Waiting for Superman
Encyclopedia
Waiting for "Superman" is a 2010 documentary film
from director Davis Guggenheim
and producer Lesley Chilcott. The film analyzes the failures of American public education
by following several students through the educational system, hoping to be selected in a lottery for acceptance into charter school
s.
The film received the Audience Award for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival
. The film also received the Best Documentary Feature
at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards
.
During its opening weekend in New York City and Los Angeles, the film grossed $141,000 in four theaters, averaging $35,250 per theater.
There is also a companion book that goes alongside the movie titled, Waiting For "Superman" : How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools.
wherein he recounts being told (as a child) by his mother that Superman was not real, and was frightened because there was nobody to save him.
.
Roger Ebert
gave the movie 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. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime- and drug-infested neighborhoods. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success." 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." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
gave the film an A-, calling it "powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing." 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." Variety
characterized the film's production quality as "deserving every superlative" and felt that "the film is never less than buoyant, thanks largely to the dedicated and effective teachers on whom Guggenheim focuses." Geraldo Rivera
praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues. Deborah Kenny, CEO and founder of the Harlem Village Academy, made positive reference to the film in a The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about education reform
.
Of note is the number of conservative critics who have praised the film, despite the director's progressive liberal stance. Joe Morgenstern, writing for The Wall Street Journal
, gave the movie a positive review saying, "when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity" the film "makes an invaluable addition to the debate." The Wall Street Journal
William McGurn also praised the film in an op-ed piece, saying it is a "stunning liberal expose of a system that consigns American children who most need a decent education to our most destructive public schools." Kyle Smith, for the New York Post
, gave the movie 4-and-a-half stars, calling it an "invaluable learning experience." Forbes
Melik Kaylan similarly liked the film, writing, "I urge you all to drop everything and go see the documentary Waiting For "Superman" at the earliest opportunity."
However, the film also received various criticisms. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon
gave a negative review of the movie, saying that while there's "a great deal that's appealing," there's also "as much in this movie that is downright baffling." Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice
was critical of the film for not including enough issues, saying, "macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's query...go unaddressed in Waiting for "Superman", which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them." Anderson also opined that the animation clips were overused. Meanwhile, in New York City, a group of local teachers protested one of the documentary's showings, calling the film "complete nonsense" and noting that "there is no teacher voice in the film."
s." The film does, however, note that since 1971, inflation-adjusted per-student spending has more than doubled, "from $4,300 to more than $9,000 per student," but that over the same period, test scores have "flatlined." Ayers also critiqued the film's promotion of a greater focus on "top-down instruction driven by test scores", positing that extensive research has demonstrated that standardized testing "dumbs down the curriculum" and "reproduces inequities", while marginalizing "English language learners and those who do not grow up speaking a middle class
vernacular." Lastly, Ayers contends that "schools are more segregated today than before Brown v. Board of Education
in 1954", and thus criticized the film for not mentioning that in his view, "black and brown students are being suspended, expelled, searched, and criminalized."
Diane Ravitch
, Research Professor of Education at New York University
and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
, similarly criticizes the accuracy of the film. Ravitch notes that a study by Stanford University
economist Margaret Raymond of 5000 charter schools found that only 17% are superior in math test performance to a matched public school, casting doubt on the film's claim that privately managed charter schools are the solution to bad public schools. The film does note however that most charter schools do not outperform and that it focuses on those that do. As well, the film explicitly stated that one in five charter schools (close to the 17% statistic previously stated) were the overreaching, superior charter schools. Ravitch writes that many charter schools also perform badly, are involved in "unsavory real estate deals" and expel low-performing students before testing days to ensure high test scores. The most substantial distortion in the film, according to Ravitch, is the film's claim that "70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level", a misrepresentation of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
. Ravitch served as a board member with the NAEP and notes that "the NAEP doesn't measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement", as claimed in the film, but only as "advanced", "proficient", and "basic". The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level", but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data.
A teacher-backed group called the Grassroots Education Movement produced a rebuttal film titled The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman
. This film criticizes some public figures featured in Waiting for "Superman" and proposes different policies to improve education in the United States.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
from director Davis Guggenheim
Davis Guggenheim
Philip Davis Guggenheim is an Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman...
and producer Lesley Chilcott. The film analyzes the failures of American public education
Education in the United States
Education in the United States is mainly provided by the public sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state, and local. Child education is compulsory.Public education is universally available...
by following several students through the educational system, hoping to be selected in a lottery for acceptance into charter school
Charter school
Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...
s.
