American public school students have fallen far behind other developed countries in basic skills: reading, math and science. In one respect, though, we’re still No. 1: American students have the most confidence in their scholastic abilities. Johnny can’t read or add, but he has boundless self-esteem. Is the glass one-third full or three-quarters empty? Would Johnny know the difference?
Davis Guggenheim’s celebrated, controversial documentary Waiting for “Superman” takes a searching look at the hard realities of American public education today. The picture is grim. There are statistics, illustrated by smart animation: 70% to 80% of students can’t function at their grade level, and while spending on education has more than doubled since the early 1970s (adjusted for inflation), math and reading scores have remained flat even as other nations have surpassed us.
At times, the filmmakers find striking ways of throwing the numbers into sharp relief: High-school dropouts are far more likely to wind up in prison, where an average four-year stint costs society more than the entire bill for educating a student from kindergarten through high school plus more than $25,000 toward college. Spending on education, the implication is, could save on prison costs in the long run.
At the same time, Waiting for “Superman” isn’t just a big-screen PowerPoint presentation like Guggenheim’s best-known docu, An Inconvenient Truth — nor are its political implications as straightforward.
Critics of Guggenheim’s politics may raise an eyebrow at some of his targets, which prominently include the teachers’ unions and the Democratic Party, which the film notes receives 90% of the teachers unions’ massive political giving, leading a commentator to describe the DNC as a “wholly owned subsidiary” of the teachers’ unions (which is revealing both as regards the political environment in public education as well as the interests of the Democratic Party on this subject).
Kids With Promise
Guggenheim personalizes the story from the beginning, exposing his own feelings of guilt and hypocrisy at driving past three public schools every day while dropping off his children at a private school. The film’s real emotional power, though, comes from the five young poster children whose stories we follow: boys and girls, mostly from poor neighborhoods with failing local schools, whose parents and guardians want something better for them.
Their stories will break your heart. These are kids with promise, but for most of them, that promise will likely be smothered in their local public schools.
Take 11-year-old Anthony, who is being raised by his grandmother in Washington, D.C., in one of the worst school districts in the country. His father is dead from a drug overdose. He never knew his mother. He has a good fifth-grade teacher, and he works hard, but the middle school that awaits him produces future high-school dropouts in alarming proportions. When Guggenheim asks him why he wants to go to college, he answers astonishingly that he wants something better for his kids than he had.
Then there’s Bianca in Harlem, a kindergartener whose single mother, Nakia, works hard to send her to Catholic school and is determined to send her to college. The monthly $500 tuition bill is a sacrifice, but it’s nonnegotiable for Nakia — until her employer cuts back her hours and her means no longer permit it. Nakia fights back tears as she relates how she pleaded with the school to allow her daughter to go to the kindergarten graduation ceremony, to no avail.
Root of the Problem
What’s the root of the problem? Are failing schools the product of failing neighborhoods? Or is it the other way around? If the children of blighted neighborhoods are the problem, then how have a few successful charter schools in poor neighborhoods bucked the odds?
What is the answer to poor teachers who are protected by powerful unions, enjoy nearly bulletproof tenure and are entitled to pay and benefits even if they go to prison? Is shuffling bad teachers around really known in different regions as “the dance of the lemons,” “the turkey trot” and “passing the trash”?
Waiting for “Superman” examines these questions and offers some answers — some convincing, others less so.
It does seem clear that the teachers’ unions and the far-reaching tenure systems they support are a significant part of the problem. The film relates how tenured teachers caught on video blatantly abusing children or reading newspapers instead of teaching were fired but ultimately had to be rehired with a year’s back pay because the firings weren’t permitted by union-negotiated contracts. Is it possible to fire a tenured teacher? Yes — if an administrator is dedicated enough to slog through all the bureaucratic hoops without missing a date on the timetable and resetting the process for the following year.
Is it full disclosure or appeal to authority if I note that two members of my immediate family belong to teachers’ unions, including my father, with whom I saw the film? The teachers’ unions are militating against the film; American Federation of Teachers’ head Randi Weingarten, who comes across in the film as something of a villain, has implied that there is little or no difference between being anti-union and anti-teacher, but the union teachers I know agree that the unions are part of the problem.
Every member of my family is or has been involved in education. My sister, like my father, is a teacher and a member of our state teachers’ union. My mother, now retired, was an education program specialist whose work involved evaluating and assisting school districts all over New Jersey. My brother taught for years in a private school. Suzanne, my wife, who home schools our children and teaches at a local home-schooling co-op, started college as an education major but found education theory ideology vacuous and dispiriting and switched to nursing in part because of health-care’s broader hard science basis.
