Category: 2016 video analysis

“When there’s a great public school, there aren’t enough spaces. So we do what’s fair. We place our children and their futures in the hands of luck,” (Guggenheim 4:00). Davis Guggenheim’s film, Waiting for Superman, highlights the web of issues entangling the American public education system, particularly through the experiences of those who have not had the necessary stroke of luck to land in charter schools. He follows these experiences through various lenses, including that of children, parents, and school administrators.

The film framed public schools as being largely stagnate, and even regressive, in the achievement of youth, rendering the existing state this system ineffective in closing the achievement gap. One particular point was, despite educational spending increasing from forty-three thousand dollars per pupil to over nine thousand dollars per pupil (adjusted for inflation), math and reading proficiency has “flatlined throughout that time span (Guggenheim 11:20), showing that simply having more funding thrown at them was not sufficient for these schools to fix their problems and improve the educational achievement of their students. This shapes an idea around these schools that there is little potential for progress in their current state, and they further illustrated potential for the achievement of the higher performing students to be hindered by the public school system. They highlighted this in the experience of a young elementary school student in Los Angeles named Daisy who aspired to be a Veterinarian. She was a high performing student, but was likely to go to a nearby middle school which was a “feeder” for one of the lowest performing high schools in the city. At this school, only fifty percent of students were likely to graduate and only three percent of students were likely to take the necessary courses to enroll in a four year college (Guggenheim 10:53). Dr. Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University calls such schools, and all other with dropout rates above forty percent, “dropout factories,” which he found over 2,000 of across the country (Guggenheim 21:00). As the film continued to explain, many of these dropouts subsequently end up in the criminal justice system. In the state of Pennsylvania, they make up sixty-eight percent of the prison population (Guggenheim 24:50).

As a remedy to these issues surrounding public education, the film shows attempts such as massive firings of teachers and administration and closing of schools, particularly in Washington, D.C., as a means to remedy a flawed system and remove some of the individuals upholding it (Guggenheim 50:40). However, it portrays the rise programs such as Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Success Academy, as well as Levin and Feinberg’s KIPP schools, as the breakthrough for progressive change in education. The film asserts that “the top charter schools are sending over ninety percent of their kids to four-year colleges,” (Guggenheim 1:17:10) and through their methods they are “shattering the achievement gap.” Yet, a student’s position in these schools which are proclaimed to be the answer, all comes down to a hopeful lucky draw of the lottery. This consequently leaves an unanswered question of whether or not this sort of schooling approach can truly be seen as a remedy if it inherently reduces the achievement opportunities of students to a mere number and leaves the hopes of the unlucky students and families in the same school system which they vehemently abhor. In practice, it appears that “superman” has arrived to ensure no child is left behind… except for the ones he leaves behind.

 

Bibliography:
Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Waiting for Superman is a documentary by Davis Guggenheim about the failing education system in the United States that is comprised of interviews, animation, and historical footage. Guggenheim covers topics such as school choice, tracking, alternatives to traditional schools, and issues surrounding teachers unions and student achievement.

The film focuses on different families, all with unique circumstances and how each utilizes the choice system. One parent, Nakia Whitfield, chose to pay tuition at a parochial school, just across the street from their home. Her income is limited she struggles to pay the $500 cost of tuition, every month, in order to giver her a daughter a quality education, knowing that her chances in the public school system are low. When Whitfield falls behind on payment because her hours are cut, the school does not allow Bianca to participate in her graduation ceremony. Whitfield later seeks other school options for Bianca.  Each family in the film is faced with a set of challenges and all play a different role of parent involvement in the child’s education. Each parent is conflicted with keeping their child in the traditional school and seeks options which ensure their child will make a better transition to higher education. Another student, Daisy, wishes to have a career in the medical field but is destined to for her district’s high school which holds a mere 47% graduation rate.(Guggenheim 21:26) Her parents choose to enroll her in a KIPP magnet school knowing her fate if she does not receive a better education, her father is currently unemployed and her mother works cleaning hospital that Francesca desperately hopes to practice in.  

Another family, who lives in an affluent neighborhood a few miles away from San Francisco told a different story. The high school in student Emily’s district, located in Silicon Valley, tracked students. For Emily, whose test scores were lower than average, this meant that she would not be receiving the best education that her neighborhood could afford. The option for Emily was to enroll into Summit Prep Charter School where tracking students is not practiced. (Guggenheim, 1:00) Summit Prep, like the other traditional school alternatives featured in the film, has a lottery. Emily will be competing for one of only 110 spaces out of 455 (Guggenheim 1:06). Students Daisy, Francisco, Anthony, and Bianca apply to get into charter schools but only one, Anthony, gets in. The scene is emotional and leaves us with little hope for the students future.

Guggenheim, at times, seems anti-union and blames strict contracts that teachers are under for the inability for schools that are under performing to fire “bad teachers”, while also highlighting the nation’s largest teachers union with their strong political ties with presidential candidates. It seems that the message being delivered is that teachers are undeserving of tenure and that unions hinder a school’s ability to have good educators. What Guggenheim fails to cover is there is some need for unions in charter schools, as it is noted that only 1 in 5 charter schools are high performing. Though unions can be problematic in certain districts, they have the ability to improve a school’s culture and achievement rate. (Kahlenberg, Potter pg. 34)

Bibliography

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., and Halley Potter. A Smarter Charter: Finding WhatWorks for Charter Schools and Public Education. Teachers College Press.  2014.

