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.