The Mitchell 20: A Struggle for Teacher Quality
This documentary about 20 of the 29 elementary teachers who set out on a journey toward improving the quality of their teaching during what turned out to be a very tough time to be a teacher – especially in Arizona. The film follows the Mitchell 20 over three years as they attempted National Board Certification, a grueling program that is the most accurate measure of teacher effectiveness in relation to student achievement. What was supposed to be a nice clean story of triumph ended up getting messy, real messy. Failures, involuntary transfers, petitions, insubordination, threats of lawsuits all got mixed in with the hard work of teachers trying to become better teachers.