Waiting for Superman is a documentary that is a pro-charter school dream.
The
NYC Public School Parents blog has this about the film.
Guggenheim has cherry-picked and packaged every hoary scare story from the last twenty-five years: the lazy and incompetent teacher, the reactionary and obstructionist union as represented by "villainess" Randi Weingarten (of whom one commentator notes that the movie "makes something of a foaming satanic beast"), the Democratic Party supported by those teacher unions, the lack of incentive rewards for "good" teachers, and not enough charter schools.
Sound familiar? Sound like a documentary, or an advocacy piece? Still not sure? Well then, go back to the top of this posting and check out the "Terminator"-like nuclear-bomb-blast scene surrounding the little blonde, white girl in the movie's advertising poster. Anyone but me reminded of LBJ's infamous, anti-Goldwater nuclear holocaust campaign ad, the one that was shown on TV exactly one time and pretty much decided the election?
Here is more from their site:
And who are the stars of Guggenheim's film? None other than NYC's own Geoffrey Canada, supported by Michelle Rhee and KIPP founders David Levin and Mike Feinberg, backed by a song written and performed just for this movie by John Legend.
So where is the Superman who can save our little blond children from these incompetent teachers and their devil's-spawn unions? Where's Clark Kent when we need him? Never fear, that bespectacled, geeky guy is here, only this Superman's street-clothes identity is Bill Gates.
Education blogger Fred Klonsky gathered together some reviews of the documentary in one paragraph form.
Waiting for KryptoniteThe New Yorker’s Nicholas Lemann writes about the neatly packaged crisis in the faux doc Waiting for Superman.
It should raise questions when an enormous, complicated realm of life takes on the characteristics of a stock drama. In the current school-reform story, there is a reliable villain, in the form of the teachers’ unions, and a familiar set of heroes, including Geoffrey Canada, of Harlem Children’s Zone; Wendy Kopp, of Teach for America, the Knowledge Is Power Program; and Michele Rhee, the superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C. And there is a clear answer to the problem—charter schools. The details of this story are accurate, but they are fitted together too neatly and are made to imply too much. And there is
Waiting for Krytonite, Review #2Rick Ayers is a professor of education at the University of San Francisco. He reviews the faux doc Waiting for Superman on Huffington Post.
Waiting for Superman accepts a theory of learning that is embarrassing in its stupidity. In one of its many little cartoon segments, it purports to show how kids learn. The top of a child’s head is cut open and a jumble of factoids is poured in. Ouch! Oh, and then the evil teacher union and regulations stop this productive pouring project. The film-makers betray no understanding of how people actually learn, the active and agentive participation of students in the learning process. They ignore the social construction of knowledge, the difference between deep learning and rote memorization. The film unquestioningly bows down to standardized tests as the measure of student knowledge, school success.
And then there is the 3rd review posted.
Waiting for Kryptonite IIIDan Brown at Huffington Post reviews the faux doc Waiting for Superman.
Since when does anyone care about finding another job for departing teachers? Geoffrey Canada said at the screening, “I don’t care if you counsel them out, ice cream them out, whatever. Just get them out.” The unions need to give a little here on expediting due process for firing bad teachers. But due process is a crucial protection for teachers against hostile or unfair administrators who populate many schools. And what does “trying everything” mean? What kind of supports does Guggenheim propose for struggling teachers? It’s too easy to read this as code for: “Eviscerate the unions. They’re in the way of cleaning house.” (Imagine Michelle Rhee with her broom and scowl on the cover of Time Magazine.) The website is up to the 7th review now.
Valerie Strauss at the WP reminds us of all the power that was present at the
premiere of Waiting for Superman. According to Politico’s Mike Allen, these were some of the people spotted on the red carpet:
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), David Axelrod, Roland Martin, Michelle Rhee, Davis Guggenheim and Elisabeth Shue, Jeff Skoll, Jim Berk, Kristin Gore, Melody Barnes, Bill Sessions, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), Rep. George Miller (D-CA), Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Alma Powell, Savannah Guthrie, Jake Tapper, Ed Henry, Luke Russert, Chris Matthews, Mark Halperin, Guy Cecil, Rep. Mazie Hirono, Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Daniella Gibbs Leger, Dag Vega, Heather Higginbottom, Rob Nabors, Christine Varney, Julianna Smoot, Ebs Burnough, Raj Shah, Geoff Garin and Juleanna Glover.
And she further points out that the audience made up of such dignitaries gave Michelle Rhee a big applause when she attacked the DC voters who had voted out the mayor who appointed her.
It's hard to educate the kids in the classroom while teachers and parents have to listen to talk like this...that the supermen coming to save them are the billionaire foundations and charter schools management groups.
How can students respect their teachers when the leaders of this administration do not?
Someone yesterday mentioned in a thread how this assault on public education is as heartbreaking to see as the lead-up to the Iraq invasion was in 2002 and 2003.
And we are equally helpless against it because the major media are on board with the "reformers", and so is the Democratic administration.