Free Teaching Documentaries

American public schools are failing, despite leading the world in spending per student. The Cartel examines how the richest society on earth lost the ability to teach its children.

For ABC's 20/20 show, reporter John Stossel investigates why public school students in America, seem to be less well-educated than their counterparts in the rest of the World. He believes that they are not less intelligent, but are actually receiving a lesser quality of education across the board.

Narrated by Matt Damon, American Teacher tells the collective story by and about those closest to the issues in our educational system -- the 3.2 million teachers who spend every day in classrooms across our country.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of teenagers in the United States quit high school without diplomas - an epidemic so out of control that nobody knows the exact number.

The business of higher education is booming. It's a $400 billion industry fueled by taxpayer money. But what are students getting out of the deal? Critics say a worthless degree and a mountain of debt. Investors insist they're innovators, widening access to education.

College students spend a lot of time listening to lectures. But research shows there are better ways to learn. And experts say students need to learn better because the 21st century economy demands more well-educated workers.

Teachers matter. A lot. Studies show that students with the best teachers learn three times as much as students with the worst teachers.

Declining by Degrees looks at what's really going on in higher education. This monumental project gathers sixteen essayists that ask tough--and long overdue--questions about our colleges and universities.

Learning Matters has produced more than 30 documentaries and filed hundreds of reports for PBS NewsHour. Our work has taken us everywhere from community colleges to kindergarten classes, and from policy hearings to protest rallies.

The Perry Preschool Project is one of the most famous education experiments of the last 50 years. The study asked a question: Can preschool boost the IQ scores of poor African-American children and prevent them from failing in school?