Addendum: Usually when I write I try to write for a global readership. But I apologize now for the following post written to my American readership. I will, however, speak to everyday concerns that may, or may not be helpful. For this, you be the judge. Thank you. - res
Many of Diane Ravitch's comments are worth reading at the bottom of this post (found in the Wikipedia section below). For myself, the issue isn't whether we promote either our charter schools or our public schools, but to create a school system in America that promotes our children's future from the bleak future they now may be experiencing in too many of our failing educational systems (and this includes our colleges and universities as well!). I have made several suggestions in past articles that could radically alter our current public school systems (also listed below). But in this article the fastest course of response seems to be by privatizing education and allowing those private groups to lead our public schools by example out of their current morass through competition for state and federal funds. Although privatizing education creates its own ills - primarily in the area of segregation and social inequality - it seems to be the only way to more quickly respond to public schooling's more immediate needs. My reasoning for this is that resistence in the school systems themselves seem too pronounced from the many organizations dedicated to serving public schooling. Consequently, competition for funding can be the greatest resource leveler for effective change by removing unhelpful organizational groups dependent upon public funding.
As concerning leadership, it often must find a toe-hold somewhere to create change. America's school systems at present must be revolutionized away from their pre-1930s production-factory philosopohies to the newer postmodern truths facing our societies today. Which means that "reading, writing, and arithmetic" forms of older education must be radically revolutionized on every level and scale of possibility and opportunity. Many public schools are focusing on classroom technologies, group learning and achievement, and mentoring techniques that pace individualized instruction within larger social group projects. They are turning to "curriculums within curriculums;" "specialized schools within schools;" and, a host of other methodologies and improvements to help our children effectively compete for global jobs requiring newer skill sets than once were promoted 100 years ago. Waiting for Superman admittedly is a frustrated view of exasperation by educators with our urban school systems focused solely upon outcome-based education. But rather than staying frustrated I would advocate that this tension can also lend hope to the dream of postmodern recreation in a reversal of mired opinions and social obstacles. A dream each of us ultimately must involve ourselves using any, and all, means - especially community outlets - to obtain. For it is imperative that parents first seek change through active involvement in their sons and daughter's schooling organization. This is by far the most efficient route than by simply voicing our opinions in the public square and pretending that we have then done enough.
And speaking of parents, it is to you that this burden is placed. Not to our teachers.... And not to our schools.... But to you! And its here that I must do a little preaching (forgive me!) by asking How is it a parent's responsibility for our present day educational system future progress? Because parenting is where it all starts. And it is the ONE thing that we can address immediately. But not by being passive parents. Nor neglectful parents. For poor parenting conduct and behaviors only harm our children. There are too many instances of broken homes harming our children. Of dysfunctionally abusive homes harming our children. Of parents not helping their children prepare for school by patiently helping them get dressed in the morning; or fixing a morning breakfast and evening meal; or by not listening to a child's fears and concerns; or even by not playing with their children which can be tremendously helpful in communication and relationship building. By neglecting even the most basic areas of a child's need can only serve to harm our nation's children for educational preparation and success. Too often we rely on children to raise themselves on their own; or at the hands of other children; or through substitutionary neighborhood gangs that reinforce acceptance and self-image; or impassively by the TV; or even public institutions like day care centers, sitters, and so forth. This is not parenting. This can be, and most often is, neglectful and harmful to a child's self image when passively, or actively, providing negative or substitutionary influences in place of a parent's steadying love and healing friendship.
Moreover, parenting means personal involvement by the mom and dad. To parent is hard work. But shouting at kids, bossing them around, yelling at them, being childish in front of them with your spouse and other adult friends, being always angry, impatient, or not making time for a child is not parenting. This is defective parenting. Good parents work hard at becoming good parents. Learning to be patient, loving, forgiving, tolerant, personally involved with a child's life. To those parents who work hard at being a good, loving parents, God bless you.... But your responsibility doesn't stop there, does it? No, not even. Now go out and find another parent, or two, that you can mentor to become better, more effective parents! Show by your example how to parent children through personal involvement, patience, and love. Go coach your kid's team and have another parent help you. Go to your child's teacher's conference and provide a ride for a parent that can't get there. When at school greet other parents and school staffs civilly. And most of all don't expect similar responses. Be prepared to meet people in the struggles and difficulties of their work-a-day worlds. Be understanding and work at uplifting your community. Parenting is all this and more!
