Recently Melinda and I received a Blu Ray copy of Waiting for Superman for overview. I was excited because this was a movie I wanted to see for a long time but just never got around to it. I’m glad I did.
Waiting for Superman is a movie showing us just how messed up our education system is and how hard it is for children to get a good education. It shows how good teachers run into the system which holds them back from being the best they can be while bad teachers are protected by the system.
One of the sad things about Waiting for Superman was the lottery system. This happens when kids want to go to a better school but there are not enough spots for the number of applicants that have applied. The crazy thing is you see this happening all over the US. When we first moved to Delaware we wanted to get Sabreena into a program at her high school called the Cambridge Program. It is a two year program for honor level students that you need to apply to via an application that contains essay questions. Your grades are also taken into consideration. Sabreena her whole life has been a straight A student so we figured she would get in with no problems but we were very wrong. Sabreena was not accepted and it had nothing to do with her grades it had to do with available spots. It’s ashame that students need to compete to get a good quality education but unfortunately that is how our school systems work.
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.
If you want a real look into America’s school system watch Wating for Superman. It’s a real eye opener.
