Out of Frame: Waiting for "Superman"
In the closing scenes of Davis Guggenheim's much-anticipated Waiting for "Superman", the five school kids which the documentary revolves around await their fates in lotteries granting entry to high-achieving charter schools. As names are called, numbers chosen, and bingo-style balls pulled from cages, the suspense builds -- and the outrage that has been mounting throughout Guggenheim's damning indictment of America's failed public schools boils over. How could the future of these kids, from different cities and diverse walks of life, be so callously left to chance? Isn't this the land of opportunity, the greatest country in the world, the shining beacon on the hill? How the hell did public education get so crappy?
While Guggenheim can only provide so many answers -- teachers' unions! tenure! tracking! -- his way of doing so is masterful and compelling. Throughout Waiting for "Superman", he weaves the story of the five children, the shocking statistics of how bad some schools have gotten, the glimmer of hope that exists on the horizon (charter schools, he argues), the heroes, and yes, the villains. The documentary is much like his earlier effort -- An Inconvenient Truth -- in that while it may only start telling a small bit of the story, it tells it very well and in a way that makes you want to get up and do something about it.
As he tells it, America's schools simply haven't adapted to a changing world, leaving the U.S. further and further behind its developed -- and developing -- counterparts. There are too many conflicting and contradictory standards between local, state and federal authorities; unions and tenure make it virtually impossible to fire terrible teachers; the system as a whole is too sluggish and resistant to change; and no one is holding kids to high enough standards of achievement. The result is low graduation rates, declining proficiency in math and reading, an achievement gap between rich and poor that hasn't budged in decades, and a whole bunch of clever names for what some principals throughout the country do to shift bad teachers around the system ("dance of the lemons," "turkey trot" and "pass the trash," to name a few).
And yes, as the title implies, there are Supermen and there are Lex Luthors. Amongst the heroes of the battle for America's public education are New York's Geoffrey Canada, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Microsoft's Bill Gates, and the founders of the KIPP charter schools. The villains are unions (notably American Teachers Federation President Randi Weingarten, who comes off as downright vicious) and all of us, the adults. If it were only about the kids, Guggenheim opines, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Of course, the danger in Guggenheim's work is that in an attempt to make an education activist out of everyone who watches, he makes the solutions somewhat simplistic. If only we just had good teachers, everything would be better. And if only those bad teachers and the unions that represent them would stop screwing up our kids, the good teachers would have an easier time doing what they do well. And if only the system -- yes, the system -- weren't so complex and resistant to change, we'd be able to make the changes necessary to stop being so bad at educating our kids. And if only we just had way more charter schools. Way more.
It's not that what he says isn't true, but that it sounds unrealistically easy. It's not all that simple, and even when people have tried to make it that simple -- Rhee and her boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, for example -- they haven't necessarily succeeded. The awkwardness of presenting Rhee as a hero reformer while only weeks ago her patron lost his bid for re-election likely wasn't lost on anyone in the audience. (That being said, Rhee does admit at one point, "I'm not a career superintendent.") And in the various scenes of angry parents yelling at Rhee for closing down schools or firing teachers, Guggenheim doesn't really pick apart why they might be upset. They can't all be members of a teachers union, after all, and not everyone who is angry with Rhee and other reformers of her type can be accused of simply wanting the crappy education for their kids to continue.
As for the charter schools, well, the ones he highlights -- including the SEED School in the District and Harlem Success in New York -- are the good ones, but even Guggenheim admits that only one in five charter schools is any better than a traditional public school. Hence, the lotteries to get into the few good ones.
Ultimately, though, Waiting for "Superman" isn't to be judged on its politics, but rather on the role it will play in sparking a national conversation about public education. In short, it's the Inconvenient Truth of education, though one conservatives will love to hear, what with all the union-bashing. And once you move past some of the policy issues at stake, the documentary's heart and soul is in the five kids it highlights. They come off as the helpless victims of a system they did not help create, yet they still exemplify the youthful innocence that will make anyone who watches the film want to reach out and save them -- and many others like them.
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Waiting for "Superman"
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
Written by Davis Guggenheim and Billy Kimball
Running time: 102 minutes
Rated PG for some thematic material, mild language and incidental smoking.
Opens Friday at E Street and Bethesda Row.