Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Michael Mosqueda Waiting For Superman is a documentary by Davis Guggenheim. This documentary focuses on schools throughout America and the students within them. Parents in the film grow tired of the lack of success within these schools. Students continue to fail and drop out of high school. Officials blame the failing schools on the surrounding failing neighborhoods. It was soon revealed that it was indeed the schools that were failing the children and causing so much chaos within the neighborhoods they were in. Schools should be the number one priority in America because students make tomorrow, yet schools were continuing to fail these innocent kids. This documentary focuses on the lack of help schools have on children trying to learn. Children are ready to learn, yet schools have not yet figured out a system to help them succeed. Public schools are not doing enough to educate the children and prepare them for college. Without college, as proposed in the movie, these children will have a slight chance at a successful future. As Geoffrey Canada stated, schools in low-income areas suffer the consequences of failing public schools because these children turn to gangs and crime. Without education, these children will most likely end up in prison. As stated in the movie, it costs more money to take care of in a inmate rather send multiple students to a private school. Children in minority neighborhoods need more help in education because they suffer the most when it comes to statistics. African Americans and Latino Americans are the people who fill prisons in America. Without a push in education, these children will continue to fill statistics. Public schools fail students because the teachers aren't fit for such job qualifications. Because the teachers in public schools are protected by the ten-year plan, it makes it so much more difficult to fire the teachers lacking to educate students to solve the problem. The chances of firing a teacher in public schools are such a low percent. Students need teachers to do their job to learn; yet teachers feel they can do as they please as long as such rights protect them. Michelle Rhee tried to help the education system by tempering with the 10-year policy, but these teachers were not for such a change. She soon realized these adults were for themselves and not the children. Public school teachers can range from great teachers to horrible teachers. The difference in a teacher can have a student a grade level above normal or a grade level behind. Children hold their faiths in teachers because they hold their futures within their teaching lessons. When a teacher fails a student, that student will most likely lose interest in schools and drop out. Public schools are neighborhood schools anyone can be accepted into if they live in the district. Depending on the area, these schools can show excellent results or unbearable results. It is unfair and injustice for a parent to send their child to a horrible school because it is the only school in the neighborhood. There are other options for parents like military schools or private schools. The only conflict is the cost to send children to these schools when majority of the parents are struggling living in urban cities. All public schools should be performing at amazing rates for every child to have a chance to succeed in life. A school should not have a better academic program because it is located in a better neighborhood. Suburban schools may have better buildings and nice athletic fields, but they are performed no better than urban schools. These schools lack great results. They don't have high drop out rates like urban cities, but they do not provide better scholars. These students graduate to have regular jobs like managers or lawyers. America needs more students in science and mathematics fields. To solve the problem of public schools, charter schools were introduced into America. These schools were publicly funded but had their own rules. These schools had such a different system from public schools. Charter schools had different teachers because they actually wanted to be there to help children learn. These schools have so much more help and patience for students. They have longer school days so students can learn more and have time to talk to teachers. These qualities help students learn so much more that make charter schools provide at a higher level than public schools. The only disadvantage of charter schools is the space they have for students; space is limited for only a few spots a year. Parents struggle for the luck they need to get their children in these charter schools As parents attend these raffles for their children, they watch as balls with numbers on them spin or a pile of cards with names on them waiting for their child's name. Charter schools may be a new way for children to have a chance at receiving a good education, but they shouldn't have to rely on a raffle done with their names on them. Public schools need to realize they aren't helping America out by failing thousands of children every year. Drastic changes need to be made by people in power to get new teachers who want to help children and not teachers who look forward to a check every week. Its injustice for children to rely on money or luck to get an education that can put them in college. College shouldn't be so hard to achieve for children because college is what every child needs. School should be a priority in everyone's eyes in America because education is a huge deficit. Other countries continue to provide better results in mathematics and science. Foreign people come to America to do jobs Americans cant. This shows the lack of education America has. Change is needed to help this crisis. Work Cited 1. Waiting For 'Superman'. Davis Guggenheim. 2010. Film.

