J. Scott Pollard
Mrs. Wilson
ENGL 1010
21 Nov 2016
If Not Superman, then Who? Waiting for Superman is a documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, that talks about how the failure of the public education system in America is mainly due to three things; the lack of funding for inner-city schools, the lack of qualified teachers willing to teach and the lack of opportunities for underprivileged children to succeed. Guggenheim developed his idea for the film while driving his own kids to their private school; passing several public schools. His argument is America has failed the kids of today in the education field by not providing them the level of education they need to succeed, not only in school, but in life. Guggenheim offers that the inner-city …show more content…
According to the documentary, the current bureaucratic system neither allows for firing unqualified teachers nor rewards teachers appropriately because of a provision written in the teacher’s contract. Tenure was established in the late 1700s to protect professors and judges from being fired for unpopular decisions. The problem now is all teachers can achieve tenure and despite poor performance, it is close to impossible to remove them. The film shows how some of these problematic teachers are put into reassignment centers called the Rubber Room, where they spent seven hours a day playing cards while much of the teachers with better performance cannot be recognized and paid more under current contract. Education is one of only a few careers that offers tenure. Existing laws are in place to protect other professionals, such as doctors and police officers. This would also be the case for teachers. Tenures could be replaced by a contract of sorts. This would allow Administrators the leeway to reward those that excel at teaching and punish or fire those that do not do their job; but to do this, administrators would have to do their part and evaluate and counsel teachers on their
Mrs. Wilson
ENGL 1010
21 Nov 2016
If Not Superman, then Who? Waiting for Superman is a documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, that talks about how the failure of the public education system in America is mainly due to three things; the lack of funding for inner-city schools, the lack of qualified teachers willing to teach and the lack of opportunities for underprivileged children to succeed. Guggenheim developed his idea for the film while driving his own kids to their private school; passing several public schools. His argument is America has failed the kids of today in the education field by not providing them the level of education they need to succeed, not only in school, but in life. Guggenheim offers that the inner-city …show more content…
According to the documentary, the current bureaucratic system neither allows for firing unqualified teachers nor rewards teachers appropriately because of a provision written in the teacher’s contract. Tenure was established in the late 1700s to protect professors and judges from being fired for unpopular decisions. The problem now is all teachers can achieve tenure and despite poor performance, it is close to impossible to remove them. The film shows how some of these problematic teachers are put into reassignment centers called the Rubber Room, where they spent seven hours a day playing cards while much of the teachers with better performance cannot be recognized and paid more under current contract. Education is one of only a few careers that offers tenure. Existing laws are in place to protect other professionals, such as doctors and police officers. This would also be the case for teachers. Tenures could be replaced by a contract of sorts. This would allow Administrators the leeway to reward those that excel at teaching and punish or fire those that do not do their job; but to do this, administrators would have to do their part and evaluate and counsel teachers on their