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Yes, we will indeed have to "Wait for Superman". Predictably, anyone watching the movie should come away with a different perspective. "Waiting for Superman" (WFS) is a powerful, compelling movie. I wholeheartedly agree with the central, core message of WFS: That is the absolute value and overiding need for excellence in public education in American society. The movie is absolutely correct that public education, along with equal protection under the law, provide the foundation of equality and opportunity for all. Anyone who ever thought that privatization of the public schools is any solution must be convinced otherwise.
The movie is exceptionally well made in both technical and artistic terms. If the personal, anecdotal stories of deprived inner city children don't touch your heart, then you don't have one. So WFS could easily convince virtually any viewer that the problem with the public education system, is exactly as defined: It is an uncaring, overtly bureaucratic system populated with too many lousy teachers and dominated by wretched unions that protect them; and the single solution to it all is charter schools. In those terms the movie, if it is supposed to be a documentary, is almost completely inaccurate in terms of defining the problems and proposing solutions.
Indeed, WFS could be defined as propaganda because it is about 90% true. WFS cleaverly strings together several half truths:
1. The inner city is populated by families where parents care for their children and want nothing but the best for them in terms of their education, but "the system" denies them. Indeed, the movie states outright that the surrounding problems in the environment do not cause the problems in the schools. Rather WFS proposes that it is the bad schools that cause the surrounding poverty and social dislocation. Reality: Dysfunctional families are one of the greatest challenges to public education and poor schools are intricately linked to dysfunctional families.
2. Funding for inner city schools is not an overriding problem, if only the money was spent on charter schools instead of public schools. Reality: Funding is not THE solution, but the solutions definitely involve costs that the public is not willing to support.
3. All students should be doctors and educated to the same level; all students should pass. It is the public school system, bad teachers and their unions that cause failure. Reality: No Child Left Behind made the same error. The ugly reality is that not all students will succeed, in spite of our best effort, be it a rural or urban, K-12 or higher ed setting, some students will fail. Teachers are not superheros. The medical equivalent is that some patients will die in spite of our best efforts.
4. There are some good teachers, but most of them are bad and need to be fired and the evil unions make firing a teacher virtually impossible. Reality: Teachers are much like most of other workforces in other domains. Some of them are great, most of them are good, and some of them are bad. In fact, bad teachers do get dismissed, but like most situations school HR departments prefer resignations, early retirements and other methods to absolute firing because it's a cheaper easier means to the end. Those numbers weren't included in WFS distorted data.
5. While unions may have been necessary years ago based on exploitation and abuse of teachers, they are no longer necessary because those problems don't exist anymore. Reality: Unions in public education are MORE necessary today not less, if only because of the viscous attacks on public education (see yesterday's posting).
6. Superman is Michelle Rhee. Idolatry is always tempting. Reality: If we want to fix our schools, colleges and universities, we're going to have to do it ourselves in a unified effort absent the ugly fingerpointing in WFS.
So, the movie does a great job in showing how depriving public education can devastate a child. However, it is overtly simplistic and completely inaccurate as to the root causes of that deprivation and niave its simple solutions.
I most certainly don't have all the answers. I thought that the movie did reveal one good point: That students from challenging environments need much more structure. Some of the charter schools are, in fact, academies where the the kids go and live. I think most would agree that's could be a solution for some failing schools. But who's going to pay for it? Not Joe Public in America today, they want their low taxes.
The mischaracterization of charter schools in WFS is ridiculous. Charter schools often spend at least twice as much per student as the surrounding public schools. Hence they can limit class size and provide much longer instructional time. Charter schools also cleverly cherry pick students by limiting applicants so that the lottery is already picking from among the best "applicants" not all students as depicted in WFS. Charter schools can also purge noncompliant (failing or truant) students. Those and a few other tricks easily produce 90%+ success rates, and even that depends on how we define success.
OK, enough criticism of WFS. Oh wait, how could I (of all people) forget its union bashing? I'm getting a little weary, but in simplest terms WFS is infected with the same goofy virus infecting employee/employer relationships in modern America. In our modern Guilded Age the pervasive attitude is workplace nirvana i.e. "my boss is really a good person and if I just do my job they'll take good care of me"; that companies never fire or abuse good employees; workers aren't entitled to pay raises because that increases the deficit and it's bad for business; and, of course, unions are the source of all evil.
I do know a few things here. Yes, unions are an imperfect solution to the natural, inherent adversarial relationship between employers and employees, but I've yet to see a better one. In perfect world we wouldn't need unions. But we don't live in a perfect world and the reality is unions are largely the result of bad management. In fact if you examine most workplaces the worse the management the stronger the union. Unions do end up, not to their own liking, in the unenviable position of "protecting bad employees" on occasion. However, if we have to protect one bad employee to protect five good ones, then so we must. Overall, unions do much more good than harm, and they will have to be included in any formulation that provides solutions. The similtaneous attack on both teachers and unions by the enemies of public education is not a accident. It's also not a solution.
The workplace for teachers, police, firefighters and most other public employees is often politicized by public management boards. Unions have evolved there to protect workers from the naked politics of the accompanying public opinion and whim. Years ago teachers were easily fired or abused because one key parent didn't like the class or their spoiled child didn't like the teacher. Those problems still live today, but unions have mitigated them. Removal of tenure and unions will simply bring us in one large circle where those same problems will be pervasive.
Did WFS change my perspective? Absolutely. Did it provide any insights into the real problems and did it propose any real solutions: NO. In the public forum that followed, the panel and most of the audience at the Wilma seemed to see through WFS or at least they perceived that it was certainly not applicable to the Montana situation. One size does not fit all and there is no simple overriding solution.
One essential item leading to any solution that I know is that America fundamentally needs an attitude change when it comes to education. We need to embrace a true love of learning in a way that we have never before because our existence, as we know it, absolutely depends on it. Perhaps WFS will enhance that awakening, but it certainly fails to provide solutions by virtue of its divisive plundering of those who care most about educating Americans.
My favorite adage is that "Education isn't just about kids, it's about everyone, forever". The enemy is not the teacher or professor in the classrooom. Indeed, they need to be empowered to excel, not berated so that even the simplest achievements are a struggle. The real enemies are public apathy, indifference and negligence....and outright ignorance. So I guess WFS may achieve a few things, but in the end it leaves us all, like the inner city children, hoping for something magic to happen.
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