Waiting for Superman Movie Review
Being an education major, I try to stay up-to-date with all of the education news and the like. So, when a movie on various children in the United States and the educational system came out, I was extremely excited to see it. Last week (February 15th), a movie called Waiting for Superman came out. The documentary follows several children from various parts of the country and their struggles to attend to a good school. You see, all of the children are set to attend an under-performing school if they don’t get into a charter school. A charter school receives federal funding, yet it has different standards and rules. There are lotteries at each of these charter schools to decide which students get to attend them. Each of the children in the movie are in these low percentage likelihood draws. Some of the children get into their charter school. Some do not.
I thought this was a very interesting movie. I felt for every single student on the movie. However, I’m still undecided how I feel about charter schools. I mean they have longer days/weeks than the average school and they tend to run things differently. Granted, they are getting high test scores from children at these schools. However, they are getting federal funding for the schools and not every child can attend them because only so many are allowed in.
I think this movie does a great job of highlighting some of the issues of the educational system in the United States. It does feel like we are waiting for Superman to save the schools and the children. However, the movie does give you hope that things will change for the better some day.
So, my fine readers… what do you think about these charter schools? Did your or do your children attend a public, charter, or private school? I attended a public school myself and I have felt prepared for college. However, I know that not everyone is so lucky.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of Waiting for Superman for review purposes. No compensation was received. The opinions expressed are my own.
This sounds like a tear-jerker! I bet I would love it.
I actually attended public school fr most of my life and a private school for 2 years in elementary school. My oldest child is homeschooled and my middle one attends public school. Why? The public school in my area is just not equipped for my son. He is in the Autism Spectrum and has an IQ of 137. They can’t handle him. We are going to try again with him for middle school.
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As one with a BS in Education who has taught in public, private, parochial and homeschool settings, I firmly believe public education is one of the worst things in our country right now. A large part of this is due to the parents and their lack of support for the school, its rules and the teachers. The reason charter schools, homeschooling and many private/parochial schools work is that rules are enforced and families are required to be involved.
If you are going to have a child you need to be responsible for raising that child and educating them. I am not saying everyone should homeschool but if your plan is to throw your child to an institution and expect them to learn without parental involvement…you get what we have today.
Education is the parent’s responsibility and in the US we have many options-parents must know how their children learn and make sure they are taught in the way they learn best…and that is not with a cookie-cutter.
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I really want to see this.
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I have been waiting to see this movie. I have got to go to Redbox and get it.
We have two school age boys and two boys in preschool and well as a toddler.
For our two school age boys we applied for both of them to go to a local Science/collage preparatory charter school after years in the traditional public school setting. Our oldest boy was chosen while our younger boy was not. That was hard.
Our oldest did 5th grade and then the first eight weeks of 6th grade at this school. There was a combinations of reasons with the biggest reason being our inability to keep up. 5th grade was really easy for my son but in 6th grade they really kicked it up. He was taking Russian, plus seven other classes. In the first eight weeks he wrote a thesis paper and developed an analytical spreadsheet to compare Olympic history stats. It was all over his head. I ended up doing more of his work because he was so lost. He was at school until 4:00pm each day, then 2-3 days of additional tutoring and then homework until 10:00pm. Our home was suffering overall, this all took a toll on everyone in our house.
He is now back in traditional public school which I do not feel challenges him enough… there seems to be a need for meeting in the middle.
One thing I really liked about the charter school is they did not teach the standarized test (TAKS here in Texas) all year long like they do in public school yet still the students passed. I get really tired of all the stress the standardized state testing does to these kids.
I attended a public school and received a good education. I was fortunate to be raised in a small community that took great pride in providing a well-rounded quality education.
My oldest is the only one in school right now, and he’s only in preschool. It is a public school, however. At this point, I’m happy with the education and resources he’s being provided. If that ever changes, I wouldn’t hesitate to look into a a charter or private education for all of my children.
i think i am in the majority in agreeing that public school is not for everyone. Education these days should be child centered and alas, gov’t funding often prohibits this. i would love to have the oppportunity to open my own school or homeschool my own children, however, they do not WANT to be home with me (they’re very independent i dont know where they get that, chuckle chuckle).
i’ve got to go see this!
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I attended public school as does my 6 year old but sometimes I wish I had homeschooled.
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I always attended public school. In Canada we have both public school and Catholic schools. They had private schools but only in the larger cities. I’ve never heard of charter schools though. I don’t think we have those.
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This sounds like another interesting book. I attended public school, but homeschool my children.
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My daughter attends public school. We have charter schools here, but none that she would be interested in, nor would she make the grade for. We were thrilled with her elementary school, but her middle school leaves a lot to be desired. I believe a school’s atmosphere has a lot to do with the principal as his/her attitude trickles down to the teachers and students.
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Up until I graduated from high school, I attended only non-charter public schools, save for one year of homeschooling. (I’m now attending a private university, which luckily I was quite well prepared for.) While I was young, though, my mother started teaching at a charter school, which my younger brother and sister attended, and where she continues teaching today. Like Lindsay here, my own thoughts on charter schools are pretty mixed and inconclusive.
Largely, however, I felt that any sort of solid message that Waiting for Superman could have made about charter schools or other issues was obscured by numerous faults, inaccuracies, misrepresentations and hyperbole in the film. If you’d like to see the problems I noticed, please follow the link below. (There definitely isn’t room for all of them here.)
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