Conspicuously missing from today’s list of Oscar nominees is “Waiting for Superman,” the heavily promoted school reform documentary. To what do you attribute this? “Superman” without a doubt was the highest profile documentary of the year. Did it fail to garner a best feature-length documentary nomination on artistic merits or lack thereof? Or did the movie’s perceived anti-union perspective hurt it in Hollywood?
Popularity: 17% [?]
While I’m a big fan of the “Superman” and also the wonderful “Lottery” I think that these films lost out because of the high quality pool of great documentaries in 2011. I saw 3 of the 5 nominees and thought all were excellent though Exit Through the Giftshop was fantastic. There are some that have said the liberal Hollywood media types nixed them because of their love of unions but I know of no evidence for such a political conspiracy though I’m sure Fox may say so if given the opportunity. My understanding of the process is that it’s driven by the documentary members of the Academy which I’ve heard from a some in the know that is much less political and more focused on quality than some of the other awards. Having said that I’m by no means a movie critic or an expert on how the academy comes up with the awards. I do know that most of the time I’m fairly disappointed with their award choices.
I saw Waiting for Superman and have questions for Alan Gottlieb. How can one support “reforms” that mean that the quality of a child’s education is dependent on being selected by lottery to escape a so-called “failing school”? Shouldn’t all students be offered a quality education, not just the privileged and the lucky? Isn’t a child assigned to a “failing school” denied equal protection under the law (14th Amendment)?
Yes, all students should be offered a quality education, not just the privileged and the lucky. Until the rapturous day arrives when all schools are great, though, why wouldn’t we want to make as many good options available as we possibly can? If we could clone the Beach Courts of the world, I’d be all for it. I have no ideological bias in favor of charters. I just want schools that work for kids. Right now, a small number of charters appear to be on the leading edge of demonstrating one approach that works for at least a segment of a historically underserved population.
Charter schools do no better than regular schools and statistics prove it. What they are beginning to do is to create a form of educational apartheid – charters for the privileged and the lucky and “failing schools” for the masses. That’s inequity and, quite likely, violates the civil rights of those left behind, especially special needs students. That issue had better be addressed by local school districts such as DPS before the courts do.