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Lauren Fullford
Ms. Harvey
English 1101
December 10, 2012
Fact Check: Where is the Evidence?
The school system is failing us; charter schools are a waste of money; can we really make
such rash opinions and state them as a fact? How much information can we really have to
determine this and where does our information come from? Waing for Superman is a
documentary *lm from director Davis Guggenheim and producer Lesley Chilco,. As its title
implies, it describes, through the lives of *ve children, how parents and students alike are
“wai)ng for superman” in school systems. In other words, they are searching for hope in the
teachers and schools that they might have a brighter future, yet the school system is failing
them. The Inconvenient Truth behind Waing for Superman is a counter-argument documentary
produced by the Grassroots education Movement. It describes the view of the teachers and the
difference between charter schools and public schools. The title of this *lm is a play on words
on Guggenheim’s previous document An Inconvenient Truth. Both *lms, however, analyze the
American public and private education systems on subjects such as poor schools versus poor
neighborhoods and their affect the school systems and students and whether Charter schools
help or hinder student learning. However, the real question is: how accurate was their
information, really?
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Waing for Superman discusses the subject of money a2ec)ng the school systems. They
state that the child’s intelligence is not the problem but rather the lack of money spent on the
child’s education. With that lack of money spent on the schools, there are worse teachers and
classes, causing the child to have a lower system of education. A “fact” stated by Waing for
Superman is that since 1971, school spending has increased from $4,500 to $9,000, yet the
students’ reading scores have =at-lined. In other words, they have neither increased nor
decreased; therefore, they are sta)ng that even though schools are increasing their funds to
supposedly raise student test scores, they aren’t really doing much. However, as Paul Socolar
states in his blog “’Wai)ng for Superman’: Help or Menace”, “[There is] No mention that an)-tax
hysteria, segrega)on, suburbaniza)on, and White =ight have all contributed to the mess schools
are in. School funding is only discussed long enough to tell us that we’ve doubled spending on
schools and results haven’t improved a bit. The sparse teacher voices in the *lm complain about
restric)ve union work rules but don’t mention the restric)ve consequences of a high-stakes
