Faculty Debates "Superman" at Askwith Forum

The Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty members participating in an Askwith Forum panel discussing the controversial documentary Waiting for "Superman" expressed mixed emotions about the film's emphasis on charter schools and teachers unions, and agreed it's a small glimpse of a large and complicated education problem. [View video.]

"You could tell a number of stories about why the American education system is not measuring up and children are not getting the opportunities that we want them to have, but the movie essentially picks one of those stories -- the 'how markets can combat bureaucracy and create efficiency story,'" said Assistant Professor Jal Mehta, noting that he would have broadened the picture to include how poverty, inequality, and inequities in the teaching profession hamper school reform efforts. "This story is not told."

Waiting for "Superman", directed by Davis Guggenheim, who also produced Academy award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth, was screened three weeks ago at the Ed School. Since the film's release in early October, it has garnered significant attention and debate in the media including two one-hour specials of The Oprah Winfrey Show. The film follows a group of students and their families - all except one live in low-income urban communities - and their quest to get into a local, successful charter school as means to a better future.

In addition to Mehta, Lecturer Karen Mapp, Assistant Professor Martin West, and Senior Lecturers Kay Merseth and Paul Reville -- also Massachusetts Secretary of Education -- participated in the forum. The discussion was moderated by Senior Lecturer Joe Blatt, who was instrumental in bringing an early screening of the film to the Ed School. Each faculty member admitted to taking away something different from the documentary -- for instance Mapp was pleased to see a mostly positive portrayal of parents and their concern for their children's education; however, they all agreed with Mehta that the film missed the opportunity to more fully explore issues of inequity and poverty, as well as some long-standing problems within the teaching profession.

The overarching emphasis on charter schools worried the faculty, especially Merseth, who recently wrote a book about high performing charter schools. She fears the film makes charter schools seem like a solution to education's problems. However, Merseth noted, studies show only 17 percent of charter schools perform better than public schools, leaving 46 percent that perform the same as public schools, and 37 percent that actually perform worse. "There are exceptional things being done that are not charter-special, but that can be done in any school," she said.

The aim, said Reville, has to be to educate all children at high levels, and to remember that there are no "silver bullets," especially in the form of charter schools.

Merseth agreed, pointing out that, in her own research, the bulk of charter school teaching has been "disappointing" and that too often we are satisfied with bringing students up to grade-level performance rather than aiming for above and beyond.

The panel was also concerned by the film's representation of teachers and teacher unions as major sticking points in the education system. According to the film, many good schools have good teachers, but in poorer performing schools it can be difficult to remove so-called "bad teachers" due to unions and tenure contracts.

West said he was somewhat bothered by the film's one-sided presentation of teachers unions, especially without ever really exploring the contribution of school boards that also determine the outcome of teacher contracts.

Although the faculty sympathized with Guggenheim as a filmmaker and understood that it can be challenging to produce and fund a popular film focused on education, West expressed fears that the film reinforces the misconception that education problems exist solely in urban districts. "It was an opportunity to broaden the debate, but we continue to only see urban schools," West said, noting that there are reform issues in all schools and that there is a need for change.

Ultimately, faculty members said they would have liked to see some proposed solutions to the issues in the film rather than solely a presentation of the problem.

The standing-room only audience shared concerns about the film, but also wondered how to capitalize on the film's success in heightening education awareness in America. HGSE master's student Lucas Cook asked how we can implement "big ideas" such as those raised at the Ed School to inspire big change in education.

"As a society we are extremely conservative and incremental about our notions of change in education," Reville said. "As good as this film is in creating urgency, I don't think it contributes to the set of urgencies we will need to have to make the changes that we need."

Mehta reminded the audience that change takes time and that even some of the top-performing countries on the Program for International Student Assessment took 10 to 25 years to get there. "Just because the world won't change over night doesn't mean that over a reasonable time...the world couldn't be a significantly different place," Mehta said.