No one I know knows New Jersey public education better than my mother — and no one was happier than she when Suz and I indicated that we wanted to home school.
Dynamic Professionals and Bitter Disappointment
Guggenheim’s heroes are dynamic education professionals who sidestep or take on the teachers’ unions, such as Geoffrey Canada, the charismatic leader behind the Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy; David Levin and Mike Feinberg, founders of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP); and controversial D.C. school chancellor Michelle Rhee, who offered the unions major increases in merit pay in exchange for giving up tenure.
Successful charter schools, where teachers’ unions and tenure are non-issues, are the film’s great exemplar of what public education can be — and here the film gets a bit slippery. Much of the film’s drama stems around the efforts of its five families to get their children into top charter schools in their area. All five schools have more applicants than openings, and all choose students based on a lottery system: manually operated bingo cages, computer-generated random selections, and old-fashioned slips of paper. These scenes are nail-biters, and statistically we know that the luck of the draw can’t favor more than one or two of these stories.
The sight of little Anthony in a crowded auditorium looking at a slip of paper with his name and the No. 3 while a man calls out number after number that is not 3 is devastating. Late in the film comes a phone call that had me bawling in my seat.
It’s Complicated
Waiting for “Superman” acknowledges, in passing, that only about one in five charter schools is much better than normal public schools — and never mentions that more than a third of charter schools are notably worse — but the focus on successful charter schools creates the impression that charter schools have the answers.
Also overlooked are unionized public schools that are succeeding. (Out of scope entirely, and reasonably so, are topics like vouchers, private schools and home schooling; this is not a film about education in general, but about improving public education.)
“It should be simple,” Guggenheim muses at one point, “but we’ve made it complicated.”
Well, no. It’s complicated, but Guggenheim oversimplifies at times. It’s legitimate to point out how failing schools impact neighborhoods, but when affluent parents actively thwart school discipline by backing up their kids in parent-teacher confrontations, or when urban students castigate peers who want to succeed for “acting white,” there are larger social and cultural issues that can’t be laid at the feet of greedy unions, timid administrators or myopic school boards.
Can effective leaders like Canada make a difference in these situations? Maybe, but the lottery trappings obscure the extent to which even the charter school admission process can benefit from self-selection: To be entered in the lottery in the first place, students must minimally have motivated guardians and may have to meet other criteria as well; and once admitted they may be forced out if they lack the motivation that ordinary public schools have to deal with every day.
The film’s title was inspired by an anecdote from Canada’s childhood. As a young boy in the South Bronx, Canada idolized the Man of Steel, a powerful figure who swooped down to save people in trouble. Young Geoff took it hard when his mother broke the news that Superman isn’t real; his world suddenly seemed a much bleaker, less hopeful place, one where no one with power was coming to save people in trouble.
Waiting for “Superman” offers an eye-opening look at just how bad our problems are, while at the same time seeking to rekindle hope that seemingly intractable problems can be addressed if we are all willing to be Superman.
Steven D. Greydanus is editor and chief critic at Decent Films. He also blogs at NCRegister.com.
Content Advisory: A few bad words.
Dan Burke: The Light of God in Nashville, Tennessee
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Very good review, fair AND balanced. Definitely looks like one for the Netflix “Watch Instantly” queue.
While I haven’t seen the movie yet and fully intend to when it comes to my town, one thing I’m afraid the movie fails to address is the struggle of public school teachers - even good ones - when faced with indifferent parents and/or students who don’t want to be there. My sister-in-law teaches in the Buffalo NY public school system, and the stories she tells of truancy and disrespect are horrifying. If 50% of her students show up on a daily basis, she’s having a good day. Yet she’s held accountable for a high failure rate even though kids have missed days upon days of class. When you factor in the requirements of No Child Left Behind, teachers are faced with monumental challenges. Teaching to tests cannot be good for our kids, yet I know my own children spend weeks before the state standardized testing dates preparing to take those tests rather than learning.
Poor teachers need to face dismissal just as anyone who works in the real world must. But without parental involvement and a fundamental change in the way we evaluate student progress, I’m afraid the American public school system is doomed.
It’s striking that there’s a narrow focus on public schools, traditional and charter, without any mention of non-elite parochial schools or homeschooling. Perhaps that’s because there aren’t any apparent solutions in Catholic or Christian schools? I think we need a companion documentary about the decline of Catholic schools in their affordability and Catholic identity, including the role of the collapse of female religious orders. In DC they’re “converting” some Catholic schools to charter schools each year. Perhaps, in parallel to “Waiting for Superman,” the title of this film would “Losing Jesus.”
