A Review of Waiting for Superman

by Christopher Perrin, PhD | Aug 5, 2011 | Articles, Book Reviews

Waiting for Superman (Paramount Pictures)

Christopher A. Perrin

It is hard to watch David Guggenheim’s documentary Waiting for Superman without leaning into the screen with anticipation and hope, only to droop with disappointment, yes even despair.  It is the kids that do that to you—real children with real dreams, bright and earnest, brimming with surprising potential, supportive parents or grandparents, hoping and praying they can be one of the few selected (by lottery) to attend a promising charter school.  They don’t get in (with two exceptions).

Daisy is a Hispanic elementary student from a challenging section of Los Angeles (East LA).  The camera follows her for most of a year, recording her at school and home diligently studying, talking excitedly about her dreams to be come a veterinarian.  After watching her for a few months, you have no doubt she could become veterinarian (or just about anything else.).   Her extended family pulses with her potential, believes in her, as you do.  If she stays in her public school system, her chances of going to college are virtually nil.  A local charter school offers hope—the camera reveals the charter school is doing excellent work and could keep her on her dream’s path.  After getting to know Daisy and her family, you watch her sitting in the public lottery, fingers crossed, with hundreds of other students all vying and praying for one of the few spots at the school.  She doesn’t get in.  She will have to attend her local middle school, which has a 40% graduation rate (from eighth grade).  And so it goes with several other hopeful students followed by Guggenheim’s camera.

The film gives the impression that Guggenheim is no natural critic of public, government education and that perhaps he would have liked to put his own children in a public school in Los Angeles.  Diane Ravitch (in her critical review of the film: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?page=1) points out that Guggenheim himself attended Sidwell Friends, an elite preparatory school in Washington, D.C. (Obama’s children attend Sidwell).  Whatever his predispositions toward public education, when his children became of school age he simply could not seriously consider enrolling his children in the local public school.  For him, the raw data was persuasive: too many students were getting lost in the school system, unable to realize their academic potential, far too few even graduating from high school (in some cases below 20%). What was going wrong inside these schools?  He set out to find out and produced Waiting for Superman (he also produced An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming) and enrolled his children in a private school—because he could afford to.

What goes wrong in these schools is nothing new to anyone even generally familiar with urban, public education.  Bad teachers can’t easily be removed.  Even with significant funding, good books and supplies are scarce (and often poorly treated or destroyed by students).  Students disrespect teachers and teachers endure students.  Resolute administrators become disillusioned and give up, or become opposed (by powerful teacher unions) and forced out.  Schools lack a culture of study, rigor, discipline or optimism and instead become soul-squelching institutions dominated by popular youth culture and the culture of the street.  All this is nothing new.  What is new is what the eye of the camera reveals.  We don’t just hear it, we see it, and we see the Daisys of the world being lost.

We also see some remarkable people working for change.  Michelle Rhee (former superintendent of Washington, D.C. schools tell us of her experience trying to reform one of the worst-performing school districts in the nation.  She worked valiantly, was opposed venomously, then removed when a new mayor was elected (campaigning that he would remove her if elected).  Rhee concludes that the biggest obstacles to reforming the D.C. district is not money or curriculum but the teachers themselves (not all, perhaps not most, but enough) who are more concerned with their job security (tenure) than students and their welfare.

Another administrator with Kipp charter schools (http://www.kippny.org/) is doing noble work providing a superb education to minority students in Harlem.  Kipp seems to prove that poverty does not keep students from an excellent education—bad schools do.  The Kipp charter school in Harlem has a 96% graduation rate. Guggenheim notes that he used to believe that bad (poor) neighborhoods made for bad schools.  Now he believes bad schools cause bad neighborhoods.

Who is waiting for Superman?  The children are, and it appears he is not coming.  These students need rescue—rescue from their failing, dis-affecting, de-humanizing schools.  If there are any heroes in the film it is the courageous administrators and teachers of several charter schools that have been started and succeeded (almost against all odds) right amidst a ring of failing schools.   Clearly, Guggenheim thinks we must offer students like Daisy something different and better, like innovative charter schools.  After watching the film it is hard to disagree.

However, even great charter schools lack something vital—the freedom to engage the culture of the Christian west and her queen, theology.   We must settle for a secular rigor and an eclectic and unstable curriculum.  Put another way, we must settle for getting urban kids to suburban standards.   Still secular, still likely encumbered with all the challenges of our better suburban public schools, but still better.

As well, we must ask ourselves if Guggenheim is telling all the critical parts of the story.  He admits that only one in five (20%) charter schools are succeeding.  He does not show any examples of successful public schools in urban settings.  He chooses not to tell us the remarkable amount of money that is spent at some of these charter schools (in his film) that receive public and private funding.  The organization that runs the Kipp schools, for example, has over $200 million in assets and provides students with an extensive array of social and medical services.  The boarding school featured in Washington, D.C., spends $35,000 per year on each student.   In other words, the charter schools that Guggenheim features are funded well beyond typical public (and private!) schools.  With this kind of funding, can we really regard such students as impoverished? Diane Ravitch (a prominent historian of education) points to studies that show that only 17% of charter schools are out-performing comparable public schools, that 37% are performing worse than public schools and that 46% are performing the same as public schools.