 

 

The documentary, Waiting for Superman, follows the lives of five young children who are given a chance to escape their failing public schools and try for an educational future. They are placed into the schooling lottery to attend charter schools in their neighborhoods (or in some cases, a few towns away.) The documentary shines a light on the failure of public schools, and implies that charter schools are the only possibility for children who want a quality education. One thing I noticed about this film is that it blames a lot of the issues regarding schooling on teachers, when in fact many problems are out of their control.

One part of this documentary that stood out to me most was the “Dance of the Lemons.” (43:30) I had never heard of this term before and when I learned what it meant, I was unsure and skeptical of the whole process. Basically, every school has a handful of “bad teachers” who principals want to get rid of, but according to the teachers union, these teachers cannot merely be fired. Schools and headmasters get together and in essence swap out their bad teachers and move them around to other schools in hopes that they wind up with a better “bad” teacher than before.  As the movie puts it, they want to “take their lemons and make lemonade.”44:32) The film makers are trying to convey through this, that the goal of the schools is to keep education happening, keep children learning, keep teachers teaching, and to make money.

(Dance of the Lemons)

This is an important issue because schools are recycling bad teachers, and placing them in classrooms where children will continue learning from said bad teachers. This process hurts children, especially those in already failing schools, with already poor grades. The documentary featured many statistics about schools, and one that shocked me was that in Washington DC, our nations capital, only 12% of either graders are proficient in reading. It is a startling static to even believe to be true. How can it be that children who are soon entering high school are not educated well enough to read at their own grade level? Perhaps it goes back to the dance of the lemons, and the idea of implementing poor teachers into classrooms simply because the union says that must be done.

We hear a lot about these “bad” teachers in this film, and see the blame for the failing public schools fall on their shoulders. However, we never actually hear from these teachers on why the schools they are at are failing. Hearing their point of views could’ve been helpful in hearing the other side of the problem. I also noticed that they failed to talk about the many good teachers that enlighten children across the nation daily. These individuals also went unnoticed here, and their voices went unheard. This is one of the many “holes” I noticed in the documentary.

 

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

 

In the 2010 documentary Waiting for “Superman”, Davis Guggenheim portrays the American education system through a critical lens as he follows a few students through the process of being accepted into charter schools. He begins the documentary with an overarching view of the American education system across large cities in the country – New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and so on. A pivotal scene in the documentary revolves around the idea of the “lemon dance”, for which Guggenheim uses a moving visual diagram to illustrate (44:01). Essentially, the lemons are the bad teachers which principals cannot fire because of their contracts and/or tenured status. At the end of the school year they do a dance with their principals where, hopefully, they are danced off into other schools. The cycle continues each year, until the lemons populate in certain schools. This was a crucial scene because it visually and realistically represented how bad teachers are pushed around from school to school; because of their tenured status and/or contracts, they cannot be fired. Instead of making efforts to completely remove the lemons or improve them, they are pushed around from school to school, which is not a solution to the education problem. The way Guggenheim’s team edited this scene shows how easy it can be to hope that as a principal sends of a bad teacher, a less bad teacher will take their place. 

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A large portion of the documentary is dedicated to outlining the problems with the American education system, such as with school governance (Guggenheim 30:59), teacher tenure and firing (Guggenheim 46:20), schools as “dropout facilities” (Guggenheim 22:00), teachers’ unions, and so on. All problems listed are not attributed to the students, but to the bureaucratic system. However, from the latter half of the documentary onward, Guggenheim portrays that there is hope for American education, mainly through charter schools. The filmmakers’ theory of change seems to be one of parents finding better alternatives than traditional public schools for their children, such as Harlem Success Academy, KIPP LA, and SEED. The guardians and parents portrayed in the film were those who were actively engaged in their students’ educations. In other words, guardians and parents who either are not interested or who do not have the time to be interested miss out on better their children’s educations; their stories are missing from this documentary. Toward the end of the documentary, as students and their families were en route to charter school lotteries, there was a feeling that these families were entirely banking on these schools to save their children (Guggenheim 1:29:10). They seemed to have no other choice to better their children’s lives.

Given, the title of the documentary – Waiting for “Superman” – there is a sense that Superman will never arrive. The filmmakers’ desired goal is to improve the American education system, but knowing that not every child can be saved. There are limits to one person, which are parallel to the limits of one system. Hence, there are alternatives to traditional public schools – private schools, magnet schools, charter schools, and technical schools, for example. But, for this theory to be effective, it requires families actively engaged in their children’s educations.

Bibliography

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Emma Palmieri

Ed Reform

17 April 2016

Video Analysis: Davis Guggenheim, Waiting for Superman (2010)

In his 2010 film documentary Waiting for Superman, Davis Guggenheim combs through the many complexities of public education as he follows the stories of five families and the obstacles they must navigate through in order to ensure their kids receive the best (public) educations within their grasp. While all five children from the families in the documentary come from different backgrounds, cities, states, and economic brackets, Guggenheim illustrates for the viewer just how all five of these children are affected by even the smallest ripple effects in our public educational system. 

