SCARBOROUGH: The nation's capital. SCARBOROUGH: You guys were great. NAKIA: The public schools in my neighborhood don't add up to what I want from her. What are your thoughts? WEINGARTEN: I think look, again, we had a moment in time where we actually got to an agreement. WebThe documentary Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim, is a film that shows how school systems are today. If I want something for her and I cant get it from there, I'm going to find an alternative. KENNY: We catch them up to basic level and we accelerate them to proficient. SCARBOROUGH: Why are you going to get fired? When you hear, well, I get paid whether or not you learn or not, it sticks with you. We need to do a lot more of what Debbie Kenny is doing in that school but we need to do whats going on in lots and lots and lots of public schools because at the end of the day, every single teacher I know wants to make a difference in the lives of kids. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime and drug-infested neighborhoods. /Type /Page You cannot say -- you can't say, well, the problem with charter schools is they only serve some of the kids when in fact you are advocating for caps on those effective charter schools. You believe it, don't you, Michelle? "[10] Joe Morgenstern, writing for The Wall Street Journal, gave the film a positive review writing, "when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity," the film "makes an invaluable addition to the debate. CANADA: Well you know what? That's what our union has been trying to do for the last two years. Now it's happening in Houston. Yes, first or second grade skills. RHEE: I'm just wondering, if the AFT was putting a million dollars into mayoral campaigns all across the country just based on who the teachers liked, I would buy that argument. It took a little while to get the money straightened for this green light and 80 percent of the teachers voted for that agreement. [37] It criticizes some public figures featured in Waiting for "Superman", proposes different policies to improve education in the United States and counters the position taken by Guggenheim. WEINGARTEN: Look, we have schools in New York, like the school that Steve Barr and I run, which has a union contract, we're 100 percent of the kids path the math regions. So we've got to open up this issue of innovation and we've got to make sure that in those places we allow real educators to come in and redesign this thing so it works. He's a Grammy award winning songwriter. END VIDEO CLIP BRZEZINSKI: All right. The union leaderships could take this on as a platform and say this is something we're going to commit to and give our membership behind this so we can show progress in taking on these issues. The film illustrates the problem of how American public schools are failing children, as it explicitly describes many public schools as drop-out factories, in which over 40% of students do not graduate on time. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you think that most of the kids in D.C. are getting a crappy education right now? ANTHONY: I stayed back one grade. It's about places that have failed for 30, 40, 50 years, we can't do the same thing this year that we did last year. /Properties << Come on out. /Rotate 0 /T1_0 24 0 R /GS1 17 0 R WebFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. BRZEZINSKI: Its worked for you and for hundreds of kids in Harlem. /Length 866 4 0 obj [1], The film has earned both praise and negative criticism from commentators, reformers, and educators. << RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRES., AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS: Sure. Where you tried to focus on good teachers in Washington. I just think -- SCARBOROUGH: Do you really think he wants to the right thing? WEINGARTEN: Let me get to both of these issues, let me see if I can conflate them. How do you get past that? We should let Randi respond. There's a complete and utter lack of accountability for the job that we're supposed to be doing, which is producing results for kids. /Font << WEINGARTEN: Michelle and I may disagree on the particulars of this, but there are about 50 or 60 districts that are using the proposal that we made and ultimately we think if we do that, if we fix teacher evaluations so it's about teacher development and evaluation, we can fix this problem. And it started to haunt me, the idea that kids in my own neighborhood, and I live in a pretty good neighborhood, aren't getting what my kids have. And systems that actually help create continuous improvement. Ravitch says that a study by Stanford University economist Margaret Raymond of 5000 charter schools found that only 17% are superior in math test performance to a matched public school, and many perform badly, casting doubt on the film's claim that privately managed charter schools are the solution to bad public schools. Explain to me how that is good for children. And Im not going to pretend that you can just come in and snap your fingers and things are going to get better overnight. /Resources << RHEE: What I think it comes down to, people underestimate