Waiting For Superman Summary

Summary

The documentary Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim (2010), examines public schools in the United States. Guggenheim (2010) explains some of the reasons, such as school funding and teacher quality, as to why public schools are failing. The film also follows the journey of parents seeking enrollment for their children into charter schools because they believe the public schools are not going to give their children the best educational outcomes. The purpose of this film can be viewed as an explanation of the issues in public education to spark opportunities for changes (Guggenheim, 2010).

Issues in Public Schools

One of the major issues discussed in Waiting for Superman is teacher quality. Guggenheim (2012) attributes “bad teachers” who are protected by the teacher unions and teacher tenure as one of the reasons public education is failing. Teacher unions and teacher tenure protects teachers from being abruptly fired. The film expresses that certain behaviors exhibited by teachers calls for termination, but teacher contracts and teacher tenure makes it hard or prevents school administrators from firing them. The process of firing teachers as

explained in the film is it is a multistep process that include observations, paperwork, conferences and strict deadlines (Guggenheim, 2010). Since the process includes multiple steps, it can be discouraging to complete. This causes friction between school administrators and the teacher unions because of the frustrations associated with terminating “bad teachers” (Guggenheim, 2010).
Another issue Guggenheim (2010) discussed is funding in public schools. It was explained that the U.S spends more money on housing an inmate than spending per child for schools. In addition, the spending per child has increased since the 1970’s, but student achievement has not increased Guggenheim (2010). This creates questions on whether more funding actually contributes to student achievement.

Charter Schools
Guggenheim (2010) describes the success of the teaching models and school structures of the Kipp Public Charter Schools and the Harlem Children’s Zone School, which makes these schools appear as more desirable than public schools. In the film, the parents are trying and hoping that their children get accepted into a charter school. They also share the perspective that it is important for their children to attend a charter school because it will give them excess to a better education in comparison to public schools (Guggenheim, 2010).
Since charter schools are extremely popular, many parents try to enroll their children into those schools. Therefore, charter schools have a lottery system, which is a way to ensure fairness in accepting applicants. Guggenheim (2010) highlights the stress, enjoyment and disappointment associated with the lottery system, and in the film, only 2 out of the 5 children were accepted into their desired charter school.
Critique
Waiting for Superman provides a thought-provoking perspective on the issues in public education, and it highlights the alternative option to public schools, which is charter schools. However, the film did not necessarily offer a productive solution to the issues in public education. Instead, charter schools were presented in the film as a solution to public education. In general, the film seemed to praise charter schools instead of offering solutions to the issues in public schools.

Teacher Quality
One of the issues discussed in the film was teacher quality and the inability to fire bad teachers due to teacher unions and teacher tenure (Guggenheim, 2010). However, if school districts had the ability to fire bad teachers that would not end the cycle of bad teachers. Teachers do not miraculously become bad teachers. A series of different events and experiences contribute to teachers’ decline in performance, and to improve teacher quality those events and experiences need to be examined and addressed. Firing teachers and not addressing their needs and concerns still leaves room for new teachers to become “bad teachers”.
Some of the school administrators and education reformers interviewed in the film expressed the need to eliminate teacher tenure and adjust teacher contracts to positively impact teacher quality (Guggenheim, 2010). Eliminating teacher tenure and adjusting contracts to enable the ability to fire teachers is unfair. Teacher tenure was created to protect teachers from being fired for personal, political and non-work related reasons (Dana Goldstein, 2014). Furthermore, teacher tenure is only “awarded to teachers who have demonstrated competence after a probationary period with due process rights before being fired” (Kahlenberg, 2015 para 7). A misconception of teacher tenure is that it prevents teachers from termination, but teacher tenure does not guarantee a job for life, it just makes it more difficult to fire teachers (Kahlenberg, 2015).
Guggenheim (2010) explained that the process of firing teachers includes conferences, observations, providing different supports and data collection. This is not an unreasonable process because it gives teachers a chance to improve their practice before they are viewed as ineffective and fired. Moreover, requesting school administrators to complete the process is a way to ensure teachers are being fired for work related reasons, which is justified through documentation.

School Funding
School funding is a huge issue in public education. School funding should be equitable because different schools have different needs. In communities with a high population of students who are impoverished may need access to certain supports and resources, which may require more funding than a school in community with students from middle and upper-class familes (Books, 2009). For example, one school may only need funding to hire two social workers, and another school may need to hire one, and both schools receive the same amount of funding, but only one school will be able to get there needs met. In general, the impact of poverty should be considered when discussing school funding because different schools have different needs (Books, 2009).
In countries that have successful education systems, their schools are intertwined in their societies and economies. There leaders have “a sense of moral purpose about the need to deal with inequities and promote a more just society” (Stewart, 2012, p.80). For example, in China, the government saw education as a way get many people out of poverty, and is working towards turning the entire country into a middle-class society by equitability in education (Stewart, 2012). Changing the mindset on how schools should be funded can make school funding more fair, which will ensure school get what they need based on the needs of their students.

Teacher Perspective
Guggenheim (2010) included the perspective of students, parents and education reformers, but does not include teachers.

This is an example of teachers being left out of the conversation about education. Often times when there is an attempt to make change in education, the leaders and main participants are rarely teachers. Public school teachers did not have the opportunity to share their perspective on the proposed issues in public education and did not offer their ideas to the solutions. Furthermore, without the perspective of teachers, the plot of the movie was unfair because some of blame for failing schools was placed on teachers, and they did not have the chance to respond. Additionally, the experience of teachers could offer first-hand insight on what could help improve public

education.

Charter Schools
Waiting for Superman presented the perspective that charter schools are the solution to public education. The benefits of charter schools such as longer school days, smaller classes and wrap around services were well documented in the film (Guggenheim, 2010). However, comparing public schools and charter schools is unfair. Charter schools have certain freedoms that public schools do not, which allows them to implement certain practices and have access to certain resources. For example, charter schools are independent and create their own rules. They are not controlled by the local school district, but they still receive local, state, and federal tax money, which means they are free public schools but do not have to follow the same rules and regulation as public schools. Charter schools also have the freedom to choose their curriculum and hire teachers with interacting with teacher unions (Pascual, 2016).
The differences between charter schools and public school makes it unfair to compare because they are structured differently and have different rules and regulations to follow. Guggenheim (2010) did not mention the difference between the two entities before simply comparing them, and hinting that charter schools are better. The perspective that charter schools are better is a little misguided because they are different, therefore, they produce different results (Pascual, 2016). A study conducted on charter schools found that some charters are high performing and some are low performing This shows that charter schools are not the answer to failing public school because all charter schools are not high performing (Pascual, 2016). Moreover, practices and structures should be examined to implement change in public education.

Conclusion
Waiting for Superman is a great film to start the conversation on creating change in public education. However, it does not offer solutions on how to create change based on the problems discussed in the film. It was very powerful to include the perspective of students and parents, but unfair to not give teachers an active voice. Guggenheim (2010) scratches the surface of the issues in public education, and leaves room for questions on what can be done.