Helan Essa
SYD 3700
March 21, 2016
Race and Education: Waiting for Superman In "Waiting For Superman", Davis Guggenheim, demonstrates throughout his documentary on the importance of good teachers and schools, and how they have a tremendous impact on students and their education. This documentaries agenda was to show that there is a model for education out there that has been proven to work where others have failed. The documentary goes in depth on the role of charter schools and different educational reforms, and how these factors are producing results that may change the future of education. Throughout the film, it is obvious that the way to fix what is going on in the American public education system is to reform to a setting smaller and …show more content…
Another obstacle to good education discussed in the movie was the role of teachers. An example of a great teacher that Guggenheim uses is the elementary teacher who turns math into lyrics for the students to remember. Guggenheim discusses the protected, tenured teacher waiting to collect her pension is the reason why America’s children don’t have a high-quality education. Getting rid of tenure is one possible solution to the problem of underperforming teachers. For example, the viewer sees footage from the early 1990’s of a teacher reading a newspaper while his students sit listless at their desks. Guggenheim shows that teachers in teacher’s union get tenure with a Simpsons’ clip: Lisa Simpson’s teacher counts down to when she gets tenure, and after she received tenure, says that she won’t teach and asks Ralph to teach the class instead. Part of the problem, Rhee says, is that the union doesn’t recognize good teachers. Every teacher is paid the same based on years of service. Canada says that there can be no reform without going through the teachers union. Lastly, Guggenheim says that while 1 in 57 doctors and 1 in 97 lawyers lose their license, only 1 in 2500 teachers lose their …show more content…
Black and Hispanic children’s parents typically have lower incomes and lower levels of educational completion than white children’s parents. Because higher-income and more-educated families typically can provide more educational opportunities for their children, family socioeconomic resources are strongly related to educational outcomes. Socioeconomic segregation is a stubborn, multidimensional and deeply important cause of educational inequality. U.S. schools are now 41 percent nonwhite and the great majority of the nonwhite students attend schools which now show substantial segregation (Orfield, 2005). Guggenheim shows the affect segregation can have on students based on how the neighborhoods who pay higher taxes get a better education. The way I see segregation matters through the plot of the movie because it shows if something happens in a poor neighborhood than it doesn’t have a big impact on a rich neighborhood. The rich people are not affected by what the poor people are hit with. I see it as the rich might feel for the poor but it’s not such a strong impact to them personally for the rich to do anything about it. The upper class people already have good schools and live in low crime areas which works will for them because students who are of lower socioeconomic neighborhoods that bring trouble are not allowed to attend their
SYD 3700
March 21, 2016
Race and Education: Waiting for Superman In "Waiting For Superman", Davis Guggenheim, demonstrates throughout his documentary on the importance of good teachers and schools, and how they have a tremendous impact on students and their education. This documentaries agenda was to show that there is a model for education out there that has been proven to work where others have failed. The documentary goes in depth on the role of charter schools and different educational reforms, and how these factors are producing results that may change the future of education. Throughout the film, it is obvious that the way to fix what is going on in the American public education system is to reform to a setting smaller and …show more content…
Another obstacle to good education discussed in the movie was the role of teachers. An example of a great teacher that Guggenheim uses is the elementary teacher who turns math into lyrics for the students to remember. Guggenheim discusses the protected, tenured teacher waiting to collect her pension is the reason why America’s children don’t have a high-quality education. Getting rid of tenure is one possible solution to the problem of underperforming teachers. For example, the viewer sees footage from the early 1990’s of a teacher reading a newspaper while his students sit listless at their desks. Guggenheim shows that teachers in teacher’s union get tenure with a Simpsons’ clip: Lisa Simpson’s teacher counts down to when she gets tenure, and after she received tenure, says that she won’t teach and asks Ralph to teach the class instead. Part of the problem, Rhee says, is that the union doesn’t recognize good teachers. Every teacher is paid the same based on years of service. Canada says that there can be no reform without going through the teachers union. Lastly, Guggenheim says that while 1 in 57 doctors and 1 in 97 lawyers lose their license, only 1 in 2500 teachers lose their …show more content…
Black and Hispanic children’s parents typically have lower incomes and lower levels of educational completion than white children’s parents. Because higher-income and more-educated families typically can provide more educational opportunities for their children, family socioeconomic resources are strongly related to educational outcomes. Socioeconomic segregation is a stubborn, multidimensional and deeply important cause of educational inequality. U.S. schools are now 41 percent nonwhite and the great majority of the nonwhite students attend schools which now show substantial segregation (Orfield, 2005). Guggenheim shows the affect segregation can have on students based on how the neighborhoods who pay higher taxes get a better education. The way I see segregation matters through the plot of the movie because it shows if something happens in a poor neighborhood than it doesn’t have a big impact on a rich neighborhood. The rich people are not affected by what the poor people are hit with. I see it as the rich might feel for the poor but it’s not such a strong impact to them personally for the rich to do anything about it. The upper class people already have good schools and live in low crime areas which works will for them because students who are of lower socioeconomic neighborhoods that bring trouble are not allowed to attend their