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Saturday, October 2, 2010

Waiting For Superman (aka what Stossel did years ago)

Subsidizing private schools is A-OK with the free-market.



Waiting For Superman
is basically the sanitized and more mainstream version of what right-wingers have been making movies about for years.

Films and TV programs like Free to Choose, 20/20 Stupid in America and The Cartel have been making the exact same educational conclusions since before there was even an "education crisis" and sadly with the impetus of the failure of NCLB this film might inspire (or rather legitimize) a movement to completely destroy the educational system.

The "Reforms"

Literally in lockstep with previous works, the movie follows charming kids as they wait in anticipation to be accepted into a wonderful charter school which will guarantee their success in life, while "exposing" the corruption of the public school system (read: evil teachers unions).

What's interesting is that the film never mentions how Charters on-average perform worse then public schools (and how the kids most disadvantaged perform better in public schools then in charters) or even acknowledge any non-right-wing solutions

Actual Reforms The Film Ignores

The film likes to point out how low-ranked the US is among other countries in education but doesn't look at the top-performers and ask why.

In Finland for instance (which the film acknowledged as the highest ranked country by PISA) there is almost no testing, teachers unions and tenure, strict teaching requirements, a national curriculum and almost no ability grouping.
In fact, the closest system in the US is Massachusetts which is also considered the best state to get an education in.

For some reason, the film doesn't put two and two together and suggest a national standard with limited testing and better teacher pay and requirements (as well as more teacher tenure, something more extensive in Finland then in the US).

The Media and the Film

The film has a predictable symbiotic relationship with what the media thinks is the problem. It gets rave reviews and at the same time, gives the people in the media exactly what they want to hear: it's the teachers unions we need to stop and put in more charters (even when the evidence is completely against them).

Even liberal reviewers like Roger Ebert agree with the message saying "[Charter school] lotteries are truly random...Yet most of the winners will succeed, and half the losers (from the same human pool) will fail. This is an indictment: Our schools do not work."
except that the opposite is true: going to a public school is better then going to a charter.