we did from the school system side everything we need to do. /ArtBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] Take a look. I think he actually wants to do the right thing. BRZEZINSKI: Ill tell you right now, Randi, I want to know after the break why we can't use pay to inspire teachers. And at the same time, have some due process so that we guard against our arbitrariness. BRZEZINSKI: Please help us welcome founder and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, Geoffrey Canada, Washington D.C.'s school's chancellor, Michelle Rhee, American Federation of Teacher's president Randi Weingarten and filmmaker Davis Guggenheim. SCARBOROUGH: Last in, first out. SCARBOROUGH: As far as -- well -- LEGEND: Why is there a cap? [4][5][6] On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 90% based on reviews from 118 critics. Statistical comparisons are made between the different types of primary or secondary educational institutions available: state school, private school, and charter school. WEINGARTEN: A collaboration issue was where we disagreed at times. >> NAKIA: She felt it wasn't fair that other children were being picked and she was just as smart as they were and why not her. (d acJ4@%Q8C/! >> There is a perception out there that is the union that is standing in the way of principals firing bad teachers. Having made a film on the subject in 1999, documentary filmmaker. [30] In Ayers' view, the "corporate powerhouses and the ideological opponents of all things public" have employed the film to "break the teacher's unions and to privatize education," while driving teachers' wages even lower and running "schools like little corporations. In fact you come off quite badly. SCARBOROUGH: Were back with our panel, Michelle, one of the stunning parts of many stunning parts in this documentary, in this film, was when Davis showed the proficiency numbers state by state. Walk in and I still want every kid to win. It's happening in Los Angeles. /Length 868 Andrew O'Hehir of Salon wrote a negative review of the film, writing that while there's "a great deal that's appealing," there's also "as much in this movie that is downright baffling. "[21] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice was critical of the film for not including enough details of outlying socioeconomic issues, writing, "macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's querygo unaddressed in Waiting for "Superman," which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them. [31] Ravitch served as a board member with the NAEP and says that "the NAEP doesn't measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement," as claimed in the film, but only as "advanced," "proficient," and "basic." I actually don't -- I think we could continue one city at a time. They do allow us to figure out what's working and we should replicate it and what's not and we should close those charter schools that arent working so that we actually develop a science in our business about what works in what kinds of environments and in what kinds of communities. You all have your numbers, right? RHEE: You wake up every morning and you know that 46,000 kids are counting on you. So there are teachers who are having this debate within the spectrum of your organization. WebFILM SUMMARY With passion and urgency, WAITING FOR SUPERMAN advocates for the educational welfare of Americas children in a public school system that is severely BRZEZINSKI: All right. I think the question about whether school reform can continue at as an aggressive rate under him is whether hes going to be able to stand up to the fact that SCARBOROUGH: Let me ask you this Michelle. SCARBOROUGH: How do we do it, Geoffrey? /GS0 18 0 R SCARBOROUGH: Why is it -- [ applause ] why is it that you have an area like Washington, D.C. that is 12 percent proficient in math? /ExtGState << Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools (the district with some of the worst-performing students at the time), is shown attempting to take on the union agreements that teachers are bound to, but suffers a backlash from the unions and the teachers themselves. Waiting For Superman was more widely released than any other documentary, and among the highest-grossing documentaries of 2010. >> By showing its audience that even charter schools close their doors to some students, which them forces these students to attendfailing public schools, the video illustrates howthere are still flaws to the American public school system and challenges that need to be addressed. Michelle, you have been on the wrong side of the debate over here. What were your thoughts when the number did not come up? Everyone in this room is feeling something powerful tonight. LEGEND: I think there needs to be an understanding in our community when we fight for our kids we're fighting for our community. SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second. BRZEZINSKI: What happens to these kids? >> The video explores several of the problems within the system, and tells the personal stories of several families and communities who have been impacted and disadvantaged by the broken education