The Substitute 2: School's Out
When teacher Randall Thomasson is killed during a carjacking, an unexpected visitor shows up at his funeral - his estranged brother, Karl Thomasson. An ex-Green Beret turned mercenary, Karl signs on as a new substitute teacher in order to investigate Randall's murder.
The Substitute 2: School's Out
C-grade sequel, and borderline remake, of the first film with more macho, gangland bullshit inside of a school. Features a pretty great climactic showdown between our "substitute" and the head bad guy with weapons including a blowtorch, lightbulb, giant wrench, 2x4 and screwdriver - it's a real Treat!
Thomasson and Shale have to team up as substitutes to take down an illegal human growth hormone ring at a small state university with a struggling football team, only the hormones get out of control and begin turning football players (and then the entire studentry) into zombies. This shit writes itself, my friends.
The Substitute 2: School's Out is the 1998 DTV sequel to the 1996 film The Substitute. Treat Williams stars as Karl Thomasson, a mercenary who covertly infiltrates a high school as a substitute teacher after his brother is gunned down by gangsters tied to the school. Williams would return as Thomasson in three more DTV sequels.
The murky conclusion of director Steven Pearl's straight-to-video sequel "The Substitute 2: School's Out" undercuts an otherwise okay sequel that goes to enormous ends to establish itself as the follow-up to the Tom Berenger original. Treat Williams plays an entirely different character who knew Shale, and "School's Out" concerns his search for the person who gunned down his brother in cold blood in broad daylight. Williams is suave but decisive as Karl Thomasson who masquerades as the new substitute teacher. B.D. Wong is superb as the slimy villain. The Miami high school in the first film, the school here is a zoo with abrasive students who play their boom boxes in class and tote around deadly weapons like ice picks. Unlike the villains in the predecessor who were trafficking in illegal drugs, the bad guys here are operating a chop shop for stolen cars that nets them a $100-thousand-a-month. Like the original, the most considerate character turns out to be the source of the trouble. During the first three-fourths of "The Substitute 2: School's Out," the scenarists of the first movie--Roy Frumkes, Rocco Simonelli, and Alan Ormsby--establish the reason for the sequel, neatly place the characters in the context of the original, and do a good job of integrating Karl into the action. The action scenes themselves, when Karl has to practice his expertise on the disruptive students as well as the adult villains, are fine, but everything collapses in the last quarter hour when the fatherless daughter discovers who killed her father. The filmmakers never have a confrontation scene between the hero and this villain. Moreover, the disruptive students in the classroom who should go down as hard as their counterparts did in the first movie are never shown receiving their just comeuppance for their crimes. The yo-yo scene where Karl explains the use of a yo-yo as a weapon is well-done as is the 'compromise' scene when he toss Mace's purloined boom box out the second story class room. Presumably, Mace is supposed to be the Jerome character here. The single character who doesn't have a counterpart from the first movie is Michael Michele; she plays a sympathetic school employee, Kara Lavelle, who is attracted to Karl. Initially, she met him at his brother's funeral. Not surprisingly, Karl's niece (Susan May Pratt of "Drive Me Crazy")doesn't trust Karl at first, but she breaks down and gets to like him. The only character here that is truly exceptional is the high school custodian, Johnny Bartee (Daryl Edwards of "Arthur 2: On the Rocks"), who has an unique way of entering and exiting through the tunnels in the walls. He is a former Vietnam soldier who specialized in going into tunnels to flush out the Viet Cong. One of the things that the filmmakers do that looks cool is that the car-jacking gang wears their cotton windbreakers backwards so the hood covers them faces and they have slit eye-holes to see. One of the survivors from the first movie, Joey 6, reappears here but he is played by a different actor.
