Educating for Democracy: Waiting for Superman or Waiting for Godot?

Having seen both The Lottery, creditably directed by Madeleine Sackler and Waiting for 'Superman', Davis Guggenheim's brilliantly produced but misleading take on the problems with the education "crisis" in this country, I have found one significant similarity between the two films besides the perception they share that charter schools are going in the right direction for dealing with the problems of low-income and minority student education. The other similarity is that almost all the young learners featured in these films whose "waiting" for the lottery is climaxed by finding out the "winners" and "losers," with mostly disappointing results, are not typical of many of the students in this country who are getting a second-rate education.

Those depicted in the movie, mostly Latino and African-American young learners, are bright and highly motivated; they have loving, caring parents who are dedicated to their children "making something of themselves." None of them have problems expressing themselves or understanding English and, with the exception of one white student, have any apparent learning disabilities. Added to that the fact that the parents are willing to participate with these children in a form of extended "reality video" with apparently no reservations about revealing their personal lives for a potential national audience and you have the "poster families" for movies attempting to find simple solutions to complex problems -- as one of the graphics states along with the film credits in Waiting for 'Superman'.

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