Earlier this week I had the privilege of seeing Waiting for “Superman”, the highly acclaimed (and criticized) documentary about public education.

Is Waiting for “Superman” anti-teacher?

This moving documentary follows 5 young children as it explores the public school system. The stories are heart breaking, but that hasn’t prevented the film from coming under attack. Some of the arguments I’ve heard have merit. Others, such as the claims that it is anti-teacher, seem absurd. Waiting for “Superman” isn’t anti-teacher. It’s anti- bad teacher. Although the movie over-simplifies the issue, Waiting for “Superman” is stirring a much needed sense of urgency around our underperforming educational system.

I fear that those who are criticizing specific statistics and nuances of this documentary are dismissing its basic message and risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The basic take away of the movie is that test scores are low because of bad teachers. The bad teachers are still employed because of teachers’ unions. Unions don’t differentiate between a good teacher and a bad teacher. The argument is that test scores would be better if principals could fire bad teachers and hire excellent teachers, instead of the ridiculous lemon dance. The lemon dance is the common practice of schools trading their worst performing teachers at the end of the school year for the worst performing in another school. No one is fired. Just shuffled along.

Whatever path we take, I think everyone can agree that the public education system needs to be improved. If not overhauled all together.

Some alarming statistics:

• In America, a high school student drops out every 26 seconds.
• More than 1 in 10 high schools are defined as dropout factories. (12% of U.S. public high schools produce nearly half of the nation’s dropouts and 58% of African-American dropouts.)
• 60% of inmates are high school dropouts.
• It’s cheaper to send a child to private school for 12 years than pay for 4 years in jail.
• Public education costs about $9,000/year per student.
• Only 1 in 5 charter schools are successful.
• SEED ( a successful charter school featured in the film) spends $35,000/year per student.
• 50% of the current teaching core is eligible for retirement over the next 10 years. By 2014, the U.S. Department of Education projects that our nation’s schools will need to hire as many as 1 million new teachers.

Changing the teaching profession

Hopefully it goes without saying that improving the educational system begins by improving the education. This begins by improving the teachers. Right now an alarming number of adults go into the profession because “it is a part time job where you get the summers off”. However, I don’t know of a single teacher who works less than 40 hours every week. In fact, many teachers don’t even have the summer off. During summer “vacation” teachers seek professional development, enhance their classrooms, or work a second job to pay the bills.

It seems that adding more value to this profession is a critical shift to improve the system. Top performing countries recruit teachers from the top third of college graduates. It’s no surprise that in these same countries, teaching is viewed as a prestigious and well-respected profession.

Improving teaching in the US must begin by:

1. adding more value and prestige to the teaching profession by talking about teaching, and teachers, in a different way.
2. better screening for teachers.
3. better support.
4. higher salaries.
5. better training.
6. reduce the appalling rates of child poverty

There are many really good reads about this documentary and our educational system. Here are a few:

Does Teaching Have a Branding Problem?, by Lesley Chilcott

Building a Better Teacher, by Elizabeth Green

The Myth of Charter Schools, by Diane Ravitch

Why aren’t our teachers the best and the brightest?, by Paul Kihn and Matt Miller

How to fix our schools: A manifesto, by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and other education leaders

Sidenote:

I can’t help but mention that this preview was sponsored by the US Chamber of Commerce. The movie was shown on Monday at 3pm, which obviously hinders most parents, teachers, or principals from attending. In attendance were many elected officials, including the city council and school board members, the superintendent and other DPS administrative staff, and businessmen and women. There was a lively conversation afterward that would have been better balanced had parents, teachers, and principals been in attendance.