Four out of the five children live in poor, urban areas and are already attending (or will soon be forced to attend) failing public schools for elementary, middle or high school.  The first child we meet, Anthony, lives with his grandparents, never knew his mom, and has a father that died of a drug overdose while he was young.  Anthony and his grandmother recognize the importance of his education, and are entering him in the lottery to attend SEED Charter School.  Daisy is on the cusp of middle school, planning to attend one of the worst middle schools in LA if she does not get into her lottery choice of KIPP LA Prep.  Francisco is a first grader in the Bronx, already attending a failing school and struggling deeply with reading despite his mother’s best efforts), his choice is to attend the Harlem Success Academy.  Bianca is a kindergartner attending a $500 per month parochial school in Harlem, but because her mother struggles to make the tuition, they are hoping she will be chosen to also attend the Harlem Success Academy.  The final child, Emily, is an eight grader who live in an affluent area and would likely do very well in her public school, but her parents do not want her to attend a school that tracks its students, so they are entering her in the lottery for Summit Preparatory Charter High School.

In the first scene of Waiting for Superman, Davis Guggenheim describes how his perceptions of public school have changed since his last documentary (The First Year, 1999) to today as he becomes a parent with school-age children and conveys the struggles of the five families he follows with a single quote of his own: “Ten years later, it was time to choose a school for my own children.  And then reality set in-My feelings about public ed didn’t matter as much as my fear of sending them to a failing school.  And so every morning, betraying the ideals I live by, I drive past 3 public schools as I take my kids to a private school.  But I’m lucky-I have a choice”  (04:00).  The five families Guggenheim follows for the purpose of the documentary have the opposite experience, they are the “unlucky” ones, who must put their faith in a lottery or their local district schools.   

Throughout the documentary, key figures such as Geoffrey Canada, Michele Rhee, and Bill gates narrate the issues facing America’s children today.  Canada (president of the Harlem Children’s Zone) and Rhee (former controversial superintendent of Washington, DC 2007-2010) describe an abysmal system protected by bureaucrats, special interest groups and the ultimate iron shield-the teacher’s unions.  Michele Rhee, a Washington, DC superintendent famous for taking on the teacher’s unions and ruthlessly firing teachers and closing schools made one of the most compelling statements in the documentary when she described her journey of taking on teachers who view their jobs as “rights” instead of “privileges”.  Rhee decided that instead of offering tenured teacher’s contracts, she would offer merit based pay with incentive based bonuses.  When she was completely shut down by the teachers’ unions, she stated: “Now I see in more coherent ways why things are the way they are-it all becomes about the adults” (1:26:00).  What is compelling about this statement, is that whether or not one agrees with Rhee’s methodology, who is really vulnerable in this situation? Why do teachers feel so threatened by the idea of merit based pay?

  While issues of political agendas and how it affects our own children were a common theme in the documentary, The children of Waiting for Superman are living the reality.  Even though academics such as Richard Khalenberg and Halley Potter (A Smarter Charter) might criticize the growth of charter schools and their academic results, there is clearly something to be said when over 700 children are entering a lottery for just 40 spots at one charter school (which was the case for Francisco and Bianca and the Harlem Success Academy). All of the children we follow in the documentary had between a 5 and 50% chance of getting into their school of choice, all of which schools were charter schools.  Unfortunately for the children of the documentary, only Anthony and Emily were able to make it into their schools, while Bianca, Daisy, and Francisco will be left to the mercy of their local district schools.

   

(1:37:32) Bianca and her mother Nakia crying together after Bianca was not chosen in the lottery for the Harlem Success Academy. 

This documentary was compelling because it forces the viewer to look beyond their comfortable position as someone who “believes” in public schools and their teachers and instead look at the situation through the perspective of the student and the parents, who cannot stop time and wait for public schools to make a miraculous recovery before their child is due to enter a new grade or school next year.  The reality is that these kids need help, not hope, and the parents are turning to anything that offers an innovation from what they know is already failing.

Bibliography

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., and Halley Potter. A Smarter Charter: Finding WhatWorks for Charter Schools and Public Education. Teachers College Press.  2014. 

David Guggenheim director of Waiting for Superman showcases the hardships of our nation’s education system. He begins his film reflecting on his former film, Teach. Guggenheim realizes the heroic job teachers, especially teachers in the public school education; take on is one that not everyone is capable of. Teachers in the film Teach sacrifice many endless nights of sleep in order to ensure that every child gets a “decent” education. However, as anyone may realize, ensuring that every child be on track is, for the most part, nonrealistic. Therefore, students get pushed through the system. Geoffrey Canada, charter school advocate, describes the idea that parents, students, and potential educators wanting to believe in their schools, forcing them to take a leap of faith. As Guggenheim continues his film, he follows various stories of different situations students and parents must face through the public education system.

While all stories carried their own uniqueness, Bianca’s story struck me. Nakia and Bianca are from Harlem, New York; Nakia is in the 5^th grade receiving a catholic school education. Backtracking, Nakia, Bianca’s mother, reflects on how she got to where she is. She expresses that she never expected to have kids. However, when Bianca came into her life, she knew that she wanted Bianca to have more opportunity than she had growing up, in limelight to education. Nakia states, “I don’t care what I have to do. I don’t care how many jobs I have to obtain. But she will go to college. And there’s no second-guessing on it. You go to college. Learn, you get your education. And you don’t get a job, you get a career. That there is a difference” (Guggenheim 16:18). In this scene the director showed how the mother and daughter interacted with each other demonstrating how Bianca shows her mother her schoolwork. This could imply that Nakia is very much involved in Bianca’s school life and will do anything, besides paying for an alternative schooling (compared to traditional schools) in order to see excellence from Bianca. One could only hope that the way Nakia showcases her drive for her daughter’s education that other parents do so as well.

