Waiting For Superman Sparknotes

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WAITING FOR SUPERMAN 2

Kipp Academy, what is it, how did it develop and why is it so important to Urban Education?

In Waiting for Superman, Geoffrey Canada describes his journey as an educator.
Throughout the documentary, different features of the American public education system were examined. Things such as how the educational system attempts to rebuke poorly performing teachers were shown to have an impact on the educational environment. Teaching standards were called into question as there is often conflicting bureaucracy between teaching expectations at the school, state, or federal level. (New York Times, 2010). Comparisons were …show more content…

Feinberg and Levin studied a method used by Herriot Ball a teacher of the same school. Herriot's approach to teaching was different from traditional teaching techniques; she used the language the students were familiar with to bring across mathematics content, this language was "rap music". She then turned mathematics concepts into songs, students would quickly grasp the concept then she would move on to the next step. Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin were inspired by Ball's method of teaching, so they went on to study Ball's method along with other teaching methods. After this study Feinberg and Levin opened two new schools called Kipp Academy Huston, one in Huston and the other in the Bronx. These schools are Carter schools, in that they are publicly funded, independently operated schools that are allowed to operate with more autonomy than traditional public schools in exchange for increased accountability. Since charter schools do not operate with the same restrictions as public institutions, they are depicted as having a more experimental approach to educating …show more content…

Feinberg and Levin passion for making a change to the urban education proved that by applying the right accountability standard educational gap good results will be obtained. Kipp schools are located in low income and underperforming neighborhoods. This was very significant to urban education seeing that it breached the educational gap between public and private schools, providing urban students with the skills and knowledge to enter college which were only a dream for urban parents. Now top Charter schools are sending over 90% of their students to colleges, this great for urban families.
The film's most emotional moments revolve around five children whose futures depend on winning a lottery to a charter school. One of the students featured was Francisco, a first grader from Bronx he attended a public school in his community. Francisco's teachers told his mother that he had problems in reading. This pushed his mother in locating a school that could help Francisco in reaching his full potential. It was important that Francisco experienced an effective educational system, seeing that it was discovered by his class teacher that he had a learning

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