system. SCARBOROUGH: Fantastic. GUGGENHEIM: And the stakes for them. We had at least 40 of us in one classroom and the teacher refused to teach. It's not about charter schools. "[14] Geraldo Rivera praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues. LEGEND: My last thing I would say, we have to realize that these kids are our kids. ", "Film's anguished lesson on why schools are failing", "Protesting teachers give 'Waiting for Superman' an 'F', "Catching up with WAITING FOR SUPERMAN's Davis Guggenheim", "At the Critics' Choice Awards: Winners Are Social Network, Inception, Firth, Portman, Leo, Bale | Thompson on Hollywood", An Inconvenient Superman: Davis Guggenheim's New Film Hijacks School Reform, "Michelle Rhee's Cheating Scandal: Diane Ravitch Blasts Education Reform Star", "Waiting for Superman" star on cheating scandals, Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal, FRONTLINE: The Education of Michelle Rhee, "NYC teachers counter 'Waiting for Superman' with film of their own", "Waiting For "Superman": How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools", Critics Say Documentary Unfairly Targets Teachers Unions and Promotes Charter Schools, Black Reel Award for Outstanding Documentary, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Documentary Feature, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, DallasFort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Documentary Film, Summer of Soul (Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), National Board of Review Award for Best Documentary Feature, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Producers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Motion Picture, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Waiting_for_%22Superman%22&oldid=1118430069, Documentary films about American politics, Documentary films about education in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 27 October 2022, at 00:08. & CEO, HARLEM CHILDRENS ZONE: I think the real important issue for us to face as Americans is if we don't fix this, we will not remain a great country. Waiting for Superman exposes an array of complex, complicated, persistent, and multi-layered historical and societal problems. GUGGENHEIM: Absolutely. /Resources << But it's not just Harlem -- if my movie, I call it, they're breaking a sound barrier. These people are the ones making the decisions. You could fail those kids for another 20 years, everybody keeps their job, nobody gets the go. SCARBOROUGH: Randi said the teachers wanted the tools to get the job done. "[30], Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, similarly criticizes the film's lack of accuracy. Kids coming into middle school and fifth grade with first grade reading abilities, leaving in eighth grade with a 100 percent proficiency, outscoring kids in Scarsdale, New York. And it's more about a jobs program than it is about the kids. What did you learn? Ravitch said that "cheating, teaching to bad tests, institutionalized fraud, dumbing down of tests, and a narrowed curriculum" were the true outcomes of Rhee's tenure in D.C. And when you say that, people say you're attacking teachers. Waiting for Superman (song), a 2013 song by the American rock band Daughtry. WEINGARTEN: We need to help them do that for all of our kids. They were the right things for kids but they made the adults incredibly uncomfortable. BRZEZINSKI: Im sorry, we have news for our audience as well. Towards the end of the film, there is a segment that illustrates the charter school lottery as it takes place for different schools. Documentary. GUGGENHEIM: The dream of making a movie like this is conversations just like this, the fact that you and NBC and Viacom and Paramount and Get School bring a movie to the table and let people in this room have a real conversation about to fix our schools is essential. In a documentary called Waiting for Superman, contemporary education issues that the U.S. has been facing for several decades are addressed. Sept. 23, 2010. The principal wants her to stay. SCARBOROUGH: Right. BRZEZINSKI: Welcome back. I'm just wondering. CANADA: Can I just tell you this? [32][33][34][35][36], A teacher-backed group called the Grassroots Education Movement produced a rebuttal documentary titled The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, which was released in 2011. I think we all have to look in the mirror and say, what have we done wrong up until now and what do we need to do better? One of them is Nakia. Why is that such a frightening concept? The film criticizes the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into competitive charter schools such as KIPP LA Schools, Harlem Success Academy and Summit Preparatory Charter High School. DAISYS FATHER: Go like this. /ProcSet [ /PDF /Text ] /Type /Catalog /Properties << According to Waiting for Superman, from 1971 to today, America has gone from spending an average of $4,300 per student to $9,000 per student, (adjusting for inflation). So people keep talking about accountability just in terms of firing teachers but what I think people need to understand is how accountability allows you