Throughout the film, it is clear how Guggenheim emphasizes the importance of alternative methods within our educational system. Having speakers like Geoffery Canada and displaying successful charter schools like KIPP describe to his audience how important charter schools are for the public. Nonetheless, the film does demonstrate how the lottery, presented by various charter schools, only provide false hopes for many urban families looking to improve their child(ren)’s education. Similar to Kahlenberg and Potter, both author and director acknowledge the hardships and risk families have when applying to charter schools. The idea of more resources, more one-on-one time, and less test orientated education exhibits the ideal schooling compared to the schooling these families are provide with (their failing schools). Kahlenberg and Potter, while agreeing that the lottery is not the most effective system for charter school, they talk about it in light of the problem of segregation. In Kahlenberg and Potter’s chapter “Charter Schools that Integrate Students”, they state “…one of the reasons why we need more diverse charter schools, but the lottery system is also a remainder of why charter schools alone cannot solve the problem of segregation in public schools” (Kahlenberg and Potter 134). Looking at both standpoints. It is very interesting that both authors and director acknowledge the lottery; however, it is interesting to see the priorities individuals within the education world stand in terms of what they see as importance.

Bibliography

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., and Halley Potter. A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Waiting for “Superman” by Davis Guggenheim follows the real experience of five students to see the problems of public school system and interviews many education reformers nowadays to talk about how to fix these problems. At the beginning of the film, it uses data and diagrams to show the failure of public school education system now.

Among all of these problems, by the experience of Francisco and his mother, Guggenheim leads the audiences to what he thinks is the most critical problem, bad teachers and teacher unions which protect these teachers. “Students with high-performing teachers progressed three times as fast as those with low-performing teachers, and yet they cost the same to school” (Guggenheim, 34:50).

In the film, he provides many examples of bad teachers with recording of real scene in school, cartoon, news and movie clips and interviews of famous educators. Once a kid videotaped a teacher reading newspaper and not teaching while the students were playing by themselves at the back of the classroom. However, these teachers can’t be fired since they are under the protection of teacher unions. Even Howard Fuller later fired that worst teacher in the videotape, he had to rehire him back with one year’s pay. These teachers are called “tenure” which guaranteed their jobs for life (Guggenheim, 36:05). In the clip of The Simpsons, after the second the teacher becomes tenure, she lays on the chair and let the student teach the class.

 

There’s a term called “the dance of the lemons” (Guggenheim, 43:30). “Lemon” teachers are those bad teachers which can’t be fired. At the end of the year, the principals get together and pass that teacher to the next school. Because of the contracts with teachers union the school not only can’t fire the bad teacher, but also tie teachers’ hands. Even some teachers do really well, schools can’t pay them more based on their performances since it’s not in the contract (Guggenheim, 42:02).

Even though in the film, David Guggenheim really criticizes the teacher unions, Richard D. Kahlenberg who is the writer of The Smarter Charter argues that there is no empirical support and evidence saying “teachers’ unions are the central impediment to educational progress in United States” (Kahlengerg, 2012). Kahlenberg states that teachers unions are actually doing some good things such as paying teacher bonuses to attract them to high-poverty schools. Teachers unions allow teachers to have their own voices. What’s more, by responding to the problem of bad teachers in the film, Kahlengerg says that teachers unions today are trying to get rid of those teachers who are not working, “not based strictly on test scores or the subjective judgement of principals, but through multiple measures of performance, including “peer review””(Kahlengerg, 2012). Kahlengerg believes that teachers unions are actually strengthening schools instead of being the heart problem of education system.

 

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D. “Bipartisan, but Unfounded: The Assault on Teachers’ Unions.” American Educator 35, no. 4 (2012): 14–18.

 

 

In looking at Davis Guggenheims documentary Waiting for Superman, there are two scenes in particular that allow the viewer to fully empathize with the difficulty reformers face while going up against the school system. At  1:25, Michelle Rhee is describes the benefits of her proposal for Washington D.C’s educators. The plan itself would allow teachers to choose between keeping tenure and receiving a small raise or opting out of tenure completely and receiving a better raise (Guggenheim 1:24). She is just as optimistic as many reformers are when they believe that their plan is the answer that the educational system has been waiting for. Rhee had been able to remove a number of principals who were standing aside as their schools continuously failed numerous students. With teachers however, Rhee, like most reformers, couldn’t break through the wall of teacher tenure.  “The mentality is that they have a right to that job.  I believe that that mindset has to be completely flipped on its head and unless you can show that you’re bringing positive results for kids than you cannot have the privilege of teaching in our schools and teaching our children” (Guggenheim 1:24).  Currently, teachers that were no longer teaching their students effectively were still able to collect their paychecks. If that could be fixed, good teachers would be able take over the schools and steer students that had once been considered failures towards the path to success.

(Guggenheim 1:24)

Knowing that she was trying to do something for the greater good of the students, Rhee was certain that her proposal wouldn’t face much opposition. I chose the scene at (Guggenheim 1:25) directly after her proposal was completely disapproved by the teachers union. A solution that she believed was so simple, one where everyone would win, all of a sudden became so complicated. The look on Rhee’s face while she rides in the back of the car is the look that every person who’s tried to change the system has had at least once. She learned that there was much more that needed changing than the contracts themselves. “Now I see in a lot more coherent ways, why things are the way they are.  It all becomes about the adults” (Guggenheim 1:25). It’s those adults, however, that we don’t get to hear from in Waiting for superman.  Throughout the entire movie, the teachers themselves were silent.

