"The Pursuit of Happyness," the well-reviewed and successful movie starring Will Smith, is worth seeing. Education is a big theme. Chris Gardner is a smart guy who ends up homeless with his young son while he's trying to become a stock broker. He studies day and night to pass a broker's test. Gardner passed, got the job and went on to start his own bond trading firm and become fabulously successful.

In the movie, Gardner takes his son everyday to what he thinks is a good pre-school. He finds out his son spends most of his time watching television. When he confronts the proprietor, she says he can't expect to get anything more for the amount he's paying. Lots of working folks find themselves confronted by the same agonizing dilemma, knowing that this precious time is being wasted but being unable to afford something better.

The other plot point involving a current education issue has to do with that test. Many folks in the anti-testing crowd argue that a) tests can't measure all that a child knows, b) tests are inherently biased, c) some people aren't good test-takers and so on. In the hard, cruel, pragmatic world of work, however, sometimes a test is a hurdle you have to get over to get a job or promotion (think police officers, fire fighters, CPAs, attorneys, doctors, etc.). Learning to study and to do well on tests is not such a bad skill to learn in school.