And that most of them are getting a really crappy education right now. But the issue in terms of the election, went far further than education. Why? That's not the case with all charter schools across America. We'll be right back. RHEE: You know what, heres the thing. You try to make reforms and it causes a problem. People -- but this room needs to get bigger. It reveals that the two major problems /Pages 1 0 R SCARBOROUGH: 15 seconds. DAISY: I want to go to a medical college or a veterinarian college because I really want to become a surgeon. National Assessment of Educational Progress, Bill Gates Goes to Sundance, Offers an Education, "How Davis Guggenheim's Documentary 'Waiting for "Superman"' Will Further Fuel the Education Debate -- New York Magazine - Nymag", "Waiting for Superman Movie Reviews, Pictures", "How did 'Waiting for 'Superman's' ' Davis Guggenheim become the right wing's favorite liberal filmmaker? When I see from my own experience as a school teach are for six years when evaluations didn't work and less than 20 percent of them think that evaluations work right now. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Daisys path to medical school begins with eighth grade algebra which she'll need to take when she moves up to Stevenson Middle School. GUGGENHEIM: The issue is not just lousy teachers. You cannot say we want more resources to go to kids when in fact in this city, Joel Klein is spilling $100 million a year to pay for teachers you saw it in the movie, who aren't actually teaching. /Parent 1 0 R I'm feeling it. SCARBOROUGH: Fantastic. /T1_0 52 0 R /Font << WEINGARTEN: I think look, again, we had a moment in time where we actually got to an agreement. I started to count the public schools that I was driving by. The contract says she has to go. endobj BRZEZINSKI: Why didn't they add up? /GS1 17 0 R Sept. 23, 2010. /Type /Page It's not about charter schools. SCARBOROUGH: John Legend, final thoughts? /Contents 36 0 R WebGenre: Documentary Waiting for 'Superman' Screenplay Edit Buy Year: 2010 4,775 Views Geoffrey Canada: One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me I think that teachers are not the problem, they are the solution to the problems that we face. END VIDEO CLIP BRZEZINSKI: All right. It's a random selection. So the kids who came to us in 8 plus 3 they would couldn't the like this. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. GUGGENHEIM: Weve won the lottery. We have to go to break right now. I think that we've all I mean Davis said it when he said he passed three public schools. /Properties << /Type /Page By showing its audience that even charter schools close their doors to some students, which them forces these students to attendfailing public schools, the video illustrates howthere are still flaws to the American public school system and challenges that need to be addressed. If I don't, Ill just be with my friends. Geoffrey Canada: I was like what do you mean he's not real. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success. Were going to talk to in a second and thats where Jeff Zucker told me I needed to go. NAKIA: The schools in my area don't measure up as far as the reading is concerned, the math is concerned. These high-performing charters are going in and they're reaching every kid and they're sending 90 percent of their kids to college. [8], Roger Ebert gave the film 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. There is a perception out there that is the union that is standing in the way of principals firing bad teachers. I think they put the money into this mayoral campaign because it was a symbol of reform in this country. Of course, Washington has problems going back decades. Now, a couple of years ago, an independent group called Ed Sector actually surveyed a whole bunch of teachers and asked teachers the question about whether they needed or wanted a union. Michelle and I love great teachers. /MC0 37 0 R The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level," but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data. You don't have all sorts of external rules. That youre not going to look American with our 15,000 school system and say we're going to charter them, that's just not going to happen in my lifetime. Geoffrey Canada: One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist. As young as Bianca is, she too displays this look of defeat as her name is not called (Guggenheim 1:32:56). In response to this problem, many reformers, including Geoffrey Canada, have tried to look for solutions. There are really, really bad charter schools across America. No one wants lousy teachers. These are your schools, your communities. But I think that's false. RHEE: It was actually 12 percent that were proficient in reading but he picked the better statistic because actually, only 8 percent of our children were proficient in math. /Resources << Where does the union take some responsibility in this? All we're going to do is pay good teachers more money. << Theres a lot of schools that I want to take you to Davis, great public schools where we are breaking the sound barrier, too. We just don't want lousy teachers to be able to keep their jobs and kids not get an education. BRZEZINSKI: What are you saying, Randi, what is he saying? /T1_1 57 0 R Geoffrey Canada has done it. We even tolerate mediocre teachers. Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools (the district with some of the worst-performing students at the time), is shown attempting to take on the union agreements that teachers are bound to, but suffers a backlash from the unions and the teachers themselves. I mean I think that's what this whole debate is about in many ways. Documentary. LEGEND: Who your state senator is. SCARBOROUGH: Davis? The bottom line is, you cannot say that you support removing ineffective teachers when then I fire ineffective teachers and you slap me with lawsuits and you slap me with the grievances. We love hard-working teachers. SCARBOROUGH: Maybe next segment. [4][5][6] On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 90% based on reviews from 118 critics. >> What happened there? And a lot of times some of the older civil rights organizations have historically aligned with the unions. endstream I want to hear what some of those steps are, specific ones. BRZEZINSKI: You can hear the distrust here. ANTHONY: I stayed back one grade. I think the point of departure between Michelle and I may be that I see, just like in Finland and Singapore and other places, that we need to all actually work together, focused on instruction, focused on how we help people do the best jobs they can and then -- BRZEZINSKI: Wasnt that what she was doing? >> Acquiring that good education is the daunting challenge they face. Davis Guggenheims Documentary, Waiting for Superman explores the corrupt American School system. /CropBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] /Im0 19 0 R I think he wants to do the right thing. We increased graduation rates. The most influential scene during this segment is when one of the students, Bianca, and her mother, Nakia, wait for Biancas name to be called as the lottery nears the end. But I do think though Davis even though we may disagree there wasn't a public school or a public school teacher that was pictured in this film, people have done amazing jobs. Waiting for Superman exposes an array of complex, complicated, persistent, and multi-layered historical and societal problems. /BleedBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] I love teachers. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Charter schools are public schools, public dollars, public school children and to talk about them as if they are not public schools, I think does a disservice to that movement. The film shows how Geoffrey Canadas solution to this problem was to create charter schools that would give children and their parents more options within the public school system and would hopefully raise academic performance, decrease dropout rates, andincrease the number of students who attend college. /Type /Page Somebody who's fighting for kids like Daisy is John Legend. >> "[12] 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. We had at least 40 of us in one classroom and the teacher refused to teach. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANTHONY: I want to go to college, get an education. SCARBOROUGH: Do you think he's going to do the right thing now that the teachers union is giving him a million dollars? One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist, the BRZEZINSKI: When we come back, we'll talk more about that. "[14] Geraldo Rivera praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues. DAISY: I want to be a nurse. LEGEND: Well, it's been quite a learning experience because I get to meet great educators. BRZEZINSKI: Is there a possibility? We increased student achievement levels. I said that's right, but that was mommy's choice to put you in that school. /TrimBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] Fox News. Though money doubled, reading and math scores have flat-lined. So there are teachers who are having this debate within the spectrum of your organization. So we're going to differentiate and we're going to recognize and reward the highest performing teachers and we're going to look at the lowest performing teachers and we're going to remove them from the system. I'd like to follow up by asking you, that on "MEET THE PRESS" this morning, you said the union has taken steps to make teachers better, taken concrete steps. You say no one wants lousy teachers but there are a lot of really lousy teachers who are protected by this current system. No one can go home and stick their head in the sand. But as long as we try to pretend that all teachers are the same, and that there are not great teachers and not so great teachers, then we are never going to be able to solve the problems. SCARBOROUGH: How do we do it, Geoffrey? They asked Rhee whether the pressure on teachers led them to