Waiting for Superman: Education Never Sleeps!?

I spent my first ever back-to-back double feature movie night on Friday to catch the U.S. NYC premier of one movie and the worldwide rollout day of the other:  Two seemingly contradictory films - one a shockumentary on the state of the U.S. education system and the other a fictional portrayal which roughly depicted the 2008 financial crisis, even with the Madoff lipstick building as an initial backdrop in the movie…

“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” was simply OKAY.  In hindsight, I almost put it in my wait-to-see-it-on-demand-TV category. Leaving the theatre, I heard a perfect comment about the movie: “The trailer was vastly better than the movie.”  A few redeeming qualities of the movie:  some focus on love before business, investments in alternative energy (fusion) and putting money to use for social good – ahem, let’s say $100 mln from Switzerland?  And love love love Gordon Gekko’s motto in the movie, albeit likely an insincere sentiment:  “Our prime asset is not money but time.”  

In contrast, “Waiting for Superman” by Davis Guggenheim, the filmmaker who also created the megahit, “An Inconvenient Truth,” is absolutely incredible. The movie kept me on the edge of my seat in a way that I expected Wall Street II to but it did not, with intermittent tears, ending with the spell-binding theme song from John Legend’s new album Wake Up!  In their new album, Legend and The Roots primarily cover 1960s and 1970s soul music songs for the album with social themes of awareness, engagement, and consciousness.  

The room of “Waiting” moviegoers and in this case on the NYC city premier night, likely a list of Who’s Who in education, politics, socially-conscious citizens and parents. I felt like I was at a NYC Board of Education public meeting – do those exist?  The multiple previews of children’s movies made me realize that the movie target audience likely included plethoras of parents!  By pure chance, I sat in the seat right behind NY State Democratic Senator Eric Schneiderman who is currently running for NY State Attorney General who was just mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article yesterday for pushing his social agenda and promising Reverand Al Sharpton’s organization [the National Action Network] an “annex in Albany for the first time in the history of the state.”

Education has played an vital role in my life. Let me rephrase: An amazing education brought me to where I am now.  I am so grateful and lucky for it. But did I simply by luck get the right side of the coin? I attended a free academic public magnet school, the International Baccalaureate program in St. Petersburg, Florida which a similar program tuition in Belgium costs EUR 20,000 to 30,000 per year; attended a private university with 50% scholarship and thereafter graduate school at a 400 year old public university in Europe.

So naturally, this is my educational backdrop for my highest of desires to see Waiting for Superman and more importantly somehow be involved in “sharing the wealth” of opportunity afforded by affordable, accessible education for all.

Last week the Oprah Show had filmmaker Davis Guggenheim and Bill Gates as guests. Oprah delivered the word that she was winding down her Oprah’s Angel Network which has raised $80 million plus for charity. The final $6 million was given away to the leaders of amazing Charter Schools from across the U.S.

Not having any idea of even the basic concept of the Charter School, this created my impetus to immediately go to Fandango.com to pre-buy my Waiting for Superman movie ticket! When Oprah says, especially in her ever more poignant final season shows we listen and know our world can/should change for the better!

My key takeaways from “Waiting for Superman”: (close your eyes if you haven’t seen the movie!)

+ The U.S. public education system is outdated, such as with “tracking” in schools which separated advanced students from other tracks including remedial.  This model fit the former un-globalized world whereby students in different tracks went on to work in the workforce which had many minimum wage jobs and manufacturing jobs. The top advanced students would go on to become CEOs + key scientists + doctors + partners in law firms. The next 20% were in professional jobs. So not everyone needed a college education to survive! Nowadays, to complete globally, everyone should consider a college education even to compete for jobs in other countries!

+ Once upon a time, the U.S. public school system was a model of success.  There were even many TV shows depicting schools. In the 1970s+80s, magnet schools (science, art and academic ones) were a key model primed for societal success, initially created as one way to remedy racial segregration in public schools.  Charter schools became more popular in the 1990s and are “primary or secondary schools that receive public money (and like other schools, may also receive private donations) but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results.”  The charter school model is not available for every parent who wants their child to go, so attendance is largely based on a lottery program which by the flick of a lotto ball, a child’s life’s future trajectory is immediately rendered. “Waiting for Superman,” Bill Gates, Geoffrey Canada Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone and Oprah Winfrey all seem to believe that we need to tweak the Charter School Model and replicate its success to ascertain and reclaim America’s future.

 + Key innovative school success stories we need to all know about:  SEED School of Washington D.C. which is the first free urban prep/boarding school, KIPP Schools (99 of them so far in the U.S.) and Summit Preparatory Charter High School (which does not allow tracking and allows each child in the school the same education and is in the top 1% of US schools).

+ Teachers Unions/Federation which work differently on federal and state levels, one which is in bed with one key American political party and the other with the other key party, are often protecting the adults and not the children. The tenure process keeps more than its share of mediocre teachers in jobs with lifetime security. Meanwhile you have so many amazing talent in the U.S. who cannot find jobs even as teachers!

+ Michelle Rhee who is gangbuster no-nonsense fabulous Chancellor of Washington, D.C. school system which is ironically the worst performing public school system in the country had just 3 years of teaching experience (Teach for America) before taking over the job and even fired her own child’s Principal for bad performance. Prior to her there were 7 Chancellors over a 7 year period of time. And now she has the support of Bill Gates and Oprah. Why is Chancellor Rhee not scared to make a difference? She does not plan to become Chancellor again in the future, so is not afraid to step on school system politics and bureacratic toes during her term. Hmmm – Michelle Rhee for future Secretary of Education!?

Key faces we need to keep in mind when we donate our time and former Wall Street money:

Anthony, Daisy, Emily, Francisco and Bianca who are the real stars of “Waiting for Superman” and whose innocent but expressive faces/personalities will be in your mind for a long time to come if you see the this moving movie!

None of our children should have less than great teachers! No more sleeping teachers (literally!) who cannot lose their jobs , like the one videotaped and shown in Waiting for Superman.  Education Never Sleeps!  “Betalt arbete går långsamt.” – Swedish Proverb (Prepaid work is slow.)

*** This one’s for the children!  This GLOBALFJORD blogpost is dedicated to the children of the world. May each one have the educational opportunity to pursue any of their dreams!

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