Recent Education Documentaries

Two recent documentaries have stoked debates in education.  I have viewed both, and I wanted to briefly comment on the films, their meta-messages, and their influence on education.  Hopefully, this is helpful in the discourse, rather than incendiary for proponents or opponents.  

Waiting for Superman
Website: www.waitingforsuperman.com
Trailer


I enjoyed this movie.  Despite some seemingly misleading depictions or hyperbolic anecdotes, the movie was engaging, clean, and well-produced.  The over-arching message is one the continued disparities and shortfalls in the public education system.  In a cathartic manner, the movie exposes the lottery system that can dictate--for many students--who gets into a high-achieving charter school and who remains as their under-performing non-charter public school. Further, teacher unions are demonized and pilloried.  The movie shows dramatically and redundantly how amazing charter schools can be, but it does not give equal time to the 80% of charter schools that function at or below the level of the average public school.   I wish the movie had focused more on what exactly makes up an effective teacher and how to professionalize the practice, rather than bifurcating two types of schools.  However, I really appreciated the point of relative accountability among professions.

Race to Nowhere
Website: www.racetonowhere.com/
Trailer


Cinematically, this was a weak film.  Low budget or not, this film could have been sharper and more aesthetically engaging. As related to education, the meta-message is that a focus on standards, tests, and normative competition is having a negative influence on our students' social-emotional well-being and their ability to think critically.  Moreover, the essence of childhood is lost when schedules are packed and expectations are raised too high.  I felt like the move did not rely enough on the data, and I would have appreciated more cross-generational comparisons.  Further, in my opinion, the efforts to generalize this problem across socioeconomic groups came up short and rang false.  The best asset of the movie was its conclusion which provided concrete actions that various stakeholders can take.

Both movies have started a dialogue and brought attention to the education system, which I see as positives.  Further, I enjoyed watching both movies, and I left the theaters with a sense of purpose and motivation. On the whole, I think both movies tended to be somewhat reductionistic (but this is to be expected, right?).  To close, I think these films should help motivate us to seek out the true nature of the problems and evidence-based solutions, rather than replace the data and heterogeneity across the education system. 

Watch them, and let me know what you think!