cheat. /Rotate 0 One of the reasons for the high test scores, writes Ravitch, is that many charter schools expel low-performing students to bring up their average scores. Joe and I saw the movie a few days ago and we literally walked up Broadway, I think it was, in complete silence, both feeling very twisted and angry about what we had seen. /MediaBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] We need to get involved and take ownership over this and go to the schools and tutor, go to the schools and mentor. We increased attendance rates. /ArtBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] BRZEZINSKI: You also knew that a little girl like Daisy can be a vet or a doctor or anything she wants to be if she's given the tools to do it. We as a country have to get together and have a conversation like this and say how do we let every kid win? S/p?G4lt(20}G(8!h-D! 5 Because there is no downside to failure. The film criticizes the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into competitive charter schools such as KIPP LA Schools, Harlem Success Academy and Summit Preparatory Charter High School. Because what is wrong with what he's saying? SCARBOROUGH: Right. There's a lot of people in this country that aren't feeling what we feel. But I think it's quite frankly a little disingenuous for the union president to stand up and say we liked what Michelle was doing, we wanted it to continue to happen, when the national AFT poured $1 million into the campaign in Washington, D.C. a million dollars in a local mayoral race you know clearly sends a message that they didn't want things to continue as they were. You believe it. I knew -- as Davis said, I knew what was going to happen before she knew what was going to happen. "[23], Author and academic Rick Ayers lambasted the accuracy of the film, describing it as "a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions" and criticizing its focus on standardized testing. /Resources << Teachers in this country want to make a difference in the lives of kids. >> Eighth graders at Kipp L.A. Prep get triple the classroom time in math and science. SCARBOROUGH: Right. The only disagreement that I think our union has had in terms of the way in which things have gone, is that our folks have desperately wanted to have a voice in how to do reform. /GS1 17 0 R First of all, can we start by, we want to thank you for coming here. SCARBOROUGH: If you're going to lock kids in Harlem out of that process and let a few see the light and see the -- that seems to me to be immoral. We're not attacking teachers. SCARBOROUGH: Geoffrey Canada, some remarkable things are happening in Harlem. >> UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next year, Anthonys class will move up to junior high. And the next morning Im driving my kids in the minivan to school and they go to a great private school in Los Angeles. Only 3 out of 100 students at Roosevelt will graduate with the necessary classes for admission to a four year university. DAISYS FATHER: Go like this. NAKIA: Yes. I think the question about whether school reform can continue at as an aggressive rate under him is whether hes going to be able to stand up to the fact that SCARBOROUGH: Let me ask you this Michelle. 5 0 obj /MediaBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] Geoffrey, let me ask you this question. SCARBOROUGH: The nation's capital. ?zBzD%YC1_PVu,fkGsM'2Hnm^]6_1W|qpff&,+y cWoM~UNxa*_EE}=}z/P__~:Y)z `'4Q!-ccE"?6HD6JW (b]Jl BP> And I think seeing what's possible in this film is very inspiring. LEGEND: Yes. The issue is we have to all do this together with good contracts, with all of us on the same side, getting to help good teachers, getting supportive principals, getting a curriculum and the wrap-around services that Geoff does that cradle to college service. You believe it, don't you, Michelle? << There are a couple of things leaders, in which we all are, could do. Cross your fingers. 8 0 obj DAISYS FATHER: Come on, Daisy, cross your fingers. I said I don't want to go up. It's shameful. He's a Grammy award winning songwriter. >> We should let Randi respond. I've been amazed by what's possible. WEINGARTEN: Let me get to both of these issues, let me see if I can conflate them. The film recognizes how the American public plays an important role in helping to accomplish the reform goal of making American public schools great. Were here to talk about the movie, to talk about education. And the idea that we now can do it means that we have a very moment right now to say let's take those things, let's take those ingredients and bring them into mainstream schools. You said OK we're not going to penalize bad teachers. We'll come back and continue this. We have to fix this thing and it means the adults have to take leadership. Everyone in this room is feeling something powerful tonight. (END VIDEO CLIP) BRZEZINSKI: And there are kids that don't make it. Yes, there should be fairness. RHEE: Thats correct. Waiting for "Superman" premiered in the US on September 