The film received the Audience Award for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. The film also received the Best Documentary Feature
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Documentary Film
The Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary Film is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Broadcast Film Critics Association.-1990s:*1995: Crumb *1996: When We Were Kings ...
at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards
Critics' Choice Movie Awards
The Critics' Choice Movie Awards are presented annually since 1995 by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for outstanding achievements in the cinema industry.-List of awards:*Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Action Movie...
.
Cast
- Geoffrey CanadaGeoffrey CanadaGeoffrey Canada is an African American social activist and educator. Since 1990, Canada has been president and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone in Harlem, New York, an organization which states its goal is to increase high school and college graduation rates among students in Harlem...
as himself - The Esparza Family as themselves
- The Hill Family as themselves
- The Jones Family as themselves
- George ReevesGeorge ReevesGeorge Reeves was an American actor best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman....
as SupermanSupermanSuperman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
(archive footage) - Michelle RheeMichelle RheeMichelle A. Rhee is a public figure involved in the American education system. She was chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools from 2007 to 2010...
as herself - Bill StricklandBill StricklandBill Strickland is the founder and CEO of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, an innovative nonprofit agency in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that uses the arts to inspire inner-city teenagers....
as himself - Randi WeingartenRandi Weingarten'Randi Weingarten is an American labor leader, attorney, and educator, the current president of the American Federation of Teachers , a member of the AFL-CIO, and former president of the United Federation of Teachers. New York magazine called her one of the most influential people in education in...
as herself - Eric HanushekEric HanushekEric Alan Hanushek is a Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He is also an expert on educational policy. His main area of interest is the economics of education, focusing on controversial areas of education policy including the class size reduction,...
as himself - Bill GatesBill GatesWilliam Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
as himself
Release
Waiting for "Superman" premiered in the US on September 24, 2010, in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, with a rolling wider release beginning October 1, 2010.During its opening weekend in New York City and Los Angeles, the film grossed $141,000 in four theaters, averaging $35,250 per theater.
There is also a companion book that goes alongside the movie titled, Waiting For "Superman" : How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools.
Title
The film's title is based on an interview with Geoffrey CanadaGeoffrey Canada
Geoffrey Canada is an African American social activist and educator. Since 1990, Canada has been president and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone in Harlem, New York, an organization which states its goal is to increase high school and college graduation rates among students in Harlem...
wherein he recounts being told (as a child) by his mother that Superman was not real, and was frightened because there was nobody to save him.
Film critics and general media reception
The film has earned praise and criticism from commentators, reformers, and educators. , the film has an 89% rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the movie 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. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime- and drug-infested neighborhoods. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success." Scott Bowles of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
lauded the film for its focus on the students: "it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film an A-, calling it "powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing." The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
focused on Geoffrey Canada
Geoffrey Canada
Geoffrey Canada is an African American social activist and educator. Since 1990, Canada has been president and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone in Harlem, New York, an organization which states its goal is to increase high school and college graduation rates among students in Harlem...
's performance as "both the most inspiring and a consistently entertaining speaker" while also noting it "isn't exhaustive in its critique." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
characterized the film's production quality as "deserving every superlative" and felt that "the film is never less than buoyant, thanks largely to the dedicated and effective teachers on whom Guggenheim focuses." Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and former talk show host...
praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues. Deborah Kenny, CEO and founder of the Harlem Village Academy, made positive reference to the film in a The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about education reform
Education reform
Education reform is the process of improving public education. Small improvements in education theoretically have large social returns, in health, wealth and well-being. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed.A continuing motivation has...
.
Of note is the number of conservative critics who have praised the film, despite the director's progressive liberal stance. Joe Morgenstern, writing for The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, gave the movie a positive review saying, "when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity" the film "makes an invaluable addition to the debate." The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
William McGurn also praised the film in an op-ed piece, saying it is a "stunning liberal expose of a system that consigns American children who most need a decent education to our most destructive public schools." Kyle Smith, for the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, gave the movie 4-and-a-half stars, calling it an "invaluable learning experience." Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
Melik Kaylan similarly liked the film, writing, "I urge you all to drop everything and go see the documentary Waiting For "Superman" at the earliest opportunity."
However, the film also received various criticisms. Andrew O'Hehir of Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
gave a negative review of the movie, saying that while there's "a great deal that's appealing," there's also "as much in this movie that is downright baffling." Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
was critical of the film for not including enough issues, saying, "macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's query...go unaddressed in Waiting for "Superman", which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them." Anderson also opined that the animation clips were overused. Meanwhile, in New York City, a group of local teachers protested one of the documentary's showings, calling the film "complete nonsense" and noting that "there is no teacher voice in the film."