 

 

 

 

 

(Guggenheim 1:25)

In Richard Kahlenberg and Halley Potters book A Smarter Charter, the authors identify the importance of having the teacher’s perspective when trying to make any major changes in the school system. Rhee’s goals were just and, although she had made the proposal optional (teachers did still have a choice to keep their tenure if they chose) it didn’t seem as if their opinions had been consulted in the formation of the proposal overall. What keeps teachers unions and teacher tenure in favor with teachers is the protection they provide.  Rhee’s proposal would guarantee a raise but, as many teachers have experienced before, without their tenure there is no guaranteed job should their boss become unreasonable of the country once again encounter a period of time that turns American’s against each other.

…the basic union structures and protections should remain in place, he argued. Shanker noted that traditional school districts that were the most innovative provided such an environment. “You don’t see these creative things happening where teachers don’t have any voice or power or influence.” Only when teachers feel protected from the whims of administrators are they willing to take risks (Shanker, 1988b, p.9) (Kahlenberg and Potter 8).

Teachers might have gone against the decision of the local teachers union and decided to take up Rhee’s proposal had they felt that some part of the proposal would have guaranteed a fair evaluation and that they would be protected from the ever changing United States climate. Rhee might have been able to make that a successful change if she had gotten that input from the teachers whose jobs were directly affected by her proposal.

Bibliography

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., and Halley Potter. A Smarter Charter: Finding What                 Works for Charter Schools and Public Education. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

 

Waiting for Superman is a significant film piece that focuses on the views of controversial reformers and their solutions to fixing low-performing schools in America. The film follows five students throughout the public school system. The director, Davis Guggenheim focuses on the fact that bad teachers and their unions are the real problem in education and the solution is charter schools (Harvard Educational Review).

I believe that a crucial scene in Waiting for Superman, is when “drop out factories” are described and shown visually on a map of the United States. The author describes how people are seeing patterns in where and how students are dropping out and that failing elementary and middle schools feed students into high schools were they last on average 1-2 years. After doing research, it was would that there are about 2,000 “drop-out” factories. Additionally, those who the students who come out of these factories, then have no skills or diploma and are unable to contribute fully to society (Guffenheim). At 22:25, one can see the map that is being described. This visual struck me the most because of the amount of schools across the country that can be considered “drop-out factories.” The filmmaker successfully grabs viewer’s attention by this and drives home how many schools really do contribute to this problem.

I believe that one of the holes in this film is the unrecognition of other types of schooling. I think that it is important to recognize religious schools and private schools, where it is paid for, but there are also problems in that system too. Being from a private school myself, this film helped me realize what really is going on around the world having to do with education. I think that it would’ve offered a nice perspective to hear from private school advocates or even some students involved in that system too.

 

 

Works Cited

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

 

“WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”.” The Harvard Educational Review. 2010. Accessed 2016. http://hepg.org/her-home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-80-number-4/herbooknote/waiting-for-superman”_360.

 

Waiting For Superman takes an extremely honest look at the American Public School System. This film looks at all aspect of public education from traditional public schools to charter schools. This movies focus is the how and why our public education system is failing kids in todays generation. For parts of the film director Davis Guggenheim focuses in on one family from Harlem New York. Francisco a first grader is at a failing public school in his district and his mother Maria. Maria decides she wants a better education for her son and beings a long journey in trying to find him a better public school option. She decides to visit a Charter school across the city knowing that she has a very small chance in getting her son a spot in next years second grade class. In minute 56:15 Guggenheim pans to Maria sitting on the subway showing the viewer how hard it is going to be to get her son to school everyday if he ends up at this charter school. Guggenheim depicts Maria as the worried mother she is helping represent the other thousands of families struggling to get their child the education they deserve.

Once Maria arrives at the Charter schools the mood of the film changes. Showing halls filled with students and classrooms with attentive teachers. This moment really struck me. On minute 57:43 we see Maria in a Charter School classroom for the fist time and her face lights up saying that this is a completely different world then the one her son is in. You get a feeling of hope for Maria and Francisco in his moment.

Guggenheim then pans to the actual classroom scene happening in front of us. You see a completely different environment than the one showed in Francisco’s school in his district. All the students are in matching uniforms and have attentive interactive teachers. Guggenheim uses this example to show how our education system can thrive with the right teachers and structure within a school. This scene makes the viewer realize how much change is needed within American public schools to become successful.

Though Waiting For Superman points out many flaws within the school system Richard D. Kahlenberg has some issues surround the portrayal of teachers unions within the film with Smarter Charter. On minute 39:55 Jeffery Canada lays out issues surrounding progress within public schools and the issue of being unable to work together with teachers unions to do so. Kahlenberg states that reformers should not isolate teachers unions from being able to create change. The intersection of the two is the correct way to come about change instead of blaming teachers unions for the inability to change which is what Guggenheim was depicts within the film.  Also within Smarter Charter Kahlenberg critics the effectiveness of the idea of Charter schools. Kahlenberg argues that Charter schools test scores are not always better than those of traditional public schools (Kahlenberg 67). Kahlenberg states that the mind set towards Charter schools should not be that they continuously out preform traditional public education Kahlenberg thinks that the answer to better education is change within each individual school surrounding leadership, teaching, and attention to the student’s needs.

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., Potter, Halley. A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education. Teachers Collee Press. 2014. Print.