monicag994 Davis Guggenheim, documentary filmmaker analysis the disturbing truth in which the American Public Education system harms our children because of their lack of attention and care for the children who attend public schools. He also explores the roles that education reformers and charter schools could play in offering a better and hopeful future by bettering the public school systems. In the beginning Guggenheim thought that the idea of a public school would work. In 1999 he made a documentary about teachers. He watched them dedicate their time to make public schools work. Ten years later it was his time to choose which schools his children were attending, believing and living by the ideas of public school he took his children to a private school. He was frightened to take his children to a failing school, a public school.Guggenheim states, "No matter who we are and what neighborhood we live in wanting to believe in our schools is like taking a leap of faith." He knew that his family was privileged enough to bypass the troubled, poorly performing public schools but he was concerned about all those other children who didn't have the same privilege. Guggenheim was concerned and struck by many questions he could not find the answer to: What about the children who don't have a choice? What type of education are they receiving? Where is their assurance that they would have the chance to live out their dream, to fulfill their vast potential? How worried are the children's parents when they drop off their kids at school in the morning? These questions are what made Guggenheim explore the different schooling systems and the different teaching methods that brought successful and which ones were hurting the students. We constantly see statistics about students dropping out, science and math scores falling, and schools closing due to lack of funding. What we refuse to see are the names and faces of the children whose entire futures are at stake because change isn't being made. At some point in time the American public education system was a model admired by everyone. Today other countries are surpassing us in every respect. The public schools systems were made with a purpose back in the industrial times. That purpose being that some students would graduate to become lawyers, doctors, accountants and the rest of the students who weren't as advanced as those who graduated would end up in factories. But times have changed and the schooling system needs to change as well. The slogan "No Child Left Behind" has become a cynical punch line. Bianca, Emily, Anthony, Daisy, and Francisco are five students who deserve better. By investigating how the current system is actually obstructing their education instead of bolstering it, Guggenheim opens the door to considering possible options for transformation and improvement. Though Guggenheim gives out these possible solutions to improve the education of those students who aren't as privileged as those who can afford private schooling, his solutions lack the fact that societal inequities are more powerful than any force teachers can bring to bear in schools. In his film Guggenheim mentions that maybe the neighborhoods aren't what makes the school bad, but its the schools that make the neighborhood bad. Guggenheim bashes many public school teachers in his film, but I feel that he doesn't give enough credit to them. Many public schools teachers have to be more than just a teacher, they have to deal with the problems kids have outside of school as well. He shows us five different students who are trying to get out of the public school system but all of these students have parents or guardians who care about them and their future. But what happens to all those kids who don't have someone to push them forward are they just forgotten in the public school system? Guggenheim's idea of creating more charter school and magnet school is a start but it shouldn't be the only thing that should be changed. Children should be able to attend any school in any neighborhood and receive the same education that another child is receiving in a private school. Money and poverty is a huge disadvantage for these kids when it shouldn't be. A students knowledge shouldn't be measured by how much money they have but how badly they want to succeed. Davis Guggenheim documentary Waiting for "Superman" is a good film that informs you about the differences and unfairness of the public schooling system but I don't completely agree with his solution because there is more education than just the school you attend.

