Response: Waiting for Superman

Waiting for Superman is a documentary about the travesties in the current educational system of the United States. It brings up some very interesting points on how screwed up our system is, especially when it comes to things like tenure of high school teachers. However it does paint a picture of the solutions that it presents as the end all be all of the issues in the education system. The magnet schools and charter schools that the movie presents as solutions are steps in the right direction. They are not, however, the whole answer, they are not even close. The problems in our education system are so deeply rooted that it is going to take radical change so solve the crisis with our children. I mean a complete overhaul of the system because small changes to the system are either quickly taken back or mostly ineffectual. One of the biggest issues when it comes to making changes like that is that the teachers union and our government educational system is that are so stubborn about change. In the movie there is a couple quotes that stuck out to me one was spoken by Jeffery Canada and that was "The things we've done to make out schools better have prevented our schools from working." A great explanation about the amount of regulations and rules that plague of educational system, how the original intent was to improve but now is the downfall. The other quote I wanted to talk about was by a small time business man known as Bill Gates "We can change the status quo, but it's gonna take a lot of outrage." No better proof of this statement than in the movie where it came from. The documentary talks about Michelle Rhee the DC superintendent, and how she tried to flip the education system on its head because it is so hideously corrupted and exploited and how she was constantly met by red tape from the teacher's union and the government system. She tried to make a much progress as possible within her short time in office, but was constantly barricaded. Michelle tried her best to help and if more government officials were like her and actually tried to fix education rather than promising empty lies our country could make a lot more progress in a much shorter amount of time.