24, 2010, in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, with a rolling wider release that began on October 1, 2010. "Waiting for Superman" ( Superman & Lois), an episode of Superman & Lois. "[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. We'll be joined also by Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter John Legend and our friend at "MORNING JOE" as well. Why not? Come on out. SCARBOROUGH: Why is it -- [ applause ] why is it that you have an area like Washington, D.C. that is 12 percent proficient in math? CANADA: The thing I think Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have done, they really looked for people to come into the city who had a proven track record. RHEE: I'm just wondering, if the AFT was putting a million dollars into mayoral campaigns all across the country just based on who the teachers liked, I would buy that argument. Rhee said that only a small number of teachers and principals cheated. /Length 866 << WEINGARTEN: I live in New York -- RHEE: You put $1 million into a mayoral campaign. /BleedBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] In some ways when we fought for sources for kids like my union did, we were fighting to help kids get what they needed. >> We spruced up -- modernized the building. I want the system to be better. Waiting For "Superman" is an inside look at the problems with education in America. 1h 51m. SCARBOROUGH: We really had. It was about a whole range of other issues. Feb 22, 2013. How do you explain that to a child? We can't have our school system running like this. /GS1 17 0 R /TrimBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] /MC0 34 0 R /MC0 62 0 R UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think she can do it? WEINGARTEN: The issue in terms of education is there's no turning back on reform in education in Washington, D.C. Our union is committed to it. There are also comparisons made between schools in affluent neighborhoods versus schools in poorer ones. BRZEZINSKI: Its very hard to watch this movie. By the time they finish eighth grade, they will have doubled their math and reading scores. This is our country. BRZEZINSKI: When we come back, we'll be joined -- SCARBOROUGH: One thing we do agree on -- BRZEZINSKI: We have to go. It's happening in D.C. At the end of the film, there is writing that states: The problem is complex but the steps are simple. WebWaiting For "Superman" has helped launch a movement to achieve a real and lasting change through the compelling stories of five unforgettable students such as Emily, a /ProcSet [ /PDF /Text /ImageC ] GUGGENHEIM: And the stakes for them. WEINGARTEN: Look, we have schools in New York, like the school that Steve Barr and I run, which has a union contract, we're 100 percent of the kids path the math regions. We're going to do it with a man who made this film and some of the people who were in it. The film portrays the deep sadness that Bianca and her mother feel when Bianca is not accepted into the charter school as the two embrace one another at the end and Nakia dries her daughters tears (Guggenheim 1:37:35). (soundbite of film, "big george foreman: the miraculous story of the once and future heavyweight champion of the world") KHRIS DAVIS: (As George Foreman) Last time they saw me, I looked like Superman. RHEE: Yes, that's right. BRZEZINSKI: If you leave Washington, D.C. are you going to Newark? Waiting For Superman was more widely released than any other documentary, and among the highest-grossing documentaries of 2010. There are people who have figured out systems of improving education and the mayor was very aggressive in bringing those folk into New York City and saying to them, we're going to remove the obstacles for you all to do your work. So the question is, what's New York City doing right? }>=Uw2cS=V. I9kZJw^EAOd j]Y[wl-e06E#/mlyTbE9f}@8 a/ ^} Ravitch said that "cheating, teaching to bad tests, institutionalized fraud, dumbing down of tests, and a narrowed curriculum" were the true outcomes of Rhee's tenure in D.C. It matters who your local representative is. Let me answer your question first. & CEO, HARLEM CHILDRENS ZONE: I think the real important issue for us to face as Americans is if we don't fix this, we will not remain a great country. I think what's happened in places like Washington and I saw it compared to New York City. We can't wait and talk about this another seven, eight, ten years. >> It affects good teachers, too. >> The film also examines teacher's unions. WEINGARTEN: Let me -- SCARBOROUGH: If it wasn't about education, I mean, what was it about? BRZEZINSKI: And the reaction that we saw just moments ago was the same, these are people who know. Are you feeling agreement? So people keep talking about accountability just in terms of firing teachers but what I think people need to understand is how accountability allows you to unleash teacher passion by setting on fire all the teachers in the school because you're allowed to give them the freedom to teach the way they see fit.