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In this third and final installment of our interview, Eggers announces his plans to create a new documentary depicting the professional lives of teachers. (You heard it here first.)

Eggers and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Vanessa Roth are collaborating on a film they hope will do for teaching what An Inconvenient Truth did for the environment. Featuring footage taken by teachers themselves, the film aims to offer a first-hand view of the challenges educators face every day--and to inspire greater public support for teachers' work.

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We've received and published five new public school and district success stories in the past weeks. Have a look at these inspiring accounts of what's working in American public schools and schools districts:

• Pateros School District, Washington:  Arts Education Broadens Horizons in Washington State, May 5
• Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District, Texas:  In Texas, a Second Chance at a Bright Future, May 8
• Coachella Valley Unified School District, California: Awareness Initiative Boosts College Attendance, May 12
• Spencer County High School, Kentucky: Changing a Culture by Building Relationships, May 15
• Walker County High School, Tennessee: Innovative Courses in Math & Science Take Students from the Earth to the Sky--and to High Achievement, May 20

On Friday, The Center on Reinventing Public Education and Education Sector released a new report detailing how federal, state and local school funding policies conspire to enrich schools that already have money and further impoverish schools that don't.

The report begins with a comparison of two elementary schools of similar size that enroll mostly low-income students: Cameron Elementary School in Virginia and Ponderosa Elementary in North Carolina. One crucial difference between the schools: Cameron receives approximately $14,040 in combined federal, state and local per-pupil funding, and Ponderosa receives only $6,773. Not surprisingly, Cameron teachers earn much more money than their counterparts at Ponderosa, Cameron attracts and retains many more experienced teachers, Cameron's average class size is substantially smaller, and Cameron's students fare far better on state assessments, meeting or exceeding state averages in mathematics and science. ...

I've been following Ed in '08's Blogger's Summit out of the corner of my eye. A sentence from Alexander Russo's most recent posting from the Summit caught my attention: "Blogger, teacher, and author Dan Brown has asked the most intense questions so far--one about high stakes testing and the about the dangers of taking an extreme de-Bathification approach to bypassing educators."

While the "de-baathification" reference raises an unwelcome comparison between educators and Iraqi Baathists, the broader point--the danger of attempts to pursue education reform without the educators--deserves attention. I look forward to reading about the answers to Brown's questions.

Update (5/16/08)
Well, I expected to read a flood of blog postings on Dan Brown's question, but, as Assorted Stuff remarks, the Edin08 Blogger Summit spawned precious few blog postings--and next to nothing on "de-Baathification." I guess I'll have have to ask Dan himself.  Bear with me. ...