This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Blistering performances.

Well living outside of the US I didn't have much insight of their public school system, I think every country struggles with these kind of issues, but maybe others have been faster to react or try new things or even evolve.From this it seems that there is a lot of politic and democracy dragging all new ideas and improvement down in a way. The smaller schools that they tell about and the private initiatives seems to be working, but for some reason they cannot be implemented or adapted to the public system and that doesn't help the kids.This is a very well told documentary, it shows primarily fire sides of the system or follows four different kids and their parents. I can understand being frustrated if your an adult and doesn't get into your dream university or doesn't get the job you had hoped for, but to see these kids wanting so badly just to be able to get better education and most aren't able is very sad.I hope our school system here in Denmark will keep up their good work and that my kids will have the same good opportunities and offers that I felt i had when I went to school.

In "Waiting for Superman", director Davis Guggenheim seeks to illuminate on the failure of the American education system. Following the stories of students seeking to better their educational opportunities, the documentary emphasizes the flaws within the education system that make it so difficult for students to get a proper education. The documentary does not present a solution to the problems, but establishes that there are many problems, and which methods are currently working. The film primarily focuses on the issues regarding the obstacles presented by the teacher union, the progression of the education system in America, and emphasizes the capabilities of a charter school. Although the evidence in the film establishes a significant issue in the functionality of the teacher's union and effectiveness in charter schools, the film fails to retain objectivity and provide pros and cons to the methodologies mentioned in the movie. The film argues that the education system within America used to be competing with among the top countries in education, but gradually became worse as time progressed and became unable to keep up with the rest of the world. After World War II, America underwent an economic boom. Schools put students into a track system where some students were almost predetermined to go to college and get a "high- skill job", be a skilled worker such as an accountant, or a manual laborer. The track system functioned at a satisfactory rate because there were jobs for everyone, the pay relative to then was better, and education wasn't as essential for a decent paying job in America. According to statistics presented by the film, until 1970 the American education system was the best in the world. America also placed 25th in world education, but also was the most confident country in terms of the level of education. While these problems seem to play out as essentially true, many of the statistics in the film are either omitted or interpretations of others' research, so caution is necessary. The film argues that teacher unions are a large part of the problems within the American education system. The documentary focuses on the fact that the functionality of a school is largely affected by a teacher contract that stems from the union. With some teachers becoming less competent and beneficial to students following their acquirement of tenure, firing the ill-performing teachers can become difficult with the contract. The process of evaluating a teacher to fire them is extensive, difficult, and has a short time frame from which it can be proposed. The process makes a massive reform difficult to even begin. Furthermore, the contract limits that teachers cannot be paid based off their performance or how well they teach creating less of an incentive to become a teacher. While these points that the film mentions are all very significant to fixing the education system, the film selectively disregards certain aspects that would support a teachers union. For example, tenures are mostly seen as something to permit laziness among teachers, but it can also permit educational freedom and safety for teachers. Tenure can allow teachers to teach controversial topics such as evolutionary biology, or from classic texts that have been banned among certain schools. Teachers with tenure can also deviate from a curriculum solely meant for passing a standardized test, to make their lesson plans more interesting and inventive.Guggenheim also hints at modeling the school system based off of Finland, the country with the best education. However, the film fails to mention that the education system there has unionized teachers. The methods in which Finland attained its prestigious educational reputation were also not done in the manner suggested by the films, but in a much more gradual manner seeking and creating the best teachers.The film also encourages and focuses on the viability of charter schools and their uses as an alternative to the standard public school. Charter schools are another form of public education, but are operated often with donations and with very limited space requiring a lottery system for it. In the film, charter schools are praised because of the philosophies that are generally exercised such as always having kids catch up if they are behind on their education. Charter schools are also utilized to demonstrate that the low income children that often score lower, have the potential to not only meet the standards of higher income children but to surpass them as well. The charter schools within the films are praised with their amazing performance, but the failure of some charter schools across the nation are ignored. A study performed by a Stanford economist reveals that only seventeen percent of half the charter schools in America are performing better than public schools. The other eighty three percent are all performing on the same levels as the other schools are worst. Moreover, if there are that many charter schools performing worse or just as well as public schools, why should they be getting any funding when that money could be potentially used to reinvigorate schools? This documentary fails to touch on multiple key points, but is not a film to pass on. The film still touches on ideas and faults within the education system that are important to note. However, when watching this, it's important to keep in mind that this film has a strong bias for charter schools and against teacher unions. The largest success of this film is sensationalizing the necessity for education reform and making it an even larger issue than before. While the film doesn't provide clear, thought out solution, it does a fantastic job in establishing that there is a problem in need of a solution soon. Furthermore, this film implicitly demonstrates that solutions to problems as grand as education reform are not so black and white, and hopefully encourages viewers to investigate education reform, research, and formulate a personal opinion.

