Waiting For Superman Analysis

Tenure in school systems has been a highly controversial topic lately. Tenure refers to the job security of teachers after they have worked at a certain school for three years. When teachers earn tenure, it is very difficult to take away their jobs. This is especially true in higher education. According to the Washington Post, 32 states grant tenure after three years, nine states grant tenure after four or five years and four states never grant tenure at all. Granting tenure to all teachers gives everybody a job for life which should not be the case. Under-performing teachers should not have definite job security. America should remove academic tenure, replace it with a different system, and re-evaluate school teachers and professors.

The charter school’s lotteries serve as a gatekeeper to higher education. A functionalist would point out charter schools have developed a functional social system that unifies elected students as they are granted with appropriate standard education which will allow them to grow and contribute to the economy. Base on the film observation charter schools receive public funding and private which allows them to operate

Public education has had a negative effect on students; it’s often because of the bigger class sizes, poor test scores, and high crime in the surrounding areas. Public schools need to revise their system to determine what’s the best fit for their student’s educational needs. All children who live in a school district have a right to attend a district school. Many parents would like more options and opportunities for their child, and would like to be involved in their child’s education. Charter schools are part of the answer for a better educational choice for children’s academic achievement. Charter schools have many successful methods and continue to pave the way for children’s education needs .

Firefighters, Police officers, and soldiers are all of our heroes today, but the heroes that children are lacking in today’s society are teachers. In the documentary Waiting for Superman, it does a great job of showing many of the flaws in today’s education system. In Waiting for Superman, The music and audio features provide a humorous tone and also, at times, a more serious tone. Ethos is established throughout the Waiting for Superman documentary by having experienced teachers and presidents of well known educational companies give their thought on what needs to happen with the schooling system in the United States. The experts in this topic talked about how many of the public schools in the United States are considered to be dropout factories, which is where more than forty percent of the enrolled students drop out. This means more kids sitting on the street with no jobs or education. Furthermore, crime rates will go up, as well as the poverty level because the children can not get a well paying job. It is made known in Waiting for Superman, that the good schools are very expensive and only have limited spots available. To get into these schools, there are often raffles in which you enter for a chance to get in. This method is unfair because there is no guarantee you will get chosen, therefore you may end up getting a worse education than what you know you can receive.

In 2010, Davis Guggenheim released one of the years most talked about documentaries, Waiting for Superman. His film was an eye opening, to many, look at the failings of the U.S. school system. The film follows five students across the U.S., who range in grade level from kindergarten to eighth grade, as they try and escape the public school system through a lottery for a chance admission to a charter school. Guggenheim lays the blame for the failing public education system at the feet of the various teachers unions, and makes a plea for the public in general to get involved in reforming the system. By analyzing Waiting for Superman through a sociological perspective, issues of inequality will be explained using the theoretical approach

The first day of school is a rite of passage for most children. The step from home or day care to school is huge: they are a big kid now. However, sometimes the local Public School, especially in rural or economically challenged areas, can be an uncertain, questionable and scary place, and yet parents are expected to entrust them with their five or six year old child. Some years ago, when my daughter was ready to enter school, she and I had just such an experience, and we began to seriously search for an alternative school for her to attend. What we discovered was a Charter School: a possible solution for parents, enabling them to take more control of their child’s education. For my daughter and

At the foundation of the American public school system is the belief that every child deserves a quality education. To this end, the public school system in America has undergone many reforms. One of which has been charter schools. Charter schools are independent public schools of choice working under the auspices of a charter and not governed by the board of education. The charter can be written by parents, teachers, school administrators, community leaders, educational businesses, etc. It determines the school’s guiding principles, management and accountability systems. The state approves the charter and provides funding for the school. Families choose these schools for their children. (“Resistance Hinders Success,” 2004)

Mr. Geoffrey Canada and other individual’s that are playing a key role in the reformation of America’s educational system are also used in the documentary. He highlight’s there programs that appear to be now setting the idea that the learning gap can’t be closed on fire. He once again pulls on viewers heartstrings by showing the children that attend these public charter schools succeeding and having fun in school. He fails to show the struggles that they must go through every day,

All of the facts point to one prevailing conclusion; America’s school system is failing. No film makes this clearer than “Waiting for Superman,” directed by Davis Guggenheim. In the film, Guggenheim does not hold back in his onslaught of surprising, yet true, facts. Guggenheim points out that Americans are failing compared to the world in major areas of study, such as math and science. However, there is one place American children lead the world; Confidence. Guggenheim says that there is a simple way to fix this prevalent problem, especially for urban youth. The solution, he says, are charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately owned schools that do not have to follow curriculum guidelines like

Waiting for "Superman" was filmed by Davis Guggenheim. It was released back in 2009. It talks about the education system in different neighborhoods around the United States of America. It also shows the corruption in the education system. This movie shows how the bad the public education is, and how many people are struggling on a daily basis to get a great education no matter the sacrifices.

Charter schools are type of public schools that serve all students with free tuitions. Most charter schools are created, operated, and held accountable by parents, organizations, authorizers, or community groups. Although charter schools across states have good and positive impacts on improved student achievement, some parents do not want charter schools are built or expanded because they fear the schools would divide the population. However, there are many reasons and researches show that charter schools serve students and do a better job increasing student achievement than traditional public schools. According to a movie call The Lottery, The Harlem Success Academy, a charter school, is more effective than surrounding zone

Teacher’s tenure is a term which stand for a job protection that all public school teachers in all states receive after 1-7 years on the job. Well for me this isn’t fair because I have been on the receiving end of the bad consequences this law may have. Last year I was a foreign exchange student at a high school in Moreno Valley and I had good grades. In economics I had this teacher which seemed to be nice. During the semester I had heard her speaking about the teachers tenure and since I am from Europe I didn’t know what it was about and honestly I wasn’t interested because I though in no way that would affect me. Well I was wrong and it really did affect me.

America is dependent on teachers; good, well educated teachers who dispense their knowledge onto their students without prejudice. History has shown us that teachers have had to go to great lengths to gain equal rights in the work place. Teachers used to have to follow strict and sometimes outrageous rules to keep their job. A female teacher could be fired from her job by getting pregnant or even by just wearing jeans to work or staying out too late. Teacher tenure was introduced in the early 1900s and protected teachers from being fired without due reason. Although the majority of teachers do great work in teaching their students in effective ways teacher tenure bring a sour taste to some of Americas tongues. Teacher tenure is an important part of Americas educational system, but it is in need of some changes which will help ineffective teachers become better educators and award teachers who do well in teaching their students.

After watching, ‘Waiting on Superman’ I thought differently about the public school system. I knew that the system was broken and that it wasn’t working, but I didn’t completely understand the damage it was causing. I learned so much about the broken system after watching this film to the point it disturbed me. The depiction of public schools compared to my school experience was not the same. I went to a ‘STEM Magnet’ elementary school that prepared me for STEM job fields. However thinking back on it now, a lot of kids around me in school were from low income families, many had family problems and lived in a negative neighborhood. I also noticed that my elementary school had ‘good’ teachers, ones that went out of their way to help us thrive.

Some argue that tenure allows bad teachers to stay in the classroom. Teachers that are just there to put in their time and don't really care about the students themselves. They feel that granting teachers tenure encourages them to become complacent about their jobs. “Tenures are something that can be beneficial to students, as well. By providing job security, teachers can concentrate on teaching, instead of worrying about overly obsessed parents coming after them. Take for instance, a parent getting a coach fired because they did not give their son or daughter enough play time on the court. There is the classic scenario of parents that will look for a teacher's flaws in teaching before they look for flaws in their child as a student.”(Sharifi)