Why Wait for Superman?
John D. Musso, CAE, RSBA
No doubt many of you have seen or heard about the documentary Waiting for “Superman,” produced by director Davis Guggenheim, who also brought us An Inconvenient Truth.
Pointing out the failings of the American school system, Guggenheim follows five children who have high ambitions and goals, but who are struggling to get the quality education they want and their parents or grandparents want for them.
The film offers a compelling yet abysmal look at public education as we know it today. Viewers look into the eyes of these five high-achieving children whom Guggenheim portrays as having been brutalized by the American education system. Throughout the film, he refers to America’s schools as “failure factories” and vilifies the American school system and its teachers.
Guggenheim blames the system for allowing poor performing and mediocre teachers to remain in classrooms and romances the audience by his portrayal of charter schools. He includes one or two snippets of good teachers, but the overall impression is that most teachers are incompetent and don’t care. For example, we see dozens of teachers from the New York City school system in a “rubber room” awaiting legal proceedings for their alleged inability to perform in the classroom. Guggenheim spends significant time explaining the “dance of the lemons,” a process during which poor teachers are passed from school to school rather than terminated.
The film should make third world countries proud of their education systems in comparison.
Waiting for “Superman” lays the responsibility for our failing schools at the feet of many, but offers few solutions beyond establishing charter schools and getting rid of unions, tenure, contracts, and poor performing teachers.
The film does do one very important thing—or at least it should. Despite the fact that none of the students in this film can be considered “challenging” or “difficult to reach,” and many inaccuracies are presented as facts, Waiting for “Superman” should sound the call to action that many of us have talked about for years: to serve every child.
We have talked about the systemic changes needed in our school system to effect reform while others have criticized the number of dollars we spend per student, failing to take into account the varied needs of every child we serve.
Some children cost more to educate, some cost less. Some excel with seemingly no effort and others struggle with even the most simple of concepts. Some can’t walk or speak and others can’t seem to slow down. We must serve every one of them.
So do we continue to criticize our current system and wait for Superman to save the day? Or do we examine the true challenges we face in education, push aside the politics that have at times kept us from moving forward so we can start the serious discussions necessary to effectuate systemic and transformational change in our nation’s schools?
Do we continue to impose the archaic traditions in education such conforming to the Agrarian calendar and measuring seat time? Or do we begin some of the reform efforts and discussions intended to be launched with ARRA funds, but diverted because of the nation’s economy?
We do need to ask ourselves why some schools do better than others. We do need to ask ourselves why some teachers are better instructors than their colleagues—but without laying the blame at the zip code door. This film focuses on urban school systems, but we cannot forget the challenges that suburban and small rural school systems face. And we cannot forget the challenges that our classroom teachers and administrators face because of the restrictions placed before them by limited resources and binding legislation.
Educators can come up with a lot of problems and issues surrounding our education system, and we usually have a good list of solutions to those problems. But for whatever reason, few of the solutions seem to take hold. Excitement for change is quickly shattered and we end up in the same place we started.
If a movie can spur the difficult discussions about reform and transformational change—as this one seems to have done—maybe we should produce a movie in which every adult is committed to our children’s education, in which politics are set aside, the finger pointing stops, and we deal with the real issues.
Do we really want to wait for Superman?