SCENES AND DREAMS FROM THE FAILURE FACTORY: a review of "Waiting For 'Superman'"

"WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN'"
Written by Billy Kimball and Davis Guggenheim
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
**** (four stars)

I wonder if children really think about the schools they are attending.

I am the product of a private school education. I was born and raised on the southwest side of Chicago. Between the years of 1977-1987, I attended the University Of Chicago Laboratory Schools, a private school located in the heart of the University Of Chicago campus in beautiful Hyde Park. The interesting element of this factor in my upbringing is that both of my parents (now retired) were employed in the Chicago public school system for over 30 years. My Mother was a high school Science teacher and my Father was, in succession, a high school Assistant Principal, an elementary school Principal, the principal of the Whitney Young Magnet School and finally, a stint as a cog in the massive wheel of the public school system.

As a child and as a teenager, it never really occurred to me that it may have been perceived as odd that I was attending a private school while my parents worked in public schools. In my mind at that time, I was just a kid going to school, trying to be a good student, and mainly becoming an average one. I was, at times, feverishly trying to live up to my parents’ unshakably demanding and very high expectations for my academic excellence and ultimately felt stressed when I didn’t do so. Also, and crucially, I was just enormously glad that I was not attending any school in which my parent’s were employed.

It wasn’t until my early 30s when I finally asked my Mother exactly what were the reasons they enrolled me in private school when they both worked in public schools. And to this question was her answer…

“First of all, since we both had to work so much, we needed you to be in a place that offered after school care. In addition, we needed you to be in a place that was safe.” OK. That sounds reasonable. Nothing ground shaking, by any means. But, here is the remainder of her explanation. “Most importantly, we wanted you to have the exposure, opportunities, and level of education that we knew you would not get if you were in the public schools. We wanted you to have the best and the public schools could not give that to you.” Wow!! So, that was the reason I attended the Lab School from third grade through high school. I never once questioned it or ever pondered why that school and that environment played such a crucial role in my formative years, especially as I did not even live in the neighborhood of the college campus.

That explanation really placed everything about my life into a newfound perspective, which I pondered frequently as I watched Director Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting For ‘Superman’,” the absolutely wrenching new documentary examining the declining state of our nation’s public schools and the ineffective educational system as a whole. Guggenheim, who previously helmed Al Gore’s impassioned environmental plea “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), brings the same heated fervor to this treatise making for a film experience that reaches beyond essential viewing. “Waiting For ‘Superman’” is required viewing for anyone who cares at all about our nation’s children.

As the film opens, Guggenheim presents the audience with a few moments from his debut documentary “The First Year” (1999), which details a year in the lives of a collective of new teachers. As he explains to the audience in a voiceover, within the ten years that have elapsed between that film and the present, he has since become a parent. Yet what seemed to be most surprising to him was the discovery that the ideals he thought he possessed have changed. When it was time for him to go looking for a school for his children, he eventually decided upon enrolling them in a private school as the public schools in his area were painfully lacking in the educational value he desired for his children. Upon the declaration of that statement, I could not help but to wonder if perhaps my parents would share a certain affinity with Guggenheim.

However, as he firmly acknowledges, Guggenheim, like my own parents, had a choice in regards to the education of their respective children. “Waiting For 'Superman'” focuses on those who do not have that particular choice at their disposal. Dear readers, I am, here to inform you that this film is by no means a dirge like affair. It is not a dry, self-important, and somnambulant talking head documentary. Like Michael Moore’s extraordinary “Capitalism: A Love Story” (2009), Guggenheim presents his film with a strong, propulsive and artistic cinematic hand which gives the film an immediately involving atmosphere that elicits tremendous passion and allows the film to unfold with inherent, blistering drama.

“Waiting For ‘Superman’” takes all of the head spinning statistics of a labyrinthine system and makes them all tangible by inter-weaving the personal stories and missions of five children and their families, mostly from economically damaged communities (one child is from a wealthy suburb), and several educational advocates who champion a better educational world into a deeply resonant tapestry. Guggenheim shows us the daily struggles of these families as they all desire nothing less than the best opportunities for their children and are constantly faced with the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their paths. From the relationships of neighborhoods to busing and school zones to the fear of having their children placed into historically ineffective schools with exceedingly high drop-out rates dubbed “failure factories,” the simple right of allowing children access to high quality education feels unachievable.

As Guggenheim extends his reach beyond these children and their families to the governing educational system at large, we are witness to a world where education and the rights of all children to obtain the best education possible is inhibited rather than encouraged. To assist with the proper digestion of information, Guggenheim presents his facts and figures methodically, meticulously yet, always easily explained so to as not alienate but rather to fully engage audiences.

We see how Teacher’s Unions can prove to be a hindrance to the system as a whole, as bad teachers are nearly impossible to fire due to tenure. We see snippets of speeches from various Presidents, extolling the virtues of creating and maintaining a high quality educational system being of service to our nation’s children. Yet, over and again, we are shown how that very system and all of its programs, like “No Child Left Behind,” have all continued to fail as it is ultimately a system built to serve the goals and desires of adults and not the needs and virtues of our young. “Childrens do learn,” states former President George W. Bush in one speech snippet. While this brief moment does garner a laugh fueled by jarring disbelief, it is presented less as a leftist-jab but decidedly more as an exclamation point over a system that continues to fall behind in comparison to other countries.

