waiting for superman documentary transcript

The bottom line is, you cannot say that you support removing ineffective teachers when then I fire ineffective teachers and you slap me with lawsuits and you slap me with the grievances. I think what's happened in places like Washington and I saw it compared to New York City. They want to know what good teaching looks like and they want to emulate it. Have your mom and dad told you about the lottery? SCARBOROUGH: We really had. We have to go to break right now. WEINGARTEN: Look, what the unions actually talked about was as part of lifting the cap, as part of lifting the cap, they didn't fight against lifting the cap -- LEGEND: Yes, they did. Educational reception and allegations of inaccuracy. /BleedBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] The filmmakers made sure to film how Nakia becomes increasingly more anxious and concerned as time passes during the lottery, but fewer spots become available and her daughters name has not been called (Guggenheim 1:32:49). Why? And the idea that we now can do it means that we have a very moment right now to say let's take those things, let's take those ingredients and bring them into mainstream schools. These high-performing charters are going in and they're reaching every kid and they're sending 90 percent of their kids to college. schools. You fought the law and the law won. The film illustrates the problem of how American public schools are failing children, as it explicitly describes many public schools as drop-out factories, in which over 40% of students do not graduate on time. WebFILM SUMMARY With passion and urgency, WAITING FOR SUPERMAN advocates for the educational welfare of Americas children in a public school system that is severely There's a complete and utter lack of accountability for the job that we're supposed to be doing, which is producing results for kids. WEINGARTEN: We need to help them do that for all of our kids. ?zBzD%YC1_PVu,fkGsM'2Hnm^]6_1W|qpff&,+y cWoM~UNxa*_EE}=}z/P__~:Y)z `'4Q!-ccE"?6HD6JW (b]Jl BP> UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To come see, geography and love, thats it. Web2010. What's the big takeaway from "Waiting For Superman"? It's shameful. "Geraldo at Large." /Length 868 }>=Uw2cS=V. I9kZJw^EAOd j]Y[wl-e06E#/mlyTbE9f}@8 a/ ^} /Parent 1 0 R [2] The film criticizes the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into competitive charter schools such as KIPP LA Schools, Harlem Success Academy and Summit Preparatory Charter High School. I know you have to say your side of this and this is hard for all of us. Connecticut and Hartford education policy resources, Creating a Dual-Language Magnet School for Hartford Region, Sources on Trinity student protests since 2007, Jack Dougherty and Trinity College Educ 300 students, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, An Uncommon Critique: How A Charter Networks Success Safeguards Student Experiences, The Evolution of Gender Inequality At Trinity College: A Study Through Different Publications, Higher Education for Dreamers After the Failed DREAM Act. << By Stephen Holden. This is our country. I love teachers. As he follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying "drop-out factories" and "academic sinkholes," methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems. "[18] Kyle Smith, for the New York Post, gave the film 4.5 stars, calling it an "invaluable learning experience. BRZEZINSKI: Ill tell you right now, Randi, I want to know after the break why we can't use pay to inspire teachers. "[21] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice was critical of the film for not including enough details of outlying socioeconomic issues, writing, "macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's querygo unaddressed in Waiting for "Superman," which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them. BRZEZINSKI: It was still painful. CANADA: Look, no business in America would be in existence if it ran like this. You could fail those kids for another 20 years, everybody keeps their job, nobody gets the go. So even though we may disagree about that, what this film does, it creates a moment in time. SCARBOROUGH: Okay. /Rotate 0 /Parent 1 0 R /Properties << /CropBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] This isn't some Hollywood drama or a romance flick. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Good evening. Trying to hide the fact that I had been balling my eyes out, I said I can't -- I knew how this was going to end and I was still crying. SCARBOROUGH: It was about education. RHEE: What I think it comes down to, people underestimate we did from the school system side everything we need to do. If you look at what the Kipp schools have done or the uncommon schools, they've been able to replicate this model over and over. I am the first one to say, that charter schools are not the answer. << 100 percent of the kids pass the science regions. GUGGENHEIM: Those kids can't learn. RHEE: Heres the thing. 9 0 obj BRZEZINSKI: On Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m. from this very stage, General Colin Powell and his wife on "MORNING JOE." Geoffrey, let me ask you this question. You know that process has to be fixed. >> BRZEZINSKI: Why not inspire them with pay? Even during the MSNBC town hall today, there were teachers who say I don't care about tenure. I've been amazed by what's possible. During its opening weekend in New York City and Los Angeles, the film grossed $141,000 in four theaters, averaging $35,250 per theater. Throughout the documentary, different aspects of the American public education system are examined. BRZEZINSKI: They were underperforming it. But can we really get Geoffrey Canadas in every public high school across America? Waiting for 'Superman' the title refers to a Harlem educators childhood belief that a superhero would fix the problems of the ghetto won an Audience Award at We increased graduation rates. The film also examines teacher's unions. LEGEND: Well, you know, there are plenty of constituencies that usually align with the union, for instance. GUGGENHEIM: The issue is not just lousy teachers. [30] In Ayers' view, the "corporate powerhouses and the ideological opponents of all things public" have employed the film to "break the teacher's unions and to privatize education," while driving teachers' wages even lower and running "schools like little corporations. This is where the work gets tough, because innovation, this is about innovation. >> When I see from my own experience as a school teach are for six years when evaluations didn't work and less than 20 percent of them think that evaluations work right now. A teacher wants to stay. SCARBOROUGH: Right. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The space with the Xs is for all of the fifth grade students moving into the sixth grade for next year. RHEE: First, I think I would be remiss if I did not point out to everybody that there's been a lot of talk about public schools, public schools. The film recognizes how the American public plays an important role in helping to accomplish the reform goal of making American public schools great. By what name was Waiting for Superman (2010) officially released in India in English? >> WebView and compare WAITING,FOR,SUPERMAN,DOCUMENTARY,TRANSCRIPT on Yahoo Finance. You can't do it with the district rules and the union contracts as they are in most districts. One of them is Nakia. Compute answers using Wolfram's breakthrough technology & knowledgebase, relied on by millions of students & professionals. WEINGARTEN: Let me get to both of these issues, let me see if I can conflate them. Because you would think that the parents of those children that Michelle was in there shaking up the system to save those children, if those parents would have rallied, but we have gotten so used to failure, we tolerate failure in places like D.C. and central Harlem and Detroit, we just tolerate that failure and we've got to say to this nation, no more. You have to live in the district. BRZEZINSKI: What are you saying, Randi, what is he saying? << You believe it. BRZEZINSKI: And the reaction that we saw just moments ago was the same, these are people who know. WEINGARTEN: No one, you know, teachers in at least our union would be the first to tell you, we rail against this system in some ways as much as Geoff and Michelle. SCARBOROUGH: Why would you spend a million dollars to defeat a mayor? HdT]H|G?GdW{MND)>qOX3cL>NHjr5i:bSqu The principal wants her to stay. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANTHONY: I want to go to college, get an education. /Type /Page Because I know he's easily influenced to do things he shouldn't do. KENNY: Right. Geoffrey Canada: One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist. [31] (The film says, however, that it is focusing on the one in five superior charter schools, or close to 17%, that do outperform public schools.) And she thought I was crying because it's like Santa Claus is not real and I was crying because there was no one coming with enough power to save us. The movie's major villains are the National We'll be joined also by Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter John Legend and our friend at "MORNING JOE" as well. The union leaderships could take this on as a platform and say this is something we're going to commit to and give our membership behind this so we can show progress in taking on these issues. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success. /CropBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] The only disagreement that I think our union has had in terms of the way in which things have gone, is that our folks have desperately wanted to have a voice in how to do reform. The filmmakers deliberately kept the camera on certain students and their families, like Nakia and Bianca, in order to show how those who did not get into charter schools felt extremely disappointed and emotional because they had hoped to be accepted into a schoolthat would not fail them. /ArtBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] Be the first to contribute. SCARBOROUGH: It really is. The superintendent wants her to say. What's going on here? "[10] Joe Morgenstern, writing for The Wall Street Journal, gave the film a positive review writing, "when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity," the film "makes an invaluable addition to the debate. /GS1 17 0 R /Parent 1 0 R You get to the nation's capital, the nation's capital, only 16 percent of students are proficient in math. RHEE: I'm just wondering, if the AFT was putting a million dollars into mayoral campaigns all across the country just based on who the teachers liked, I would buy that argument. "[9] Scott Bowles of USA Today lauded the film for its focus on the students: "it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children. SCARBOROUGH: Right. endobj How do you get past that? /GS0 18 0 R WEINGARTEN: A collaboration issue was where we disagreed at times. First of all, can we start by, we want to thank you for coming here. People -- but this room needs to get bigger. & CEO, HARLEM CHILDRENS ZONE: I think the real important issue for us to face as Americans is if we don't fix this, we will not remain a great country. What's amazing about these tears, I knew about the film for months and just knowing the system, I knew how it was going to end. 2 0 obj NAKIA: Yes. There are two Americas right now when it comes to education. Broadcast: Saturday, September 25, 2010. Waiting for Superman exposes an array of complex, complicated, persistent, and multi-layered historical and societal problems. We can't achieve equality or humanity and justice for everybody if we can't make sure that every kid gets a good education. Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim reminds us that education "statistics" have names: You have to pull out a bingo ball and call your number. But the issue in terms of the election, went far further than education. /MC0 31 0 R And it says that if all of us are actually committed to fixing this, we will follow the evidence of what works, follow it, be innovative, be creative but follow the evidence of what works and we will all work together to fix this so that every single child has access to a great public education, not by chance, not by privilege but by right. ANTHONY: Its bittersweet to me. And I think seeing what's possible in this film is very inspiring. That's amazing. Thanks to all of our guests. We're also joined by Deborah Canny of the Harlem Village Academy. I know, but you didn't have enough money. I said that's right, but that was mommy's choice to put you in that school. (END VIDEO CLIP) BRZEZINSKI: And there are kids that don't make it. GEOFFREY CANADA, PRES. In New York City, a group of local teachers protested one of the documentary's showings, calling the film "complete nonsense", writing that "there is no teacher voice in the film. It just came out this week. Some of us have spent our lives working on behalf of children and teachers who teach children. BRZEZINSKI: Im sorry, we have news for our audience as well. Obviously at the end most people watching this movie teared up. Stevenson feeds into Roosevelt, one of the worst-performing schools in Los Angeles. DAVIS GUGGENHEIM: No. LEGEND: My last thing I would say, we have to realize that these kids are our kids. We have to go to break. Let me answer your question first. And that is a concept that is so necessary. >> /TrimBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] In a documentary called Waiting for Superman, contemporary education issues that the U.S. has been facing for several decades are addressed. SCARBOROUGH: This is a civil rights issue? Yet instead of examining this critical issue objectively, the movie Waiting for "Superman" cites false statistics in their effort to scapegoat teachers, unfairly blaming them for all the failures of our urban schools. 4,789 Views. We need to do a lot more of what Debbie Kenny is doing in that school but we need to do whats going on in lots and lots and lots of public schools because at the end of the day, every single teacher I know wants to make a difference in the lives of kids. RHEE: Yes, that's right. How do we let every kid -- SCARBOROUGH: There are two Americas. Teachers in this country want to make a difference in the lives of kids. They clearly illustrate that no matter the area, teachers are failing America's youth at an alarming rate.. I get why that's good for the adults. >> /Font << What were the results of the kids who came in and were about to graduate this June, late May, what is the change that has happened with these children? /Contents 30 0 R We spruced up -- modernized the building. /T1_0 52 0 R Cross your fingers. So we're going to differentiate and we're going to recognize and reward the highest performing teachers and we're going to look at the lowest performing teachers and we're going to remove them from the system. I just think -- SCARBOROUGH: Do you really think he wants to the right thing? One of these amazing children is a boy named Anthony. She was a teacher in Indianapolis. SCARBOROUGH: Right. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Daisys path to medical school begins with eighth grade algebra which she'll need to take when she moves up to Stevenson Middle School. endobj Is there any give here? SCARBOROUGH: Why is it -- [ applause ] why is it that you have an area like Washington, D.C. that is 12 percent proficient in math? WEINGARTEN: I live in New York -- RHEE: You put $1 million into a mayoral campaign. That's so important to help level the playing field for kids who may be disadvantaged. /MediaBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] WebThe documentary Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim, is a film that shows how school systems are today. SCARBOROUGH: You mean against -- RHEE: Against Fenty, my boss. BRZEZINSKI: You also knew that a little girl like Daisy can be a vet or a doctor or anything she wants to be if she's given the tools to do it. The lottery in this movie is a metaphor. SCARBOROUGH: Not a Bush apostle. Waiting For Superman may refer to: Waiting for "Superman", a 2010 documentary. NAKIA: She felt it wasn't fair that other children were being picked and she was just as smart as they were and why not her. JOHN LEGEND, SONGWRITER: Well, it's an interesting story because I was making this album "Wake-Up." But I think that's false. SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second. It looks like we don't have any synopsis for this title yet. Davis, I want to go to you on this one. [15] Deborah Kenny, CEO and founder of the Harlem Village Academies, made positive reference to the film in a The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about education reform. WEINGARTEN: Michelle and I may disagree on the particulars of this, but there are about 50 or 60 districts that are using the proposal that we made and ultimately we think if we do that, if we fix teacher evaluations so it's about teacher development and evaluation, we can fix this problem. Final words with our panel, next after a short break. BRZEZINSKI: When the results came down, we watched you respond, we watched her respond. I went up there, Jeff Zucker pushed me to go up there one day. The contract says she has to go. You are not exactly what some would consider to be a conservative filmmaker. By the nature of who my family is. We'll be right back. I said I don't want to go up. Sept. 23, 2010. An examination of the current state of education in America today. "Waiting for Superman" ( Superman & Lois), an episode of Superman & Lois. Most of them. All we're going to do is pay good teachers more money. What did you learn? BEGIN VIDEO CLIP: NAKIA: I grew up in the public school system. Let's go there and talk to the president of the American federation of teachers, Randi Weingarten. Explain to me how that is good for children. We all have to move off self-interest. SCARBOROUGH: Maybe next segment. "[12] The Hollywood Reporter focused on Geoffrey Canada's performance as "both the most inspiring and a