Killing Ed

Although it begins as a general critique of the charter school movement on the grounds that it poses a threat to the entire public U.S. educational system, filmmaker Mark S. Hall's documentary quickly zeroes in on charter schools led by Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish former imam living in exile in Pennsylvania who has been accused by the Turkish government of being behind the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016. Killing Ed embraces the criticism voiced by two of its primary interviewees—former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Dr. Diane Ravitch, an early supporter of the charter concept who has since become one of its most prominent national opponents, and Sharon Higgins, a member of Parents Across America, whose initial concerns about charters taking funding away from public schools led her to investigate the Gülen-affiliated network in America. According to investigations in various states—including Texas, Louisiana, and Ohio—that network seeks to promote political and religious goals, while also employing unqualified teachers in substandard facilities, exaggerating student achievement, and escaping rigorous scrutiny. These charges are substantiated here by ex-teachers, onetime students, and defectors from the charter movement. Special attention is given to the cultivation of elected officials by the Gülenists, which (it is suggested) explains why even instances of attempted bribery of government investigators have gone unprosecuted. A postscript on the 2016 coup reasserts the film's most provocative claim—that Gülen's supposedly interfaith movement is actually intended to reestablish the theocratic regime of the Ottoman Empire and expand fundamentalist Muslim rule from Turkey to the rest of the world. Whether viewers consider this to be a thought-provoking exposé or an alarmist screed, Killing Ed is a very timely documentary on a hot-button topic. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)