New York City has over 400 public high schools, three of which are “world class” with graduates including a large number of famous achievers who've won loads of awards in their professional lives. It's no wonder that parents clamor to get their bright children into these places, or at least into one of a secondary group of specialized schools that recognize a student's emerging skill set. All of the other schools—the “ordinary” ones—are where everyone else goes. The navigation of this educational food chain is at the center of filmmaker Curtis Chin's Tested, a documentary about the brutal process of preparing thousands of potential enrollees in New York's middle schools for tests to gain admittance to top-drawer high schools. While the film focuses on several families from a variety of neighborhoods reflecting racial, ethnic, economic, and cultural diversity, it also demonstrates how numerous factors come to bear on the prospect of earning a great education. For parents who were prevented from meeting their own educational goals as kids, the opportunities for their own children represent balance and redemption. For moms and dads who believe that one should simply choose the best school program for sons and daughters, testing forces them to recognize that competition leads to quality. Chin follows his subjects over months of preparing for the big exam, and catches up afterwards, when acceptance and rejection letters start to roll in. Although the issues of immigration, segregation, and economic inequality hang over the film, it also holds out hope that things will change for the better with a well-prepared next generation. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)
Tested
(2016) 73 min. DVD: $79: public libraries, $299: colleges & universities. Bull and Monkey (avail. from www.testedfilm.com). PPR. Closed captioned. Volume 32, Issue 3
Tested
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