Waiting for Superman

Excellent documentary. Wake up America. Save your students. The documentary is 100% accurate. I highly recommended it to every parent, grandparent. To everyone.

What’s the matter with education in America? The fact that most people in America apparently aren’t educated enough to see the flaws in a film like this. Just finished the highly recommended Waiting for Superman, and am staggered by what an all-around bad piece of documentary filmmaking it is. Aside from the segment dealing with how wrong it is that it's virtually impossible to get rid of bad teachers (a portion with which I, as a teacher myself, wholeheartedly agree), there's almost nothing of value here. Clocking in at a little over an hour and a half, the movie contains about twelve minutes of actual information. It has the illusion of inundating viewers with tons and tons of facts and figures, but the reality is there’s barely any hard data in it at all. One could probably take notes on the stats presented in the film, and fill no more than a half-page. Throughout the entire movie, the producer makes claims about how most schools operate. Pay careful attention, though: He only deals with four or five specifically, including a handful of failing inner-city schools, and one suburban middle school thrown in for good measure. Incidentally, this last school (attended by affluent Caucasian kids) isn’t doing poorly at all, but the filmmakers include it simply because some of the parents whose kids attend would rather have their children go to charter schools. Another glaring problem is that the measure the movie uses to gauge academic success is standardized test scores. The implication is that bad test scores indicate poor pedagogy. However, when they profile the suburban school, they completely discount the test scores of its students because supposedly these scores “mask the reality of what’s really going on there." So which is it? Either test scores indicate something or they don't. You can't have it both ways. The final word on education, says the producer, is that excellent teachers facilitate good learning. And then the only solid example of this the movie provides is a middle-aged teacher in an urban school who composes uninspired rhyming jingles to help her kids memorize and regurgitate math facts. Seriously? That’s it? The movie is essentially a long commercial for the charter schools of one Geoffrey Canada, an education reformer whose zeal is certainly admirable, yet much of what the man says about the experiences of kids doesn’t even ring true. Waiting for Superman is a colossal waste of time, and it’s alarming that this sort of film can elicit the sort of uninformed emotional response it does from viewers.

As I knew when it came out, this is funded by corporations whose interest lays in collecting money per student like the privatized prison industry. Look at what is going on in the cyber and charter school communities. Disgraceful.

Amazing and heart wrenching

When I watched this the first time (in middle school) it truly opened my eyes. Even today (in highschool), I am reminded of this documentary and how important education is. This was spectacular, and has stuck with me.

WA state just voted for Charter Schools under the guidance of the Gate's, I hope this makes a difference because something needs to be changed. This movie was awesome and everyone with or without kids needs to watch.

How is this an attack on teachers? to quote my very liberal social studies teacher "My problem was that the film ignored teachers" it didn't say teachers are good or bad. I am a middle of the road kinda guy and I loved this documentary, so did my very liberal friend. Go in expecting an anti teacher union film and you'll be pleasantly surprised. go in expecting a Moore video and you'll hate it. The video is objectively good no matter your political belief. there three stories 1. the stories of kids trying to get into a charter school. 2. the story of the DC school system. 3.A basic over view of the history of education. This video is anti union but as a kid who just got out of highschool. THEY DESERVE IT.

Really enjoyed this.

This movie is TERRIBLE - in the worst way. it is an extremely biased attack on public education, citing examples that are rare at best. The smear campaigns against public programs continue in this horrible and extreme attack. It attacks public schools and blames teachers and unions as the problem; if we were all upper class, then perhaps we could agree. However, the coward filmmaker does EXACTLY what has been allowed in this country that has PERPETUATED the racism, segregation, and impoverishment of the poor schools - namely, gerrymandering AND rich send their kids to private schools, separating them in these wealthy, high achieving places. I have witnessed occasions in which teachers deemed "bad" were moved out - YES, schools CAN and DO find ways. However, it is RARE that teachers are bad or careless. The news only shows us the (mostly alleged) bad ones. How long has it been since the news told the truth? IF you want to balance this garbage with some arguments on the other side, then read Jonathan Kozol's book, Savage Inequalities. Our states often underfund education, while paying 10 TIMES the cost per inmate in prison; private companies abscond public funds - in publishing deals, building contracts, federally mandated plans that hide these abscondings; and once again, the racism has been allowed to continue due to gerrymandering post Brown vs. Board of Ed. Topeka. It is really sad, but the racism and segregation has continued; inner city communities, largely minority, have been cheated - and we celebrate MLK day, yet we are a disgrace to his name. What is the alternative? Charter schools are a hoax, cheat, and fraud; they don't typically score any higher than public, AND they select students; privatization will potentially be a TERRIBLE HORROR - it may cause the end of compulsory education all together. Teaching is very difficult; and no 2 children are exactly the same. The business model doesn't even work for business; imagine the crazy things that would occur in education if private companies - Lockheed, Enron, AIG, or - whoever - were allowed to run it. Stop groveling over the cost of the education system; it is dirt cheap by comparison - and truly should be funded more. Teachers are not rich, they PAY their retirements, and 99.99% CARE DEEPLY and work TERRIBLY hard. Without public education, how many of us would have our diploma, BA, MA, and have been able to advance up the ladder to obtain a better life? Education is becoming CRIMINALLY underfunded and gutted; we are endangering our children's future; the cost of college has SKYROCKETED - think before you passively accept this clown's fallacious attacks; OH, and by the way - all these media supporters - reviewers from Time, Wall Street Journal, NY TImes, etc, - who owns them? Rupert Murdock, and right-wing, private companies. We are in very spooky times.

I went to three different types of schools growing up. I went to a school in the inner city, one in the suburbs, a private academy in the Middle East and several in between. I had some of the BEST teachers at the worst schools in America! In 1989, I found out that those in the Middle East are TWO to THREE years ahead of us in the AVERAGE classes! The teachers weren't all the best, but you walked away with a better education. WAKE UP AMERICA! OUR KIDS ARE FALLING BEHIND!