Freedom Writers

I just watched this movie last night. I was expecting the usual overly sentimental story of an idealistic young teacher saving kids from the inner city in Los Angeles, but I found the movie to be refreshingly honest as to the difficulties that a teacher who really cares might find teaching in an inner city school in the United States where the students are all but forgotten. It really struck me how she had to work two extra jobs so that she could buy her kids books to read. I'm also reading Educating Esme by Esme Raji Codell, also an idealistic young teacher in an inner city school, this time in Chicago, and was amazed to find that she had to do the SAME THING. Obviously educating young people in public schools has stopped being a priority somewhere along the line......