Ravitch thinks that Guggenheim is engaging in artistic propaganda and special pleading, even while highlighting urgent problems and some remarkable successes.  For Ravitch, poverty is a chief causal factor contributing to student performance and thus school achievement.  What she doesn’t make explicit (but seems to assume) is that urban families are in crisis and in fact disappearing as in-tact supportive communities.  Without a supportive family, a student can rarely succeed in a public, charter, private or classical Christian school.  Now there is a relationship between poverty and family cohesiveness, but being poor (as hard as that is) does not cause the disintegration of a family.  Poverty is not, per se, a sin nor does it cause sin, though it brings its peculiar temptations even as wealth does.

Something beyond mere poverty is at play, destroying American families, not only in the cities but in the suburbs.  Urban families, however, are clearly in greater crisis and no doubt poverty is exacerbating the family breakdown.  Leaving aside, for the moment, the complex nexus of factors making war on the American family, we should remember that schools can teach but not single-handedly resuscitate a family dying from a hundred wounds.  Not even great classical Christian schools.  Schools cannot effectively serves as social welfare agencies, health care providers, churches, or surrogate mothers and fathers.  As Jacques Barzun pointed out long ago (in Teacher in America), schools can teach but not educate, for to “educate” requires a congenial collaboration among parents, families, friends, supporters, churches, teachers, administrators and students.  Ravitch notes that all the families in Waiting for Superman are supportive and invested in the education of their children (special pleading again).  The reality is that far too many families are broken and unable to support and encourage their children generally, much less follow and support their education.  Guggenhiem seems to think that a local charter schools can change all this.  He thinks, in fact, that it is failing schools that make for failing neighborhoods—as if the local school has done the most to cause the breakdown of urban culture and families.

Causation (as philosophers and scientists will tell us) is tricky and hard to pin down.  Our urban culture is suffering on account of multiple causes in my view, not the least of which is the ubiquitous, invasive influence of secular mass media that is shaping the souls of our American youth in and out of the cities.  James K. A. Smith has pointed out the various ways “secular liturgies” from the mall to the athletic field to the movies to Facebook are powerfully forming our youth to love a secular ideal of human flourishing much different that the New Testament ideal of the Kingdom of God (Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation).  Which leads me to say that without the revival of city churches urban schools (of any stripe) will have a greatly diminished impact.  A great urban school cannot do all that is needed.  In fact an urban school can only become great when urban churches support it and compliment it with their own vibrant ministries to families.  Christian educators cannot flee to schools as the best means of reviving our urban youth and families.  Rather churches, schools and families must form vital partnerships if there is any hope of creating culture and cultivating students not just as future workers but human souls.

Private Christian educators should take note of Guggenheim’s film, but view it critically.  He does engage in special pleading, generalizing and one two many straw men.  He does not assess the vital role of supportive families or churches in providing education and supporting local schools. His use of statistics has been questioned (effectively by Ravitch).  He does, however, powerfully portray the sad state of many urban public schools and the plight of many urban youth, who at present have no choice but to attend a school that will fail them as it has others.  By providing a few shining examples of remarkably successful charter schools (even if very well-funded), he suggests it could happen again and elsewhere.

Christians should not wait for public funding or a public charter to offer hope to Daisy and thousands like her.  While it will take immense sacrifice of time and resources, it is now time for the accrued wisdom and experience of the last 30 years of renewing classical and Christian education to be brought to bear to start schools in all the major cities in the U.S.   This is already beginning to happen, but needs to extend and expand.  The Oaks Academy (http://www.theoaksacademy.org/) in Indianapolis, IN is providing a superb liberal arts education to students in that city.  Logos Academy of York, PA (http://www.logosyork.org/) is doing the same there.  Mortimer Adler quipped that best education for some (meaning a robust liberal arts education) is the best for all.  Some of us have been able to afford to give a recuperated, if imperfect classical education to our own children.  Are we now ready to give it to others who otherwise will never receive it?  They are wanting and waiting

Learning and Leisure: Developing a School of Schole

by Christopher Perrin, PhD | Nov 24, 2010 | Articles, Book Reviews

Leisure is not the cessation of work, but work of another kind, work restored to its human meaning, as a celebration and a festival.

–Roger Scruton

We Americans have no trouble being busy.  American educators are about the busiest people I know.  Classical school administrators are usually frenetic.  Teachers work so hard for nine months that they truly do need a summer’s rest.  How do classical students fare?  Well, they need those three months of summer too.

I was interviewing Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio recently, and asked him what he would hope to see if he observed a classical Christian school.  I was braced by one of his responses: he would hope to see a rhythm of fasting and feasting.  Fasting and feasting sounds strange to 21^st century American ears, though it ought not sound so strange to American Christians trying to learn from the classical tradition.  The church has practiced fasting and feasting for centuries.  For various reasons, many, perhaps most, American Christians have forgotten these practices—and so we are not likely to quickly bring them to our schools.

