“Waiting for ‘Superman’” is a must-see for everyone, but especially if you’re an educator. Director Davis Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ takes on the American education system by following five kids and their families who have placed their hopes for a better education in high-stakes charter school admission lotteries. The film levels a scathing attack on the dysfunction and bureaucracy of public schools and teachers’ unions, which promote teacher mediocrity. Guggenheim explains in a newspaper article, “It’s an abomination. Over the years, we haven’t been able to pay teacher enough. So instead of paying them, we keep extending them more and more privileges. You can leave at three. You get three months off. You can’t be fired. It’s deadly for reform.” However, Guggenheim also admits, “I know that the experts are going to take issue with this movie. It simplifies a lot of things. … But I really wanted to speak to regular people, from the point of view of a parent.”
“Waiting for ‘Superman’” is filled with disturbing statistics. In Illinois, where one in 57 doctors loses his medical license and one in 97 lawyers loses his law license, only one in 2,500 teachers loses his credentials because of union contracts. And the film briefly visits a ‘rubber room’ in New York City where idle teachers accused of misconduct wait months and sometimes years for hearings while drawing full salaries at an annual cost of $65 million. Guggenheim calls dysfunctional schools ‘dropout factories’ and suggests that these dropout factories create needy neighborhoods because students who dropout stay in their home neighborhoods rather than the conventional wisdom, which says poor neighborhoods create the dropout. And caught in the middle are students and the film’s most emotional moments revolve around five students who hope to win a place in various charter schools. Guggenheim acknowledges that charter school effectiveness is mixed, but he lauds Geoffrey Canada’s Success Academy in Harlem and KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Schools, including KIPP LA. It’s sad that the direction of a young life depends on the luck of the draw. 10/1/10
2 comments:
"Waiting for Superman" is an extremely poignant ducumenary that has turned the education community on it"s ear. The results of this film have been astonishing pointing the finger at poor teachers and, more importantly, the Teacher's Unions. This documentary also show why are schools are failing and how the beaurocracies hamper any efforts to improve the problems. A must see for anyone who have school children or are interested at all in our schools.
"Waiting for Superman" is an extremely poignant ducumenary that has turned the education community on it"s ear. The results of this film have been astonishing pointing the finger at the ineffective teachers and, more importantly, the Teacher's Unions. This documentary also shows why schools are failing and how the beaurocracies hamper any efforts to improve the problems. A must see for anyone who have school children or are interested at all in our schools.
Post a Comment