Waiting for Superman

Director Davis Guggenheim waited for Superman as a child, because children like the hope that somebody will come and rescue them and the world. I knocked the U.S. Education system documentary "Waiting for Superman" down two stars for two reasons. One is that they just didn't give me enough hope.

The other main failing of this film, as other reviewers have pointed out, is that he didn't cover all of the many, many reasons for an under-performing education system. Well, he kind of did, but not very clearly. He spent more time on poor teachers and the unions, and many people seem to have come out of thinking that's all he talked about. Contrary to popular reviews, he did make other points. They were just too subtle. I will agree though that he was too heavy-handed with the American Federation of Teachers.

The primary focus of the film is five children each from different parts of the country and each desperate to get into a better school. I think he padded the documentary a bit too much with their situations, and a few too many tear-jerking moments. But when Guggenheim presented me with facts, knowledge and history, "Waiting for Superman" became both informative and emotionally-resonating. And yes, that's what a good documentary is, and that's why it gets 8 stars.

Perhaps "Waiting for Superman" should have been more well-rounded, but I don't think you can present more sides in just a two-hour film. And most important, the sides he did present are accurate, informative, entertaining and well presented. I wish I saw Superman at the end instead of just tears, but I still recommend it.

This stirring documentary sends out shock-waves of injustice and even a bit of a sense of futility when it explores the state of America's public schools. Interviews with education specialists, school superintendents and even Bill Gates add up to an impressive assembly of informed adults who know what the problem is, but haven't figured out a way to fix it on a large scale.

Washington, D.C. schools superintendent Michelle Rhee says it well when she summarizes the basic problem: "Public schools fail when children's education becomes about the adults." The adults who fail these children are not limited to public officials and government bureaucrats, though; a large portion of the blame is reserved for ineffective teachers and the teachers' unions who ensure that those teachers receive tenure and cannot be removed from schools. The documentary focuses on five public school children who represent inner-city kids with broken families and day-to-day financial struggles (except for a student of middle-class parents in the Silicon Valley). With that one exception, all are enrolled in failing public elementary schools and have little chance of graduating high school if they move on to the assigned secondary schools in their districts. The tear-jerking climax sees each of the kids attending a lottery drawing for limited spaces at public charter schools and rare, effective public schools within or outside of their district. Witnessing the academic chances for these kids being decided by such a random, impersonal process is heart-breaking and calls into question the very nature of American values like "Protestant work ethic," "equality," "freedom" and "the ability to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps" and make the future brighter.

The language is limited to a few expletives. The film deals with a tangled web of adult issues that make a child's education more difficult, which probably puts it outside the spectrum of interest for most kids under age 12. However, when watched with parents, it could create some valuable family discussions on the importance of education and may even activate a family to become advocates for change. We award "Waiting for Superman" the Dove Family-Approved Seal for audiences over age 12 and praise the filmmakers for presenting many teachable moments.

This documentary attempts to explain why public schools in the US are failing. It blames some of the usual suspects (lousy teachers, unions) without getting their side of the story. It acts as if mediocre politicians who want to act as if they're "bringing change" as they further their political careers are doing their best. And "superteachers" are of course the heroes even though they spend most of the documentary telling us how wonderful they are and how it's the other teachers who are to blame for all the problems. And seriously, since when is Bill Gates an expert on education?

Political and social contexts, economic causes and other factors not related to "bad teachers" are totally ignored, which makes the documentary pointless and superficial. Instead, the solutions are empty rhetoric, meaningless business jargon and ridiculous psycho-babble.

So if you want a more comprehensive and serious analysis of the why schools are failing you should watch The Wire season 4. Sad, isn't it?

PS. It's worth listening to the closing song. I think it's John Legend.

Yes, a 10. This movie is spectacular. I can't remember the last time I got so caught up in a documentary.

This movie seeks to do two things, 1) to show how bad bad public education in this country is and to suggest some of the reasons (the two teachers unions, the administrative bureaucracy, etc.); 2) to suggest a solution.

It does 1) in a devastatingly powerful fashion. There are other reasons for the poor quality of some American education that he does not broach, like the stupid training given by mediocre and bad schools of education, low teacher certification standards in some states, the danger of leaving it up to principals to hire teachers when some of them have no interest in or understanding of education, etc. But going into all of that would have made this movie hours and hours long. Still probably very interesting, but impractical as a commercial venture.

2) it does well also, but the viewer needs to sit back afterward and think through exactly what is being proposed as a solution. That solution is a certain sort of education now being offered in certain (not all, by any means) urban charter schools that function free of all the obstacles (bureaucracy, school boards, teachers unions, etc.) that block change in regular public schools. But the students in those charter schools are all there because their parents/guardians made the effort to get them there.

In other words, superlative teaching works with students who have support at home. This is wonderful, but it's not either a surprise or a miracle. It sounds like a magnificent way of educating the children of caring and concerned parents/guardians who can't flee the inner city to the better schools of the suburbs. But it does not address the problem of what is to be done with all the students who are children/wards of individuals who don't give a damn about their education.

That is probably the subject of another film.

This one, meanwhile, is magnificent, from first moment to last. The lottery scenes near the end are perhaps the most enthralling, but it is all very good.

I kid you not. Every American should have to see this movie.

P.S. I notice that there are some scathing reviews of this movie on here. Remember in reading them that WfS pulls no punches: it goes after the AFT and NEA with a vengeance, and those two organizations will no doubt do whatever they can to discredit this movie. Beware anything that comes from them, therefore. Bill Gates has long said that those two organizations are two of the biggest roadblocks to educational reform in this country. This movie documents that, and those unions won't take that lying down.

When I watched this documentary, I couldn't help but take sides. How do you fix a broken system with another broken system? While Geoffrey Canada is successful at his charter school, not all charter schools survive much less thrive to produce excellent students. Yes, the film touches on the politics of getting a good education. But even with college degrees, you're not guaranteed a job in life especially now. I could tell you what it's like to be in the classroom as a substitute or teacher's aide or in-class support teacher but there's not enough room here. I would have to write a book about it first. When you cut money to schools, you cut support staff and not administration. Schools rely heavily on it's support staff to keep it functioning. The principal and teachers have one job to educate the students and to assure an education. This film documentary will raise a lot of questions about improving the broken school system in our country. There are some successful schools and failing schools as well as teachers. Not all teachers strive to fail. Sometimes, the teachers are burned out, tired, and exhausted from the bureaucracy themselves. I could go on and on about the system but it's not worth it. Everybody has a story and an opinion.