Waiting For “Superman” | Trailer & Official Movie Site | Pledge Now
Waiting for “Superman”: A Critical Review
I should like this documentary. Davis Guggenheim and Billy Kimball have my number. As a fifty-something year old post-Watergate, politically progressive “but-not-liberal” parent, I was too young to have participated in the civil rights movement, to have served in the Vietnam War, or to have voted for a democratic presidential candidate (I cast my first vote for Jimmy Carter) who did not share his republican opponent’s hostility toward big government, big labor, and big corporate taxes and regulation. I believe in the entrepreneurial spirit championed in Guggenheim’s most recent documentary and even served a brief stint for a Silicon Valley start-up. All indicators are that I should be in favor of cutting through the red tape, blasting through the tangle of big government rules and regulations, exposing the politicians and labor bosses for the charlatans they truly are, and getting on with the mission of educating our children. So, why didn’t I like this documentary?
Surely one reason may be that both my children attend a highly successful, ethnically, socially and economically diverse public elementary school with great teachers, great special needs programs, and a great principal. Yet my wife and I have several friends, perhaps the majority of our friends, who are sending their kids to private schools, or to charter schools, or who have elected to home school their children, and who would never dream of sending their children to this award-winning school.
Another reason may be that I am a member of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the son and the brother of two sisters who are also AFT members, and the husband of a partner who for more than twenty years has been actively involved in the organized labor movement. Yet, many of our friends who have decided to home school their children or send their children to private schools enjoy comparable labor union credentials. So, why didn’t I like this documentary?
Rules of the blogosphere dictate that I break my answer to this question down into easy blogobites. Here, in part one, I want to say a word about what I liked about this documentary; in part two, “The Convenient Lie,” I identify why Guggenheim told the story he did, rather than the story he should have; in part three, “Deregulating and Privatizing Education,” I explain why charter schools may be the answer, but not for other parent’s children; in part four, “Between Harlem and Redwood City,” I focus in on the conceptual fallacy upon Guggenheim builds his story; and, in part five, “Superintendent Rhee’s Offer,” I explain why the representatives of Washington, DC’s organized teachers could not accept Superintendent Rhee’s apparently generous offer.
But, before explaining what is wrong with “Waiting for ‘Superman’,” let me first say what I liked about this documentary. What I liked most about this documentary is how it showed that where adults (parents, relatives, educators, politicians) take a keen and active interest in the welfare of children, those children are more likely to succeed than where adults—for whatever reason—fail to take a keen and active interest in their welfare. Thus, whereas in Guggenheim’s other documentary on education, “The First Year” (1999), he focused almost exclusively on teachers, in “Waiting for ‘Superman’” (2010) he focuses on a much broader circle of adults—parents, grandparents, school superintendents, entrepreneurs, administrators, activists, policy makers, scholars, and educators—all of whom share a passion for educating young people.
And, had Guggenheim run with this theme, it could have been the educational policy equivalent to his other award winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth” (2007), which exposed the duplicity of the energy industry and its “climate change deniers,” while explaining in clear, simple, language why the climate of the world is at risk. “An Inconvenient Truth” was not a perfect documentary. Yet it earned the critical acclaim of nearly all climate scientists throughout the world. Not so “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” which has, at best, earned begrudging recognition, but more often skepticism and open scorn from experts in the field. This, in spite of a groundswell of exuberant support shown for the film by many highly educated, progressive, influential, reasonably well-to-do parents, this one included.