American Teacher (2011)

Director: Vanessa Roth
Run Time: 80 min.

"What makes the film more than just a cheerleading countermove is the towering amount of research it contains: historical data tracing the profession from being the domain of men to largely that of women, and the cynical economic ploy behind the shift; terrifying figures on the rates of those fleeing the profession as well as the looming crisis of a mass retirement of elderly teachers; the sobering numbers of teachers living at the poverty level and/or holding down a second job. Putting a human face on the data are teachers of all races and backgrounds who gave Roth complete access to both their professional and personal lives, showing how the two are so deeply intertwined."
—Ernest Hardy, The Village Voice

Bully (2012)

Director: Lee Hirsch
Run Time: 99 min.

"Bully is a wrenching, potentially transformative look at an epidemic of adolescent cruelty and adult paralysis in the nation's public schools. . . . Bully weaves together five stories from different parts of America's heartland. Two are about the grieving families of boys who've committed suicide—a 17-year-old in Georgia, an 11-year-old in Oklahoma City. The rest are profiles of kids still toughing it out—a Mississippi teenager who has been jailed after pulling a gun on the kids who made her life a living hell, a lesbian Oklahoma high-schooler who is tormented not just by other students but by her teachers as well."
—Bob Mondello, NPR