Still waiting...

Waiting for Superman.


This film isn’t about Superman, but it starts with Geoffrey Canada (educator) talking about how when he was a child growing up he believed in Superman and when his mom told him that Superman wasn’t real, he was horrified. Horrified because there was no one out there that was going to save him, or anyone else.


This documentary is about the educational system in the United States; well “educational” system is more the appropriate term. Most kids in the US go to public school and most of those schools are known as dropout factories; where kids go on to become criminals or just poor with no chance of finding a job.


If you are rich enough your kid can attend private schools and have a better chance but most of the time kids are being screwed out of an education.


Why?


Well for one thing some teachers are just bad, but they cannot be fired. The union is so powerful that a teacher can never be fired, unless they do something really bad. The film gives this stat – 1 out of 2500 teachers are fired for bad teaching skills, where 1 out of 96 lawyers are fired because they suck.


Another interesting point is that some dropouts often become criminals and spend an average of 4 years in prison which costs the government 132 Grand, well for 100 Grand the government could have paid for them to attend a private school and maybe the person would have become something more by contributing back into society.


I wish the film had more facts like this, but there is a lot to cover in 100 minutes.


I recommend seeing this film like the movie Sicko – it’s just interesting to see how other countries deal with education and how the most powerful country in the world (whose educational system was number one until the 70’s) has gone down so much!


3.5/5


J-Man.