Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for Dot" is a documentary, not a funny book film. But for many parents, I give a notion it may run like a horror movie.
The film details the complete bankruptcy of the American public schooling system, in which inner city schools are called "drop out factories," bad teachers are unacceptable to fire, and the country's students place 26th in interpretation and science.
he shiny side? Their authority is high: Nearly every student polled thinks Americans place No. 1 in those areas.
Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") knows audiences are intimately aware of the problems that have faced the training organization for decades. We've heard stories of classrooms that have run out of supplies, teachers who sit back and do nothing, and idealistic educators constantly frustrated by district bureaucracy and governmental politics. He simply states that in the inner cities, many middle schools go to properly prepare kids for high school. In many urban high schools, freshmen start five years behind and half are guaranteed to cast out, ending up on the streets or in prison. Conventional wisdom, Guggenheim states, has ever believed that bad cities were to charge for bad schools. However, he reports that only the contrary may be true.
I'd guess that an entire Ken Burns documentary could be prepared detailing the multitudinous things that derailed the public education system. But Guggenheim places the lion's share of the blame at the feet of teacher unions that wield enormous political office and give it almost impossible to fire teachers once they receive tenure, which can often occur in as few as two years. In some states, such as Illinois, the film posits that it is actually easier for a physician to miss his permission or a lawyer to be disbarred than to terminate a tenured teacher. In many districts, bad teachers are only transferred from train to train in a game known as "qualifying the lemon." In New York, disciplined teachers sit in an agency building reading newspapers while awaiting hearings; they receive full pay and they can hold as tenacious as 8 days before their cases are called.
It's sobering, even for this critic without children in school. Bright students who are eager to read can cause that potential snuffed out by teachers who don't wish or districts that don't allow them to flourish. While many suburban parents can post their children to private schools, many lower-income parents don't let that luxury and are at the clemency of their districts, watching as their children are sent off to buildings where the odds are stacked against them.
The movie would probably still be scandalous if it were but a troop of these grim statistics and district snapshots. But Guggenheim engages the hearing by following five inner city students from around the nation as their parents worry about the future awaiting them in the classrooms. Statistics are sobering, but it's even harder to consider when they're placed with names and faces. His subjects - Francisco, Anthony, Bianca, Daisy and Emily - are bright, precocious children who wish to become veterinarians, surgeons and teachers. They're young and emotional about learning, even if they give their own struggles in the classroom. Seeing their optimism and likewise their consciousness that a bad road awaits them is sobering, and creates an emotional attachment to the problem.
There seems to be hope, Guggenheim states. There are idealistic, innovative teachers across the country concerned in education reform. We meet Michelle Lhee, the Washington, D.C. superintendent who came in and fired underperforming principals and teachers, and came up with a proposition to do away with tenure and offer teachers merit increases - a proposition that could have doubled teachers' salaries if they performed well . and was shooting down when the union deemed it too threatening.
We also meet educators like Geoffrey Canada, who open a charter school in inner city Harlem where teachers are mired in the training process literally from a students' infanthood. Naysayers told Canada that opening a train in Harlem was a lost cause; years after opening, however, his students are scoring higher on tests than students from eve the best areas. The implication is clear: When good learners are allowed to teach and engage students, students can succeed. When training is more focussed on protecting employment or watching the rear line, students fail.
Charter schools - public schools that go outside of the district policies - seem to be an attractive option, one that offers students a greater prospect at success. But the limited availability and high amount of applicants mean students are accepted through lotteries. In the film's tense and heartbreaking final 20 minutes, we see as each student Guggenheim's followed sits in on lotteries and essentially has their educational future determined by chance. It's one of the most sobering and devastating moments I've seen on screen this year.
At the cover I attended, there were several angry and frustrated outbursts with every setback or new statistic. Guggenheim, as he did with global warming in "An Inconvenient Truth," is able to make complex statistical information, and do it quick and relatable. Is it a bit manipulative to parade children in presence of to hammer home a place? Perhaps. But Guggenheim's work never feels overly manipulative and the level of the issue is this - this is about children's futures. When you see how schools are weakness and the affect it has on children's lives, outrage is the only emotion to feel.
But as with "An Inconvenient Truth," Guggenheim closes with an entreaty for involvement, asking audiences to text if they need to help. I can't imagine anyone who hears about the nightmarish state of America's schools will need to remain passive as they pass out of the theater. Parents, educators and anyone concerned about the next of the land will need to pay attention to this movie, and it's the rare film that could spur people to accomplish and produce a difference.
Or, as the title suggests, we could sit back and look for somebody to occur in and fix it for us. But, as Canada reminds audiences early in the film, Superman does not exist, and he's not going to do and deliver the day.
Originally published in the Oct. 10 edition of The Source.
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