The Learning has its national broadcast premiere on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011 at 10 p.m. on POV (Point of View) on PBS. (Baltimore broadcast: Sunday, Sept. 25 at 10:30 PM on MPT-2). The film will stream in its entirety on the POV website, Sept. 21 - Oct. 21. The Learning has been selected as part of The Economist Film Project, which presents documentaries in partnership with PBS NewsHour.

Click this link for the website, where the film will be streaming.

For those interested, here is a transcript transcript of a live chat on 'The Learning,' which took place last week after a PBS screening of the film.

Among the panelists were: Baltimore filmmaker Ramona Diaz, who directed the film; Sara Neufeld, former Baltimore Sun reporter, whose coverage of the Filipino teacher recruitment inspired the film; Erica Green, covering the current state of the Filipino teaching community; and Anthony Japzon, president of the Filipino Educators of Maryland.

'The Learning,' is a documentary that follows four Filipino women as they leave their lives behind to find the American dream-- teaching in Baltimore city schools. The four teachers represent a time early in the decade when the city struggled to hire highly qualified teachers to teach math, science and special education, and the city joined districts across the nation in hiring from abroad.

Though the recruitment--which as we have reported has recently come under scrutiny--has ceased in Baltimore city, Filipino teachers account for roughly 10 percent of the city's 6,000 teachers. As we've also reported recently, many Filipino teachers face an uncertain future in the district, as it struggles to show the need for them as the job market tightens for American teachers.

In the film (I've seen a screening) Diaz captures the good, the bad and the raw aspects of the teachers' lives, in and outside of the classroom. Featured in the film are teachers' experiences at Harlem Park, Renaissance Academy, Lockerman-Bundy and Polytechnic Institute.