Excerpt
It's the documentary everyone's talking about. Waiting For "Superman" is a gripping story about the state of public school systems in America, told through the eyes of five hopeful students. Each is eager to get an education, but in a system riddled with ineffective teachers, staggering dropout rates and schools that are literally falling apart, the odds are more than stacked against them.
Meet each of the five children and read their stories.
Their only hope is to enter a lottery to win the opportunity to enter a high-performing charter school that will provide them with the education they need to succeed.
Waiting For "Superman" director and Oscar® winner Davis Guggenheim, the man who also brought us An Inconvenient Truth, hopes this story starts a nationwide conversation about America's public schools.
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The person on the panel who was THE MOST impressive and determined to change the face of public school education is Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools. She is relentless, fearless .. in getting rid of bad teachers, and fighting the octopus hold regarding tenure that the unions have on the schools. Just WOW .. and in DC.
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Snippet:
"In this shocking scenario, principals simply trade off their bad teachers—their lemons—to principals at other schools, hoping that the lemon they receive isn't as bad as the lemon they got rid of.
"Why can't you just fire bad teachers?" Oprah asks.
"It's actually incredibly difficult to fire an ineffective teacher. You have to basically meet a criminal standard," Michelle says. In one case, Michelle says a teacher in her district would disappear from the classroom, skip work day after day and fall asleep in class, but when the district tried to terminate her, she only earned a 10-day suspension.
"Finally, last year we were able to terminate this person, but it was after [she] had been in the classroom for 10 years," Michelle says."
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I was STUNNED that Oprah actually ventured into the sacrosanct union terroritory of her buddy, -0 .. actually shocked! I was prepared for her to detour or lightly mention that issue. But no .. she did couch some things to repeat how many good teachers there are, but there was no denying her outrage at the reality that public school teachers are tenured for life and CAN'T BE FIRED, after employment of only 2 years. Her belief and devotion to solid education for children is the saving grace here, for sure.
Yes, this film is done by the "Inconvenient Truth," guy and all, but it was truly compelling and a very disturbing and eye opening show.
Anyone with kids or grandkids in public schools or looking at charter schools, should definitely read the info at the links.