No film this year created such strong mixed reactions for me as this one. Davis Guggenheim is clearly a filmmaker of consummate skill and at times Waiting For Superman reaches incredible heights of cinematic greatness. It is certainly a thought provoking film that asks tough questions and sheds an uncomfortable light on the failure of our education system. It also depicts the heartbreaking individual plight of several children (and their families) who are hoping for a better chance at the future. However, the film falters in the one dimensional manner in which it places blame and the misleading manner in which it seeks a solution.
Waiting For Superman documents the problems with the education system in the United States. It does so by showing how test scores have become stagnant despite spending increases, how our rankings compared to the rest of the world are atrocious, and the roadblocks faced by several reformers trying to improve the system. Guggenheim highlights these issues by showing the personal stories of five students who are hoping to get accepted to a charter school and interweaving this by interviews with reformers such as DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and charter school CEO Geoffrey Canada.
So far, so good. The film is powerfully persuasive when examining the many ways in which our system isn't working. The personal stories are fascinating. It's hard not to root for a better future for these children. The film also contains one of the most unforgettable scenes I've ever seen in a documentary. We see several lotteries being run by school districts to determine which kids get a chance to attend the local charter school. The families are sitting there, living and dying as every name or number is called. A little girl keeps mentioning that they're not mentioning her name. This is amazing stuff and it is vividly depicted by Guggenheim.
The question becomes who is at fault and what do we do about it. And this is where things get problematic. The main problem that our education system has, Guggenheim tells us, is the imposing strength of teacher tenure and the inability of reformers to get rid of poor teachers. The teachers unions are depicted as this big selfish group that cares more about their own interests than those of their students. The film presents us a hero in committed reformer Michelle Rhee butting heads with teachers unions over her proposal to weaken tenure in exchange for better pay. The film presents this as a one sided battle that Rhee loses, ending all hope in the district. But the film leaves out the fact that the union did accept Rhee's proposal in their most recent contract and the improved test scores that Rhee boasts about happened well before the tenure changes. There's no doubt that tenure is one problem in our education system and reforming that would be a good idea, but Waiting For Superman unfairly makes the unions scapegoats for the entire failure of our education system.
Guggenheim is also misleading about the proposed solutions. Geoffrey Canada makes compelling points and is a captivating presence on screen. The Harlem Children's Zone has done great work for inner city students and shows terrific results on standardized testing. I have no doubts that he is a great educator. What's wrong is that Guggeinheim spends a majority of the film mentioning how increased spending hasn't worked, yet successful schools like Canada's receive tons of money in private funding, something that would not be realistic or consistent on a nationwide scale. To realize the dream charter system that would supposedly reshape our entire education system, vast increases in spending would clearly be required. This is problematic given the current political climate. Acknowledging this problem and looking at some more specific areas of reform (i.e. why do some charters underperform, what methods are the good ones using) would have made for a far more substantive examination of the issue.
I do think Waiting for Superman is a worthwhile film. It brings an important issue to light and will certainly inspire strong discussions among viewers that need to take place. The lottery scene is one of the more astonishing pieces of filmmaking from 2010. It's just unfortunate that the film gets mired in a repetitive and one sided attack against teacher's unions, masking other issues and potential solutions to the problem. When the Oscar nominees were announced, Waiting for Superman's failure to be nominated for Best Documentary was constantly cited as one of the biggest snubs of the year. I can't help but think that despite Guggeinheim's good intentions, this is one time where the Academy got it right.
No comments:
Post a Comment