After National Release, 'The Cartel' Comes To Hoboken

Documentary maker Bob Bowdon spent the past three years shining a light on what he calls "waste and corruption in New Jersey's schools." Tonight, you can see the fruits of his labor in Hoboken's Clearview Cinemas.

"I have agonized over every second of this film for about three years now," Bowdon said.

In his film, Bowdon tries to show with his reporting how much  money is being wasted after it's pumped into New Jersey's public schools. Public schools have a monopoly, he said, and parents are forced to stay—even when they want to take their children out. 

"Mediocrity flourishes when there's no competition," Bowdon said. The monopoly means that "being bad has no consequences," he added. 

Furthermore, the fact that teachers—if granted tenure—have a job for life also harms the quality of education, Bowdon argued. 

"You can't fire a bad teacher and you can't give merit pay to the good teachers," Bowdon said, "no one would run a business this way."

The film focuses on the policy of education. Bowdon, who worked as a journalist for Bloomberg news for 15 years, said he didn't spend much time in individual classrooms, because the documentary is really about a national issue. 

The solution to this problem, or so says Bowdon, is to give parents school choice.

"If schools are good," Bowdon said, "parents will stay."

Hoboken is also covered in the film. Bowdon interviewed Board of Education member Theresa Minutillo. In the film, Minutillo—who was Board President at the time of that interview—explains that some janitors earned six-figure salaries in 2005. 

Bowdon said the film already won multiple awards, and he has been traveling around the country for several speaking engagements. Still, criticism in the Star Ledger and The New York Times Magazine accused the documentary of being one-sided. 

Bowdon responds to this argument, by saying that his documentary is supposed to be an expose. Although he acknowledges that there are good schools in New Jersey, that was not the focus of the film, he said. 

Bowdon also denies any allegations that he was hired by any organizations to make the film. 

"The whole thing was my idea," he said. 

There are two showings—one at 7 and one at 9 p.m.—and Bowdon will be available for questions afterward.