moderator: Bill Nigut, Southeast Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League
Panelists:
● Milton J. Little, President, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta
● Roxanne Spillett, President/CEO, BGCA
● Elida Perez-Knapp, Community Development Specialist, National PTA
● Joseph Edelin, 7th Grade Chair and Social Studies Teacher, KIPP WAYS Academy, Atlanta
The National Dropout Crisis
BGCA recently launched a new campaign dedicated to tackling the nation’s high school dropout crisis. The goal is to help kids graduate from high school, prepared with the attitude, knowledge and confidence to achieve a great future (http://www.bgca.org/whywecare/Pages/EducationCrisis.aspx.)
WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” Social Action Campaign
The WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” social action campaign seeks to accelerate a national conversation about the crisis in public education and to help ensure that every child in America gets a great education. The campaign focuses on four key initiatives: Celebrating great teachers, ensuring world-class standards, encouraging more great schools and raising literacy rates. Learn more at www.waitingforsuperman.com/action.
By the Numbers
• One-third of America’s children do not graduate from high school. For Latino and African-American males, the rate skyrockets to 50 percent. Every 25 seconds, another teen drops out of high school.
• Nationally, 1.3 million students in the Class of 2010 failed to graduate with a high school diploma.
• The U.S. is the only industrialized country where young people are less likely than their parents to obtain a high school diploma.
• $276 billion – How much Georgia’s economy would benefit from each year in crime-related savings and increased earnings if the male high school graduation rate increased only 5 percent.
• $2.5 billion – How much money Georgia households would have in accumulated wealth if all heads of households had graduated from high school.
• $185 billion – Cost Georgia to replace the same 15,000 teachers who do not return to the schools where they taught the following year.
About Boys & Girls Clubs of America
For more than 100 years, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (www.bgca.org) has enabled young people, especially those who need Clubs most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. Today, some 4,000 Boys & Girls Clubs serve more than 4 million young people through Club membership and community outreach. Clubs provide young people 6-18 years old with guidance-oriented character development programs conducted by trained, professional staff.
About Participant Media
Participant Media (participantmedia.com) is a Los Angeles-based global entertainment company specializing in socially-relevant documentary and narrative feature films, television, publishing and digital media. Participant exists to tell compelling, entertaining stories that bring to the forefront real issues that shape our lives. For each of its projects, Participant creates extensive social action and advocacy programs, which provide ideas and tools to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action. Participant’s online Social Action Network is TakePart (takepart.com). Participant's films include The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson's War, Darfur Now, An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, The Visitor, The Soloist, Food, Inc., The Cove, The Crazies, Countdown to Zero, Waiting for "Superman” and Fair Game.
About WAITING FOR "SUPERMAN”
From An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim comes WAITING FOR "SUPERMAN”, a provocative and cogent examination of the crisis of public education in the United States told through multiple interlocking stories—from a handful of students and their families whose futures hang in the balance, to the educators and reformers trying to find real and lasting solutions within a dysfunctional system. Tackling such politically radioactive topics as the power of teachers’ unions and the entrenchment of school bureaucracies, Guggenheim reveals the invisible forces that have held true education reform back for decades. The film is produced by Lesley Chilcott, with Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll and Diane Weyermann serving as executive producers. It is written by Davis Guggenheim & Billy Kimball. Released by Paramount Pictures, WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN,” is a Participant Media presentation in association with Walden Media.