to unleash teacher passion by setting on fire all the teachers in the school because you're allowed to give them the freedom to teach the way they see fit. The film shows how the audience members, filled with prospective students and their families, all sit with apprehensive looks on their faces as they anxiously listen to the names and numbers of the children who are called and are therefore accepted into the charter school by luck of the draw. You are not exactly what some would consider to be a conservative filmmaker. And the next morning Im driving my kids in the minivan to school and they go to a great private school in Los Angeles. /Font << The film will focus on the times when Superman is younger, with an emphasis on how he balances his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing . American schools face frequent budget cuts, but its not all about the money. CANADA: There are two things. /MediaBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] Wouldn't that have been better? SCARBOROUGH: If she's given the chance. All you have to do is listen to people in Washington about it. BRZEZINSKI: Exactly. And it's just -- it changes your perspective. Make sure the tenure is not ever construed as a job for life. WebWaiting for Superman/Transcript. /CropBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up You try to make reforms and it causes a problem. So we're going to differentiate and we're going to recognize and reward the highest performing teachers and we're going to look at the lowest performing teachers and we're going to remove them from the system. BRZEZINSKI: If you leave Washington, D.C. are you going to Newark? This is about the kids in the movie, and this is about how those of us on this stage help kids. GUGGENHEIM: The issue is not just lousy teachers. GUGGENHEIM: Those kids can't learn. SCARBOROUGH: You mean against -- RHEE: Against Fenty, my boss. Educ 300: Education Reform, Past and Present, an undergraduate course with Professor Jack Dougherty at Trinity College, Hartford CT. David GuggenheimsWaiting for Supermanlooks at how theAmerican public school system is failing its students and displays how reformers have attempted to solve this problem. Webwaiting for superman movie transcript+filetype:ppt+filetype:pdf. endobj RHEE: Thats correct. WebWaiting For Superman (871) 7.4 1 h 51 min 2010 X-Ray PG The lives of five Harlem and Bronx families in the high stakes lottery for access to New York City's best charter It is about working together to create problem solving contracts and ultimately, Michelle, it's not about you or I. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The space with the Xs is for all of the fifth grade students moving into the sixth grade for next year. So they were trying to impose a cap on the number of charter schools that could be had in New York. >> We love hard-working teachers. The filmmakers made sure to film how Nakia becomes increasingly more anxious and concerned as time passes during the lottery, but fewer spots become available and her daughters name has not been called (Guggenheim 1:32:49). If I have kids, I don't want kids to be in this environment. SCARBOROUGH: You were on the board for Harlem Village Academy. Natural Language; Math Input; Extended Keyboard Examples Upload Random. Like around here, I mean, I want my kids to have better than what I had. >> BRZEZINSKI: Thank you. It's not sexy to vote in the midterms but it matters who, you know -- BRZEZINSKI: Oh, yes it is. You said OK we're not going to penalize bad teachers. >> SCARBOROUGH: Okay. /BleedBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] /Parent 1 0 R UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lets get started. << First, I loved that town hall today. I think sometimes there's a disconnect between them. << SCARBOROUGH: This is a civil rights issue? BRZEZINSKI: No. Waiting for 'Superman' the title refers to a Harlem educators childhood belief that a superhero would fix the problems of the ghetto won an Audience Award at People -- but this room needs to get bigger. It's a random selection. /Type /Page By the time she leaves Stevenson, only 13 percent of her classmates will be proficient in math. WebWaiting For "Superman" has helped launch a movement to achieve a real and lasting change through the compelling stories of five unforgettable students such as Emily, a RHEE: You know what, heres the thing. [8], Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "What struck me most of all was Geoffrey Canada's confidence that a charter school run on his model can make virtually any first-grader a high school graduate who's accepted to college. And I don't want to make this about the presumptive mayor. Because what is wrong with what he's saying? Because what's happened in so many instances, is that the evaluation system is what's broken. endobj Cross your fingers. Were here to talk about the movie, to talk about education. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success. /Font << /Type /Pages CANADA: The thing I think Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have done, they really looked for people to come into the city who had a proven track record. This is our country. WEINGARTEN: Let me -- SCARBOROUGH: If it wasn't about education, I mean, what was it about? The only disagreement that I think our union has had in terms of the way in which things have gone, is that our folks have desperately wanted to have a voice in how to do reform. Be the first to contribute. I have a 12-year-old that goes to public school. I support public schools. /Filter /FlateDecode You have to pull out a bingo ball and call your number. What's amazing about these tears, I knew about the film for months and just knowing the system, I knew how it was going to end. Waiting For Superman may refer to: Waiting for "Superman", a 2010 documentary. What happened there? 5 0 obj I mean I think that's what this whole debate is about in many ways. SCARBOROUGH: No doubt about it. We spruced up -- modernized the building. And that most of them are getting a really crappy education right now. 40 years later we're still fighting for equality and one of the biggest barriers to achieving quality is the fact that so many kids in our country can't get a great education. WEINGARTEN: The issue in terms of the D.C. election was our members and others really like Vincent Gray. I said I don't want to go up. That means politically get involved. After half a year of teaching, I talked to her yesterday, she had brought her kids a year -- more than a year and a half ahead. SCARBOROUGH: What we hear, Randi, morning after morning after morning from progressives, from conservatives, from Republicans, from Democrats, from independents, seems to be the same thing. endobj The good guys/heroes are low-income American parents, hoping to provide a good education for their children. /XObject << Why not? John, tell us how you got involved in this. 57 percent of Daisys classmates won't graduate. /ArtBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] This documentary follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, and undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying "drop-out factories" and "academic sinkholes," methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable Take a moment. SCARBOROUGH: Do you think he's going to do the right thing now that the teachers union is giving him a million dollars? LEGEND: Yes. The lottery in this movie is a metaphor. ANTHONY: Its bittersweet to me. /TrimBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] SCARBOROUGH: All right. "Geraldo at Large." So it's important to understand how this is locked down here in D.C. and in New York. "Waiting for Superman," a fascinating new documentary, is drawing attention to the state of our public school, directed by Davis Guggenheim, who brought us /ExtGState << Charter schools are public schools, public dollars, public school children and to talk about them as if they are not public schools, I think does a disservice to that movement. Waiting for Superman. Throughout the documentary, different aspects of the American public education system are examined. stream >> WebShop for waiting for superman documentary transcript filetype:lua at Best Buy. There's a lot of people in this country that aren't feeling what we feel. /Parent 1 0 R /Type /Page Somebody who's fighting for kids like Daisy is John Legend. I went up there, Jeff Zucker pushed me to go up there one day. The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level," but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data. And I couldn't understand that why did it take this much to go through all of this? /ArtBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] Fox News. WEINGARTEN: Look, what the unions actually talked about was as part of lifting the cap, as part of lifting the cap, they didn't fight against lifting the cap -- LEGEND: Yes, they did. They couldn't add basic first grade skills, they couldn't have it. This is why. You've done an amazing job there in Harlem. /Properties << And it says that if all of us are actually committed to fixing this, we will follow the evidence of what works, follow it, be innovative, be creative but follow the evidence of what works and we will all work together to fix this so that every single child has access to a great public education, not by chance, not by privilege but by right. She was a teacher in Indianapolis. << "[20], The film also received negative criticism. But you did. Davis, god bless you. We can run the school the way we want, which is to give our teachers the power to teach. There are winners and losers. But I do think though Davis even though we may disagree there wasn't a public school or a public school teacher that was pictured in this film, people have done amazing jobs. It seems to me, Davis, that you done get -- teachers don't get evaluated like every other business. WEINGARTEN: Yeah, of course. Let's do this right now and let's look at the best contract in the nation in terms of eliminating ineffective teachers and let's make that the standard across America. /BleedBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] And a lot of times some of the older civil rights organizations have historically aligned with the unions.