Ken’s comments got me thinking again about our need to re-examine and understand leisure, contemplation and rest as vital aspects of a classical education.  Contemplation, after all, is a key component of the classical tradition of education.  Do our students have appropriate time to reflect on what they read and to contemplate the great ideas of the Great Conversation?  Or do they fly from book to book, class to class and grade to grade?  Ah, we are Americans and we are busy seeking ways to keep the cake and eat it too.  We want depth and breadth.  We want music, sports, art, drama, debate, trips, labs, language, science, literature, logic, rhetoric, theology, history and a dozen electives.  It is not unusual for a student to be tracking 7-8 classes plus several extra-curricular activities.  Parents need sophisticated planning software just to manage transportation of students from one place to another. Parents too are often frenetic.

The things we are busy about deserve scrutiny.  Our history is one of sustained, hard work, forging a country out of wilderness, building cities, moving west and building more cities.  We are widely known for our “can do” spirit and seemingly endless entrepreneurial energy.  Classical leaders and educators possess this strength.  What we don’t do well is rest.

In 1948 the German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a small book (about 130 pages) entitled Leisure the Basis for Culture.  Classical educators need this book.  Pieper does more than tell us we need to slow down and take a breather.  Rather, he helps recover the long-lost meaning of the word leisure.  In a society that greatly values “work for the sake of work” leisure has come to mean time free from the obligations of work, time that most Americans often fill with amusements and play.  This is not the leisure of long ago.

Pieper points out that the Greeks and Romans did not even have specific words for “work” as a positive concept.  The Greeks referred to “work” as ascholia which means “not at leisure.”  The Greek word for leisure is schole, from which we derive our word “school.” Astonishingly, the Greek word for institutions of learning means “leisure.”  The Romans’ word for leisure is otium and their word for work is neg-otium (not at leisure), from which we get our word “negotiate.”  Aristotle writes “we are not at leisure (ascholia) in order to be at leisure (schole).   Pieper also notes that engaging in the reflection of truth and virtue (the vita contemplavita) is the “highest fulfillment or what it means to be human” and thus of profound importance.

Now this is worth some…reflection.  The classical tradition of education regarded a “school” as a place of schole.  The Romans imported schole into Latin as schola, from which we get our word “school.”  Just what about our schools is schole?  Would our students describe our schools, among other things, as a place of leisure?  This would not mean of course, that our schools would be places of mere relaxation, but places of reflection, conversation, celebration and feasting.  Sound like your school?

What the Greeks and the Romans discerned as fitting for man is also confirmed by biblical teaching.  When God rested after six days of creation, he was not tired.  He celebrated and blessed his creation (Gen. 2:3).  The Sabbath rest and the regular feasts were not given so that God’s people would do nothing, though it did mean ceasing from typical daily labor.  Rather it was meant as a time for a particular kind of robust activity—feasting, celebration and blessing. The Sabbath rest is not the mere cessation of labor, but the orientation of the human to his highest end—the “work” of leisure, the “work” of praising, serving, feasting and blessing.

When C. S. Lewis studied as an adolescent with the retired Scottish schoolmaster (whom Lewis called “the Great Knock” in Surprised by Joy) he studied two subjects for three years—Latin and Greek.  But wait–through his study of Latin and Greek he studied history, literature, philosophy, poetry, grammar.  And he learned dialectic, because the Great Knock argued with him about everything.   Lewis goes on to criticize modern education for denying students in secondary schools the hope of ever mastering anything—we cover too many subjects all at the same time to ever hope of mastering a single one.  Lewis regards this as costly sacrifice, because he thinks that mastery of one subject creates a kind of confidence that leads students to go to master the next subject, now believing (and knowing) that mastery is possible.

This all flies in the face of our typical understanding of a broad-based liberal education—or does it?  Dorothy Sayers suggests that at the age of 16 a classically-educated student should be ready to specialize in a subject he or she has grown to love and prefer.  I think we may be caught in a false dilemma of thinking we must choose between two extremes of either a highly specialized education (study only Latin and Greek!) or studying eight subjects every semester for about ten years.  As we re-imagine what form classical education should take in 21^st century America, I think we would do well to ask ourselves in what ways we may have simply taken some aspects of the contemporary progressive model (eight subjects every semester plus extra-curriculars) into our schools without sufficient scrutiny.  The medieval maxim of non multa, sed multum (not many but much) should be reconsidered for modern application to our schools.  If we do this while also recovering leisure, perhaps we will create schools of schole that offer 21^st century America something it sorely needs.

In what ways does your school pursue leisure?  I would love to hear.  Here are some preliminary ideas:

• Have students read fewer books in literature courses to include in-depth discussion and reflection upon them.
• Consider block scheduling: This enables classes to meet longer and facilitates discussion
• Consider a trimester schedule with only four courses: This allows students to study fewer courses at a time, more intensively, but over three semesters instead of two.
• Incorporate conversation about ideas into the school at large: Socratic circles for student discussion worked into classes; Socratic circles in which staff discuss ideas in front of students; Socratic circles involving parents, students and staff at various times and events in or out of school.
• Feasts and celebrations that integrate with the church calendar and incorporate skills and themes from student learning.