Editorial Observer

‘Waiting for Superman’

and the Education Debate

By BRENT STAPLES

Published: October 1, 2010

Take along a handkerchief if you plan to see the new education documentary “Waiting for Superman.” Steve Barr, a tough-minded charter school developer, told me on Friday that he had already seen the film four times and still can’t get through it without sobbing.

Mr. Barr believes that the film has pulled back the curtain on a world that most Americans would otherwise not have seen — the desperation of parents who struggle, often in vain, to get their children into better schools. (The Superman in the title refers to one charter school operator’s childhood belief that the ghetto in which he lived might one day be rescued by the Man of Steel.)

Mr. Barr is unnerved by the cartoonish debate that has erupted around the movie. The many complex problems that have long afflicted public schools are being laid almost solely at the feet of the nation’s teachers’ unions.

In recent days, Randi Weingarten, the leader of the American Federation of Teachers (the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union after the National Education Association) has been portrayed on the Internet as the Darth Vader of public schooling. She talks like a union chief in the film — which makes no mention of her genuine efforts to work with school systems to promote reform.

The unions deserve criticism for resisting sensible changes for far too long and for protecting inept teachers who deserve to be fired. But at least in some places that is changing. And they are by no means responsible for the country’s profound neglect of public education until about 20 years ago when the federal government began pushing the states to provide better oversight.

For years, urban politicians ransacked districts with patronage and fraud. Teachers chose to unionize in part to protect themselves from politicians.

The movie scene that pains Mr. Barr the most features a mother whose kindergartner has been barred from her parochial school on graduation day because of unpaid tuition. The family lives just across the street, which means the child has to watch as her classmates arrive.

Like other mothers in the film, this one is determined to keep her daughter out of traditional public schools that she regards as substandard. She applies to a highly respected charter school that fills seats through an excruciatingly painful lottery system. The applicants gather in an auditorium. The winners rejoice; the losers weep.

Mr. Barr has witnessed this kind of heartbreak at close range since he founded a nonprofit charter organization called Green Dot Public Schools in Los Angeles in 1999. Progress is being made. But the country needs many more good schools and better teacher contracts.

Charter schools run on public money but are allowed to function independently of the districts in which they reside. Nationally, most charter schools do no better in terms of student achievement, and far too many do worse. Green Dot is one of the stars of this movement.

Despite the fact that many of its 17 schools serve desperately poor, minority neighborhoods, its students significantly outperform their traditional school counterparts, on just about every academic measure, including the percentage of children who go on to four-year colleges.

Public schools generally do a horrendous job of screening and evaluating teachers, which means that they typically end up hiring and granting tenure to any warm body that comes along. Like other high-performing charter operations, Green Dot screens teachers closely — which means they get higher-quality teachers to start — and evaluates them frequently, with the aim of making them better at what they do.

The hard work pays off, including in staff stability. Despite rules that make it easier to fire staff members, last year Green Dot administrators terminated only 7 of more than 420 employees.

The film’s director, Davis Guggenheim, gives Green Dot a cameo shout-out in “Waiting for Superman.” But he did the story a serious disservice by not pointing out that these high-performing charter schools are fully unionized.

The 16 schools in California are affiliated with the National Education Association. The one recently started in the Bronx was put together by Green Dot and the New York affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. By rushing by this wrinkle, he sustained the sexy-but-mistaken impression that the country’s schools can’t move forward unless the unions are broken.

The real story is far more hopeful and more nuanced.