The best high school in the world is in Tucson, Arizona. So says
Memphis entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and film producer Bob
Compton. BASIS — a charter school founded in 1997 — is the
subject of Compton’s newest documentary, 2 Million Minutes: The 21st
Century Solution.

The existence of BASIS came as a surprise to Compton. If you’ve seen
his earlier film, 2 Million Minutes: A Global Examination, it’ll
probably come as a surprise to you, too. A Global Examination
paints a pretty bleak picture of American education and how far behind
the world — particularly China and India — U.S. kids are.
The film sounds the alarm and considers the long-term effects the
education inequity will have on America’s ability to compete, not to
mention the life of impoverishment to which it’s dooming the kids.
Compton says, “The tragedy is we’re telling them, ‘You’ve got a high
school diploma now, you’re ready to compete.’ And they’re not.”

Except for showing what the Chinese and Indians are doing, A
Global Examination falls short of offering a remedy, Compton
admits. He says, “People asked me, ‘What do we do?’ And I didn’t have
an answer because I wasn’t sure we could stay competitive. Then I saw
BASIS.” Now the social advocate feels he may have found the perfect
model for American success.

Compton screened A Global Examination at BASIS, and afterward
the students challenged him on what he was saying. “They said, ‘Look at
our curriculum. We’re more advanced than the Chinese and Indian
students.’ They said, ‘I took AP Calculus BC as a junior. I took AP
Calculus as a sophomore. I took pre-calculus as a freshman. And this
year as a senior I’m doing differential equations and game theory.’ And
my jaw hit the floor.”

But BASIS doesn’t possess any native advantages not available
anywhere else in the country — say, in Memphis. “I was stunned to
discover that Tucson/Pima County is actually poorer than Memphis,”
Compton says. “And in this low-income county, in a strip mall, right
across from the Home Depot, is the world’s best high school. It’s a
charter school started with almost no startup capital. These kids are
from middle- and low-income families, and a large minority come from
single-parent families. Here are ordinary American kids achieving
academically and intellectually at an extraordinary level.”

BASIS is the answer to the problems posed in A Global
Examination, Compton says: “Curriculum above the world standard,
teachers above the world standard, low cost to start it, low cost to
run it, ordinary kids from middle- to low-income families. What more
could you ask for?”

Dan Treharne, the director of The 21st Century Solution,
hails from Memphis and is a product of Memphis City Schools: White
Station High School, class of 2001. Treharne got an MFA in film and
video production from the University of Southern California. Treharne
parses the answer BASIS provides: “There’s nothing unique about these
kids. What’s unique is the belief that they can.”

The first film started a conversation, and 2 Million Minutes: The
21st Century Solution pushes it forward. What happens next? Compton
is as anxious to see as anybody. “Will parents and will the community
rise up and knock down every inhibitor between our children and a
global education?” Compton asks.

2 Million Minutes: The 21st Century Solution
Paradiso
Thursday, September 24th.

7 p.m. $7