The movie documentary “Waiting for Superman” is now available on DVD. For those who aren’t familiar with the movie, the following is a synopsis from MovieReview.com: “From “An Inconvenient Truth” director Davis Guggenheim comes “Waiting for ‘Superman’”, a provocative and cogent examination of the crisis of public education in the United States told through multiple interlocking stories–from a handful of students and their families whose futures hang in the balance, to the educators and reformers trying to find real and lasting solutions within a dysfunctional system. Tackling such politically radioactive topics as the power of teachers’ unions and the entrenchment of school bureaucracies, Guggenheim reveals the invisible forces that have held true education reform back for decades.”
In a review of the movie, Time Magazine suggested “Americans also can’t afford the fantasy that we have the world’s best educational system. The U.S. is near the bottom of advanced countries in math and reading scores. We may not pass sleepless nights worrying about Finland, but that country’s kids get a world-class public-school education, and ours don’t. Our problems are bigger and more systemic: that, in the world’s richest nation, a seventh of our citizens live in poverty; that the majority of African Americans form a near perpetual underclass; that the nuclear family has detonated into pieces, leaving many children with only one parent, if that, to love, instruct and keep an eye on them; that the culture of instant gratification convinces kids that studying is a bore, while the infinitesimal chance of making millions as a pro athlete or a rap star is worth pursuing. Surely the young deserve full-time parents, more realistic goals and inspiring teachers. But maybe that too is a fantasy. ‘Waiting for Superman’, Davis Guggenheim’s edifying and heartbreaking new documentary, says that our future depends on good teachers — and that the coddling of bad teachers by their powerful unions virtually ensures mediocrity, at best, in both teachers and the students in their care.”
Another review written by Rotten Tomatoes.com states “Every morning, in big cities, suburbs and small towns across America, parents send their children off to school with the highest of hopes. But a shocking number of students in the United States attend schools where they have virtually no chance of learning–failure factories likelier to produce drop-outs than college graduates. And despite decades of well-intended reforms and huge sums of money spent on the problem, our public schools haven’t improved markedly since the 1970s. Why? There is an answer. And it’s not what you think.”
I beg to differ. While I strongly agree with Mr. Guggenheim’s assertion that our future depends on good teachers — and that the coddling of bad teachers by their powerful unions virtually ensures mediocrity, at best, in both teachers and the students in their care, that is not the root of the problem. Prayer was taken out of school in 1963 by the ACLU. Could there be any correlation between that decision and the fact that “despite decades of well-intended reforms and huge sums of money spent on the problem, our public schools haven’t improved markedly since the 1970s”? Could it also be that the reason “the nuclear family has detonated into pieces, leaving many children with only one parent; that the culture of instant gratification convinces kids that studying is a bore, while the infinitesimal chance of making millions as a pro athlete or a rap star is worth pursuing” is because we no longer have a spiritual compass and are no longer grounded in absolute truth?
We are “Waiting for Superman” to fix a failed educational system, but the true Super Man . . . the Son of Man . . . the only Hope for mankind, Jesus Christ, was shunned by the very system for which people are now looking for a Savior. Therein lies the crux of the problem and until we acknowledge and welcome Him back into our schools . . . and our country, the remedies of men, no matter how well thought-out or brilliant, may succeed for a season, but they will not endure.
–Cheri Henderson
