Waiting for Superman . . .

I just returned from an advanced screening of Waiting for Superman as a guest of Allison Agnew's Literature That Inspires class.  Thanks to Dave Wright's connection and Allison's ingenuity and persistence the class and guests were provided free admission to the viewing.  What made this a special evening was the opportunity to hear in person from the director, Davis Guggenheim.

Thank you so much to Allison and Terry for the opportunity.  Though it is pretty late for an older guy like me, I experienced so many emotions in this short period of time that sleep will be difficult and sharing some of my thinking may help.  What are some of those emotions?  Anger, sadness, disgust, disappointment, hope and pride are some that come to mind.  Quite a range for one movie.

I found that the movie did support the mental model that I had based upon the reviews (see Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day) I have read and blog posts over the last couple of weeks.  I must say that most of these have been negative towards the film.  The main points of the movie for me are the following:

• District schools and the bureaucracies they represent are failing.
• Charters are showing the way.
• The unions and tenure are the major stumbling blocks to successful reform.
• Michele Ree and Geoffrey Canada are good and Randi Weingarten is bad for reform.

These themes emerge as the film follows the journey of five students and their families entering lotteries to attend charter schools because their neighborhood schools are failing.  They range in age from first grade to entering high school and are in communities in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Redwood City, California.  In each case there are far more requests to attend than there are openings resulting in the lottery required by law.  Examples are 792 applications for 42 openings in the Harlem Children's Zone, 500 applications for 110 openings to Summit Preparatory High School, 61 applications for 24 openings at SEED.

Following these journeys was made more difficult when we learn at the end that only two of the five achieve their goal of winning the lottery.  It is heart wrenching to watch these young people and their families go through the stress and disappointment of not being selected.  They truly deserve better, yet they have few options other than attending their failing neighborhood school.  This is a world that very few of us, if any, have experienced.

There is so much more swimming around in my head, but I think I'll share how being able to listen to the director influenced my negative mental model such that I would encourage anyone to attend the movie.  I opened my door to being influenced when he shared his intentions for the movie.  My paraphrase is below.

• I am trying to suggest to the audience that this is the most important issue we are facing in our country today and that we are failing too many of our kids.
• We must grab this moment and take advantage of the energy around this issue.

I believe that the movie does do this and I agree with both points.  Yes, I think that there are "district" schools that are doing exemplary work and should not be lumped in with the failing schools.  Yes, I believe that he did not highlight the research suggesting that we should not be painting all teachers in failing schools and districts with the same brush.  Yes, they did not clearly define what failing is and suggested that district schools, both urban and suburban are failing.  My list could go on, but my door was further opened when he responded to a question about charter schools.  He said that charters are not the silver bullet and that four out of five are failing.  This was definitely not the message given in the movie.

When asked what is standing in the way and why some charters are successful he suggested it was because of the confusing nature of district bureaucracies impeding innovation and union contracts that block innovation and keep bad teachers in schools.  High performing charters do not have these impediments to innovation and change.  In addition to this is a longer day and Saturdays, a focus on standards and data to measure each student's progress, and an emphasis on preparation for college is what differentiates good from failing charters.  Examples of successful charters he shared include the KIPP schools, Green Dot, Harlem Children's Zone, and Uncommon Schools.

What are these schools doing?  They are demonstrating that you can overcome poverty, that students coming from these backgrounds can achieve at high levels and be successful in college.  Why?  I believe it is partly because they approach the work with a different mental model.  Yes, they do work longer hours and days, but they also choose to join a school with a common philosophy and purpose for being; prerequisites for becoming a professional learning community.  This common vision manifests in the belief that ALL students can achieve resulting in a laser like focus on individual student achievement, collaborative cultures of practice, and holding themselves accountable to achieving their vision for each child.

In some sense every school is failing if success means that all students will achieve the standards imposed at the state and federal level.  This includes our schools since we have many students not meeting standard.  I believe that we care and that adults in our system are committed to finding new and adaptive ways to support learning for all students.  Can we be successful?  I think the answer to this lies in our ability to individually and collectively examine the mental models that drive our behavior.  Are we willing to lengthen contact time if there is no capacity for additional compensation?  Can we make our practice public by sharing student work and achievement results?  Can we make the shift to identifying achievement goals and owning the results of our efforts?  I could go on, but this is too long and I am now very tired, but no closer to sleep.

I'll close by sharing a comment from a parent in the audience who said if you want to know who the good and bad teachers are in any school just ask the kids and their parents.  They can tell you if you would just ask.  I asked students about this and they confirmed it.  I guess we have always known this, but have chosen to ignore it.  That mental model needs to change.