Blaska's Blog is "Waiting for Superman" to reform public education

Like many well-heeled liberals (including the Obamas and the Clintons), Guggenheim drives past public schools on his way to drop off his children at their private school. That got him to thinking about the state of public education in the U.S. The result is his movie, "Waiting for Superman."

At its Washington D.C. premiere last week, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the film, "a Rosa Parks moment," according to William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal.

The Daily Beast writes:

Guggenheim's movie, by turns maddening and gut-wrenching, is a powerful indictment of America's mediocre public education system, and also a call to arms. Up close and personal, it tracks the desperate efforts of five families around the country to save their kids from bad public schools, which will ill-equip them for successful lives and careers, and instead enroll them in excellent charter and magnet schools that will give them a fighting chance. In the end they are at the mercy of a lottery that parcels out precious places according to the cruel impartiality of the casino.

In addition to Mr. Canada, another of the heroes of "Waiting for Superman" is Fenty's school superintendent, Ms. Rhee. The villain of the movie is Randi Weingarten, union boss of the American Federation of Teachers -- "an aptly shrill opponent of change," Variety calls her.

Exhilarating, heartbreaking and righteous, "Waiting for Superman" is also a kind of high-minded thriller: Can the American education system be cured? Can it be made globally competitive? Can it, at least, be made educational? A bucket of ice water in the face of politically motivated complacency ...

Every legislator, every school board member, every administrator, every voter should watch this movie. Every Democrat should be court-ordered to watch "Waiting for Superman." At that official movie site you can pledge to see the movie, as I have done. It is encouraging that Milwaukee ranks fairly high up the list (#27 at this writing) in number of pledges to see the movie, given its population. Madison ranked 60th. Ironically, Washington D.C. ranks fourth.

"Waiting for Superman" opens nationwide Friday, September 24 and in Madison, October 15 at Sundance Cinemas at Hilldale.

The film won the audience award at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival this year as Best Documentary. Let's hope this one gets an Oscar, as well.

The irony is that his film was previewed in Washington D.C. the day after Mayor Fenty -- and, presumably, school chancellor Rhee -- was being turned out of office. That's a situation Mr. Guggenheim calls "turning the lights out in the middle of heart surgery." [An Even More Inconvenient Truth -- Wall Street Journal]

You can't help people who won't help themselves, I guess.

Voting with their feet

Lets turn to Madison's public schools, another teachers union satrapy. Parents living within the Madison school district boundaries took advantage of the state "open enrollment" law by removing more than 600 students for a net loss of 435 Madison students in 2009-10, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. This does not account for the people who move out of or refuse to move into Madison because of the schools.

Good for the Madison School Board. On Monday, it rejected a proposed 3% cap on open enrollment -- the feature that allows Madison residents to send their children to a different public school system. School Board member Ed Hughes is rightly peeved that no one -- not the Wisconsin State Journal nor supposed school "watchdog" Don Severson -- is reporting that fact. Whassup with that?

Still, existing law caps open enrollment at 10 percent of the district's total enrollment. When that many students walk, it's time to Chapter 7 the school district and start over.

Blaska's Bottom Line: install, expect, and enforce respect for authority in our public schools and you can teach anything from calculus to shooting the three-pointer.

It's Mourning in America