Educational and academic reception
Author and academic Rick Ayers lambasted the accuracy of the film, describing it as "a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions." In Ayers' view, the "corporate powerhouses and the ideological opponents of all things public" have employed the film to "break the teacher's unions and to privatize education", while driving teachers' wages even lower and running "schools like little corporationCorporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s." The film does, however, note that since 1971, inflation-adjusted per-student spending has more than doubled, "from $4,300 to more than $9,000 per student," but that over the same period, test scores have "flatlined." Ayers also critiqued the film's promotion of a greater focus on "top-down instruction driven by test scores", positing that extensive research has demonstrated that standardized testing "dumbs down the curriculum" and "reproduces inequities", while marginalizing "English language learners and those who do not grow up speaking a middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
vernacular." Lastly, Ayers contends that "schools are more segregated today than before Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
in 1954", and thus criticized the film for not mentioning that in his view, "black and brown students are being suspended, expelled, searched, and criminalized."
Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch
Diane Silvers Ravitch is an historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Previously, she was a U.S...
, Research Professor of Education at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...
, similarly criticizes the accuracy of the film. Ravitch notes that a study by Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
economist Margaret Raymond of 5000 charter schools found that only 17% are superior in math test performance to a matched public school, casting doubt on the film's claim that privately managed charter schools are the solution to bad public schools. The film does note however that most charter schools do not outperform and that it focuses on those that do. As well, the film explicitly stated that one in five charter schools (close to the 17% statistic previously stated) were the overreaching, superior charter schools. Ravitch writes that many charter schools also perform badly, are involved in "unsavory real estate deals" and expel low-performing students before testing days to ensure high test scores. The most substantial distortion in the film, according to Ravitch, is the film's claim that "70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level", a misrepresentation of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
National Assessment of Educational Progress
The National Assessment of Educational Progress is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what our nation’s students know and can do in core subjects. NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics , within the ...
. Ravitch served as a board member with the NAEP and notes that "the NAEP doesn't measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement", as claimed in the film, but only as "advanced", "proficient", and "basic". The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level", but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data.
A teacher-backed group called the Grassroots Education Movement produced a rebuttal film titled The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman
The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman
The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman is a 2011 documentary produced by the Grassroots Education Movement. The film was directed, filmed, and edited by Julie Cavanagh, Darren Marelli, Norm Scott, Mollie Bruhn, and Lisa Donlan. It counters the position taken by the Davis Guggenheim 2010...
. This film criticizes some public figures featured in Waiting for "Superman" and proposes different policies to improve education in the United States.
See also
- Chalk (film)Chalk (film)Chalk is a 2006 comedy mockumentary about teaching focusing on the lives of three teachers and one assistant principal. It stars Chris Mass as Mr. Stroope and Troy Schremmer as Mr. Lowrey. It is directed by Mike Akel. The movie is based on both Akel's and Mass' real life experiences in the...
- The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for SupermanThe Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for SupermanThe Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman is a 2011 documentary produced by the Grassroots Education Movement. The film was directed, filmed, and edited by Julie Cavanagh, Darren Marelli, Norm Scott, Mollie Bruhn, and Lisa Donlan. It counters the position taken by the Davis Guggenheim 2010...
- Charter schoolCharter schoolCharter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...
- District of Columbia Public SchoolsDistrict of Columbia Public SchoolsDistrict of Columbia Public Schools is the traditional public school system of Washington, D.C. in the United States.- Composition and enrollment :...
- Education in the United StatesEducation in the United StatesEducation in the United States is mainly provided by the public sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state, and local. Child education is compulsory.Public education is universally available...
- Harlem Children's ZoneHarlem Children's ZoneThe Harlem Children's Zone is a non-profit organization for poverty-stricken children and families living in Harlem, providing free support for the children and families in the form of parenting workshops, a pre-school program, three public charter schools, and child-oriented health programs for...
- Knowledge Is Power Program
- Magnet schoolMagnet schoolIn education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
- SEED FoundationSEED FoundationThe SEED Foundation also often referred to as the SEED Schools, is a private foundation, established in 1997 to provide boarding school educational opportunities to underserved students....
- Summit Preparatory Charter High School
- The Lottery (2010 film)The Lottery (2010 film)The Lottery is a 2010 documentary film about the controversy surrounding public and charter schools in the United States, directed by Madeleine Sackler. The film was produced by Blake Ashman-Kipervaser, James Lawler, and Madeleine Sackler...
- Bill GatesBill GatesWilliam Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
External links
- For Superman Debate
- "Waiting for 'Superman'" Review
- Critics Say Documentary Unfairly Targets Teachers Unions and Promotes Charter Schools - video report by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
- NOTwaitingforsuperman.org - website responding to the film initiated by Rethinking Schools
- Not Waiting for Superman: Who's Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What We Can Do About It, presentation by Stan Karp, Jefferson High School, Portland, Oregon, December 10, 2010.