cricketbat Waiting for Superman features a lot of interesting information, but I feel like this documentary spends too much time addressing what the problem is, and not enough time discussing why it's that way or how we can fix it. This movie is worth a watch, but it doesn't live up to the hype surrounding it.

guyadiangold This documentary was eye opening, and exposed the tragic circumstances of the underprivileged and their challenges to education. I too had my fingers crossed for the children in the lottery and cried at the end. I thought it was interesting that of all the kids featured, the one who has the most privilege got chosen. Then again, isn't that always the way! To me the doc proved that the "American Dream" is a racist dream created by those who have the most (rich and elites); and is intended for the "haves", not the "have nots".Though I am pro union, that teachers union gives unions a bad reputation and it is clear that their main interest is their members, whether or not they are good teachers. The inferior teachers' interest only seems to be in their cheque, so I suppose that means the teachers union's main interest is collecting their union dues and the power they lord over political parties. Sad and tragic!

Uriah43 This documentary starts off by suggesting that our education system is broken. It then spends over 90% of its time focusing on inner-city schools. Needless to say, this is not a true sample of our education system as there are other schools in the country besides just those in the inner city. That fact should raise a red flag that there might be more to this documentary than meets the eye. It then goes on to criticize the teachers' unions for making it difficult to fire bad teachers. In essence, it makes these unions the scapegoat for everything that is wrong with our education system. What it doesn't document are the numerous times these unions prevent abusive and politically motivated principals, superintendents and other administrators from riding roughshod over good teachers who honestly care about their students. Not a word to their credit. Begging the question: Why not? Neither does this documentary mention the complete failure of "No Child Left Behind" which in fact has increased our high school drop out rates rather than decreased them. No mention at all. Again, why not? What it does do, however, is present a young woman named Michelle Rhee as a dedicated reformer who comes into Washington D.C. with the expressed intent to fire those who aren't up to the task. She accomplishes this in no time. The problem with that is that her "broad brush" approach also meant that some of those she fired may not have been so bad after all. But her supporters avoid this by suggesting that, since test scores rose during her term of service, her tactics were therefore necessarily correct. What they neglect to say is that apparently there was a massive cheating scandal during her time and that these same test scores are now being called into question. So apparently these test scores don't necessarily validate her ruthless and high-profile approach. Further, there were other issues the Washington Post reported (on 2 Nov 2010) that never made it into this documentary either. Again, why not? Apparently they weren't pertinent to the overall agenda. Then there is the issue of charter schools. During one part of this documentary it admits that only 1 out of 5 charter schools produce "outstanding" results. Not surprisingly, it doesn't exactly define what "outstanding" means. Yet it then spends the rest of the film leading the charge for charter schools. It even shows mothers and children crying when they don't win the lottery to gain admittance to them. To me this was both dishonest and disgusting. First, it's disgusting to use children as pawns to advance an agenda. Second, it is dishonest to suggest that charter schools are the answer to the problem when it is readily admitted that only 20% are meeting expectations. It is also dishonest not to include problems many of these charter schools are having. Instead, everything focuses on certain test scores a small percentage of these charter schools achieve. What isn't stated is that charter schools are allowed to drop any student who doesn't meet their academic standards! So if they're not meeting the desired goal then they are thrown out with no damage being done to the charter school in question. In other words, they aren't being held to the same standard as public schools choosing instead to focus on a small percentage (20%) that apparently meet or exceed expectations. But this documentary conveniently leaves all of this out. Neither does the documentary mention the impact that sports has on our public school system. Here in Texas there are some schools that consider winning a football championship to be their number one priority. So they hire football coaches to teach subjects like history, economics and mathematics regardless of whether they are good teachers in that subject or not. Money that could be used to pay for books or teachers is secondary to a new stadium or the installation of artificial turf. Yet, according to this documentary, it is the teachers' union which is at fault for everything that is wrong with our educational system. How convenient. Another convenient issue was the comparison of our national scores versus those of Asia or Europe. Talk about an "apples to oranges" comparison. On the one hand you have the United States which is an ethnically diverse country that has a significant minority of students who have difficulty with English and/or struggle with poverty and high-crime environments. We are compared against homogeneous societies like Japan or South Korea who don't have these issues. Yet our system is considered "bad" even though only a very small percentage of students in Japan or South Korea are afforded the opportunity to go to college while there is no such problem in the United States. But this isn't mentioned in the documentary. In short, the fact is that this documentary only addresses specific concerns which people with a certain political agenda want addressed and deliberately neglects many facts to the contrary. Those who participated in this film should be ashamed.

Tss5078 Waiting For "Superman" is an inside look at the problems with education in America. The film is extremely eye-opening, showing just how bad a state most of our education systems are in. They clearly illustrate that no matter the area, teachers are failing America's youth at an alarming rate. I found the film to be very biased though, as it only points out what's wrong with the system, and fails to mention any of the positives that still exist in education. It also fails to offer solutions for the problems. Guggenheim throws lots of facts and figures at us and repeats the same themes. It gets to a point where he's just beating us over the head with the same concepts. Many people saw this as an inspirational call to action, but me, I saw it as a guy complaining. Honestly, if you can't offer up a solution than why present the problem? I'm pretty sure that almost everyone in America knows how bad education has gotten, even if they don't have the exact figures in front of them