And this is the one solution that can most immediately affect our schools. Good parenting. Active, involved parenting at all grade levels. It forces a school system to improve through your personal involvement. And it provides community resources to a school system because of your involvement, imagination, skill sets, talents and abilities. How? By attending your child's school carnivals, band and choir concerts, parent-teacher meetings, ball games and cheer clubs, field trips and school-sponsored community drives. By providing a safe-haven in your home to your child's school friends. By being present in a child's life and by being involved in your child's life (there is no such thing as quality time with a child... quality time only comes through quantity time, as it would with any relationship). Schools love this when you do this. They WANT your involvement. Parents are a valuable resource to their school districts. Improving our schools does not start with teachers and administrators, but with the home and family. It is our responsibility as parents to raise our kids. Not the schools to babysit. Nor to undo all the toxic waste that we dump upon our children through harsh, vulgar words, childish tempers, de-meaning anger, and selfish un-involvement in their lives - no matter what age they are at. You must let your child - or teenager - or college student - k-n-o-w that they are important to you. That you love them. You do this through patient, loving, timeful expenditures of your own person and personable commitments in uplifting, loving, encouraging, relational engagements.
The best teacher to your children is y-o-u the p-a-r-e-n-t.... So then, learn to love. Learn to forgive. Learn to be merciful. Learn to be patient and understanding. Learn to see life from your child's viewpoint, not yours. And most of all, pray to God for all these things and more... for this God will do and provide to you and your family. And most of all find mentors for yourselves. Find support groups of like-minded parents wanting to be GREAT parents. And in your spirit be teachable. Learn to listen. To cooperate with others. To find help. For these social qualities are the very same qualities that your children are being taught in school. Skills of cooperation. Skills of communication. to effectively disagree and engage one another.... And lastly, remember that across America are local area churches in every community that seek to help you in your burdens, your livelihood, and most especially with your family. Use them. Go to them. Become involved at your local church. For the Church holds the key to our families, schools and communities. They live to serve even as our schools wish to serve you the parent. And we, the parent, learn to serve both church and school. God and man. And one another.
So then, let your efforts be heard in a POSITIVE voice for change in your local school community. We all know what's wrong with the system but its an even greater task to figure how to make this system a better educational place TOGETHER. Your school administrators can help. They want to help. They began their careers wanting to help kids succeed in this world. Know this. Remember this. And work with your teachers and administrators to that end. They can be your biggest-and-best ally. Schools must change, and they will. But it takes more than a village to raise our kids. It must begin with our own personal involvement first and foremost. For those Waiting for Superman you need look no further. That Superman is you!
R.E. Slater
April 22, 2012
Waiting for Superman Official Trailer
Release Date: 2010 Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim reminds us that education "statistics" have names: Anthony, Francisco, Bianca, Daisy, and Emily, whose stories make up the engrossing foundation of WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. As he follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying "drop-out factories" and "academic sinkholes," methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems.
WIKIPEDIA REPORTS
April 22, 2012
Film critics and general media reception
The film has earned praise and criticism from commentators, reformers, and educators.[7] As of May 1, 2011[update], the film has an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[8]
Roger Ebert gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "What struck me most of all was Geoffrey Canada's confidence that a charter school run on his model can make virtually any first-grader a high school graduate who's accepted to college. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime- and drug-infested neighborhoods. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success."[9]
Scott Bowles of USA Today lauded the film for its focus on the students: "it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children."[10] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A-, calling it "powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing."[11] The Hollywood Reporter focused on Geoffrey Canada's performance as "both the most inspiring and a consistently entertaining speaker," while also noting it "isn't exhaustive in its critique."[12] Variety characterized the film's production quality as "deserving every superlative" and felt that "the film is never less than buoyant, thanks largely to the dedicated and effective teachers on whom Guggenheim focuses."[13]
Geraldo Rivera praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues.[14] Deborah Kenny, CEO and founder of the Harlem Village Academy, made positive reference to the film in a The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about education reform.[15]
The film has also garnered praise from a number of conservative critics.[16] Joe Morgenstern, writing for The Wall Street Journal, gave the movie a positive review saying, "when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity," the film "makes an invaluable addition to the debate."[17] The Wall Street Journal's William McGurn also praised the film in an op-ed piece, calling it a "stunning liberal exposé of a system that consigns American children who most need a decent education to our most destructive public schools."[18]
Kyle Smith, for the New York Post, gave the movie four-and-a-half stars, calling it an "invaluable learning experience."[19] Forbes' Melik Kaylan similarly liked the film, writing, "I urge you all to drop everything and go see the documentary Waiting For "Superman" at the earliest opportunity."[20]
The film also received various negative criticisms. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon gave a negative review of the movie, saying that while there's "a great deal that's appealing," there's also "as much in this movie that is downright baffling."[21] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice was critical of the film for not including enough details on outlying socioeconomic issues, saying, "macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's query...go unaddressed in Waiting for "Superman," which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them."[22] Anderson also opined that the animation clips were overused. In New York City, a group of local teachers protested one of the documentary's showings, calling the film "complete nonsense," and noting that "there is no teacher voice in the film."[23]