 

 

Waiting for Superman lays out a powerful underlying theme of acceptance to a charter school or a destiny for failure in struggling districts. Somehow though, the only way to do whats fair for children, is through a lottery system that drives a students chances by luck and little bingo balls (Guggenheim, 0:02). Therefore a crucial scene in the film is watching students either get accepted or wait-listed to a school through a competitive lottery system. Throughout the film, scenes are established where at the bottom of the screen, a ticker appears that shows the spots available and the numbers applying (Guggenheim, 1:11). So as balls are being drawn, and numbers are read, the scene shows the elation of many parents and families juxtaposed with anxiety and sadness of others (Guggenheim, 1:37).

The filmmakers put these scenes together to show both the excitement and devastation to identify in this system there are clear winners and losers. This is an important message to get across because in our education system, where we believe in “equal opportunity,”  clearly some are getting a better chance and a better opportunity at succeeding than others. This scene encapsulates the documentary’s goal of showing a divide and conflict in our public education system and its goal to serve all students equally.

One intriguing aspect of the DC public school highlights was Michelle Rhee’s attempts to change tenure and how public schools operated (Guggenheim, 1:26).  Kahlenberg and Potter would support Rhee’s attempts to take the successes in high achieving charter schools and apply what is working to traditional schools like extended school day and alternatives to tenure (Guggenheim, 1:24). “Albert Shanker originally envisioned charter schools as doing just this-testing and developing new methods that could be shared with other schools. Thus far, however, charter schools and district schools have more often been engaged in competition instead of collaboration.” (Kahlenberg and Potter 2014, 175). Although Rhee attempted to take the suggestion of Kahlenberg and Potter, clearly the limitations of the traditional school system and all the stakeholders impeded and possible change that was inspired by charter schools.

The idea that it is challenging to change the traditional school model was very fascinating. The documentary referred to the bureaucratic  school system as “The blob” (Guggenheim, 0:31.) Below an important point is highlight between the clear discrepancies of terminations across professions. Although, these distinctions were made and the documentary highlights many different stakeholders from different sectors, such as Bill Gates, an alternative model from another system was not provided. If teachers are a key stakeholder and the system is broken in a way change is nearly impossible to be instituted, why don’t we look at other models for success? How do lawyers or doctors or other professions handle  there systems? Waiting for Superman covered a lot, but the blob of all the different stakeholders, needs to be drawn out much more distinctly to identify how actual change can start to be implemented. The movie ended with some kids being saved and others having to resort back to failing schools, a problem was presented and it left a lot to consider, but what are the next steps and who needs to be at the table to solve these next steps is still very unclear.

 

 

Bibliography

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., Potter, Halley. A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education. Teachers Collee Press. 2014. Print.

The documentary, Waiting For Superman, takes a particularly somber turn, ¾ into the film. Imagery of distant, closed off, urban schools, and dark interiors of schools with silhouettes of children of color walking out of a dark classroom, a scene which was slowed down for added dramatic effect, were used to signal a turning point. This low point in the film was where the filmmakers acknowledge the despairing perceptions of the educational prospects of low-income, urban students.  This was a crucial scene, because it addressed the hopelessness that many educators, reformers, and everyday people have when considering the overwhelming and unrelenting nature of the problems within education. They framed this despair in the context of an unrelenting achievement gap which, despite an influx of money, laws, and educational reforms, simply wouldn’t budge. They claimed, “Even progressive educators began to believe…Couldn’t be fixed…” And that we may also come to the conclusion that, “those kids…can’t learn” (Guggenheim 1:13:42)

Source: Waiting For Superman. Guggenheim. 2010

The scene cuts away from this despair and turns to black and white movie clips of Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier in 1947. Prior to this achievement, it was commonly believed, even among many scientists, that the sound barrier could not be broken without the plane breaking apart into pieces. The filmmakers claim that this fear of pushing beyond the familiar limits, stifled scientific development. The narrative was that despite the naysayers and critics, Yeager defied the odds and proved them all wrong, and this achievement propelled science and aviation far ahead of where it was (Guggenheim 1:14:18).

Source: Waiting For Superman. Guggenheim. 2010

Immediately following this side story about a “Great American Hero” defying the odds, the movie cuts back to the modern day with education reformer, Geoffrey Canada. Through Canada’s own words, narrator dialogue, and images of him interacting positively with youth of color in an urban environment, the stage was set for the viewer to believe he just may have the solution. He just may be the Superman Canada himself was hoping for. The film goes on to argue, using the words of Bill Gates, that the top charter schools, like KIPP Academy, are producing amazing results which has low income children performing higher, academically than the average student, not living in poverty (Guggenheim 1:19:28).

Source: Waiting For Superman. Guggenheim. 2010

The film then cuts back to video of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, equating the success of these charter schools to the sound barrier being broken, a feat previously considered impossible (Guggenheim 1:19:30).

Professor of education, Kevin Welner has written about and participated in panel discussions about this documentary. He is critical of the filmmaker’s decision to ignore the real issues which affect the educational experiences of children living in poverty. He argues that the “problems of structural inequality and inter-generational poverty are pushed aside in favor of a ’solution’ grounded in the belief that deregulation will prompt innovation” (Welner 2011). The filmmakers frame the problems in education as the fault of regulations and teacher’s unions, and provide charter schools, with the absence of red tape, as the solution to failing teachers, schools, and school systems.  

 

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Welner, Kevin G. “Why ‘Inside Job’ bests ‘Waiting for Superman’ on school reform.” Busted Pencils Blog, 17 January 2011. Web. 15 April 2016.   

