The Lottery, a documentary film by Madeleine Sackler follows the heated debate over charter schools in America. The film follows four children and their low-income families who live in Harlem and Bronx. The guardians of the children are attempting to get these kids into Harlem Success Academy, a charter school known for its great success in education. To get into a charter school, one must enter a lottery and get randomly selected to attend. They have no tuition fees and so getting accepted is highly competitive, as large amounts of students are entered in the lottery. The parents tell the stories of how their local public schools are very unsuccessful in the education department and often lead to kids later on in life to drop out and so they are hoping for a better education for them. It also follows the founder of the charter school and how she is trying to expand the schools more for low-income families and all the struggles she faces in attempting to do so. The charter school topic is a large debate there are many who are against it and many who for expanding the programs and the documentary shows this debate throughout the New York City school system. Through teachers unions and politicians, Sackler explains how the education system leaves out large amount of kids, especially those less fortunate.
The film clearly highlights injustice for children seeking the equal opportunity of education. Throughout this course we have talked about the concept “can the subaltern speak” by Spivak. Talking about how people who are seen as less because they have less. They are not given the same opportunities as those who might have more. This can be applied to The Lottery because we can see how the public school system is failing those who are less fortunate, not giving them the same opportunities at a quality education. Its deeply upsetting watching this film and seeing how these kids are not even given a chance to have a great education because of the situation they are in. All children should have equal opportunity at education and that is what Sackler attempts to show through her film.