Waiting for Superman

Karp: “Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What Can We Do about It?”

Fine:  “From the Cutting Room Floor”

Let’s see if I got this…

BAD TEACHER + TEACHERS’ UNION = PROBLEM OF PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM

CHARTER SCHOOLS + TEST-BASED ACCOUNTABILITY = SOLUTION TO PROBLEM

How did I do with the equations?  Are they correct?  After all, I received a public school education!

      In “Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What Can We Do about It,” Stan Karp refutes the claims in the documentary film, “Waiting for Superman.”  Offering a broad-brush indictment of the American public education system and teachers’ union, the film prompts reform through the privatization of education through the establishment of charter schools, and merit-based pay for teachers centered on standardized test scores.  Yet in the eyes of Karp, “Waiting for Superman” oversimplifies the problems facing US students, and counters a ‘silver-bullet’ fix for struggling public schools.

      According to Karp, “the short answer…is that far too many people are bashing teachers and public schools, and we need to give them more homework because very few of them know what they’re talking about.  And a few need some serious detention.”  Is Karp implying that Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerburg or Bill Gates need a detention?  They are supportive of the film, “Waiting for Superman,” and are the “billionaire[s] with no education experience…who has made privatizing education policy a hobby…and who has the resources to do so because the country’s financial and tax systems are broken.”  So, is it philanthropy or monopoly?

     

      Reform is necessary; our “society…has its priorities upside down.”  Nevertheless, the documentary faults bad teachers and their unions as the failure of our public education system, and charter schools are the viable alternative.  However, the following article argues that charter schools “do no better than public schools” in serving lower-income students, especially in urban areas: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0629/Study-On-average-charter-schools-do-no-better-than-public-schools.

   Bill Gates shakes hands with Nelson Smith, President and CEO of National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, at National Charter Schools Conference in Chicago Tuesday, the same day that a government study found that charter schools do no better than public schools in student outcomes.

Additionally, in Fine’s “From the Cutting Room Floor, the aforementioned is further qualified and quantified.  With overtly snarky comments, Fine assumes the role of Lois Lane, a reporter at the Daily Planet, who pieces together clips from “Waiting for Superman” that were left on the editing room floor.  Reporting the distorted empirical evidence on the impact of charter schools, Lane asserts:

The best national data, published in the CREDO study by Stanford University researchers, suggest that 17% of charters outperform neighboring schools, and the New York City data are somewhat better than national averages.  National and small local studies consistently document that charters tend to be more segregated than neighboring schools, exacerbate local patterns of segregation, under-enroll English language learners and special education students and have high attrition or charter leakage/push-out rates…It seems clear that charters alone—enrolling 3% of all students—can’t save public education.”
So, charter schools are not the ‘silver-bullet’ solutions to our education system.  Now what?  Looks like we are still waiting for Superman.