Waiting for Superman is moving to say the least. Despite the criticisms of some education policy reformers like Kevin G. Welner and Richard D. Kahlenberg, director Davis Guggenheim engages the viewer with the personal experiences of charismatic driven students and their struggling parents, who go to great lengths to try and give their children the best education they can. Perhaps the most moving storylines is that of Anthony, a student in Washington DC. Anthony is raised by his grandmother after losing his father to drug addiction (Guggenheim 0:5:00). As an applicant for the lottery into The Seed School, the first urban public boarding school and another option other than his low performing district school, Anthony is asked by the interviewers why he wants to get into the school. Despite his young age Anthony poignantly responds, “I want to go to college and get an education… because if I have kids I don’t want kids to be in this environment…I want my kids to have better than what I had.” (Guggenheim 1:21:45).

For a young person to already have the awareness that education has the power to change his life and future in such a big way is touching. However, when you contrast it against the tremendous hurdles Anthony will face in obtaining the quality education he desires it becomes heartbreaking. The most powerful scene in the movie builds off of this interview, and shows when Anthony is ultimately admitted into the boarding school and hangs a picture of his father next to his bed (Guggenheim 1:45:25). In this scene Guggenheim suggests to viewers that this educational opportunity will be what separates Anthony from his father, and that it will give Anthony the opportunity to be the type of father he spoke of wanting to be.

Despite the emotional power of the film, Waiting for Superman, does have its share of critics. One critique comes from education reformer Kevin G. Welner, and author of The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence Student Enrollment. In a post published on a Washington Post blog, Mr. Welner describes what he views as the shortcomings of the film. Welner alleges that the film does not expose the economic problems affecting the communities of many of the students and families featured in the documentary, and especially the issue of wealth distribution, which he says the film Inside Job does a much better job of  describing. Mr. Welner argues that Guggenheim should have, “explored these issues instead of bashing unions and promoting charters” (Welner). He also states that had the film explained the persisting economic problems present for families like Anthony’s, viewers would have a better understanding of the full scope of persisting inequality, “moviegoers might have walked away understanding a great deal about why the families it profiled and so many similar families across America face a bleak educational future” (Welner). Welner, who in his own work is critical of the practices employed by some charter schools, believes that Waiting for Superman does not show the “structural inequality” experienced by many of the families in the film, and further more that the charter schools championed by the film are not the solution to this problem because they promote deregulation and privatization (Welner).

Richard D. Kahlenberg, coauthor of A Smarter Charter is also critical of the movie, especially for its harsh depiction of teachers unions and collective bargaining. Mr. Kahlenberg argues that the film’s vilification of the union as being opposed to the interests of students, “While many divide the world between teachers’ unions and reformers, the truth is that unions have long advocated a number of genuine reforms—inside and outside the classroom—that can have a sustained impact on reducing the achievement gap” (Kahlenberg 17). Kahlenberg joins Welner in saying that issues of poverty cannot be overlooked when determining solutions to educational problems (Kahlenberg 17).

 

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D. “Bipartisan, but Unfounded: The Assault on Teachers’ Unions.” American Educator 35.4 (2012): 14-18.             http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Kahlenberg_0.pdf.

Welner, Kevin G. “Why ‘Inside Job’ bests ‘Waiting for Superman’ on school reform.” The    Answer Sheet. Valerie Strauss. The Washington Post, 16 June 2011. Web. 14 April 2016.   http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-         turnaroundsreform/why-waiting-for-superman-shoul.html.

 

 

Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting For Superman” examines the underlying problems in the American educational system through following 5 students who are at the age of going to another school. By having education reformers expressing their views, the movie highlights how dysfunctional the public educational system is in the United States.

One of the most emotional scenes in “Waiting for Superman” is when the students who are followed do not get into the schools that would “save them.” Based on research, most public schools fail and students do not perform better since the 1970s (Guggenheim 25:30). However, there are a few charter schools—public schools that are publicly founded but independently run– that show remarkable academic improvement in terms of test scores. The only choice these students have is to get into one of these schools. However, only a limited number of student can enroll to these schools, and who gets in is decided by random lottery. Therefore, some students will have a better chance of education by sheer luck while others are “left behind.”

One of the students who is from a low-income Hispanic family wants to get into a charter school because she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. However, her chances are very low if she does not get into that school. The scene in which the school draws the number is very emotionally filled because the viewer can see the tension and worry on the parents and students’ faces. There is even a count down on the right corner to show how many spots are open. At the end, this girl did not get the spot. She did not win the lottery (Guggenheim 1:34:39).

Guggenheim portrays charter schools as the only and better solution to schooling for low-income students. “Waiting for Superman” claims that not only do charter schools perform as well as the national average but often they outperform other schools because their students’ scores on reading and math are higher. However, Kahlenberg and Potter argue in Smarter Charter that charter schools do not often outperform traditional public schools but in fact students enrolled in charter schools perform about the same as students in traditional public schools (68). They claim that “perhaps the central lesson of research on the performance of charter schools is that just being a charter school is not a guarantee of success any more than being a district school. Student outcomes at individual charter schools—and at individual district schools—vary widely, and results depend on how specific schools are run” (Kahlenberg and Potter, 86). The evidence they provide for their reasoning can be found in national studies that have a broad but mixed scope which often do not control for self-selection bias, studies of individual cities—that are usually not generalizable, and studies of individual charter management organizations—that have a potential but their results are misinterpreted or exaggerated (Kahlenberg and Potter, 69).

 

Bibliography
Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Kahlenberg, Richard D., Potter, Halley. A Smarter Charter: Finding What Works for Charter Schools and Public Education. Teachers Collee Press. 2014. Print.

