These kids who are dropping out, aren’t dropping out to be screen writers

This is a powerful movie. I don’t even have kids but it still makes you sad, angry, frustrated and a little optimistic at the same time. Waiting for Superman gives shocking stats about school districts around the country. It follows five different parents/kids vying for an opportunity to leave the public school system and win the lottery for a private charter school. Which at first might sounds like some spoiled families who just want their kids to go to some fancy private school but then you hear about the ‘drop out factories’ that some of these kids are about to enter and you learn about how much better these charter schools are and it’s literally shocking. These kids aren’t winning a lottery to go to a better school. They’re winning a lottery to save their lives…its like a real world version of The Hunger Games.

How can people, specifically the President of one of the teachers unions who was featured in the movie, live with themselves KNOWING (and they can actually prove this with statistics) that the teachers and system that they support is deteriorating our society (not all but a lot). It’s also incredibly frustrating and disheartening to hear that these same groups are some of the largest contributors to political campaigns. Politics aside, how does an teachers organization have enough money to be one of the largest donors to political parties? Does that make any sense?

At the end of the film you see the parents and kids as they wait for the lottery to end. You wait for their number to get called, and for most of the kids it didn’t get called, you can’t help but feel like winning this lottery is almost like winning the game of life. It sounds cheesy but with the data that supports the potential that these kids could have in these private schools compared with what they will more than likely have if they enter the school they are supposed to enter. You feel like that persons future suddenly looks so dim in comparison.

It all sounds very drastic and maybe it is but there is probably another side to this story and a compelling reason in favor of public schools (obviously not all public schools are bad and some of the absolute worst schools were featured in this movie). There are also dozens of outside factors that determine if any of those kids would end up being successful or even make it out of their rough neighborhoods. Regardless it makes me glad that I don’t have kids yet and I don’t have to think about this.

Rating:
Dave: 4 out of 5 Edward’s
Eddie: 4.5 out of 5 Edward’s