Review of Waiting for "Superman" (2010) by Jessica C — 21 Feb 2011

C-. Thank you, director for showing us how education is failing students and how the magnet lottery system and neighborhood/segregated systems do not work for a majority of students. However, this is an incomplete work.

You point us in the way of failing teachers and unions, but NEVER mention the enormous cost of testing and testing companies that enter into the imaginary world of "no child left behind". I'm glad you are pointing out the flaws in education, but you are missing some of the KEY reasons for this.

Anyone who sees this, outside the world of education, would assume that good education is 1) based on luck of the draw-I agreee. 2) based on getting into a good charter school (only 1/5 charter schools actually survive and do "well" -so the results are no different from public school there) and 3) which state/school system you live in -agree again.

but there are many other factors, not even mentioned in this film which pour into the cycle of bad education -many are economic (and not tied into unions). In Charlotte, we have reverted back to neighborhood schools, which has helped the rich and hurt the poor.

This was not our choice, but handed down to us by one state judge who saw the problem of assigning 50% attendance rights to minorities (non-whites) to certain magnets. He had a problem with assigning children based on their race.

So he declared bussing across the district to fill a racial quota to be unconstitutional. Now we live in a have-have-not situation which is widening daily. The real choice should have been based on economics, not on the color of one's skin.

So he was mostly correct, but the schools have become worse since this neighborhood schools decision was handed out only a few short years ago. The poor have gotten poorer and the rich -have gotten whatever they need.

Rich PTOs supplement their own quite well. The economic divide is really what hurts people in this country -the way our neighborhoods and businesses are designed and schools are in the heart of either "good" or "bad" disctricts.

It takes a Village, and until our communities can bring in both poor and rich into the same environment, kids will always feel classified and labeled as either successful or as a failure. Address the fact that teachers make about $1 per student per hour.

Adress the fact that the rising cost of education also comes from feeding the children and bussing them, as neighborhoods have grown and parents are too poor to feed their own children in the skid rows of America.

They used to go to school hungry. Address the fact that good teachers who want to make money eventually leave or end up as administrators to keep food on their table, and that testing companies make MILLIONS of dollars, and then lets come to the table with some pie graphs and some solutions for our children.

Do not blame bad education on bad teachers and bad unions. Sure there are some rotten apples in the bunch, but there are more golden ones in my opinion.