Different Takes on “Waiting for Superman”
It’s not often that a mainstream movie tackles our field’s issues in a smart, compelling way. Waiting for Superman is certainly the kind of movie that prompts its audience to act (and react).
Just how well does it capture the whole picture? Here are some perspectives. Share yours in the Comment section below!
It's a moving film, says the American Federation of Teachers, but its focus on charter schools sends a distorted message about what it takes to build better schools. Good storytelling masks the fact that "the film's central themes—that all public school teachers are bad, that all charter schools are good and that teachers' unions are to blame for failing schools—are incomplete and inaccurate." AFT has posted some videos of real-life teachers who, while not supermen and women, are making a difference all the same.
Waiting for Superman "offers a lot of possibilities," writes Public Agenda's Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, although it focuses too much on high-profile figures like District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Public Agenda's research suggests that more superheroes are needed "several rungs further down the ladder, and much, much closer to the people who need rescuing." That means starting in the principal's office. After all, unlike superheros, educators can be foiled by middle management.
In her review of the film for The New York Review of Books, education researcher Diane Ravitch worries that “Waiting for Superman is a powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the ‘free market’ and privatization.”
Katie Couric's video notebook praises the film for exploring some of the biggest challenges facing schools today, and expresses her hope that the film will spark civil debate about real reform, not "division among the teachers, administrators and policymakers who are part of the system."
Anna, a community college student, wanted to cry after seeing the movie. At the same time, she also felt angry. She had always thought it was the urban poor and minorities who were left behind. But now she knows that thousands of “dropout factories” are all over America, including in affluent areas, as professor Hasan Zillur Rahim wrote in his New America Media commentary, Waiting for Super Teachers.
More on Waiting for Superman
In their own words: YouthBuild students and graduates speak out about the problems of the American educational system and about what schools could do better to engage students like them – those who have left high school without their diplomas.
Tools for action: America’s Promise has tools to use the movie as a jump-off for improving schools in your own backyard. The site, NotWaitingForSuperman.org also has good resources, as does the Act Now section of the film's official site.
What do you think will make the difference for the schools in your community? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
Watch the trailer
We need to fix broken merit pay and tenure - sure, I know that - but even tho it is daunting fixing schools will have to mean revamping the whole system all at once, not looking at just one part of it. It was also inspiring to think about how to chnage things from a principal level, per public agenda.
Thanks for providing the complete picture of reviews. So much progressive money and hope it tied into this kind of motion picture that other, better ideas get pushed aside. The fact is that we don't know enough yet on how to fix the education problem because it is tied to everything from new technology to the need to fully engage realistic empowerment tools and tactics into movies, literature, what are called serious video games, etc. Instead we spend too much time on highlighting someone's pet project instead of building an infrastructure that makes change possible. Right now the only model we see if privatized competition--after decades of investment by thousands of nonprofits who do advocacy work, we ought to be able to think bigger, showcase real alternatives and make sure that movies and other blockbusters showcase heroes and heroines who use our ideas as better ways.