Waiting for "Superman" is one of those documentaries, I truly wanted to see, when it came out. Now, that I saw the film, I wish, the film could had done better for itself. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie. It's just misleading as hell and doesn't cover all the whole educational system of the United States. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the film analyzes the failures of the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into a charter school. The movie often follow the teaching of Geoffrey Canada, an educator and activist for school reform, describing how the school system need to be fixed. Throughout the documentary, different aspects of the American public education system are examined. It was very interesting on what they pull out, like how bureaucracy is killing our public education system. I did have to agree with most of what the movie is saying. I agree that firing bad teachers is good, and firing tenure teachers does prove a problem. I'm pretty open to the idea of reforming corrupt unions and reducing overblown bureaucratic institutions. Still, the movie is so- one sided approach, that doesn't balance out. The movie nearly place all the blame for poor student performance on teachers and their unions. The movie act like no other groups are apportioned any responsibility for student performances. Does accountability extend only to teachers, and not to the parents or the student, themselves? Apparently, for Davis Guggenheim, it does. What the movie fails to take account is how much parental involvement, income level, educational level of the parents, the surrounding culture in which the children live, violence, drug addiction and dealing, unemployment, incarceration rates among the parents and relations of the students, sleep, nutrition, etc.. affect how a student does in school. They are not even given much time in the film to explain, or not even acknowledged as factors. The film would have you believe that if we just busted the teachers' unions, then all the "achievement gap" would disappear, all the kids in those tough urban districts would come back to school and complete their high school education and go on to college. This is only wishful thinking and not a solution. Putting all the blame on teachers is wrong. One thing that I really didn't agree with, the movie is how charter schools better than public schools. The movie makes it look like charter schools are the best out there, and the worst thing to happen to a poor family is having to go to a public school. Shockingly, as Stanford's in depth Credo study of charter schools shows, charters school actually underperform public schools. Only 15% outperform traditional schools, while 35% underperform traditional schools. The other 50% is about equal. This is pretty bad. The movie focus on how corrupt the public school, but fail to show how some charter schools could be dishonest as well. Some good examples are overworking teachers by paying them lower cost, being exploitation by for-profit entities, refusing to help special education students, co-location controversial, promoting racial segregation, or the lack of teaching second language learners. Even the film's main man, shouldn't be treated as a saint. Geoffrey Canada has been known to expel an entire class of low-performing children, before test day due to fears that it would throw off his good performance statistics at his own charter schools. Canada also has a lot of board members of wealthy philanthropists with large wallets to fund his schools. With assets of more than $200 million, his organization has no shortage of funds. Saying that public school are overfunded is an understatement when there is clear debate about charter schools being over-funded and underperforming. If all inner-city schools had the same resources as his, maybe they would have the same good results. It doesn't help the film when the statistics statement that the film are saying, are poorly researched. The movie claims for example that Woodside High School, only sends a third of its students to college and only graduates 62 percent of them, but what the film excluded, is the fact that some students went to out-of-state colleges. This means that their graduation rate is more like 92 percent. That's very distortion. Another big example is the statement that the film's claim that "70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level,". It's clearly a misrepresentation of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level," but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data nor any major educational program. The film got so bad at researching their data that another film was create in 2011, 'The Inconvenient Truth behind Waiting for Superman' produced by the Grassroots Education Movement to couther what they were saying. One thing, I really wish the movie touch upon was upper education as well. There were little talk about college and university. Other things, they didn't talk about are Magnet schools and home schooling. It didn't even mention how military recruiters could access to 11th and 12th grade students' names, addresses, and telephone listings when requested. The movie has gross over simplification, drastic omission, direct and subtle misdirection and false causation false emphasis that cause this movie a lack of replay value for me. It lacks alternative proposals and solutions like having more dates for schooling by reschedule the school calendar. Another is offering wider range of cheaper but higher education. Last is eliminating Property taxes. All this proposals could had made this documentary even better. Like I said before, the documentary isn't the worst. It's pacing and entertaining value is pretty weak, but overall, it's still a solid film. Still, evaluating school communities solely on test scores leaves a lot to be desired.

