Waiting for “Superman” in Classrooms

In the public debate during the legislative elections, we hear a lot about taxes, public debt, health care reform and the latest antics of candidates such as Christine O’Donnell and Carl Paladino. However, another key issue for the future of the country is passing almost unnoticed: education.

To attract the attention of society on the subject, Davis Guggenheim, Oscar-winning director of “An Inconvenient Truth,” has just released a new film, “Waiting for Superman.” Guggenheim focuses on public schools in the slums where American citizens live, and on their children, whose dreams are more like utopias due to an educational system that is falling apart.

In the U.S., counties fund the schools, and the federal and state governments only provide some aid to the public elementary and high schools. This implies that the differences between public schools in wealthy suburbs and inner cities are abysmal. Under President Bush’s administration, an ambitious program was designed to raise the level of the education system, especially in the most troubled schools; in reality, eight years after the so-called “No Child Left Behind Act,” there is little progress.

In his documentary, Guggenheim aligns with some reformers, such as Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C. public schools, and supports giving more freedom to schools to dismiss teachers who perform poorly. Rhee herself has done so in Washington, D.C., where in recent years she fired several dozen teachers. In addition, she advocates a salary system that introduces incentive pay for teachers, linking their pay to student performance. This view, long championed by the Republican Party, clashes with the opposing view of the teachers’ unions, who play the role of villains in “Waiting for Superman.”

Some teachers have criticized the film for being Manichaean. They argue that the public schools’ problems go much deeper than just teachers’ unions, whose influence on the Democratic Party has often blocked the introduction of ambitious reforms.

Whether Guggenheim is right or his anti-union bias is excessive, the reality is that his film has served to revitalize a much-needed debate. At a time when globalization makes it very difficult to compete in terms of cost with countries such as China, the future of the more developed economies depends on having the best workforce it possibly can.