consistently entertaining speaker," while also noting it "isn't exhaustive in its critique. We've been talking about the teacher town hall hosted by Brian Williams earlier today. GUGGENHEIM: And the stakes for them. CANADA: Well you know what? The union itself has instead of focusing on good teachers and how we need to help them, give them the tools and conditions, we have always focused on, you know, the due process protections. The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level," but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data. The film shows how Geoffrey Canadas solution to this problem was to create charter schools that would give children and their parents more options within the public school system and would hopefully raise academic performance, decrease dropout rates, andincrease the number of students who attend college. BRZEZINSKI: Its worked for you and for hundreds of kids in Harlem. We actually have to change the political environment. They'll talk about this issue. However, the film shows how even charter schools leave some children behind, as those who are not chosen by the luck of the draw in the lottery system, are not able to attend the charter schools of their choice. I support public schools. I want to talk about New York for one second. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Nakia joins us here tonight. The video explores several of the problems within the system, and tells the personal stories of several families and communities who have been impacted and disadvantaged by the broken education system. The issue is about how we create the best environment for kids. BRZEZINSKI: Randi, really quickly. And it's more about a jobs program than it is about the kids. It's not sexy to vote in the midterms but it matters who, you know -- BRZEZINSKI: Oh, yes it is. Seventy-eight percent of them, this is not our survey, this was their survey, said a union was absolutely essential to them to try and stop school politics or principal abuses. Randi we'll let you get a response in here and also, Mika, what we're going to do is figure out where everybody agrees. NAKIA: The schools in my area don't measure up as far as the reading is concerned, the math is concerned. Take a look. WebWaiting For Superman (871) 7.4 1 h 51 min 2010 X-Ray PG The lives of five Harlem and Bronx families in the high stakes lottery for access to New York City's best charter There's a problem with our system and who know that there are children in this country who are falling behind. You talked about evaluations like every other business. /MediaBox [ 0 0 595.27600 841.89000 ] 3 0 obj And we have to have everyone, even parents, recommitted, you know, even school officials, district heads, superintendents, unions, all of us have to move off a position of self-interest like I do with my own kids, sending them to private school, like the unions do, I think, preserving the status quo. I mean, from my perspective, it really seemed like what was scary to people was this idea of beginning to differentiate folks. The good guys/heroes are low-income American parents, hoping to provide a good education for their children. You said, you still cry every time you see it. Things such as the ease in which a public school teacher achieves tenure, the inability to fire a teacher who is tenured, and how the system attempts to reprimand poorly performing teachers are shown to affect the educational environment. I have a 12-year-old that goes to public school. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Now it's happening in Houston. BRZEZINSKI: Exactly. 1. In response to this problem, many reformers, including Geoffrey Canada, have tried to look for solutions. She said Washington, D.C. even on its best day, wasn't like New York City on its worst day. These students range in SCARBOROUGH: Davis, let's begin with you. That was in the second grade, because my father had passed. That means in the midterms. This is a transcript of "Waiting for Superman". I cry for him sometimes. " YR0^hC#mlj'@]Gc2x}SVvP[sL,yD1-ut |c,{CG1 Coming up, right after we're finished here, MSNBC will re-air the two-hour town hall. Somebody who's fighting for kids like Daisy is John Legend. It was about a whole range of other issues. /XObject << I just heard a story, I met a teacher the other day. /Length 866 There are winners and losers. SCARBOROUGH: Davis? SCARBOROUGH: Crying uncontrollably because it is unbelievable, some of the conditions that our kids are forced to learn in right now. 57 percent of Daisys classmates won't graduate. I think we all need to take more responsibility. SCARBOROUGH: Do you think he's going to do the right thing now that the teachers union is giving him a million dollars? DAISY: I want to be a nurse. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lets get started. >> I think the question about whether school reform can continue at as an aggressive rate under him is whether hes going to be able to stand up to the fact that SCARBOROUGH: Let me ask you this Michelle. Since charter schools do not operate with the same restrictions as public institutions, they are depicted as having a more experimental approach to educating students. They do allow us to figure out what's working and we should replicate it and what's not and we should close those charter schools that arent working so that we actually develop a science in our business about what works in what kinds of environments and in what kinds of communities. [8], Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "What struck me most of all was Geoffrey Canada's confidence that a charter school run on his model can make virtually any first-grader a high school graduate who's accepted to college. More importantly than our union, the new mayor is committed to it. >> I said mommy wanted you to stay in your school and she finished my sentence. The film criticizes the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into competitive charter schools such as KIPP LA Schools, Harlem Success Academy and Summit Preparatory Charter High School.