Okay, take out the Latino gangs from part one and replace them with Black gang bangers. Switch the bad principal and make it a bad teacher instead. Take away the premise of drugs, and make it about guns and carjackings, then instead of the hurt girlfriend who creates and easy entrance for THE SUBSTITUTE, replace her with a dead brother of a former (you guessed it) mercenary (played by Treat Williams) and basically, you've got your SUBSTITUTE 2 - School's Out. It was a good time-passer but nothing as riveting as the first part which starred Tom Berenger as the mercenary-turn-substitute teacher. Telly alums Michael Michele and B.D. Wong co-star.
I am writing to express my views on the "Students Results Act of 1999," your pending substitute for H.R. 2, which I understand your committee will soon mark up as you continue work on reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). I am pleased that the substitute focuses on some of the same themes, such as high standards for our schools and children, accountability for results, and increased quality of teachers, that shaped the President's ESEA proposal, the Educational Excellence for All Children Act of 1999. These are the right issues on which to focus our attention as we help States and local school districts translate the promising work of standards-based reform into increased student achievement in the classroom for all our students.
Accountability. This Administration strongly supports public school choice and the President has consistently been a leader on this issue. However, public school choice must be coupled with, rather than be a substitute for, meaningful accountability. In its current form, this bill fails to adequately address accountability and school improvement.
Finally, I am pleased that the substitute incorporates our proposal that, in describing any student assessments that it uses (other than those required by the State) in its Title I plan, a school district must describe any tests it will use to determine the literacy level of first graders, and how it will ensure that any such tests are developmentally appropriate and use multiple measures. However, the bill should also include the Administration's proposal that any such tests be administered in the language most likely to yield valid results, to ensure that the district is obtaining an accurate measure of the child's level of literacy.
To address this problem, the President's bill proposes to allocate substantial funding through the Targeted Grants formula under section 1125 of the ESEA, which distributes a larger share of Title I funds to higher-poverty districts than occurs with Basic Grants. In contrast, the pending substitute would undermine targeting to the poorer districts by authorizing substantial annual increases in Basic Grants.
Schoolwide programs. I am pleased that the bill would incorporate some of the Administration's proposals to strengthen schoolwide programs under Title I, which can be a highly effective way to help students in high-poverty schools meet high performance standards. I do not believe, however, that we should lower, from 50 percent to 40 percent, the proportion of a school's students who are from low-income families in order to qualify to conduct a schoolwide program, as the bill would do. Research shows that school poverty levels above 50 percent are associated with declines in student achievement for all students in the school, not just disadvantaged students. But using funds from Title I and other programs for schoolwide programs in schools with lower percentages of poor children is likely to dilute the effect of the services for those children.
I urge the Committee to work with the Administration to address the concerns I have expressed and to approve a bill that more closely reflects the President's proposal for reauthorizing the ESEA. I also look forward to reviewing other portions of the Committee's ESEA reauthorization effort, such as those relating to the Women's Educational Equity Act and the ESEA general provisions, that are not included in the pending substitute. I have significant concerns with amendments to the Bilingual Education Act that I understand were prepared for the Committee's consideration, and I expect to offer my views on that program as you get closer to marking it up.
Many school districts, coping with a serious shortage of substitute teachers, can no longer rely on the subs who simply show up and sign up. So schools have explored other options! Included: Information about a new substitute agency, a new substitute union, and a "sub camp" that bridges the gap for new subs.
As schools across the country deal with an increased demand for substitute services, many school districts are coping with a serious shortage of substitute teachers. For most, this has meant that they can no longer rely on the subs who simply show up and sign up. Other options must be explored!Education World shares news of three such options!
In suburban Minneapolis, Intermediate School District 287, a consortium of 13 independent school districts, is solving the problem by recruiting and training noncertified college graduates as substitute teachers. For the past two years, the district has held a "sub camp," where men and women of all ages and backgrounds learn to be substitute teachers.
According to Holmberg, the program has been a tremendous success. More than 400 of the campers who completed the course are now subbing, greatly easing the area's substitute shortage, especially at the high school level. In addition, about 20 of those subs are available for special education situations. Two-thirds of the sub camp attendees -- who are all college graduates -- are interested in eventually pursuing teaching licenses, Holmberg said. 041b061a72