Waiting For Superman Notes

Opens up with an educator Geoffrey Canada talking about how Superman becoming not real was a devastating moment in his childhood. The fact that nobody was there to save him was heartbreaking to him as a child. In 1999 the narrator spent the year learning about the public school and he saw great educators. The realization hit him because even after seeing the great teachers in public schools they were failing and he opted to place his child in a private school. Anthony, a Washington student, talks about how hard school was due to his father passed away from drugs. Anthony is being raised by his grandmother, Gloria. It now shifts to a student named Daisy who wants to become a nurse, doctor or veterinarian. Daisy very strong willed and already wrote a letter to a college and got acceptance. Mr. Canada states he was slated to go to a high school in the Bronx but states if he would never succeeded if he went to a failing high school. Movie shows various presidents in the past about how they want education to be the number one priority. Since 1971 we’ve doubled the money going into the school but not the results, especially in mathematics. It shows a kid name; Francisco states his love for math despite every other student complaining about the subject. Interviewing a parent the narrator asked what is the first thing he would see if he walked into a public school in the Bronx and the answer was a security desk. Geoffrey will explain that students will make fast predictions about their environment and they know they are on the lower rung of the system. Nakia, a parent of an inner school student, will make it her goal that her child will go to college. President Bush and the leader of the Liberal movement signed a bill with “No Child Left Behind”. They will test every child in their proficiencies. Showed maps of all states in America from 8^th graders in Math and Reading and the numbers or poor.  Daisy’s parents are both high school drop outs due to financial problems.  Unfortunately for Daisy her pathway to college is a string a failing public schools. A doctor at John Hopkins University as coined the term “drop out factories” due to the fact of over 200,000 public schools failing to teach students in elementary and middle schools and will push them to high school. Are failing neighborhoods the reason for failing schools are is it the other way around? Figures are shown that it costs $33,000 for a prisoner a year but only $8,300 for private school. Chancellor of Washington, D.C., Michelle Rhee shows her frustration with the failing school system. She is the 7^th chancellor of Washington, D.C. in ten years. Government has almost too many hands in education. With federal, state, local, and district regulations. Michelle Rhee wants to slash the entangled mess of too much government agencies with their conflicted standards. A study shows that a good teacher is crucial to the students’ progress. After tracking students’ progress will go up 150%. Tenure was stopping a superintendent from firing horrible teachers. Tenure will state no matter what he couldn’t fire teachers who would only read newspaper during his class. Historically the teachers’ union started because it was women who were trying to protect themselves since they had so little rights. 55,000,000 dollars were given to politicians from the teachers’ union. The contracts between educators won’t even let the high performing ones get paid more than an under performing teacher. Tenure clause in the contract won’t let principals fire their teachers so in every state that pass them from school to school. In New York they place under performing teachers in disciplinary hearing that last a year in which the teachers will still collect their salary. Out of all the teachers that have tenure only 1 out of 2,500 will be successfully fired. Geoffrey Canada will petition to start a charter school in the worst performing district in Harlem. Michelle Rhee would go on to close 23 schools in Washington, D.C. Her reasoning is she not a career superintendent so she’s not focus on the politics. She just wants to stop turning a blind eye to education deficiencies and that including firing her own children’s principal.  Up until the 1970s America’s public schools were one of the best. Since then the United States have dropped all the way to 23^rd in world categories. Even in suburban areas where there are well maintained performing arts centers and sports complex the scores are still below average. Public schools will put students in tracking which is a technique that a school official will determine the student’s curriculum. Education reformers will try new ways to teach kids. They would start from the ground up by not letting the students come to them later under educated. They would open up schools during Saturdays and during summer. They would build an environment of education around the students to help push them. What started has two charter schools under KIPP and they used this method and started over 30 schools nationwide. This would prove people wrong that disadvantaged children can go on and be successful in education and not to prison. Michelle Rhee would try to dismantle the tenured teacher problem by having teachers opting out of their tenure contract by choosing a non-tenured contract that would see higher raises.

Watching this documentary help me realize how far the system is broken and how little is invested in using the right techniques that showed results. Many occurrences have shown light on how certain charter schools can make under taught students and make them proficient no matter what their financial situation. The public thinks that it's just a poor district problem but it showed how even well-funded suburban schools that have huge infrastructure are still not proficient in science and math. It's harder and harder to change a system that is so sunken down by legislative bodies that even though we know the answer, implementation is the harder course.