When I was in high school, I was so far ahead in English, History, and Science that it was pitiful. I “zoned out” during class and was bored to the point of anger and frustration. One day in US History, after the teacher had read another chapter to us (no, she didn’t teach), she kept asking the same question over and over. One girl in particular was a little mentally challenged and the teacher kept pushing her for an answer. But the girl just had that “no one’s home” look in her eyes and I just knew that she didn’t even understand the question. Finally, I blurted out loudly, “The woman is trying to ask you—” The teacher turned on me and yelled at me for referring to her as “the woman.” Even when I got into an English AP course, I was the only person who both read and understood the coursework, and there were only 5 students total in the class. To this day, the words “public school” bring back those feelings of anger and frustration. I have absolutely no intention of sending my children (if God should bless me with children) to one of those prisons. It will either be home school or a good Catholic private school.
I can only speak from my own experience: mother of 6 - with a mix of private and public schooling, nurse for 35 years, high school science teacher (certified) for 10 years. I am appalled at the public school social engineering agenda that puts self-esteem ahead of learning, sexual life-styles ahead of parental authority, etc. I, too, am pushing for homeschooling for my grandchildren. I am disgusted and frightened by the NEA agenda.
I need to add that I teach in a Catholic high school that has not been immune to the public school social engineering agenda and has had a difficult time battling the liberal catholicism fluffy teaching approach.
I am distressed with the state of education in our country, but I am not hopeless. It takes teachers with the “courage of their convictions” to stand up to the agendas being foisted upon them. These teachers will discover, as I have, that the students are begging to be taught the truth - in every subject. As when we were teens, and prided ourselves on our ability to spot the phonies and their agendas, so, too do today’s teens. Give them the truth. They will take it and run with it!!
The methods of educating and the textbooks used are a primary cause of public school education failing. There is no order or sequence to the material being used. It jumps from simple to complex, not building on a good basic foundation, moving to harder concepts before the easier ones are understood. No memorization, no skill practice, such as spelling words 5x each, definition and a sentence, times tables 2x each, diagramming. Social Studies has taken the place of geography and history. There seem to be a boycott of the classics, such as Teasure Island and many other good books. The required reading amounts to a soap opera or pop tv show. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, amounting to a waste of school time. However, worse than this, are the classes that don’t even belong in a school day, such as sex education and bullying programs, the most harmful modern excuse for education. And to top it all off, the children are forbidden to mention God, acknowledge his existence or include Him in their school day. It is a program for disaster and our poor children have been the experiments. A far cry from the vision of St. John Neumann, St. Katherine Drexel, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton for sure. May their prayers help us to change this for the good of our children. Please God something will change.
Kudos to reviewer Steven D. Greydanus for also understanding the
sociological issues facing American public, private, and charter schools.
Education theorists and specialists the last fifteen years have
utilized available data to help the schools meet student needs, (albeit
with a minimum of success).
I have taught in Catholic and public schools in urban Los Angeles.
Nineteenth century methodologies no longer work in a heterogeneous,
multi-cultural; multi-language school settings.
Large, unwieldy schools cannot work. Continued partnerships
with the business and other important cultural entities outside
the world of academe must be fostered.
Liberal arts, vocational, and career skills must be taught
concommitantly.
Teacher education-and-mentoring must extend outside one’s own
school and/or school district. TO BE THE BEST, LEARN FROM THE
BEST!
The Secretary-of-Education needs to convene a summit with
theorists; education-and-business leaders, along with committed
rank-and-file stake-holders to help “sell” proven methodologies
that will get kids motivated to learn, (with special emphasis on
multi-cultural; multi-language, urban communities).
Public school unions are important to protect teachers as
professionals who deal with negative, suspicious, unsupportive,
litigious individuals inside-and-outside the classroom.
Dedicated, God-Loving,(at least some), Catholic school teachers
have no protections of this kind, whatsoever. It is an injustice
to dedicated professionals who participate in the Church’s mission
to educate and lead students to meaningful, fulfilling lives, (along
with cultivating a Spirit-of-Faith through our Catholic-Christian heritage).
Finally, we must be up-front with students-and-guardians who
perpetuate the notion that educating oneself makes you “too white,
or too asian,” as the case may be-
These attitudes usually start at around ten years-of-age. The
educational community needs to be extremely sensitive and supportive
of students-and-adult guardians who are striving for a better life.
