"Waiting for Superman"

According to Ira Shor's article, "NOT Waiting for Superman", “Waiting for Superman” was a painful movie to watch for public school advocates.” As a pre-service teacher who will be working in the Chicago public schools next year, I definitely concur with Ira Shor's statement.  I found it very demonizing to me because I am an advocate for public schools.  It was as if the movie was indirectly saying, “Screw public schools because they are getting no where, so send your kids to charter schools, where they will be mentally abused by the lottery draw.  But, if they do get in, they will eventually have a high profile job; The American way of life.”  I understand that the statement I made was very harsh, but I feel that was the way the movie was portraying itself to its viewers.

Moreover,  I felt that a lot of things were missing in the movie but the one that stood out to me the most was how teaching styles are better in charter schools than they are in public schools.  No where in the movie were there interviews, or clips of teaching styles in charter schools, or public schools.  My question is, how are students performing better in charter schools than the students in public schools?  Did Geoffrey Canada ever take into consideration that many charter schools do not accept English language learners and students with disabilities, whereas public schools accept everyone?  Maybe that is the reason why public schools are not doing well as a school because English language learners and students with disabilities may not being doing that well on standardized tests, therefore on average, the public schools outcome looks bad.  On the other hand, where charter schools get to pick and choose between students, most likely, the high performing students, the charter schools outcome looks great.  I do not believe this is fair.

I believe that the movie should have taken a more approachable way of promoting good quality education.  Since the public schools statistics are not showing improvement, I believe Geoffrey Canada should have taken that into consideration and attacked the problem.  Instead, he said something along the lines of we have already tried with public schools through the law, and nothing has changed.  If nothing has changed with the law, then find another way to improve public schools. 

         In conclusion, I do not believe turning to charter schools is the way to go.  There are so many students, taking our growing student population into consideration, that we, public school advocates, should be thankful for the teacher unions funding professional development for public school teachers, and not bashing them, as was seen in the movie.  We should also find ways to improve public school education, rather than running away from it and turning to charter schools.  All in all, I am happy with the outcome of charter schools, but I not happy how this movie turned out; Advocating charter schools as the right way to get an education and to be successful in the United States.