Gabriela Santillanes "Waiting For Superman" Gabriela Santillanes Professor Ivis UPP 101 Submitted March 17 2014 Project 3 In "Waiting for Superman" Davis Guggenheim examines the flaws in the school system and its effects on the students and families that are in "failing neighborhoods." We follow five students to see the push and pull factors of how the school system along with the educators are failing to work with the students and communities to meet the proficiency standards or how their opportunities diminish as they move deeper into the system. It also follows other educators, such as Chancellor Michelle Reeves, on the search of ways to improve the system and their realization that there are more obstacles to face besides doing things such as creating charter schools. The primary focus of this documentary is split in that it focuses on the school system failure effects. It also focuses on the effects of how failure or success comes from the quality and effort that a teacher puts in their work; this brings up many discussions and arguments concerning tenure, teachers unions, and societies focus on what's really important. "Waiting for Superman" shows the shift that Chancellor Reeves along with her predecessors and political leaders such as our presidents, which has led up to the examination of many schools all across the country. It brings up and discussed many questions such as are the students being prepared to meet the requirements our country has set; which is answered through the statistics used to measure the standards from the No Child Left Behind program. This focus is important because the issue of success in schools is an issue that many people are aware of, it has been area of concern for centuries amongst our political leaders, but a path to a possible solution has not been found. The No Child Left Behind programs has a standard of 20% to 35% proficiency in reading and math to see if schools are teaching students the basics. When "Waiting for Superman" director sees the numbers and witnesses that there is 12% in Washington DC it asks are the students getting stupider or is there a flaw in the system? This information presented is used to shine light on the main argument that the real problem might be blamed on the failing schools in failing neighborhoods, not necessarily the failing students.One of the interesting arguments made is how children who are in "dropout factories," schools that have more than 40% of its students that don't graduate, are redirected into the streets. One of the educators in the film talks about it is very easy to ask a child how many people he or she knows that went to prison or how many graduated high school; we would find that they would know many more who went to prison. The film informs its viewers that we spend $33,000 per year per inmate every fours years, $132000 in total for every inmate. If a child's family has the opportunity to they can send the child to private school to receive a much better education. If instead of investing the money that we do on inmates and instead use that money to send children to private schools for 13 years we would be saving $24,000 per person. " Waiting for Superman" discusses the redirection of funds to the students so we can then have them go to college and contribute back to the economy, versus spending the money on the inmates where we only have money going one way and never coming back to anything productive. This redirection is a part of fixing the failing school environments which would then in turn cause a failing neighborhood to being to have the possibilities of change. The film argues that a huge flaw in the school system is the role that teachers play. It makes a strong stance that the adults are more important than the children. This argument comes from the fact that teachers and those involved in the teachers union weren't even willing to consider a change in the tenure contracts and on how pay is handled when we take into consideration the quality of the education the teachers are giving and the amount of effort they put in towards their students. The film looks at concepts that are negatively affecting schools such as "dance of lemons" and the famous rubber rooms in New York. These rooms are were tenure teachers are pretty much getting paid to sit around and wait their "trails" from things as serious as sexual harassment or lesser offenses. "Waiting for Superman's" argument is based on the gathering of research others have done and applying it to their argument. The statistics they use is based on the research that others have completed; the No Child left behind data is applied to their argument as a big supporter as to how the system is failing where it was expected to create successful results. Although I believe that their argument has a good direction it can have a stronger foundation and benefit from original research. Their argument is definitely something that needs further researcher to help bring a possibility of a better chance for the students in this country. Education fro students and children needs to become a bigger priority instead of such a heavy focus on adults; which "Waiting for Superman" did a good job on. But it could have used more original research on areas where teachers are paid on the basis of their performance, or if this concept is even applied anywhere successfully. The film made very good use of the data they presented. Their presentation was very effective in the sense that it allows the audience to understand what is being presented and how it is applied in the school system. Their presentation technique was executed well in that it reached out to the everyday family. Works Cited: Guggenheim, Davis. "Waiting for Superman." Paramount Vantage, 2011

elision10 Because I only watched the first 15 minutes this review should be taken with a very substantial grain of salt. The RT rating is 89, so critics thought it was very good. But to me it was unbearable. It begins with every cliché of the US education documentary: the brilliant black educator who thought he could change the schools in a few years and finds out how hard it is; a black-and-white film clip from the Fifties of stuffy white men looking like idiots (really, what's that supposed to tell us?); and cute, earnest inner-city kids with great Moms who are just having a hard time in this economy. Well, I went to school with inner-city kids; they were neither cute nor earnest.The one interesting note was when the filmmaker tells us that he sends his own kid to private school. It's an honest moment, but what are the implications of that? Maybe he examines them later in the film, but 75% of the problems of American public education would be solved if we closed the private schools and forced the children of the upper-middle- class to go to school with inner-city kids. That's what they did "when I was a boy"; but we had tracking, and that meant all the Jewish kids were in the 1 class and all the black kids were in the 4 class. (They started mixing up those numbers, and a 3 class could have smarter kids than a 2 -- as if that fooled anybody). But at least the schools were clean and safe because middle-class parents wouldn't have it any other way. Nowadays that kind of segregation would horrify everybody (and maybe rightly so), so the upper classes segregate themselves. Demand that they put their kids back in the system and you'll see just how much better public schools can be.