American Education is on Alert in ‘Waiting For Superman’

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Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Every Child Left Behind” could be the subtitle of this stunning new documentary, “Waiting for Superman,” directed by Davis Guggenheim, the helmsman of another major doc, “An Inconvenient Truth.” The other truth in this new film is that the American system of public schooling is bent and broken in many places, risking our very future.

The title refers to the type of effort it will take to make a change in the public schooling system. The government bureaucracy, the teacher’s unions and the dichotomy between rich and poor have conspired to create a unyieldingly flawed system of education. This is no longer about the Bell Curve or Family Values or No Child Left Behind, it is about the value we place on assuring that our fellow citizens have a decent chance to uplift themselves.

Using family point-of-view, depressing statistics and a historical perspective, Guggenheim breaks down the form of public education from its roots in the early 20th Century through its evolution in modern times as a big and bloated bureaucracy that moves like a snail and spits upon the very children it is suppose to be serving.

Shining a spotlight on the all the sectors of the system…federal government, local school boards and the teachers unions, Guggenheim winnows down the results of these factors interacting back to the expectant children from lower income families, whose only hope are the lotteries of the few decent charter public schools in otherwise wrecked systems. The situation is most acute in urban centers like New York and Los Angeles, but the breakdown all over the place is mostly due to lack of funds colliding head-on with unprepared students.

Director Davis Guggenheim Sets Up a Shot in ‘Waiting for Superman’ Photo Credit: © Paramount Pictures

The average high schooler is entering 9th grade with math and reading scores below the level where they are suppose to be at, not to mention falling farther behind their counterparts in many developing countries. Ever wonder why there are so many immigrant doctors and engineers in this country? It all starts at the elementary school level.

This film is a warning, because not only does it show the blight of the current public school, but also the difficulty that reformers have with any of the circumstances that caused the blight. Focusing on Michelle Rhee, a Washington, DC, school superintendent and ardent advocate for that city’s school reform, Guggenheim points out that despite her cover-of-Time-Magazine credibility, when it comes to changing a fundamental roadblock to overall improvement – teacher tenure – the teacher’s union won’t budge.

And this could be the most eye-opening of the documentary’s surprises. The teacher’s unions, formed when women were the primary and unfairly paid instructors in schools, have become the largest contributor to political candidates in the country. The largest. All that money that could be used for books, computers or decent infrastructure is all frittered away making sure that the people in power will acknowledge the union’s right to maintain a broken system. We might as well put that money in a pile and burn it.

The purpose of the union is sound, equitable pay for teachers who strive to make achievers out of their charges, but as Guggenheim points out the concept of teacher tenure – that no matter what, a teacher cannot get fired if they get that tenure – is making the adults the point of all education. One bad teacher can put a kid off education forever, but these types of teachers are allowed to fester in the collapsing system like an computer virus in operating software.

But there is some good news in the mix. One of the spokespersons, used very effectively, is Geoffrey Canada, a kind of educational Martin Luther King, Jr. Through sheer determination and pluck, he has begun charter schools across the nation that pick up the average lower income kid and through high expectations allows them to achieve and conquer learning. He is constantly pushing through barriers that told him it would be impossible to do, but his determination will save countless children from the “dropout factories,” so named because there percentage of high school dropouts are larger than their graduation rates.

Teach Your Children: One of the Expectant Students in ‘Waiting for Superman’ Photo Credit: © Paramount Pictures

The film is academic in nature, and sometimes sticks along the way because of the subject matter. But it should be required viewing, especially for expectant parents, driving them to either save like crazy to send their kid to a private school or gird themselves for an eighteen year struggle to place their child on the right educational path.

This is a sobering but important message, reform starts at the grassroots level, and requires that everyone make sacrifices. As politicians, the unions and the school boards bleat, “it’s all for the children” this film aims to make that tired cliché a universal truth.

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com