Special Focus Session DES72
Breakthrough: Film Screening followed by Q&A with Filmmaker
Date Friday, Dec 8 Time – RoomCharlottenburg 2
There are nearly 50 million children in public school in the United States and a large percentage of them are not getting the education they need and deserve. Efforts to reform the existing system in the country have repeatedly resulted in incremental change at best - and educators are understandably frustrated by the fact that the system is built to resist significant change at any level. This documentary will show you a concerted effort to innovate school from the ground level up. The team behind it hopes that teachers, principals and reformers will be inspired to take a risk to reinvent their own schools. Sit back… and engage!
Liz Norton
Founder and Director, Stone Soup Films, USA
Director/Producer, BREAKTHROUGH (Trailer available at www.breakthroughfilm.org)
Liz Norton is the founder and director of Stone Soup Films, an innovative nonprofit that produces and donates short form documentaries to worthy organizations. The organization has completed over 100 films since it was founded in 2008, not including this feature documentary on education reform. Before founding Stone Soup Films, Liz was a freelance television producer for over ten years, with a focus on public policy issues. Those programs included several Fred Friendly Seminars for Public Television and MTV News. During the Clinton Administration, she was a staffer in the White House Office of Communications. In that role, she served as a link between the president, the press and the public, primarily on the issues involving crime and drug policy. Before then she was a researcher on political campaign finances for Common Cause, a non-partisan lobbying organization. She lives in Washington DC with her husband Rob and two teenage children.