Waiting For Superman: 2 out of 5 stars
writers: Davis Guggenheim, Billy Kimball
director: Davis Guggenheim
The problem with most documentaries is that they only showcase one side of an issue. The filmmaker usually has an agenda and even if he/she throws in the other side of the issue, it isn’t given the time or weight it deserves. Michael Moore is famous for leaving out facts or quickly dismissing things that would hurt his point. The fact is most documentaries are propaganda pieces and not the well researched even sided pieces of journalism they claim to be. Although “Waiting For Superman” falls into this propaganda category, it does have some important things to say about education in this country.
The biggest piece of propaganda in the movie is the anti-teacher union stance it pushes for most of the two hour running time. As much as I agree that the teacher unions need to be broken up or at least give in, it would have been nice to hear what actual public school teachers have to say on the topic. There were a few quick comments from union reps, but there was no time given to a defense of their stance. Some may say there is no defense, and again, I tend to side with this thought, but to be a truly even handed film we needed to hear from the teachers. They have reasons for wanting to keep tenure and what ever else the union provides them. It would have been nice to hear that argument.
One of the solutions to the education problem suggested by the movie is Charter Schools. Although some Charter Schools have been successful in bridging the performance gap there was one problem I had with the movie’s trumpeting of the Charter School and really what I see as a major flaw in the movie as a whole. I admit they do mention that there are more failing Charter Schools then successful ones but it never addresses the difference between kids or school systems where the parents support the educators versus those where the parents don’t care. The movie parades these children with very supportive parents in front of us and asks how can we be letting them down. It hails Charter Schools as the answer to the question how do we get poor communities educated but fails to point out that all they have done is pull out the kids with parents that care and put them in a place where they aren’t distracted by the kids who aren’t that lucky. Anyone who has spent a few days in a school could tell you there is a huge difference between children whose parents are present and active in their lives and who support the teacher’s attempts to educate their kids and children whose parents look at school as a day care. If a teacher disciplines a child but that discipline isn’t backed up at home, that child is going to continue to act up and the more that child acts the harder its going to be for that teacher to teach the children who are open to learning. Just the fact that the parents in the movie are willing to take the time to try to get there kid into another school, to take the time to register and go down to the lottery, separates them from many of the parents in these problem schools. The first step in fixing the school system is getting the parents take part in the process or totally separate the absent parent kids from the present parent kids.
I really feel “Waiting For Superman” is a must see documentary. It makes important points and at the very least starts a discussion about what we need desperately to happen in this county. But I can’t help but conclude that it fails as a journalistic piece of film. It is quite obvious that the film makers have an agenda and ultimately this hurts the message of the film. It becomes more propaganda then documentary. The important thing to do is look through the propaganda and pull out the things that are valid and worth discussing.
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