The film, Waiting for “Superman” by Davis Guggenheim focuses on a key scene that is centered on the affects of  teacher tenure and the teacher union contracts.  This scene is extremely insightful and focuses on an ongoing controversy of teacher unions and how they are affecting urban students’ education. Teacher unions are also a main topic of concern that the director, Davis Guggenheim, focuses on and disagrees with to some extent. In the screenshots we see that “bad teachers” as Geoffrey Canada calls them put as little effort as possible into teaching their students. Because the teachers know that they have a legal contract that is fully supported by the teachers’ unions, they tend to slack off in their instruction and effort that they give their students. What happens is that teachers are unable to be fired by the school board. Their contract states that they will have a job for life. In the film, we see that one of the teachers is relaxing in his chair reading a newspaper article while students in the back are gambling (35:35 & 35:27). The director uses clips from previous research where a student puts a camera in his backpack and video tapes the class as it is in motion. By using this form of evidence the director is making the fact that teacher union contracts and teacher tenures produce lazy, uncaring, and clueless teachers. Because the evidence that he provides is filmed by a student, it makes his stance more believable. The screenshot of the teachers’ union contract is provided to show that no matter how “bad” the teacher may be, they are protected by the union contracts (43:53) that they have signed. It shows a “lemon teacher” who is not putting in much effort and instead is passing time. At the end of the year, because the teacher has a contract, the school superintendent is unable to fire him or her, so that teacher is then passed onto other schools in hope that the previous school will receive a better replacement. The director is very creative in using popular cartoons such as the Simpsons to display how known the concept of teacher tenures are and the way that he is assuming many teachers practice their teaching once they have received their tenure. He shows a portion of an episode where the teacher has officially been put on tenure and decides that she no longer wants to teach the class, but instead elects another student to teach while she relaxes and reads a magazine (36:51). All of these snippets of various scenes in the film play a major role in that it definitely shows that the author does believe that teacher unions are a strong cause to the decay in urban education and that “bad” teachers use teacher unions for support no matter how good or bad they are.

 

 

Author Richard D. Kahlenberg has written an article that defends teacher unions which are said to be one of the main causes in the decline of Urban education. However, Kahlenberg defends the teachers’ unions in his article titled, “It’s Not the Teachers’ Unions.” Kahlenberg gives a brief description of the film director, Davis Guggenheim. Kahlenberg states in his article that Guggenheim “…is a self-described liberal who nevertheless paints unions as the central problem in urban education and nonunion charter schools as the solution.” Kahlenberg is showing that Guggenheim’s one sided view on the teacher unions, leads him to make some false interpretations and representations of teacher unions in his film. Kahlenberg later goes on to state in his article that director Davis Guggenheim briefly touches on the fact that the country of Finland has the highest ranks in the world in K-12 math and reading achievement. However, Kahlenberg brings to the reader’s attention that the director fails to mention that the teachers in Finland are unionized and that is contributing to their success in academics (Kahlenberg, 2010). Because director Guggenheim strays away from this important background information, his argument that teacher unions are to blame for the decline in urban education is not supported. Kahlenberg goes on to further attack Davis Guggenheim’s statement that nonunionized charter schools are the best way to run charter schools. Guggenheim further states that one in five charter schools are performing amazingly. However, Kahlenberg includes statistical research on charter schools in his article that states “…17 percent outperform regular public schools to any degree; 37 percent underperform; and 46 percent have no impact” (Kahlenberg, 2010) furthering his belief that even charter schools that do not have unionized teachers are still not performing at their best and still fall low in the ranks. The author continues to further defend the stance of the teacher’s unions from the criticisms of Davis Guggenheim by noting that in the film, the director focuses on aspects in the teacher’s unions that are seen as negative but have been changed and are now gone. The example of the New York City “rubber rooms” where the teachers are paid to sit and do nothing all day (Kahlenberg, 2010). Kahlenberg also brings attention to the ideas that teacher unions are in full support of getting rid of teachers who are unable to help their students succeed. He also mentions that the teacher unions have agreed to specific performance pay plans that will help teachers perform better to some extent. One definition that I found about the performance pay plans stated that the method to this was that “Pay will vary with some measure of team, individual, or organizational performance” (McGraw-Hill, 2002) proving that unions have agreed to pay teachers according to their performance or give pay increases to how well a teacher is performing in her class to some extent.

Overall, Kahlenberg’s article defends the teachers’ unions in charter schools and says that they are not the cause of the decline in urban education. He makes it clear that the director of Waiting for “Superman” overlooks many facts that show the “good” and the effort that teacher unions have done to help the urban education system. Because Kahlenberg wrote this article, it allows readers to get both sides of how teacher unions have their faults and their strengths. However, it does bring insight to the fact that the director, Davis Guggenheim, strays away from certain facts in his documentary and is only giving one view of the teacher unions and how they affect urban schools. This could be because he does believe that charter schools should be non-unionized, which forces him to show the side of the story that he would like portrayed.

Bibliography

Guggenheim, Davis. Waiting for “Superman.” 2010. Film.

Hill, McGraw. 2002. Performance pay plans presentation. Web. 14, April 2016.

Kahlenberg, Richard D. “It’s Not the Teachers Unions.” The American Prospect. 12 Oct. 2010. Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://prospect.org/article/its-not-teachers-unions>.

Welner, Kevin G. “The dirty dozen: How charter schools influence student enrollment.” Teachers College Record 17104 (2013).