Waiting for Superman (Review)

For most of the first third of the new documentary Waiting for Superman, I was about ready to give up. It radiated excessive pessimism, showing us various young students who seemed stuck in a hopeless cycle of worthless teachers, miserable conditions, and all of this due to the fact that they were born in less-than-desirable conditions. It’s bad enough to claim we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, but at least Michael Moore does it with a reasonable zeal. For far too long, director Davis Guggenheim approaches the misery with a dull “woe-is-us” attitude that does nothing for anyone.

 Perhaps this was the intended effect, as Guggenheim hits us with a shattering optimism in the second half that by film's end the result is positively stirring. It doesn’t destine us for salvation, but it does what any good piece of muckraking does: it provides us with a goal and how to get there. The final 20 minutes took me an almost unbearable emotional roller coaster (cliché!) that left me alternately proud and sad. Despite the fact that it all can be changed for the better, there are still far too many obstacles in the way.

In the midst of the film, one child stares at the camera and says the reason that he wants a good education is that he wants his children to have better what he had. This kid is barely older than the iPod, and this thought was as mature and heartbreaking as I heard in the entire film. Suburban kids like me take our education for granted. I’m going to college right now, something that was just about a given my whole life. For others, the chances of getting a college education are about as good as winning the lottery.

Literally.

The film depicts five lotteries for entry into charter schools. Most every family at the lottery awaits the results as if their lives depended on it. In most cases, the entire future of their children is determined by whether their number is selected randomly from a group. The thing is, the charter schools need this system or else they would be flooded with students. Charter schools offer salvation from the lazy public schools that are so often referred to as “dropout factories”.

Guggenheim praises teachers put condemns the system in which they work, attacking the administration, the idea of tenure, and the teachers unions which ignore the fact that there is a difference between a teacher that is adequate and one that is inept. There are people who have tried to revolutionize the system, but they are pushed back down without putting up much of a fight. That’s why many have left the system behind and started these charter schools, creating students that aren’t only as good as the suburban schools, but at times surpassing them.

I, like many, have doubts about the complete accuracy of the film as a whole, but like most documentaries it is out to make its point, and I have no doubt the most important facts are right. Some people are painted as saviors (D.C. public school chancellor Michelle Rhee comes to mind) and others as the devil incarnate (Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT), but no one can dispute that as a country our education system stinks. Just because he colors a bit outside the lines doesn’t mean you can’t see the whole picture.

Above all, the film could have benefited from the inclusion of a guide to “what makes a good teacher”. The film assumes we’re supposed to know them when we see them, but to a point you have to be more specific than that. That said, what I most appreciated is that once all is said and done, Waiting for Superman is the rare exposé that not only gazes upon the hole we’ve dug, but shows us that there is a way out. We just can’t be in denial that we are, in fact, down in the hole. And it’s a deep one.

Rating:  (out of 4)