America's children are in danger; not physically but intellectually. We've all heard about the statistics: students dropping out, falling behind on math and science test scores compared to other countries, and many schools closing because they lack funding. Davis Guggenheim, documentary filmmaker of Waiting for 'Superman', investigates the ways in which the American public education system is failing our children. Along with his investigation, he has explored a recently new type of school that has improved many children's ability to learn; charter schools. Specifically, the documentary follows five students with different dreams and hopes of being lucky enough to get picked at a lottery. This lottery ticket is a pass to a better performing school that will increase their chances of graduating and becoming better prepared for college. 'Superman' has the power to open the viewer's eyes to a systems that is putting children's entire future at stake depending on a ball that falls through a hole. Guggenheim explores possible ways in his film to improve America's public education before it is too late. Throughout the film, Anthony, Daisy, Francisco, Bianca, and Emily are portrayed as victims of these failing school systems. Along with these students are their families with different socioeconomic backgrounds which have faith and hope that their child will be "lucky" enough to be one of the numbers that are picked randomly at the lottery. By winning the lottery, a spot at a charter or magnet school will increase their chances of them graduating high school compared to the dropout factories they are in now and therefore making it to college. But these children's desire and hope for their future should not be determined by a lottery. Every child deserves a future that they seek and look forward to; not something that may not even be tangible. One of Guggenheim's main argument throughout the documentary is that it has become impossible to fire a teacher in the public education system once they've become tenure after teaching just for two years. The bigger problem here is that many teachers once have received tenure do not care to further educate or teach their students since it does not matter what they do or what they don't do; they will be teachers for life. Guggenheim presents saddening facts that in Illinois, 1 out of 57 doctors lose their medical license, and 1 in 97 attorneys lose his or her law license, but only 1 teacher in 2500 has ever lost his or her teaching credentials. He blames the powerful American Federation of Teachers because although some teachers have no shame of informing their students that they have no intention of teaching, any move to discipline incompetent teachers is always met with fierce resistance. Guggenheim's argument is a strong one here because a student's education that is worth something begins with a good teacher. If teachers with tenure have no intention of actually teaching their students, because at the end of the day they will still receive a paycheck, something needs to be done. Becoming easier to fire teachers and replacing them with other teachers that want to teach for the sake of children in America can begin making a big difference in test scores and students view on their education. If children have teachers that do not only teach well but also ones that believe in them, it is more likely for them to believe in themselves. Also,Guggenheim argues that good and quality education is very possible for even those who are the most disadvantaged and live in poor neighborhoods. It was believed that bad neighborhoods usually meant bad schools, but recently the tables have turned and bad schools are usually the cause of bad neighborhoods. But children that are not being picked at lottery's have little to no future at all. These students then have a higher chance of dropping out and becoming criminals as their desperation of not finding a job begins. He presented a statistic that blows my mind; Guggenheim said that it would be cheaper to send dropouts to private school and improve their employment chances than to pay for the stay in prison. Sadly, in about 10 years, there will be twice as many well-paying jobs in America as Americans that are qualified to fill them. Although the American public education system is one that needs a lot of improvement, there is still those who have a lot of hope for it. This film introduces Geoffrey Canada, the president and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, a children's district that was intentionally built in the worst neighborhood in New York and has already impacted many children's education. Michelle Rhee is another big part of this film as she struggles till this day as the embattled chancellor of Washington D.C.'s struggling schools. She summarizes the problem by saying, "public schools fail when children's education becomes about the adults." These two advocates along with many other presented in 'Superman', America's public education can once again become the educational system that was admired by the whole world.Works Cited Waiting for 'Superman' Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Geoffrey Canada and Michelle Rhee. 2010. Documentary.