Educational reception and allegations of inaccuracy
Roger Ebert gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "What struck me most of all was Geoffrey Canada's confidence that a charter school run on his model can make virtually any first-grader a high school graduate who's accepted to college. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime- and drug-infested neighborhoods. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success."[9]
Scott Bowles of USA Today lauded the film for its focus on the students: "it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children."[10] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A-, calling it "powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing."[11] The Hollywood Reporter focused on Geoffrey Canada's performance as "both the most inspiring and a consistently entertaining speaker," while also noting it "isn't exhaustive in its critique."[12] Variety characterized the film's production quality as "deserving every superlative" and felt that "the film is never less than buoyant, thanks largely to the dedicated and effective teachers on whom Guggenheim focuses."[13]
Geraldo Rivera praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues.[14] Deborah Kenny, CEO and founder of the Harlem Village Academy, made positive reference to the film in a The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about education reform.[15]
The film has also garnered praise from a number of conservative critics.[16] Joe Morgenstern, writing for The Wall Street Journal, gave the movie a positive review saying, "when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity," the film "makes an invaluable addition to the debate."[17] The Wall Street Journal's William McGurn also praised the film in an op-ed piece, calling it a "stunning liberal exposé of a system that consigns American children who most need a decent education to our most destructive public schools."[18]
Kyle Smith, for the New York Post, gave the movie four-and-a-half stars, calling it an "invaluable learning experience."[19] Forbes' Melik Kaylan similarly liked the film, writing, "I urge you all to drop everything and go see the documentary Waiting For "Superman" at the earliest opportunity."[20]
The film also received various negative criticisms. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon gave a negative review of the movie, saying that while there's "a great deal that's appealing," there's also "as much in this movie that is downright baffling."[21] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice was critical of the film for not including enough details on outlying socioeconomic issues, saying, "macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's query...go unaddressed in Waiting for "Superman," which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them."[22] Anderson also opined that the animation clips were overused. In New York City, a group of local teachers protested one of the documentary's showings, calling the film "complete nonsense," and noting that "there is no teacher voice in the film."[23]
Educational reception and allegations of inaccuracy
A 2009 study done by Stanford University found that, on average, charter schools perform about the same or worse than public schools. The film does note, however, that most charter schools do not outperform public schools and focuses on those that do. It also states that only one in five charter schools outperform public schools (close to the 17% statistic).
"The film dismisses with a side comment the inconvenient truth that our schools are criminally underfunded. Money's not the answer, it glibly declares. Nor does it suggest that students would have better outcomes if their communities had jobs, health care, decent housing, and a living wage. Particularly dishonest is the fact that Guggenheim never mentions the tens of millions of dollars of private money that has poured into the Harlem Children's Zone, the model and superman we are relentlessly instructed to aspire to." - Rick Ayers, Adjunct Professor in Education at the University of San Francisco[24]
Author and academic Rick Ayers lambasted the accuracy of the film, describing it as "a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions."[24] In Ayers' view, the "corporate powerhouses and the ideological opponents of all things public" have employed the film to "break the teacher's unions and to privatize education," while driving teachers' wages even lower and running "schools like little corporations."[24]
The film does, however, note that since 1971, inflation-adjusted per-student spending has more than doubled, "from $4,300 to more than $9,000 per student," but that over the same period, test scores have "flatlined." Ayers also critiqued the film's promotion of a greater focus on "top-down instruction driven by test scores," positing that extensive research has demonstrated that standardized testing "dumbs down the curriculum" and "reproduces inequities," while marginalizing "English language learners and those who do not grow up speaking a middle class vernacular."[24]
Lastly, Ayers contends that "schools are more segregated today than before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954," and thus criticized the film for not mentioning that in his view, "black and brown students are being suspended, expelled, searched, and criminalized."[24]
Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, similarly criticizes the accuracy of the film.[25] Ravitch notes that a study by Stanford University economist Margaret Raymond of 5000 charter schools found that only 17% are superior in math test performance to a matched public school, casting doubt on the film's claim that privately managed charter schools are the solution to bad public schools.[25] The film does note however that most charter schools do not outperform and that it focuses on those that do. As well, the film explicitly stated that one in five charter schools (close to the 17% statistic previously stated) were the overreaching, superior charter schools. Ravitch writes that many charter schools also perform badly, are involved in "unsavory real estate deals" and expel low-performing students before testing days to ensure high test scores.[25] The most substantial distortion in the film, according to Ravitch, is the film's claim that "70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level," a misrepresentation of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.[25] Ravitch served as a board member with the NAEP and notes that "the NAEP doesn't measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement," as claimed in the film, but only as "advanced," "proficient," and "basic." The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level," but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data. A teacher-backed group called the Grassroots Education Movement produced a rebuttal film titled The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman. This film criticizes some public figures featured in Waiting for "Superman" and proposes different policies to improve education in the United States.[26]
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