A significant number of urban school districts across the country have begun hiring foreign teachers. In this search, the Philippines emerged as a recruitment hub because of its surplus of education majors, its American-based education system, and its English-speaking population. There are 600 Filipino teachers currently working in Baltimore City where they make up 10 percent of the teaching force. The Learning follows four Filipino teachers during their freshman year in America. Across the school year’s changing seasons, the film chronicles the sacrifices they make as they try to maintain a long-distance relationship with their children and families, and begin a new one with the mostly African American students whose schooling is now entrusted to them. Their story is at once intensely personal, as each woman deals with the implications of her decision to come to the U.S., and fundamentally public, as they become part of the machinery of American education reform policy.