The film’s most excruciating sequences arrive late in the film as we are presented with a lottery system that will arbitrarily determine whether the film’s featured children will or will not be placed into higher quality charter schools (publicly funded schools that operate and function outside of the public schools' rules and regulations), making their collective fates a heartbreakingly cruel luck of the draw.

And yet, at the point when you want to throw up your hands in depressed resignation, Guggenheim showers us with signs of life and hope through those aforementioned advocates, who are nothing less than inspiring. The film’s shining light and highly involving featured interview subject is Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Harlem, New York. Canada may even be familiar to some of you through a television commercial where he explains his vision of following and ensuring that the children of his neighborhood within a 97-block location will indeed graduate from college. Throughout “Waiting For ‘Superman’,” Canada is a compellingly loquacious, informative and entertaining figure who is tirelessly attempting to prove that even (or especially) within poverty-stricken neighborhoods, the greatest education can emerge. He places validity and relevance to a sector of society politicians and our nation’s leaders have long forgotten and proves himself to be exactly what an “advocate” is defined as: “supporter,” “promoter,” “activist,” and “believer.”

Some of the film’s critics may complain or assert that while Guggenheim creates a powerful film, it may be falsely manipulative by possibly placing too large of a halo over the mantle of charter schools. Also, there is his decision to select and focus upon the featured children, all of whom are attractive, articulate, affable children who outwardly present the desire to learn instead of placing the spotlight over “tougher” cases. I am thinking in particular of a lovely little girl named Daisy, a child so determined to become a veterinarian when she grows up that she has already written letters to college university detailing her dreams. Granted, not every child is like Daisy, no matter where they come from. Truth be told, I am still attempting to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. But, regardless of Daisy's persistently clear-eyed vision for herself, her story, as well as the other children’s stories, speak for every child in this country. Guggenheim is able to passionately state that these children stand for all children. They are the statistics with faces, hearts, hopes, and aspirations and how dare we, as a society, do anything to place a halt to their futures.

With "Waiting For 'Superman'," Guggenheim has designed a film which leads to a sense of moral outrage. It is as if Guggenheim is asking all of us the following question: If we do not, and decided to not fight for our nation’s children, then what does that say abut us as a society, a country and members of a symbiotic global community? “Waiting For ‘Superman’” is a disheartening, overwhelming, and often frustrating film where the odds placed against effectively serving our children seems impossible. This film is a righteous call to arms and a lament of furious outrage hopefully pitched loudly enough for all of the powers that be to hear and hopefully influence the beginnings of real change for our children.

Three years ago, I attended my 20th high school reunion. After graduating from high school in 1987, I rarely set foot in Hyde Park, decidedly moving onwards with my life, without planning to ever look backwards. But, as I returned to my proverbial stomping grounds, I felt my synapses popping and snapping with memories triggered by familiar surroundings that were once so treasured to me. By the time I returned to my school and reunited with a large amount of my classmates, the weekend proved to be a surprisingly emotional one for me as I then realized how my experience was an entirely shared experience. It was what it was because of the people who were there with me.

We toured the school, I saw my shockingly small Lower School classrooms. The Middle School hallways, home to many painful pre-teen dramas and embarrassments was mostly unchanged. Yet, once I returned to my high school hallways and saw the new crop of students in action, everything crystallized in my brain. I watched teenage musicians performing an outdoor concert for the student body. I spoke extensively with a teenaged photographer, as he proudly showed me his latest projects while also detailing his wishes for the future. I saw gargoyle styled artwork, echoing the gothic statues across the campus, lining one of the hallways. I had the opportunity to speak with former teachers and thank them for the times they happened to take special notice of me and offer a helping hand. I even saw the retirement speech of a favorite English teacher. And mostly, I just saw kids having the freedom to just be kids, in a similar way to my own teen years.

Certainly, I did not have my rose-colored glasses placed upon my face as that is not my nature. But, I do have to say, as I walked around that environment and saw what these kids were able to do, to study and to simply be. I wanted to grab and shake each and every one of them and ask of them, “Do you realize just how great you’ve got it?! Do you even know how lucky you are?!” I know exactly how lucky they are because I was that lucky, fortunate and blessed to have had an educational background that, at its best, supported me, comforted me, enhanced me and exposed me to the very things I would have never seen otherwise.

And all of my experiences should be made available to all children of this nation, regardless of their background and the communities in which they live. My good fortune should be within the grasp of all children across our country as EVERY child deserves a superlative education. It is their right and it is consistently being denied. “Waiting For ‘Superman’” brilliantly illuminates a broken system while also waving the flag in honor of children and those who fight for their futures.

I urge you to go out and see this film and think about the education you received when you were younger. Don't our children of today deserve the same or even better?

"Waiting For 'Superman'" is one of 2010's strongest achievements.