It is easy for these students “to fall back” into a flat-lined
cultural community’s expectations.
Negative attitudes can be ameliorated by giving students’
responsibilities outside the classroom, ( a little pay, along
with the assigned, supervised duties can also break down-
little-by-little-some of the attitudes that being educated makes
one “too white,” etc).
At the very least, teachers need to get the students out of their
desks-no matter what the cultural milieu-while facilitating lessons
that will stimulate the investigative powers of the mind, (this
includes staid subjects such as English grammar).
Art Uvaas
Ontario, California
The Catholic Church promotes unionizing as a social good. Sooooooo, that ends that discussion that the teachers’ union is at fault wholly or in part for the failure of today’s public educational system.
Ex-public school teacher here. My opinion is that money is largely not the issue. Student accountability is the number one problem. The parents can get students out of anything. Teachers aren’t allowed to fail students; grades are so watered-down. So much student disrespect. Attendance issues. Students typically strike me as lazy: Instead of trying to learn, they’re trying to use their cell phones in class, have gangs, join sports, spend too much time online, or if younger, watch too much t.v. or video games. Whatever, I always thought that even if I had horrible teachers, the textbooks are so well written I could teach myself as needed. An ethic of hard work despite adversity seems to have disappeared with this generation. We have to undergo pervasive cultural changes before this situation can be corrected, and it starts in the family, one family at a time. Think on those odds, and you have to wonder how many years before the empire finally crumbles. I hope I’m wrong. There are signs of hope, especially in the home-school movement.
I’m guessing “stillbelieve” is being sarcastic, but just in case, the fact that the Catholic Church promotes unionizing doesn’t absolve unions of responsibility for failed policies. It’s as though one said, “The Catholic Church teaches that bishops are ordained by God to teach, govern, and sanctify. Sooooooo, that ends that discussion that the bishops are at fault wholly or in part for the clergy abuse scandal.” Unions, just like any other good reality, can be twisted.
When I read the review, I got excited to watch the docu, as I was a 6th grade teacher at a Chicago southside “Catholic” school (with fewer than 20 Catholic students in K-8) and can only imagine that many of the problems I faced with my students (lack of parental involvement, violence in the neighborhood, poverty, etc.) would be addressed in the film.
BUT, it’s not playing anywhere near me (Indianapolis area), so I guess I’ll have to wait for netflix. :(
Not as a social good, but as a means to social goods. And so does Waiting for “Superman.” The movie points out that teachers were historically underpaid and taken advantage of until they unionized and got better treatment. But bureaucracies are self-aggrandizing and what started out as an organization benefiting teachers now often seeks to maintain its own power, which means always pushing for more.
“Not as a social good, but as a means to social goods.”
That’s the point. Something that is a “means to a social good” is not a social good. Yet, the Church supports it and other things called “social justice” without ever saying a cautionary or critical word about those activities. Even to day, has the Church said anything critical about SEIU thugery against poll watchers who are conservative, or in tea party rallies? Has the Church said anything critical against the government employees who in only 30 years have gone from supposedly making less than their counterparts in the private sector to making twice as much as them. Also getting better health care and retirement plans, while still retaining their job security compared to those in the private sector which is suffering at the hands of the unions and union government workers who buy legislators who turn around and give those agencies the tax monies from all payers, or in the case of the auto companies, give controlling interest to unions compared to the people who invested money to provide those union workers jobs When have you ever heard Church say anything bad about any union?
The bishops have proudly promoted “social justice” to the laity without qualifications. They back this horrible Democrat dictated Obama healthcare law we are beginning to live under which NOW give the BORN the same rights as the UNBORN. The only reason they wound up opposing it was because it allows for taxpayer funded abortions and removes conscience clause protection. But other than that, they had no problems with it because of their belief in it being a “social good.”
The bishops are responsible for fostering these socialist ideas without tempering their desire for them with reality and common sense. Nor with the caveat that they will only work when people are following the love and kindness that Jesus teaches. The policy positions do not result in the advocates being loving and kind. Yet, that is what the Church implies with her support for what always seem to be liberal/leftist socialist policies. The only thing they don’t go along with is their support for abortion and other intentional and direct taking of innocent human life.
As a result Catholics gave us the leadership are country now has with their “social justice,” ignoring abortion, votes. Isn’t it soooooo wonderful and happy now? Aren’t we all more in love with life and feel more peaceful, filled with the calmness of the Holy Spirit?
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