If you ever had any doubts about the public school system's ability to teach children effectively, prepare to have them all confirmed. This film exposes the shameful, terrifying, awful (how many other adjectives for "disturbingly bad" can I use?) state of the public school system. If you're not quite sure why it's a big deal if the public school system you grew up in isn't the best, then you should see this film. In the education system Waiting for Superman depicts, our children's future is placed as a secondary priority next to teachers' job security. In this education system we spend more on feeding and supporting a convicted felon for a year than we do supporting a child's education for a year. In this system, schools are forced to retain poor teachers because of tenure, and year after year that teacher hinders the education of hundreds of kids. In this system, bad schools create drop-outs, a bad economy, and are a blight to not just their neighborhood, but the entire nation.
Waiting follows five young children: Anthony, Francisco, Bianca, Daisy, and Emily, and their families as they attempt to forge a better future for themselves through the public school system, a journey few kids ever successfully navigate or complete.
We need to wake up, smell the decaying stench of our public education system, and cut out the dying, infected flesh that's ruining the futures of our children, and the future of our country.
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
MPAA rating: PG for some thematic material, mild language and incidental smoking.
See the trailer here
