Review of Waiting for "Superman" (2010) by Spencer S — 06 May 2013

This documentary deals with the vast and crumbling educational system of the United States, and the roadblocks that keep children from gaining a thorough and full education. Director Davis Guggenheim first started his research ten years prior while covering a public school classroom and from there gained insight into the problematic system now in place to educate the nation's children.

Guggenheim looks at the various causes of the gap between us, as an industrialized first world power, and the rest of the world in terms of education. There doesn't seem too much of a problem when it comes to federal funding, because the education budget has increased drastically in the last several years, and so Guggenheim more times than others points to the ineffectualness of the school system itself.

Most problematic seems to be the teachers unions in place at this time. Though they do protect all teachers from discrimination, pay decreases, and unwarranted attacks via the US government, it also tenures ineffective and sometimes negligent teachers into positions that they should not be holding.

They are guaranteed their job, and if they are found to be wanting, are not dismissed but given credence to be moved through the system as easily as some of these kids. Guggenheim also looks at the problems that have more to do with poverty, unstable homes, and the lack of direct aid to stricken neighborhoods.

These children especially have a higher dropout rate with the equivalency in reading level of an elementary school child, and that has more to do with having a grading system that moves children up grade levels without warrant and those students not getting enough attention with giant class sizes.

Teachers are not paid enough, children are tested unfairly, and overall the dropout rate is enormous throughout the country. Guggenheim unfairly puts a large emphasis on the role of charter schools, showing that they are intensely effective when it comes to test scores and college acceptance rates when they are only 17% superior in math test scores.

The film also misrepresents some statistics from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, by saying that seventy per cent of eighth graders cannot read at grade level, which is false. Overall though, the evils of the system and the ineffectiveness alike are represented and many of the points raised are valid.